By the time 1937 came around, General Franco supported by Germany had taken Madrid and was taking charge of Spain more seriously.

And a merchant ship carrying tons of gold, stolen from the Spain treasury, departed from Spain towards Soviet Union, and was intercepted by the Romanian destroyer squadron, then carried to Bordeaux. There was a bit of debate in France and Romania what to do with all the gold, but eventually we extracted 30% for our finder fee and deposited the rest in America, for the time when Spain was restored to a legal government.

The extra gold allowed me to praise the American shipyards and their workers, and order 100 more destroyers for the Navy, while France ordered 3000 tanks and airplanes for their army. It still wouldn't be enough, not if spread to every division in company strength instead of concentrating the tanks into a powerful armored force.

I mean, the French idea wasn't bad, since they did boost the infantry rating by a lot, but only as a secondary effect. You could do that, but only after establishing enough of an armored force to counter an enemy attack.

Taking the French idea and expanding on it, I doubled the tank industry once more to create 4000 Wolf destroyers (with a rocket launcher on the back), to boost every infantry division stats. Luckily, the new diesel engines created in America were stronger and more reliable than the Soviet junk we used til now, so they should last until 1940 at least.

Our T-34-65, or the Grey Wolfs were coming up nicely as well, reaching 800 in number and equipping a second armored division, while tank radios began to appear in slightly better numbers, enough to equip all command tanks for now. For their infantry support, a half-efficient measure was introduced, armoring the trucks with light duraluminum plates, created by adding copper to aluminum to give it more resistance.

Given our larger territory and population, plus native oil resources meant that we were becoming self-sufficient at a rapid pace, although more work had to be made for electricity needs and coal mines, plus several hydroelectric plants including a giant one on the Danube, somewhat below Belgrade.

The Eastern border was getting a network of tall radio towers made of steel beams with a concrete base, used both for radio detection and artillery spotting. After reaching 100 forts with 12 inch guns on the Dacian Wall, further work was dedicated to command bunkers, protected trenches and tunnels and all the good stuff used at the Maginot Line, while the big gun production was dedicated to more Greek islands forts, plus several on the Hungarian border that overlooked Italy and Austria.

Although Adolf invited us to the anti-Comintern pact, alongside Benito, Franco and Hirohito, it didn't mean we were allies. The enemy of my enemy was still my enemy, but probably a bit later.

A dozen jet planes were breaking world speed records everyday as more testing and fixes were made, but we will begin mass-production soon enough, just after the IAR plant completed the 1000 IAR 80 planes order. Sadly, the aircraft industry in Romania was still a bit small and lacking specialists, but every year more and more engineers finished their University studies and joined the workforce. Being a Royal Company, and thus getting twice the normal salary, for example those at the Fokker plane-plant nearby, meant that becoming a royal engineer was a great career choice.

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In the submarine department, we had begun producing roughly one submarine per month, which was a great deal, matching Germany for example.

War being hell and such, all the Romanian Navy submarines had already sunk while embargoing the Spanish coast, some by accident, some by 'Neutral patrols', and some by intentional and sacrificial self-destruction. Either way, their efforts killed perhaps 100000 'freedom fighters' and sank some 400 transport ships, which was a good ratio for only 7 submarines in one year.

Our lost subs were reported as sunk in the Black Sea while training, but I think people had started to figure it out by now. There were a limited number of submarines in the world after all, and while some of them did sink in the same time period, there was the odd wreckage or survivor to confirm the location. We also surfaced mementos and photos to bury in empty graves, but there was still a great deal of doubt. No matter, the Spanish War concluded 2 years earlier like this, and we saved millions of civilian lives. Plus I got 30% of the Spanish gold, let's no forget that.

In Africa we had begun extracting tungsten as well, very useful for lightbulbs but also anti-tank penetrators. Molybdenum was used to reinforce steel and give it more resistance,

while several uranium depots were mined in secret, both for X-ray machines, glowing clock limbs and other non-so-peaceful applications like electricity generation and submarine reactors.

Eventually I planned to discard the polluting uranium for thorium reactors, but the technology was not ready yet.

The Czechoslovaks and the Polish were desperately trying to obtain a military alliance with the Romanian Empire, perhaps feeling the Damocles sword hanging over their heads.

Sadly, without both Britain and France supporting and enforcing such an Europe-covering alliance, it was all futile. The Scandinavian, Low Countries and Baltic states were all proudly and desperately claiming neutrality, as if that ever worked. Sweden might get away with it, the rest wouldn't.

Even so, Finland received their own Fokker plant to produce decent fighters, plus our own CAC weapons-plant that made guns, machine-guns, auto-cannons and the new 65mm anti-tank and anti-air guns.

The Germans had begun to produce their own BF 109 fighter, matching the IAR 80 and the American Curtis Hawk, as well as the Pz III tanks that were even better than our Ferdinands. But also, we were only using the Ferdinands as training tanks and infantry support, not main battle tanks.

The radio industry had exploded in Romania as well, matching America and Britain in this aspect. I did want a few radios in every village, which meant rural electrification, as to pave the way for television and internet later.

Such a massive effort would take 2 or 3 years, since Romania was a bit larger now, but this is why a capitalist economy is better. Place an open market bid, and just wait for 30 Western corporations to rush in to take my money, each tasked with electrifying a single county.

For true capitalism to work, you need more than competition, you also need granulation. Having 2 or 3 corporations in a field was never enough, since they would naturally form a cartel to exploit the budget for more money ever year. Instead, the first corporation to finish the task with good results would be given the next county and so on.

Much the same was done for military supplies and rations, forcing companies to work harder to make quality products.

Sadly, we couldn't to the same for Navy and Airforce, since the technology and investment level meant that only a couple companies could do it anyways.

What I could do, and I did, was to open a bid for small arms and machine-guns, then watched a hundred inventors propose all sorts of crazy and unreliable guns for the Army to test.

Anticipating this, we had 100 bench-workshops and lathes, plus steel plates and necessary materials for the inventors to prove themselves. They all failed to produce a single working gun, ever after months of desperate tests and modifications. Welcome to the real world.