Italy Sun Newspaper

Carlo's first task for Loren was to acquire a legitimate newspaper office.

Whether he bought an existing newspaper office or founded one from scratch, Carlo wanted only one result.

To demonstrate his abilities to Carlo, Loren took this task extremely seriously.

In just two days, he investigated Italy's existing newspaper organizations and selected those with potential and a possibility of acquisition.

Il Sole 24 Ore (24 Hours Sun Newspaper)—this was the newspaper office Loren ultimately chose.

It was a newspaper founded last year and currently had only a certain degree of recognition within Milan's business circles.

Yet this newspaper had persisted into later generations and had even become one of Italy's top ten newspaper media outlets.

Such an achievement proved that this newspaper's potential was beyond doubt.

It also showed that Loren, who had selected this newspaper, possessed uniquely sharp and exceptional judgment.

After confirming the acquisition target, Carlo's next task for Loren was to properly acquire the newspaper called Sun Newspaper.

This also showed the benefit of having subordinates to put to work. At the very least, Carlo did not have to personally handle every matter despite being a prince.

The road to acquisition was fairly smooth.

At this time, Sun Newspaper was still only a small newspaper office, and its founder could not possibly resist Carlo's tempting offer of a higher price.

From proposing the acquisition to obtaining all of Sun Newspaper's shares, Carlo took less than four days.

Unfortunately, precisely because Sun Newspaper was still a small newspaper office, it sold only around 1,500 copies a day. That level of sales made it difficult even to support the newspaper office itself.

However, Carlo's goal was not to make the newspaper office profitable immediately. The purpose of a newspaper office was not to earn such trifling sums. Carlo wanted cheaper, more popular newspapers to flood Italy's streets, strengthening his control over Italy's public opinion.

Whether he remained in Italy or sought an opportunity to become King of Spain in the future, experience in the newspaper business would allow Carlo to build his empire of public opinion more smoothly.

Once he controlled public opinion, everything he wanted to do would become easier. At the very least, with the people's support, Carlo would hold the initiative.

That said, compared with other small and medium-sized private newspaper offices, the Sun Newspaper under Carlo's control still held considerable advantages.

At the very least, as Prince of Italy, Carlo could publish material that was not so easily approved, such as political news that concerned the people.

This was not the later age when newspapers had no market at all. If a newspaper had good news and content, expanding sales and turning a profit would be quite simple.

As Carlo's only subordinate at present, Loren naturally took charge of Italy Sun Newspaper and assumed full responsibility for Sun Newspaper's expansion.

Carlo laid out several plans for Loren.

First, within the next two years, Sun Newspaper's daily sales were to rise from 1,500 copies to at least 7,500.

Considering that Sun Newspaper was based in Milan, a prosperous city in Northern Italy, and could also reach nearby Turin and Genoa, this sales target was not actually very high.

The second requirement was that Sun Newspaper had to become one of Northern Italy's well-known newspaper media outlets and possess a certain degree of public credibility.

If the content published by the newspaper could not win the people's trust, then there was no need for the newspaper office to exist.

After all, the first prerequisite for manipulating public opinion was making the people believe it. This was also one of Carlo's expectations for Loren.

There was also the matter of making Sun Newspaper profitable within two years and gaining control over as many newspaper offices as possible.

Although Carlo's original intention was not to make money through newspapers, since this industry was inherently capable of supporting itself, he naturally wanted to use his funds in more important places.

As for founding or acquiring more newspaper offices, that was naturally to strengthen the power of public opinion in Carlo's hands.

In Carlo's plans, Sun Newspaper would focus in the future on political news and reports of international events, while smaller newspaper offices could fill the gaps in entertainment news and all sorts of gossip.

After all, if a highly credible newspaper office reported celebrity scandals and gossip, it would undoubtedly damage the newspaper's credibility.

While Loren diligently carried out Carlo's tasks, Carlo himself was already studying the current map of the Kingdom of Italy in thought.

Although the fragmented Apennine Peninsula had basically been unified into a complete Kingdom of Italy, two areas had yet to return to Italy's embrace.

The Venetian region in the north remained under the control of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while Rome, Italy's most important city, still belonged to the Papal States.

Though the Papal States seemed to be the soft persimmon, easy to squeeze, France stood behind them.

The France of this era was not the object of mockery from World War II, derided as surrenderists. It was the French Empire, bathed in Napoleon's lingering radiance.

Because Germany had yet to unify, France at this time could be called the hegemon of Western Europe and Europe's foremost land military power.

With France's support, the Papal States continued to hold Rome, leaving Italy's capital to settle for Florence.

However, Carlo was not in a hurry about this.

Historically, the Kingdom of Sardinia's process of unifying Italy could be described as winning while lying down; it had scarcely gone through any truly arduous battles.

The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Southern Italy's largest nation, was rotten to the core and was easily destroyed by Garibaldi's Thousand.

The states of Central Italy were completely disproportionate in scale to the Kingdom of Sardinia, and before the great tide of unification, they had no qualification to resist.

The two truly hard bones to chew were dealt with entirely by clinging to Prussia's thigh. During the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia drew the Austrian Empire's attention away, allowing Italy to recover the Venetian region.

During the Franco-Prussian War, with the french people guarding against the Prussian army, Italy smoothly took over Rome.

Those two bones that seemed so difficult to chew were crushed with such ease. Though it was the Prussian army that crushed them, the Kingdom of Italy was the one that truly gained the benefits.

Carlo still had some understanding of the period when Prussia rose to prominence.

By sheer coincidence, this year was 1866, precisely the stage when the Austro-Prussian War broke out.

If history followed its original course, the Austro-Prussian War would begin half a year later. Prussia would accelerate Germany's unification, and Italy would also recover the Venetian region in the north.

Faced with such an important historical turning point, Carlo naturally could not let the opportunity slip away in vain. Though he could not directly interfere in the Austro-Prussian War, as part of the Kingdom of Italy, Carlo could still alter the course of history by just a tiny bit.

A new book sets sail—please vote, bookmark, follow, and invest!