African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1213 Three-Five Plan Results
When black slaves from East Africa poured into West Africa and embraced the free and civilized world, the East African governments did not actually take this little matter too seriously.

After all, there are 800,000 blacks, a large proportion of whom are old, weak, sick and disabled. They have obviously become a burden rather than wealth, so sending these blacks away is in line with the wishes of the East African government.

As for the immoral behavior of East Africa in driving more than 800,000 blacks to the British and French colonies, the East African government did not care at all. It can be said that at this time Upper Volta and the Gold Coast were both in a state of being left alone by France and Britain, and the two countries simply did not care about the life and death of the West African colonies.

Of course, the influx of 800,000 blacks would not pose a threat to the colonial rule of the two countries. The real headache would be the black protectorates and vassal forces in their colonies.

It is conceivable that the sudden increase of 800,000 black people will inevitably cause a bloody storm in Upper Volta and the Gold Coast.

After all, after more than 20 years of exploitation and oppression in East Africa, these black slaves had long forgotten the skills of survival in the wild, and the dry food distributed to them by East Africa could only last for two or three days at most. After three days, the blacks facing food shortages had only two choices: either to surrender to the local blacks or colonial forces, or to rob directly.

The colonial governments of Britain and France could only watch helplessly. Feeding more than 800,000 black people was not something they could solve, and even physical elimination would be impossible.

Take the French colony of Upper Volta for example. All the French people together only had a few hundred people. Even if they were armed with hot weapons, they would be helpless when faced with hundreds of thousands of blacks who suddenly appeared.

Therefore, the East African government can fully imagine that the Gold Coast and Upper Volta will be in chaos for some time to come.

Compared with the minor issue of releasing more than 800,000 black people, what the East African governments are really concerned about is the adjustment and implementation of their country's Fourth Five-Year Plan and new economic policies.

In 1915, the Third Five-Year Plan of East Africa officially ended. In the past year, the economy of East Africa has achieved brilliant achievements.

Estimates were somewhat more optimistic than for East Africa, which had not formally paid off its debts to the Allies by the end of 1915.

Due to the increasingly severe blockade by Britain and France, the Allied camp once again placed a huge order with East Africa at the end of 1915. The completion of this order directly turned East Africa from a debtor country of Germany and Austria into a creditor country.

In the last century, Germany and Austria were the first and second creditor countries in East Africa for many years, until they were surpassed by France at the beginning of this century.

Before the outbreak of World War I, the four major creditor countries in East Africa were France, Britain, Germany and Austria-Hungary in order of total debt.

Germany and Austria-Hungary ranked third and fourth respectively. Now East Africa has finally achieved a reversal of its debts to Germany and Austria-Hungary for the first time, but it will take some time to completely pay off the debts to Britain and France.

Last year, East Africa exported nearly 12 tons of finished steel to Germany and Austria-Hungary in December alone, and the total steel exports to the Allies reached tons.

This is a quite remarkable number. You have to know that the Allies basically had no shortage of coal and iron ore. After all, among the four Allied countries, Germany was completely self-sufficient in coal and steel. Although the production capacity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not as good as that of Germany, it was enough to deal with the Eastern Front. Although Bulgaria's territory was relatively small, it also had coal and iron ore distribution, and there was no need to say more about the Ottoman Empire.

The main reason why East Africa was able to export so much steel to the Allies was a matter of time.

Although the Allies did not lack resources and had enough workers, the production of steel took time, especially since the military industries of Germany and Austria-Hungary had a huge demand for special steel.

Purchasing finished steel products from East Africa not only saves time, but also allows more industrial workers to be allocated to other production industries, or simply to support the front battlefield.

At the beginning of the war, Germany and Austria-Hungary tended to purchase raw materials from East Africa. As the war moved toward a stalemate, the two countries began to learn from Russia and directly purchase finished and semi-finished products from East Africa. The Basra Railway was also opened at the end of last year, which will further ensure the smooth trade channel between East Africa and the Allies.

In 1915, East Africa produced million tons of steel and exported nearly million tons, of which more than million tons were exported to European countries, especially France and Italy, and the rest were sold to countries and regions in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Exports of other industrial products, such as automobiles, power equipment, rubber, weapons, medical equipment, etc., have reached historical highs, and the East African economy is booming unprecedentedly.

In terms of transportation construction, by the end of 1915, the total mileage of East African railways officially exceeded kilometers, further narrowing the gap with Europe and the United States. By the time the Fourth Five-Year Plan is completed, the total mileage of East African railways will inevitably exceed kilometers.

East Africa has also made great achievements in road construction, especially in asphalt roads. After the large-scale development of asphalt resources in Venezuela and other regions, East African cities and some main roads have been rapidly transformed.

The East African National Canal Project was also 80% completed, but the cost was the burial of millions of black people in East Africa. It can be said that every kilometer of the canal was built with the flesh and blood of black slaves.

In terms of maritime transportation, during the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa built and renovated nearly twenty modern container ports, and the total tonnage of East African merchant ships also climbed to more than 6.1 million tons.

In the civil aviation industry, the Third Five-Year Plan opened up three civil aviation routes in East Africa and built five large civil aviation airports. The civil aviation industry in East Africa has officially started. There is no doubt that the civil aviation industry will occupy an important position in the future transportation construction in East Africa.

Although East Africa has made brilliant achievements in railway and road construction in recent years, some areas in East Africa are destined to be difficult to reach by land transportation.

For example, the southwestern region of East Africa, which was Namibia and Botswana in the past, has some vast deserts and mountainous terrains, with very sparse railways and roads, but the area is very large.

Airplanes are obviously a very suitable form of transportation for the southwest region, which is also of great significance to the national defense of East Africa.

The land frontier in southern East Africa reaches directly to the banks of the Orange River, while Orangemund, the most southwestern city in East Africa, is almost isolated from the outside world, and its supply and exchanges are almost entirely dependent on sea transportation.

Although there are plans in East Africa to build an Orange River Road to connect it with Upington in the east, it is only on paper.

The area from Upington to Oranjemund, which is hundreds of kilometers long, is almost uninhabited. There are only a few border checkpoints established in East Africa, and land transportation relies entirely on foot. It is not easy to build a highway here, and most importantly, it is difficult to recover the cost. Therefore, this highway has not been started since the project was launched in the last century.

But it is different with airplanes. With airplanes, it will become relatively convenient to travel from Oranjemund to the interior of East Africa in the future, and no longer rely entirely on sea transportation. What's more, Oranjemund itself has a small population. If an airport is built, it can greatly meet the travel needs of local residents.

During the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa's transportation construction achieved very ideal results, and these transportation projects also made great contributions to East Africa's economic growth.

In addition to its outstanding performance in economy and transportation, East Africa also made tremendous progress in national defense. In 1915, the size of the East African reserve army exceeded for the first time, reaching .

This was mainly due to the fact that East Africa suddenly acquired a large number of colonies and the rapid expansion of the navy. Throughout 1915, East Africa deployed a large number of troops in the colonies, including East Kalimantan, Mindanao, Gabon, Cameroon, Togoland and many other colonies, and carried out large-scale clearance and suppression of local resistance forces. There were as many as hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in the East African colonies.

There is naturally no need to say much about the navy. With the increase in the number of warships, the number of naval personnel in East Africa has also expanded in a short period of time to ensure the trade security of East Africa.

(End of this chapter)