Once war had begun, it could not simply be stopped at will. This was especially true for the precarious island of Cuba. If reinforcements were not dispatched quickly, it might well change hands.
The Spanish Government's reserves had already been nearly exhausted in the previous wars. The funds it could raise domestically were also extremely limited, nowhere near enough to sustain things for long.
Without waiting for the investigation results, Junior went straight to the Vienna Government. Clearly, he remained deeply wary of those bankers operating on the fringes.
There was no other reason—it was a lesson learned through bitter experience. Signing a loan agreement did not necessarily mean the loan would actually be received.
Seventy million Divine Shields was no small sum. Across the entire world, there were only three countries with annual fiscal revenues exceeding seventy million Divine Shields—or perhaps four.
It was simply that the fourth was far too corrupt. Though its actual revenues had clearly surpassed seventy million Divine Shields, the amount that ultimately reached the central government was far less.
For such an enormous loan, there were certainly no more than ten banks in the world capable of taking it on—perhaps not even five.
Ordinarily, high-risk international loans of this scale were issued jointly by multiple banks forming a banking syndicate.
Even mainstream commercial banks found it so difficult. Could those few usurers pushed to the margins really produce that much money?
If they signed the contract, wasted precious time, and only discovered they had been swindled when it came time to disburse the funds, the consequences would be dire.
This sort of scheme had played out more than once on the European Continent, and Spain had experienced it firsthand throughout its history.
Of course, getting cheated and cheating others had always gone hand in