African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 985 The First Road Bridge

If economic and social factors are not taken into account, the corresponding steel production of East Africa and Tsarist Russia should not be so far behind that of the United States and Germany. East Africa is understandable, after all, it has a short development history. Now its high-speed rail production has reached the fourth place in the world, which is already a very excellent achievement.

Tsarist Russia was not short of resources, especially in the early stages of industrialization, which were more abundant than those in East Africa. East Africa surpassed Tsarist Russia. The difference between the two was that East Africa was able to integrate its mineral, energy and land resources through national power.

Of course, there are also conditions created by the opportunities of the times. Since the 19s, East Africa has become one of the world's largest infrastructure countries, and in the s it surpassed the United States to become the world's largest infrastructure country. It has ushered in a period of explosive growth in the fields of roads, water conservancy networks, urban construction, railways, etc. What supports East Africa's large-scale infrastructure is the formation of East Africa's population size and the maturity of its population structure.

Infrastructure construction has led to continued strong demand for steel, cement, timber, etc., which is one of the important internal reasons for the sudden rise of the East African steel industry.

Without a mature population structure and a breakthrough in scale, East Africa will never be able to catch up with those old powers. Of course, black labor is also one of the important factors that cannot be ignored. The contribution of blacks to East Africa's infrastructure even exceeds that of the civilian laborers who served under Emperor Yang of Sui when he built the Grand Canal.

Under the First Five-Year Plan, the steel production target set by East Africa was actually not too radical. At least as Ernst emphasized, the idea of ​​man conquering nature would not work in East Africa, and the steel expansion plan currently formulated by East Africa was completely within its capabilities.

After finishing the discussion on the steel industry, the East African government began to discuss the transportation industry. If it were in the 19th century, the focus of the East African government's discussion in the transportation field would definitely be the railway level.

However, as the national railway network in East Africa was basically formed in the 19s and the automobile industry developed, the attention paid to railways by East African governments has declined to a certain extent.

However, the decline in attention does not affect the fact that railways are still the leader in East Africa's current transportation construction.

Minister of Railways Andre said: "During the planned economy experiment at the end of the 19th century, the goals set by our Ministry of Railways and the Planning Commission were conflicting. However, the final data did not reach the optimistic data of our internal departments. So based on previous experience, under the guidance of the Planning Commission, we set the threshold of kilometers for East Africa's railway construction task during the First Five-Year Plan."

"That is to say, during the First Five-Year Plan, we will complete the construction of at least 1905 kilometers of new railways, further improve the national railway network, and strive to build the world's third largest railway network after Europe and North America by , with a total railway mileage approaching or exceeding kilometers."

"In addition to the construction of a small number of trunk railways, the focus will be on the construction of inter-city railway transportation, especially the construction of railways within the Dar es Salaam urban agglomeration and various industrial zones."

"At the same time, the construction of western railways was our key work direction between 1901 and 1905. Although the main railway lines in the west were relatively complete, the density of the railway network was far behind that of the central and eastern regions."

"Under the guidance of the Planning Commission, our Ministry of Railways and Ministry of Transport intend to build a three-dimensional land bridge of railway, road and water transport network between the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This is our medium-term planning scenario to achieve unimpeded flow of people, logistics and industries between the east and west coasts of East Africa."

Generally speaking, a continental bridge is a land passage connecting two oceans, usually with railways as the main trunk. In fact, after the construction of the Central Railway was completed, it has become a continental bridge connecting the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.

This is the earliest land bridge in the world, that is, the North American Land Bridge built by the United States. Before the opening of the Panama Canal, the North American Land Bridge played a significant role in promoting the US economy. In fact, due to the relatively long and narrow distribution of East Africa from north to south, there are currently two land bridges built in East Africa, namely the Central Railway and the Walvis Bay-Inhambane Railway. The Central Railway East-West Line is also known as the First Land Bridge in East Africa, while the Walvis Bay-Inhambane Railway is known as the Second Land Bridge in East Africa, which is an important railway trunk line connecting the two oceans in East Africa.

In fact, the northern railway also has the potential to form a land bridge in the future, but it needs to be connected with the Belgian or French and German colonies in the west. According to information obtained by East Africa, Belgium, France and Germany currently have no intention of building even an inch of railway in the colonies bordering their own countries and East Africa.

The main reason is that the climate of the three countries' colonies close to East Africa is too complicated. It is the core area of ​​Africa's tropical rainforest climate, with dense wetlands and rainforests and a sparse population.

The well-developed local river network is also an important reason why the three countries do not plan to build railways near their colonies in East Africa. After all, they can basically penetrate deep into the heart of each country's colonies by relying on ships, so there is no need to build railways.

Furthermore, apart from Belgium which is more interested in Congo, France does not pay much attention to Gabon, or Germany does not pay much attention to Cameroon. The two colonies are already poorly developed, have small populations and low output. If they build railways, the cost may not be recovered in the next few decades.

After all, if railways are built in colonies, raw materials such as steel can only be purchased from the mainland or East Africa, and the cost of railway construction will double. If railways are really built in colonies, we will be cheated.

If it were a colony like India, building some railways would help recover costs and make profits quickly. However, the total population of the colonies of Belgium, Germany and France in the Congo rainforest basin was probably less than two million, of which Belgium introduced only a few hundred thousand Chinese immigrants. The population of the German and French colonies could not be too large either.

Of course, they may also have considered maintaining the security of their own colonies. After all, with such a giant as East Africa next to them, if the railway was really completed, wouldn't it be convenient for East Africa to directly invade and occupy the colonies of the three countries?

Not to mention them, even the local tyrants in East Africa will try their best to bypass the Congo rainforest when building domestic railways. At present, in addition to the Hesse, Cabinda and Kinshasa railways, the only rainforest railway project confirmed to be built is the Bangui Railway.

The Bangui Railway is one of the key projects for the development of the new western part of East Africa and is an extension of the Atlantic Coast Railway.

Minister Liu Yideville of the Ministry of Transport followed Andre's words and said: "For the construction of the first land bridge in East Africa, our Ministry of Transport focuses on the construction of roads and waterways. At present, the East African Grand Canal project is being carried out in an orderly manner. It is expected that the entire line should be completed before 1905, so it can also be one of the key projects of the First Five-Year Plan. At the same time, we plan to build several small-scale canals in the west during the First Five-Year Plan with the water conservancy department."

"Highway construction is currently a new focus in my country's transportation construction. With the increase in motor vehicles across the country, the requirements for roads are getting higher and higher. However, there are still many gravel roads or even mud roads in East Africa."

"So in the construction of the first major road and bridge, we plan to complete the renovation of 30% of the first-class highways in the central and eastern regions during the First Five-Year Plan, while focusing on the construction of western highways, and all of them will be built according to hardened highway standards, of which asphalt pavement will account for at least 20%."

If the three-dimensional transportation network of the First Continental Bridge is completed, the connection between the eastern and western parts of East Africa will be more compact before the end of 1905, which will also drive the development of Rhine City, the capital of East African countries, and the entire central region.

(End of this chapter)