Chapter 280 Bagamoyo Shipyard and the Culture War
Bagamoyo.
To the south of the East African Naval Base, on the south bank of the Little Rhine, is becoming a new construction site, with construction planning underway at the Bagamoyo Shipyard.
The plant has been completed, and an East African shipyard of the same size will be built according to the Venice shipyard model and combined with the geographical conditions of the Bagamoyo Port.
The Bagamoyo Shipyard is the largest project currently introduced in East Africa, which aims to enhance East Africa's independent ship manufacturing capabilities.
Belst, a technician at the Venice Shipyard, is introducing the project to Constantine.
"Why should the Venice Shipyard be relocated to Bagamoyo? The main reason is to avoid occupying the operating space of the Port of Dar es Salaam. Although the conditions and infrastructure of Dar es Salaam are better than those of Bagamoyo, Dar es Salaam, as an open port, occupies an important position in the East African economy. The import and export capacity of East Africa is mainly concentrated in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa. From the current perspective, it is not impossible to develop the shipbuilding industry in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, but considering the future development of various ports in East Africa, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince specifically instructed that the shipyard be located in a non-free port area. Among the non-free ports, only Bagamoyo and Mogadishu have the best conditions, but Mogadishu is geographically located in the north, and the climate in Somalia makes the local area lack relevant raw materials."
The current shipbuilding industry is still relatively dependent on wood, and Mogadishu, as an oasis city, is at a disadvantage in terms of raw materials.
"Bagamoyo has excellent conditions and good water depth. There is Zanzibar Island opposite to it, which offsets most of the sea breeze. At the same time, like Dar es Salaam, it is located in the bay area leeward of the mainland. All these conditions give Bagamoyo Port the potential to be as good as Venice," said Belster.
Berst is an Austrian and a technician at the Trieste Shipyard. He previously studied at the Venice Shipyard. After the Venice Shipyard opened the Trieste branch, he was appointed as the factory director by the Hechingen Consortium.
The shipbuilding industry in East Africa can be roughly divided into two systems. One is the inland shipbuilding industry that relies on lakes and rivers. Typical examples are the Mwanza Shipyard on the coast of the Great Lakes, the Kigoma Shipyard on Lake Solon and the Karonga Shipyard on the shore of Lake Malawi.
Another is the coastal shipbuilding industry that has just started. After listening to the advice of the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy Ferdinand, East Africa established two small ship repair yards in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa respectively. In addition to providing maintenance for ships along the way, their main business also includes the production of small wooden fishing boats.
These two small ship repair yards were actually rebuilt on the basis of the original shipyard of the Sultanate of Zanzibar. The technical system originated from Arabia, but Zanzibar’s shipbuilding center is actually on Zanzibar Island, mainly because Zanzibar’s control over the coast was too short.
Another city in East Africa that has shipbuilding capabilities is Mogadishu. As a historic port on the Indian Ocean coast, Mogadishu has certain shipbuilding capabilities, but it is completely backward in technology.
Taking advantage of the outbreak of the war between the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy, Ernst planned to replicate the Hechingen Shipyard in Venice to East Africa. The panic caused by the war helped the shipyard workers to actively choose to develop in East Africa.
"After the completion of the Bagamoyo Shipyard, does it mean that East Africa can independently develop the marine shipbuilding industry?" Constantine asked.
"It depends on how you understand it. For example, now the design, planning and construction of the shipyard are all done by our own people. Does this count as independence? But in terms of hardware, the shipbuilding industry in East Africa does not meet the conditions for independence at all." Belster said, "For example, the steam power system and important parts must be imported. Even if the Bagamoyo Shipyard is built, it can only complete the construction of the hull alone, so it is essentially still a large ship assembly plant."
Belster went on to say: "At present, the completion of the Bagamoyo Shipyard is still a milestone for the shipbuilding industry in East Africa. First, the problem of whether there is a ship or not will be solved, and then the missing industrial chain will be gradually filled. Bagamoyo is a large place. In the future, it will rely on the Bagamoyo Shipyard as the center to form a shipbuilding-related industry."
"So that's how it is!" Constantine exclaimed, "After the Bagamoyo Shipyard is completed, what level of ships will it produce if it is put on the world stage?"
"I'm sorry, Your Majesty. We are probably two generations behind in technology. In fact, the Venice shipyard itself lagged behind its peers in technology due to the decline of Venice. Now, shipbuilding has been greatly improved again in terms of technological advancement due to the emergence of ironclad ships. Therefore, the shipbuilding technology introduced by Bagamoyo will definitely lag behind that of Europe."
The Bagamoyo Shipyard claims to be a copy of the Venice Shipyard, but in fact it is just taking the machines from the Venice Shipyard and assembling them in Bagamoyo to resume production. The original Venice Shipyard will introduce new equipment and technologies to carry out industrial upgrading.
With the opening of the Suez Canal, the resurgence of the Mediterranean economy has become an inevitable trend, and Venice, once the most dazzling port city on the Mediterranean coast, will also have a second spring. Therefore, it has become important to improve the shipbuilding level of the Hechingen Venice Shipyard.
This is also one of the reasons why Ernst built the Bagamoyo Shipyard. He wanted to bring the backward technology and equipment of the Venice Shipyard to East Africa, which would be advanced technology for East Africa, and the Venice Shipyard could also complete industrial upgrading, which would be beneficial to both.
At the same time, by relocating most of the Italian workers in the Venetian shipyards to East Africa, Ernst could recruit more Germans from Austria to work in Venice, which in turn helped Austria's control over Venice.
Coupled with Ernst's previous evil plot, the population of the countryside around Venice was emptied out, and then the people outside the urban area of Venice became Austrians, separating the urban area of Venice from the rural areas where the population was mainly Italians.
The probability of the Italian rural areas separated from the city being influenced by Venice is greatly reduced, because general culture will consciously concentrate in the city and then radiate out.
Since Austria cannot be influenced by the Italian culture of Venice, it can slowly assimilate the farmers in the rural areas of the Veneto region through education and other means. The prerequisite is to break the local rural dignitaries' right to interpret the scriptures, and then educate the old Italian farmers. Although not 100%, most Italians will slowly become Austrians.
It is an inevitable trend for rural areas to supplement urban population. Slowly, Italians in Venice will be replaced by surrounding Austrian country people due to fertility problems. In this way, the voice of Germans from top to bottom will be gradually strengthened. As the middle class, the mainstay of Italian culture, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will find ways to make them leave Venice. After all, the Kingdom of Italy cannot but accept these true Italian patriots. As for those who are stubborn and don't want to leave, East Africa can take over. Ernst doesn't care about this. If they behave well in East Africa, they can still be saved. If not, the Alaskan snow package can be arranged.
Of course, this is just a hypothesis. Whether it can be completed depends on comprehensive factors. For example, if the Kingdom of Italy retakes Venice in the future, this process will be interrupted, but the possibility is very low.
Another purpose of doing this was to block the spread of Italian culture within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The Italian culture is very strong along the Adriatic coast, and these areas happen to be along the Austrian coast. If the connection center of Venice is interrupted, the Italian culture on the east coast of the Adriatic will slowly decline. Next, the cultural imprint of the Slavs (mainly Croatians and Slovenes) will be eliminated. At least the ethnic conflicts in the Austrian region can be greatly alleviated.
This is essentially a cultural war. As the one who proposed the idea, Ernst felt that if it was done, future Austrians would have to thank him. Of course, based on his past life experience, the so-called saintly bitches in postmodern society would definitely denounce his "evil deeds" if they knew about them, just like some Saxons enjoyed the blessings brought by their ancestors through exploitation and colonization, and then overturned Victoria's statues.
If they really want to repent for the evil deeds of colonialism, in Ernst's opinion, these people should first cut off their own food, clothing, housing and transportation, and live the life of poor people in Africa. After all, everything they enjoy is the legacy of the British colonial system. Do you really think that working less than eight hours a day and still living comfortably is the result of technological progress! That is just the result of domestic capital trying every means to plunder wealth from other countries. The colonial era is far from over, but it has been replaced by a more covert economic colonization.
(End of this chapter)
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