African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 81 Coal Mine
There are still some coal resources in Tanzania, but not many, mainly distributed in the southern plateau.

The reserves are about one billion tons, mainly high-quality low-sulfur coal. This reserve is not outstanding in the whole of Africa, let alone compared with other coal-producing regions in the world.

Originally, Ernst did not plan to develop Tanzania's coal mines in advance, but in order to follow up the agricultural development in East Africa, Ernst changed his mind and planned to develop Tanzania's coal resources in advance.

The development of agriculture is inseparable from the processing of agricultural products, and the processing of agricultural products in East Africa certainly cannot be done by manpower.

If the natives are used, it will deviate from Ernst's bottom line. If they are allowed to take root again, it will be easy to ask God to give up.

Moreover, the processing of agricultural products is already the most basic industry. Ernst doesn't even want to teach the natives about planting, let alone industry.

After all, the root cause of the explosive population growth in Africa in previous lives was that the European colonists taught Africans how to grow agriculture.

For example, in the primitive society of Tanzania, which relied on hunting for a living, the population was always maintained at a low level, but after the colonization of Germany and the United Kingdom, it was because of the development of plantations.

The number of indigenous people who learned to farm the land doubled from a few million to 200 million in 6000 years.

Before that, Zanzibar was actually colonizing East Africa, but Zanzibar, which was engaged in the slave trade, was completely negative for the population growth of East African indigenous people.

The Sultanate of Zanzibar does not need the natives to farm for themselves, it is completely greedy for their bodies, so instigating tribal wars to capture slaves is the way for the Sultanate of Zanzibar to make money.

In this environment, there are naturally fewer and fewer blacks in East Africa. In fact, throughout East Africa, including Somalia and Ethiopia, the sphere of influence of the Arabs and the indigenous population are showing a decreasing trend.

Therefore, Ernst wanted to put an end to the situation of "teaching a man to fish", such as building roads, digging canals, and mining, which consume a lot of energy, and the heavy physical strength without any technical level can still be handed over to these indigenous people.

Processing agricultural products in the colonies is for higher profits and at the same time facilitates food transportation.

Immigrants are currently a rare commodity in East Africa, and the total immigrant population in East Africa is only in the early 20s.

Therefore, it is still necessary to import some machines from Europe for production, and the power of the machines naturally requires coal, and it is definitely unrealistic to import coal from Europe and other places.

Therefore, it is essential to develop Tanzania's native coal resources.

Mbeya is the capital of Upper Lake Malawi.

This is an important mining area in Tanzania for later generations, where gold, coal and iron are all distributed.

The most attractive thing for colonists in this world is gold mines. Many colonies were established because of gold mine resources.

Mbeya was completely set by Ernst as the capital of the Upper Malawi Lake District, an important city in Tanzania in his previous life, and no important resources have been discovered before.

Now, as Ernst sent people to conduct on-the-spot investigations and analyze the local mineral resources, its mineral resources have also surfaced.

If other colonists discovered these resources, it must have been robbed here, and the East African colonial government has already completely controlled the East African region.

Moreover, the East African colonies are completely managed semi-militarized, without even a currency, and any free economy, so these resources can be well controlled.

Mbeya is located inland, so the information is well controlled, and it is not easy to be discovered by other colonists. Even if they are discovered, it is not easy to cross the East African colony to the inland to snatch it.

Unlike California, where everyone can get a share, all the wealth in the East African colonies is controlled by the Hexingen consortium.

Therefore, the resources of Mbeya were quietly developed by the Hexingen consortium. Among them, the coal and iron resources will be directly used for local construction, and the gold mines will be supplemented by the Hexingen Bank.

In this era, mining is a physical activity, so the aborigines captured by the East African colonies have employment again.

They were driven into the mines by the East African colonial government, and fought day and night in the mines with simple tools and rudimentary safety facilities.

At present, the East African colonies have a large number of idle indigenous laborers. Before their market is clear, most of them are struggling to build roads and water conservancy projects.

In order to connect the various cities, villages and towns in the colony, the colony plans to use hundreds of thousands of indigenous people to build about [-] kilometers of roads this year.

Of course, these roads are not hardened cement and asphalt roads, but simple gravel roads. Even so, the amount of work is relatively large in this era.

East Africa is really poor and blank. Except for some roads built by the Sultanate of Zanzibar in the coastal area, the vast inland areas did not have a decent road before the establishment of the East African colony, or there were no roads at all.

Of course, as a tropical grassland in East Africa, roads may not be useful to the indigenous people.

The East African colonies must rely on roads to manage the colonies. Just the transportation of food requires certain requirements for roads. At present, East Africa is vigorously developing horse-drawn carts and ox carts and other animal-powered vehicles.

Therefore, a simple road is necessary, otherwise, according to the climate in East Africa, especially the rainy season, the wheels will definitely get stuck in the mud and it will be difficult to move forward.

The transportation of mineral resources in the East African colonies must also rely on these gravel roads.

The current East African colonies are unable to develop railways. If they want to transport coal and iron ore resources to all parts of the colonies, they must rely on animal power to pull the carts.

The development of the railway is not a lack of funds. Simply developing the resources along the railway can pay back the cost. The main reason is the lack of manpower.

The colonies had just driven out most of the natives in the East African colonies, leaving only hundreds of thousands of native captives in their hands.

It's not that the East African colonies don't want to recruit more labor, but the main reason is that the food production in the East African colonies can't supply so many people.

Even for the aborigines, their food level can only maintain the most basic survival, but the consumption of hundreds of thousands is not a small amount.

The food in the East African colonies, in addition to the part needed by the immigrants, was also used to provide the immigrants with initial rations and seeds, and the rest was originally used for export.

But now it is necessary to feed these aborigines and build the roads of the colony, so the export is reduced, and it is basically digested by the colony itself.

However, human energy is limited. The current colonial road construction does not have the energy to engage in other projects. Even if it is a water conservancy project at the same time as the road construction, in fact, it is mainly completed by the immigrants themselves.

Ernst will not consider other large-scale projects until the primary road system in the colony is completed. As for the indigenous people, they are inexhaustible. If the eight northwestern countries are placed there, their contributions will be indispensable for the future development of East Africa.

(End of this chapter)