African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1227: The Immoral Nile Strategy
The Xingguo Reservoir and the accompanying Xingguo Dam can also be seen as a business card of East Africa during the Fourth and Fifth Periods. After all, water conservancy construction, especially hydropower station construction, is a project that can easily go down in history.

For example, the Hoover Power Station in the United States, the Dnieper River Hydropower Station in the Soviet Union, the Three Gorges Hydropower Station in the Far East Empire, and the Itaipu Hydropower Station in Brazil and Paraguay.

Although the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station was not as difficult as these water conservancy projects, the fact that it relied on taking shortcuts to build the world's largest reservoir, the Xingguo Reservoir, destined it to be well-known worldwide in the future.

Of course, the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station in East Africa is not simply for fame, but has profound strategic considerations.

The most important of these is naturally water resources. The construction of the Xingguo Reservoir means that East Africa will have an additional 200 billion cubic meters of available fresh water resources.

This water would have flowed into the Nile River, eventually flowing through the Sudanese and Egyptian sections of the Nile into the Mediterranean Sea.

As we all know, the Nile River, as the longest river in the world, does not have abundant water. Its annual runoff is only more than 80 billion cubic meters. The Yellow River in the Far East Empire, which has less water, has an annual runoff of more than 50 billion cubic meters.

Therefore, water resources are relatively scarce in the entire Nile River basin, and such little water resources are divided among Egypt (including Sudan), the Abyssinian Empire (Ethiopia), and the three East African countries.

The amount of water in the White Nile River flowing through East Africa is already relatively small, so it is imperative to occupy more water resources. After all, the Nile Basin in East Africa and the Northern Great Lakes Province also have a large demand for water.

The Xingguo Hydropower Station is just an important node in East Africa's strategy on the Nile River. Water-blocking facilities will be built layer by layer in East Africa downstream to ensure the maximum water use efficiency of the Nile River in East Africa.

At the same time as the Xingguo Hydropower Station was opened, more than 20 projects of various sizes, including the Gezira Dam, the Kagera Hydropower Station, etc., were built to ensure that the Nile River in East Africa is clearly arranged from the source to the end point to the East African border.

As for the life and death of Egypt downstream, that is not something East Africa needs to consider, although the water volume of the Nile River in Egypt, including that in Sudan, mainly comes from the Blue Nile.

However, it cannot be denied that the White Nile is unimportant. During the dry season of the Nile, the White Nile contributes more than 80% to the main and tributary Nile rivers downstream.

This means that if the "Nile Strategy" in East Africa is completed, the whole of Egypt and Sudan will face more serious water problems during the dry season.

Of course, East Africa also left a way out for the Egyptians. After all, it was impossible for East Africa to prevent a drop of water from flowing into Egypt, and the water demand of the Egyptian population during this period was far less than in the previous life.

Today, the total population of Egypt is only over 10 million, including the total population of Sudan. In the past, the population of Egypt was as high as over 100 million, and the population of Sudan was nearly 50 million. The combined population of the two countries was over 150 million.

That is to say, the current population of Egypt is only about one-fifteenth of the population of Egypt in the 21st century, so the demand for water resources is even less.

After the completion of the "Nile Strategy" in East Africa, it will put tremendous pressure on Egypt (Sudan)'s agricultural, domestic and industrial water use in the future.

Agricultural water needs can be solved by relying on the Blue Nile, but industrial and domestic water needs obviously cannot be solved in the same way. After all, during the dry season of the Nile River, it is impossible for Egyptians to reduce water consumption or shut down factories.

If Egypt follows the old path of population explosion in the past, there is no doubt that living conditions in Egypt will become even poorer in the future.

This was exactly what Ernst wanted. Ernst did not want Egypt in this time and space to grow as fast as in his previous life. After all, Egypt was completely different from East Africa in terms of beliefs and races, and the two countries were bordering regions.

In the past life, Egypt was one of the main sources of refugees in Europe. Ernst did not want the Egyptians to run along the Nile River into East Africa. Although most of the areas bordering Egypt and East Africa were deserts, this climate isolation was not safe. After all, there was the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Egypt!
Therefore, Ernst left only one way for the future Egyptians, that is, to control the population growth rate of their country, otherwise Egypt's situation in the future will only be worse than in the past life. This move can be regarded as a lesson from the Americans in the past life. The upper reaches of the Colorado River in America are in the United States, and the estuary is in Mexico. In the past life, the United States intercepted most of the water of the Colorado River, leaving only about 10% of the water for Mexico, and the United States used the intercepted water for its own industry, agriculture and life. This is how part of California's water source came from.

East Africa's "Nile Strategy" is a replica of what Americans did in their previous lives.

The benefits of this behavior of harming others for personal gain to East Africa are also obvious. First of all, the construction of these water conservancy facilities can provide a large amount of electricity to East Africa and support the development of surrounding cities.

For example, the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station in Jinga City. After the construction of the Xingguo Hydropower Station is completed, Jinga City will have a large amount of cheap electricity resources to support the city’s industrial development. This is also the main reason for the current expansion of Jinga City.

Secondly, the additional 200 billion cubic meters of freshwater resources can ensure stable harvests near the main stream of the Nile River in East Africa regardless of drought or flood, and ensure water safety in the downstream area, which is of great significance especially to the Nile River Province in East Africa.

Although East Africa has been weak in developing the Nile Province, it does not mean that the Nile Province is not important to East Africa. The agricultural conditions in the Nile Province are still good, and a large number of farms and plantations can be built. These farms and plantations are extremely dependent on the water resources of the Nile River.

The desert areas downstream, represented by the city of Gezira, are even more dependent on the water resources of the Nile River. Gezira's wheat and cotton are relatively famous in East Africa, and the local industry is also relatively good, all of which are big water consumers.

At the same time, the construction of this batch of water conservancy projects will greatly improve the navigation conditions in the Nile River Basin in inland East Africa. To ensure the stability of the water volume of the Nile River in East Africa, it is naturally necessary to divert more water.

In fact, East Africa's "Nile River Strategy" definitely involves more than 200 billion cubic meters of water diverted from the Xingguo Reservoir, but also includes the diversion of water from many tributaries in the downstream Nile River Province.

In fact, the Great Lakes region where the Xingguo Reservoir is located is not short of water, and the precipitation in the southern part of the Nile Province is not small, but the seasonal distribution of precipitation in East Africa is uneven.

At the same time, because East Africa is located in the tropics, the evaporation is very high, which is the main reason for the low water volume of the White Nile.

Before the water of the White Nile flows into Egypt, a lot of it will be naturally lost along the way, and there will be even less left after passing Sudan and reaching the core area of ​​Egypt.

This situation is actually quite common throughout East Africa, especially where the tropical savanna climate zone and tropical desert climate zone meet, such as the transition zone between the East African Plateau and the Somali Desert, the intersection of the Bohemian Province in central East Africa (northern Zimbabwe) and the Kalahari Basin, or the intersection of Angola and Namibia on the west coast of East Africa.

After all, these areas are all within East Africa. Even if East Africa builds water conservancy facilities and allocates water resources, it will fully consider the local ecology, people's livelihood, and industrial and agricultural development.

The situation in the Nile River Basin is completely different. Unfortunately, the lower reaches are not part of East Africa, and the lives of the Egyptians are obviously not within the consideration of East Africa.

Egypt has only two options for the future: to stabilize the Abyssinian Empire, ensure a stable water supply from the Blue Nile, and maintain a low level of population growth.

If the above cannot be achieved, then Egypt can only learn from the practices of its past and live in European countries.

In any case, Ernst will not be a "good-hearted person" like the Europeans. Even if East Africa wants to accept immigrants in the future, it can do so from its own colonies, or from Europe or the Far East Empire. It can be said that East Africa's current overseas expansion is to make room for the Rhine people, a new nation that East Africa is promoting.

(End of this chapter)