Chapter 668 It Takes Time
Ernst: "Militarily, we should try not to interfere with Matabele Province. The railway department should make preparations in advance, especially for the two Portuguese colonies. If a war breaks out, Mozambique and Angola will be completely wiped off the map, and the land route between the two oceans in East Africa will be completely opened up."
After all, for East Africa, the two Portuguese colonies are more important than the current Cape Town. By taking over these two colonies, more than half of East Africa’s national defense and security issues will be solved, and at the same time, the economy, transportation, industry, etc. will also be better laid out nationwide.
"No matter when the enemy starts the war, we have to set a time node. When this time node arrives, we must completely solve the problem of Portugal. At that time, we will take the initiative to attack just like we did when we attacked the Transvaal Republic." Ernst continued.
"So when is this time node chosen?" Felix asked.
Ernst thought for a moment and said, "At present, we in East Africa are vigorously developing the economy, so the war cannot have too much impact on the production work across the country, especially at this time, when the foundation of East Africa's industry and infrastructure is being laid."
Now the economic development of East Africa has transitioned from chaos and disorder to rationality and order. Because East Africa is a new country and its system is different from that of most countries in the world, there is no target to refer to.
In addition, because East Africa started its own talent training relatively late, the bureaucratic groups in East Africa have less experience in governing the country than those in other parts of the world, and it can even be said that they have no governance experience.
Therefore, the early industrialization process in East Africa was very chaotic, and all of these needed to be adjusted. This actually caused great damage to the economic development of East Africa throughout the 1970s. However, this was also a stage of social development that East Africa had to go through.
It took East African governments more than a decade to catch up with the world average in economic development. It is precisely because of this that East Africa has not acted rashly or radically.
For example, in the 1970s, if East Africa had a good foundation, Ernst could directly launch a large number of projects to achieve a thorough industrialization transformation of East Africa.
Because during the economic crisis of 1873, technology, industry, machinery, and other elements for industrial development were all available from Europe.
But the reality is that East Africa was simply unable to do this at the time due to the lack of talent and a sound system.
This is just like the industrialization of the Far Eastern Empire in the previous life. Soviet experts taught hand in hand. Given the illiteracy rate in the Far Eastern Empire at that time, Ernst could imagine how tired the Soviet people were. Even highly educated intellectuals needed to learn Russian separately. How many misunderstandings would be caused by translation problems?
The situation in East Africa is slightly better, that is, the compulsory education in Germany is relatively popular, so the German immigrants to East Africa basically have primary school cultural literacy. In addition, East Africa promotes German education and literacy. At present, even the older Far Eastern immigrants or Slavic immigrants can write a few German words. As for speaking and listening, there is naturally no problem at all. After all, it is basically impossible to get anywhere in East Africa without knowing German. This is a survival skill that must be mastered.
Moreover, being able to speak German has nothing to do with cultural level. It is closely related to the language environment. If you stay in East Africa for a long time, you will naturally tend to speak German and eventually be assimilated.
The achievements of Germany's compulsory education spilled over to East Africa, allowing basic communication between East Africa and Germany to flow smoothly. This was also an important reason why East Africa was able to connect with some of Germany's industries in the 1970s.
Of course, this also has a lot to do with the fact that East Africa at that time accepted many mature industrial workers from Germany, Austria-Hungary and the United States. This is especially reflected in the development of the steel and railway industries.
However, East Africa's ceiling was there at that time. Now East Africa is making up for these shortcomings, especially the development of education. Although the level of compulsory education in East Africa is low, the quantity is large. There are many students studying abroad every year, and several groups have returned to China in recent years. This provides a foundation for the development of the automobile and power industries in East Africa.
In addition to these, the most important thing is the infrastructure construction work in East Africa. Railways, roads, bridges, and national water conservancy projects are all progressing steadily.
In other words, East Africa is now in an important period of economic transition, transforming from an agricultural country to an industrial country and laying a solid foundation for industrial development.
Ernst said: "The two major projects in East Africa right now are the Hesse Provincial Railway and the National Water Conservancy Project. The progress of the National Water Conservancy Project is OK, but the project is large and the construction period is slow. It will take another four to five years. The Hesse Railway project is also large in volume, but the most important thing is that the project is difficult."
The Hesse Railway is a tropical railway, but many of the areas it passes through are tropical rainforests. East Africa has already seen the difficulty of building railways in tropical rainforests. The main problem is natural disasters caused by rain. Even more than ten tons of steel can be directly washed away by floods.
Therefore, the first priority of the Hessian Railway construction is "water control". For this purpose, the number of railway bridges, culverts and drainage channels to be built by the Hessian Railway is three times more than all the previous railways in East Africa combined. In addition, due to the Mitumba Mountains, tunnels have to be built on some sections of the road. Therefore, the difficulty of the construction of the Hessian Railway is unprecedented in the history of East Africa.
Of course, compared with the difficulty of the Hessian Railway, the Siberian Railway is more difficult, because there is only one Siberian Railway, while there are many railways built in tropical rainforest areas. The Hessian Railway in East Africa is the longest, but it is only less than one-fifth of the Siberian Railway.
"The completion time of these two projects should be similar. After they are completed, we will be able to free up most of our manpower, military and financial resources, so it is best to start the war at that time. Now is 1884, and the national water conservancy project should be completed before 1890. The completion time of the Hessian Railway should be earlier, so we set the time as 1890."
Ernst went on to say: "There is still at least five years to go, and Mozambique and Angola cannot remain unchanged. As far as I know, the transformation of Maputo Port should have been completed, and the Portuguese should have other defense projects in the future. Considering their shortage of manpower, they should focus on deploying defenses centered on the city."
"So you must make sure to find out the Portuguese military deployment and defense system in their two colonies within these few years."
"And we also need time to complete military adjustments, which will take at least two to three years. The Portuguese will not act alone. If they want to take the initiative, they must at least be consistent with the British. So when judging the timing of the Portuguese military deployment, we should mainly be wary of military changes by the British in South Africa."
"The British only have more than 20,000 troops in South Africa now, and the rest are mainly Transvaal people. The Transvaal Restoration Army has absorbed many Orange troops, and these troops must also be integrated, so the British also need time to prepare."
"We are mainly concerned about whether the UK will mobilize troops from outside the region to enter Cape Town. If a large number of troops enter Cape Town, it means that the British can no longer hold back."
(End of this chapter)
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