Chapter 1185 Quick Success
Let’s discuss the shortcomings of East Africa, that is, the development of civilization was short. Before East Africa, there was no decent modern country in the entire Africa.
The top student in the African region before East Africa was Egypt, but Egypt was completely unable to compete with other regions in the matching mechanism of the Eurasian region.
Therefore, after East Africa becomes the most representative big country in Africa, the most important thing to do is to make up for the lessons. This is also the basis for East Africa to quickly transform from a big country to a true world power through immigration, industrial development, infrastructure construction, etc. logic.
The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century can be said to be the last window of opportunity for the African continent. If the countries on the African continent cannot rise rapidly during this period, they will basically have no chance to face the encirclement and suppression of the Western world in the future.
East Africa is the country that suddenly appeared and led the African continent to its peak competition. But when East Africa took over most of southern Africa, the difference in conditions can be imagined.
In terms of the latitude of the development of human civilization, the level of civilization in sub-Saharan Africa in the late 19th century remained at least five thousand years ago.
After all, at that time, relatively mature farming civilizations had emerged in the Far Eastern Empire and the Middle East, and many areas had entered a slave society from a primitive society.
Therefore, when the East African colonies were established, they were truly impoverished, the kind that would have made the new Far Eastern Empire shed tears when they saw it in its previous life in 1949.
This also resulted in East Africa having to adopt the most radical means and methods in its early colonial and national construction, such as the early "militarism" model, rationing system, complete nationalization of land, the most radical "centralization" model, and later the former The "completely planned economy" of the two five-year plans, and now the "new economic policy."
Yes, the new economic policy is also very extreme. It can be said that during the Third Five-Year Plan period, East Africa adopted an outrageous degree of laxity towards the private economy. Basically, it was possible to do anything without prohibition by law, and even some violations of East Africa were Legal businesses turn a blind eye.
These extreme policies and systems all have one thing in common, and that is "quick fix". Basically in every economic development cycle, the East African government likes to apply one-size-fits-all at the cost of sacrificing and ignoring some interests, thus making East Africa's national strength, economy, and Population, military, infrastructure, agriculture and other fields are rapidly expanding and developing.
Of course, East Africa's strategy is obviously successful. It is no exaggeration to say that East Africa only took about fifty years to complete the journey that other countries took hundreds or thousands of years to complete.
At least in East Africa itself, thorough modernization has been achieved. The land that has not been developed for tens of thousands of years has been turned into farmland, villages and cities, roads, canals, etc. The Zambezi River, the Congo River, etc. have never been regulated. The river underwent the first large-scale artificial management, and the population of East Africa changed from 30 to 40 million primitive indigenous people to more than 100 million modern people who have received primary education...
Although the last point is a bit unethical, it is true that through large-scale immigration, the greatest country in history was born on the African continent.
By the time World War I broke out, East Africa was obviously no longer the novice village it once was, but a world power that the whole world could not ignore. Currently, East Africa could compete with any other great power in the world.
The First World War was another crossroads for East Africa. If it is taken advantage of, East Africa will go further. It can be predicted that East Africa will become unprecedentedly powerful after the war.
Now the United Kingdom is a stumbling block on the road to East Africa's rise, so cracking down on Britain's interference in East Africa's trade is particularly important for East Africa.
Merkel said: "Your Majesty, to bypass the British obstruction, we must open up more trade channels, and among them, the construction progress of the Basra Railway should be accelerated."
The progress of the Basra Railway is relatively slow. According to the original plan of East Africa, it was planned to take one year to open this 700-kilometer-long passage. But now the UK is doing the first step, and East Africa is naturally doing the 15th step.
Ernst nodded and said: "Originally, I wanted to use the Basra Railway to trade with the Ottoman Empire, but now it seems that it is no longer necessary, so the Ministry of Railways has accelerated the progress of the Basra Railway and strives to officially open the Basra Railway before July this year."
Originally, Ernst planned to use the Basra Railway to lift the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottoman Empire obviously did not want to speed up the progress of the Basra Railway project through territorial transactions.
But Ernst doesn't care too much about this now. Although Ernst used to be coveted for oil off the coast of Saudi Arabia in his previous life, East Africa is no longer what it used to be.
With the incorporation of new territories such as Gabon, the Tonkin Gulf Territory, and East Kalimantan, as well as East Africa's advance layout in Venezuela, Romania, the United States and other regions, East Africa has gained sufficient security in terms of oil resources.
Today, there are three ways to obtain oil in East Africa. The first is the mainland. The oil resources in the north and west of East Africa can basically guarantee the daily production and daily needs of East Africa.
The second one is the overseas colonies in East Africa. Alaska, the Tonkin Gulf Territory, and East Kalimantan are all areas rich in oil resources. With these overseas colonies, East Africa cannot lack oil supplies.
The third one is East Africa’s overseas investment. For example, the United States, Romania, Austria-Hungary, Tsarist Russia, Venezuela and other major oil producers in the world at this stage have investments in East Africa.
The oil-producing areas of these other countries can also stabilize the energy security of East Africa. Among them, only Tsarist Russia is more risky. After all, Tsarist Russia is internally unstable.
So now that East Africa's oil and energy security has established a three-level firewall, Ernst does not need to worry too much about it.
Ernst said: "The construction of the Basra Railway is one of the key trade channels to stabilize our alliance camp, so the sooner it is completed, the better it will be for our current economy."
It is worth mentioning that East Africa has not yet repaid all its debts to the two major camps, so in order to quickly pay off the debts and make profits, East Africa urgently needs to maintain its trade scale with Europe.
The main factor causing this result is the United States. With the United States in East Africa, it is impossible to eat alone. The competition between the two countries has further spread the profits of trade with Europe, which has made East Africa and the United States have not paid off their pre-war debts to European countries.
The main reason is that East Africa borrowed too much money before the war. Relying on these loans, East Africa's local industrial capacity has almost doubled.
In 1910, the total industrial output value of East Africa was 120 billion Rhine guilders, and now it has expanded to more than 270 billion Rhine guilders in 1914.
With the money from European countries, East Africa's industry has achieved qualitative development, and even the economic and industrial growth rate has exceeded the previous two five-year plans.
More than 270 billion Rhine guilders, converted into US dollars, is about 40 billion, while the total industrial output value of the United States before the war was only more than 24 billion.
The current total industrial output value of the United States should be more than 30 billion, but at this stage in the previous life, the United States had already reached 50 billion, which shows how much market share East Africa has snatched from the United States.
After all, Europe's purchasing power is limited. The competition between the two industrial powers, the United States and East Africa, naturally means that each gets less profit. According to the East African government's estimate, it will take at least another seven months to completely repay the debts owed to European countries.
But now Britain's deliberate obstruction will obviously prolong East Africa's debt repayment time, so the East African government has to find another way to maximize East Africa's benefits in the war as much as possible.
"After all, the Basra Railway has limited transport capacity, so we have to think of other ways. As the war progresses, trade between us and the Allies will certainly become more difficult, so we need to strengthen trade with the Allies at this stage. When it comes to the middle and late stages of the war, it will be more difficult to make money from the Allies."