African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1237 Osman in the Corner

It can be seen from this that the current situation in Europe is too "complicated", and because it is too divided, many countries have to invest heavily in the military.

Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing. After all, without this state of division, it would be difficult for the Renaissance and the Enlightenment to be born in Europe.

This further encouraged European countries to expand their territories overseas, such as the former Portuguese Empire. One of the reasons why the Portuguese became the pioneers of the Age of Navigation was that there was really no room for maneuver in Europe.

Apart from anything else, the same reason applies to Ernst's development in Africa. In the small place of the Principality of Hechingen, even if Ernst tried his best, the final outcome would probably be to become a high-ranking Prussian officer or a civilian.

After all, in his previous life, Prince Constantine was a general in the Prussian army, and he died alone in Poland in his previous life, which is now the Green Mountain City in Prussia.

"Captain Rollingen, when can we dock at the pier?" At this time, Cary, the head of the East African Child Trading Company, asked.

Child Trading Company is just a small trading company in Mombasa, East Africa. This time, the cargo of the Rollingen was handled by this small trading company.

Rollingen dared not neglect Carey, after all, Carey represented the boss behind the ship's cargo.

He said to Cary, "Mr. Cary, don't be anxious. There are too many cargo ships in Odessa now, so waiting is essential. According to my experience, if nothing unexpected happens, we have to wait for another six hours. We are already in a relatively forward position."

The biggest difficulty in maritime trade in this era lies in the loading and unloading of cargo. After all, it takes a lot of time to load and unload all the cargo on a ship, especially before the popularization of containers. The loading and unloading of many bulk cargoes can almost make people collapse, and classification alone is a big problem.

This also made dock workers a very scarce profession in this era. It was not that there were few people doing this job, but even if more people were hired, it seemed that they were not enough to cope with the huge scale of cargo. In fact, the dock worker group was quite large. Take the largest port in the Far East Empire, Shanghai, for example. There were nearly 30,000 dock workers alone.

This is also an important reason why East Africa vigorously promotes containers and transforms ports and railway systems, in order to save the intermediate loading and unloading links as much as possible.

Of course, the effect of East African containers is currently mainly reflected domestically, especially in the movement of goods between the east and west coasts of East Africa.

This is mainly because the ports on both sides of East Africa are updated the fastest, and their basic equipment such as tower cranes, cranes, and conveying equipment are the most complete.

Other countries and regions cannot improve their efficiency even if they want to due to the lack of large-scale loading and unloading equipment.

Take the trade between East Africa and Germany as an example. Apart from important strategic materials such as medicines, rubber, chemicals, or materials urgently needed on the front line, containers are rarely used.

Germany is already a country that has a relatively high acceptance of new products such as containers. After all, Germany's basic transportation, especially railways, water transportation and ports, are very developed.

For countries like Russia, there have been basically no major changes in cargo transportation. For example, the items carried by the Logan this time were mainly bulk goods such as coffee, tobacco, tea, etc., which were basically stored in boxes.

The boxes used to pack these goods are not containers, because the Russians do not have the spare money to follow Germany's example and directly keep the containers from East Africa in their own country. When many merchant ships from East Africa arrive in Germany, they almost directly throw the containers with goods to Germany.

This method does not work in Russia. After all, container manufacturing itself requires consideration of technology and materials, which makes the price of containers relatively expensive.

East African merchants had no doubt that if they loaded the goods into containers, the Russians would smash them and sell them as scrap metal. After all, Russia's steel production was only a few million tons, and the post-war demand for steel had caused Russian steel prices to soar.

Cary complained, "This is really life-threatening. We can only stay on this ship for six hours, and the port dock is right in front of us." Rollingen comforted him, "This is the current situation of European freight. Almost every port will encounter this problem, let alone a large port like Odessa."

"To be honest, there are probably not many ports in Europe that are busier than Odessa. Since Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria launched an offensive against Moldova last month, Russia has lost a lot of land, which indirectly poses a threat to Odessa and Kiev."

"So in order to resist the offensive of the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian coalition forces, Russia must ensure the supply of materials to the front line. I heard that in at least one battle, a lot of strategic reserves and positions were occupied by the Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian coalition forces."

Kari said with some disdain: "I don't know whether it was really taken away by the enemy, or the Russians used it as an excuse to settle their accounts. After all, this kind of thing has been done a lot within the Russian army."

This is the impression that the Russian army has left on many countries in the world, that the army is seriously corrupt, so Carey said this.

Of course, this kind of problem will definitely exist in other countries, or in other words, it is almost impossible to avoid it in any country with an army. The same is true in East Africa, but Russia is more prominent.

Captain Rollingen not only did not question Carey's guess, but said with a smile: "Mr. Carey, to be honest, we think so too."

"Only those of us who sail the Black Sea route know how much goods Russia has imported in the past two years. But judging from the news in the newspapers, many military supplies may not have reached the Russian troops on the front line."

"I remember reading in a newspaper in Constantinople that many soldiers on the Russian front couldn't even get their rifles together. This was simply unbelievable. After all, Russia is not a small country without industry like Serbia or Bulgaria."

Kari said calmly, "This is normal. Our East African newspapers also said that the Russian army currently lacks about three million rifles, and Russia's annual military production capacity is only more than 800,000 rifles. This means that at least a quarter of the Russian army's soldiers do not even have decent weapons."

"Before the war, the Russian army had only over one million soldiers, but now it has reached over six million. Moreover, before the war, Russia also wanted to purchase a large amount of military equipment from abroad, which prevented the development of its own military industry."

Up to now, the number of people mobilized by Russia has exceeded 10 million, which also reflects the tragic situation of Russia in the war.

But this is understandable. After all, Russia is now facing greater military pressure than in the past.

Luo Lingen: "Who says it's not true! It's understandable that Russia's current military situation has deteriorated to this extent when it can't even guarantee the basic weapons of its soldiers. But gray animals are not worth much, and it's amazing that Russia can withstand the attacks of three countries at the same time."

Cary said: "If the situation in Russia deteriorates further, it may not be a three-kingdom war anymore. After all, the Ottoman Empire and Russia are sworn enemies. If Russia shows weakness during this period, the Ottoman Empire may not wait any longer."

Although the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, it did not take any action and instead accumulated strength. After Germany was drawn into the war, Germany's military aid to the Ottoman Empire also stagnated.

However, the Ottoman Empire had one more option than in its previous life, that is, East Africa. The weapons of East Africa had some similarities with those of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This allowed the Ottoman Empire to arm its forces more patiently. The Ottoman Empire was well aware of the weakness of its army before the reform. If it were still in the same state as during the Balkan War, let alone a clash with Russia, even a small country like Greece would probably be able to fight back and forth with its original army.

Therefore, the Ottoman Empire’s army is still accumulating strength, including expanding the army, hiring East African instructors, purchasing weapons, etc., and when the opportunity arises, the Ottoman Empire will certainly not remain indifferent.

(End of this chapter)