Chapter 308 The road is long and difficult

Chapter 308 The road is long and difficult

"Archduke Franz, I have some unfortunate news for you. The Brazilians cannot deliver the rubber you ordered on time. The situation in the civil war is very unfavorable to them. The rebels have occupied some rubber-producing areas and even cut down rubber trees as food. Fuel usage.

But we also have a growing gap in the rubber. The production of civilian rubber tires had to be stopped, and materials were concentrated to complete orders for military delivery. "

Adjani is very worried about this, because a rubber crisis breaks out in Austria almost every year.

Although Brazil has been expanding production capacity since 1839, rubber cannot be expanded immediately if you want to expand production capacity. No matter how much money you invest, you still need to wait for it to grow slowly, and this growth is 8-10 years.

In the coming years, the Brazilians only found some wild rubber forests, but the total output did not reach 700 tons. The actual demand for rubber in Austria was more than 1,000 tons per year. The huge gap even made Franz think that the rubber planted in Chenla Rubber forests are not enough.

It seems that in order to deliver military orders, Franz can only make pneumatic tires available in advance.

But this time Franz was wrong. Although pneumatic tires were a great progress in the history of tires, solid tires were actually better when considering durability alone.

Pneumatic tires have better shock resistance and are more labor-saving, successfully improving the efficiency of transportation and making riding in a car a pleasure.

In fact, before the invention of pneumatic tires, the inside of a carriage was very bumpy. In order to make their rides more comfortable, nobles at that time were often equipped with expensive carriage shock absorbers.

Moreover, pneumatic tires are actually more adaptable and maneuverable than solid tires, because solid tires themselves have the characteristics of high elasticity and high wear resistance, which makes them more difficult to control when facing complex roads, and even prone to rollover. danger.

However, after this operation, the rubber gap in Austria became larger and larger. In order to improve their feelings, dignitaries placed orders for Franz's factory one after another, and some even considered joining the army.

Closer to home, Franz also knew this situation, but the problem of rubber was really unsolvable. In order to solve this situation, he even came up with the idea of ​​​​synthetic rubber.

However, the "artificial rubber" project has been silent for several years. After all, the front-end technology is far behind, but it has played a role in promoting the development of materials chemistry.

All Franz can do now is to further expand the rubber planting area, at least to prepare for the future.

At the same time, as electrolysis becomes more and more widely used in industry, the problem of power shortage is becoming more and more serious. Traditional hand-cranked generators simply cannot meet the growing demand.

Franz also invested a lot of money in research, but the result was only a change from hand power to a steam lever, and the efficiency was still very low.

But at this time, Nikola Tesla had not yet been born, and the electromagnetic principles that supported him in completing the alternator had not yet been perfected. Franz could only use this stupidest way to increase power.

Fortunately, the invention of the steam turbine did not make the cost of electricity too high.

Of course, Franz did not reduce his investment in electricity research. After all, the second industrial revolution was the so-called electrical age, and this period was the best opportunity for the Austrian Empire to overtake in a corner.

Afterwards, Adjani reported on some of the latest developments in the Near East.

The Ottoman Empire borrowed heavily and seemed to be preparing to rebuild its navy, but it still built traditional wooden sailing battleships, and its artillery was intended to be imported from Britain.

But it is worth noting that the wood they used did not come from Russia, but from distant Spain. It is unknown what kind of state relations are revealed and how many unknown transactions are behind the scenes.

The Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali abdicated and passed the position of Pasha to his eldest son Ibrahim, and successfully gave up opium.

This surprised Franz.

However, although Muhammad Ali abdicated and passed the position to Ibrahim, Franz was sure that the hero must be planning something.

If he really gave up on himself or looked away, how could he quit opium?

Muhammad Ali is indeed a generational hero, but in the current situation, even if he is ambitious, it may be difficult to change the situation.

To the west of Egypt, the Karamanli family's control over Tripoli has become increasingly firm. Except for Tunisia, which launched two tentative attacks, other countries have not taken any action.

However, since the slave trade was banned, Tripoli's economic situation has been very pessimistic. It mainly relies on fishing, dates and wool to make money, and the main trade partner is naturally Austria.

However, they did not find oil. Instead, they found many other mineral deposits. However, the infrastructure in Tripoli was extremely backward at this time, and there were no precious metals, so it was worthless to mine.

Tunisia feels in crisis. After all, it seems to be the only country around it that still maintains its independence. But the Tunisian monarch named "Ahmad Bey", like all the reform-minded monarchs of this era, organized a Western-style army with a number of more than 20,000 people all year round.

At the same time, a navy consisting of eighteen warships was formed to defend the enemy from the country's borders, but the largest tonnage did not exceed 600 tons, and its firepower was not even as good as the armed merchant ships of the great powers during this period.

In the past, Bey did not hesitate to demolish temples in order to reform, burned the religious leaders who opposed him, and even executed his eldest son.

But reality gave him a heavy blow, that is, the defeat of Muhammad Ali. Egypt's army and navy were far superior to Tunisia's, but it lost even to the great powers.

Nowadays, Bey goes out in private every day, often makes some strange remarks, and diplomatically sends envoys to Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Turkey to form alliances everywhere.

The domestic opposition to reform was getting louder and louder, but they were brutally suppressed by his new army. In one case, a city with a population of 16,000 was killed until only an old blind man was left.

Algeria and Morocco are being invaded by France. Although the French army has won many battles, it has never been able to stabilize the situation.

But Algeria and Morocco were also helpless against the French. The casualty ratio was usually more than seven to one. What's more terrible was that France sent warships to blockade the coast, making it impossible for them to continue to purchase weapons from Britain, Austria and other countries.

There were even cases where British merchant ships forcibly broke through the blockade and were sunk by French warships.

Afterwards, the British government sent a note to the French ambassador hoping that the other party could give a reasonable explanation, but only one person received a compensation of one hundred francs.

Faced with the tough attitude of the French, the British government finally had to inform its businessmen not to continue provoking French warships.

Of course, this was not what Guizot meant, but what the French military controlled by the Bonapartists meant. They had had enough of the British shamelessness and contempt.

This was also recognized by King Louis Philippe, who after all regarded North Africa as his own territory as much as Spain. And now French power has penetrated into Spain, and has even ousted the self-righteous Queen Regent.