African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1266 Fuwa River Reservoir

The four of them were touring the city of Rhine, and through the car window they had a panoramic view of the city scenery.

"East Africa is currently in a stage of rapid economic development. It is orderly and stable, yet full of vitality. There are two industrial zones, one on the south side of the Fuwa River Reservoir and the other in the northwest of the city."

"When you first arrived in Rhine City, you passed through the Northwest Industrial Zone. Relying on the convenient and well-developed railway and road transportation, many heavy industries are located in the Northwest Industrial Zone, which facilitates the transportation of raw materials and goods."

"The Fowa River Industrial Zone is built on the Fowa River Reservoir, which covers an area of ​​nearly 80 square kilometers and has a water storage capacity of approximately 1.7 billion cubic meters, which can meet the water needs of the entire Rhine City."

"The Rhine Palace is built not far from this large artificial lake, but upstream of the reservoir. The Foix River Reservoir is built on the basis of the Rensem Foix River."

"The Empire cut off the Rensemfuwa River by building the Fuwa River Dam, taking advantage of the low-lying terrain and artificially transforming it for seven years to finally form the Fuwa River Reservoir."

Of course, Prince Maxime did not mention that during the construction of the Foix River Reservoir, the main force was basically black labor. Today, the Foix River Reservoir stands on the Katanga Plateau, but the black slaves who built the reservoir are no longer seen here.

Alexei said in surprise: "The Fuva River Reservoir is the name of this big lake. Before, we thought it was a natural lake!"

Maxim said: "There are many natural large lakes in East Africa, especially the three major lakes, which are naturally formed giant lakes in the world. They are no less than the five Great Lakes in the United States. What is even more valuable is that these three lakes are all freshwater lakes."

The three major lakes in East Africa are the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria), Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika), and Lake Malawi (or Lake Nyasa).

With the opening up of East Africa, the three lakes have become increasingly well-known around the world, and the world map has been greatly adjusted as a result.

The main reason for this situation is that in the last century, the expansion of East Africa on the East African Plateau interrupted the original exploration of the African hinterland by European adventurers.

It was not until the East African region was officially opened that data on the three major lakes were officially released to the outside world by the East African government.

This is actually not surprising. In the middle of the last century, European exploration of Africa was quite slow. Before East Africa, only a single-digit number of adventurers had gone deep into the continent.

Maxim went on to say: "Among these three large lakes, the Foix River Reservoir is like an ant in front of an elephant, and our development of the Foix River Reservoir also cleverly took advantage of the local terrain characteristics."

"Before East Africa transformed this area, the two banks of the Rensemfuwa River were a natural river valley terrain, and an area suitable for reservoir construction was formed in the middle. The upstream and downstream river channels were actually relatively narrow."

"We only built a 300-meter concrete dam to cut it in half. This dam also serves as a power generator, especially in the rainy season. The power generation is huge, which can ensure the stable output of power supply for the whole city throughout the year. In the rainy season, it can also support the power demand of other surrounding industrial cities, such as New Frankfurt, Kabwe, or cities in the northern copper belt through the power grid."

The rainy season in Rhine City is relatively long, lasting as long as half a year, and the water volume does not decrease during the dry season. This is mainly related to the direction of the Rensemfowa River.

The Rensemfuwa River runs mainly from north to south, flowing from the northern rainforest climate zone to the grassland climate zone, and the Rhine City is exactly between the two.

Therefore, even in the dry season in Rhine City, rainwater from the upstream areas can ensure sufficient water in the Rensemfou River, especially after the construction of water conservancy regulation projects such as the Fou River Reservoir, which further ensures the stability of water and electricity consumption in Rhine City.

Moreover, the reason why East Africa chose this place as the capital of East Africa was that the terrain on both sides was high, and even in the rainy season, the river water could not pose a threat to both sides. Maxim joked: "The Foix River Reservoir should be regarded as the 'sea' of Rhine City. Now the area of ​​the Foix River Reservoir is slightly larger than the built-up area of ​​Rhine City."

"On weekends, many citizens choose to go to the reservoir area for sightseeing or fishing. The Foix Reservoir can also be seen from the height of the Rhine Palace. The royal gardens were also built along the Foix Reservoir."

"There are also large amounts of undeveloped forests to the east and south of the Foua River Reservoir. In addition to the lower reaches of the Rensem Foua River to the south, there are railways leading to Tete, Chinde and Quelimane, which is considered one of the Rhine City's access to the sea."

Since the basic formation of the East African railway network, the dependence of the inland East Africa on the Port of Dar es Salaam has been greatly reduced. Take Rhine City as an example. The fastest routes to the sea include Dar es Salaam, Quelimane, Chende, Luanda, Benguela, Lobito, Cabinda and so on.

These rising stars among East African port cities all have direct trains to Rhineland, greatly reducing Rhineland's dependence on Dar es Salaam.

This is also one of the reasons why the city of Dar es Salaam has been relatively sluggish in recent years, but East Africa is happy to see this.

This just proves the achievements of East Africa's transportation construction. After all, the more routes there are, the more hub cities there will be, and the status and importance of the original transportation hubs will decline accordingly.

However, the conditions of Dar es Salaam are there. Even if it is "declining", it is only relative. It is not that Dar es Salaam is developing slowly, but that other port cities are developing too fast.

In this regard, the conditions in Mombasa are much better. So far, Mombasa is still the only access to the sea for the Northern Railway. The construction progress of the Gabon section of the Northern Railway is relatively slow. It is estimated that it will take two or three years to be officially completed, allowing the Northern Railway to officially become the East African national railway trunk line connecting the two oceans.

Coupled with Mombasa’s financial attributes, which have increased rapidly in recent years, the gap between Mombasa and Dar es Salaam has become smaller and smaller. Perhaps one day in the future, Mombasa will replace Dar es Salaam and become the largest city in East Africa.

Of course, surpassing Dar es Salaam does not mean that it can sit back and relax. Besides the possibility of being overtaken by Dar es Salaam again, it also has to face competition from emerging port cities such as Luanda, Cabinda and Beira.

Compared with these port cities, the development of inland cities in East Africa requires more coordination from the East African government. As the capital, the development of Rhine City also represents the development of the inland economy of East Africa to a certain extent.

In recent years, the development speed of Rhine City has been among the best in East African cities, especially in the non-economic field. A large amount of resources have been invested to make it quickly become a national central city in administration, finance, academia, education, medical care, transportation, etc.

Maxim said: "In a little while, I will take you to the Fuwa River Dam to have a look. From there you will know how we cut off the Rensemfuwa River. Now is the rainy season, the Rensemfuwa River is full of water, and the water level of the Fuwa River reservoir is also high."

"Standing on the Foix River Dam, you can see quite a spectacular view. Before that, we will pass through the southwest industrial zone of Rhine City, and then turn left after a few intersections to enter the Southwest Industrial Avenue. Following the Southwest Industrial Avenue, you can see the Foix River Dam in less than ten minutes."

"Although the Fuwa River Reservoir is only of medium to large scale among East African water conservancy projects, it is not small either. There are only a few countries in the world that are capable of independently building a hydropower station of this scale."

After hearing what Maxim said, Alexei and others became more interested in this large-scale water conservancy project built by humans in East Africa.

Although, as Maxim said, the Foua River Reservoir is only considered to be of medium to large scale among East African water conservancy projects, this is only true for East Africa.

In fact, since they set foot in East Africa, passed the Central Railway, went deep into the hinterland of East Africa, and got a glimpse of the infrastructure construction from the coast to the inland of East Africa, they have clearly known that East Africa’s achievements in the field of infrastructure may be among the best in the world.

(End of this chapter)