Chapter 681 Kinshasa
"The only pity about the Congo River Basin is that shipping ends in Kinshasa, which is currently the only city on the Congo River that has the potential to be compared with Kisangani. However, all this is based on one premise, that is, the issue of access to the sea. Without access to the sea, Kinshasa is just a dead port that can only be used by East Africa itself, and its cargo volume is not even as important as that of the Ubangi River to East Africa."
Original history: It was not until 1881 that the colonial explorer Stanley arrived in Kinshasa, when there were only scattered villages and thousands of black people.
The East Africans captured Kinshasa three years earlier, and the current population of Kinshasa is only more than 3,000 people because the East Africans are not counted as part of the local black population.
"The Congo River Basin, apart from Hesse Province, and several provinces in the plateau area, can be said to have extremely low economic value. The most abundant resource is logs, but logs cannot be exported, which means they are basically worthless. Therefore, the Congo River Basin has basically no output."
"At the same time, even if we open up the Atlantic Ocean access channel and seize the seaport from the Portuguese, Kinshasa will still be blocked by the waterfalls downstream. So we want to open up the Congo River basin to the Atlantic Ocean. Basically, there are two options: build a railway to achieve water-rail transport, or build a canal."
If the canal project relies on the method of flying bricks with great force, there is a great possibility of realization. While the black people in East Africa are still useful, building a 100-kilometer canal can indeed bypass the downstream waterfalls.
The main thing that needs to be overcome is the terrain difficulties to slow down the river drop. Moreover, East Africa's explosives production capacity is considerable now, so there is no need to rely solely on manpower to solve all problems.
However, the number of workers required for this plan is also sky-high. According to the current development trend of the western part of East Africa, it is simply unaffordable. The most important thing is that the downstream is still controlled by Portugal. If the Portuguese problem is not solved, everything will be in vain.
"A certain proportion of Kinshasa's residents are soldiers, and secondly they are engaged in export trade to downstream areas, including daily necessities and medicines. In other aspects, they are basically in a competitive relationship. For example, there are huge forestry resources. Even the grasslands in eastern East Africa have no shortage of such things, not to mention other forces in the same region. They can also export to their own countries at the same time, and they have much more advantages in mineral resources than here."
Ultimately, Kinshasa's trade still relies on East African industry, which does not exist in many colonies, so many of their items need to be imported from Europe.
East Africa can transport these materials to Kinshasa through shipping, and then the Belgians will operate them in downstream areas. As for Portugal, it has long cut off trade with East Africa, especially those Angolan farmers with purchasing power.
Kinshasa is a very young city, so it has little production capacity and the supply mainly comes from Kissan.
Even if Kissan is connected to Kinshasa by water transportation, the distance is more than 1,500 kilometers. However, the one-way speed from Kissan to Kinshasa is very fast.
The central part of the Congo River is in a basin with flat terrain, but hundreds of tributaries all flow into the main channel with a large amount of water, so the flow rate is also faster than that of ordinary rivers. It only takes a few days to get from Kissan to Kinshasa.
But if you go upstream, you have to go the other way, but it will not be as navigable as the river section downstream of Kinshasa because of the sudden drop in terrain.
However, this also puts forward requirements on the ship's traffic capacity. There are no trackers pulling boats in the Congo rainforest, so we can only work more on ship power, and steam engine and internal combustion engine drive have become the first choice. Fortunately, East Africa has accumulated relevant experience, especially in the three major lakes region, where river shipping has developed rapidly and technical difficulties have been solved, so the shipbuilding industry in Kissan is relatively developed.
However, even so, medium-sized ships are the main vessels on the Congo River. Those that are too small are difficult to control and require reserved fuel space, while those that are too large are difficult to maintain. There are only dozens of bases built along the entire Congo River in East Africa.
"Medicine is a major export of Kinshasa. We in East Africa have a greater say in this area than other regions. Quinine, for example, is an indispensable export product and is very popular in the Belgian Congo and Angola. In addition, there is also a relatively large demand for other medicines."
This is mainly because East Africa is well developed and has a large population, which results in East Africa having sufficient experience and voice in this field.
After all, if the medicine is not effective enough, East Africa will not be able to gain a foothold here, and it has the largest immigrant population in Africa. The population of East Africa is a secret to all parties, but one thing that is certain is that East Africa has the largest immigrant population.
As for black people, as indigenous people they have strong immunity. Of course, it is not ruled out that they live in scattered areas, so the disease does not have time to spread.
Nowadays, indigenous Africans still mainly rely on primitive social systems, with villages and tribes being the mainstream, so the population is sparse and relatively scattered, which to a certain extent hinders the spread of diseases.
Of course, diseases like malaria that rely on mosquito bites are hard to prevent. Africa is located in the tropics and is the most habitable continent for mosquitoes, just like South America and India. However, this also makes mosquito repellent products in East Africa a hot-selling product.
However, in this era, few people understood the relationship between mosquitoes and malaria, so they simply used it as a mosquito repellent product instead of enforcing it as a necessity of life like in East Africa.
So even if some colonists bought mosquito repellent products to improve their quality of life, they rarely shared them with slaves and workers.
In this case, East Africa's secret to ensuring population growth and curbing the spread of diseases has not been spread. After all, mosquitoes are carriers of many tropical diseases, which greatly improves the average life expectancy and health level in East Africa.
Moreover, other regions are in dire straits, and this can further expand the export sales of East African medicines, which is like killing three birds with one stone.
So don’t be fooled by the small population of Kinshasa. The profits earned by Kinshasa from the resale of medicines and daily necessities are no less than those of some cities in the east. Of course, the upstream city of Kissan is also a beneficiary.
"Among the cities in the entire western region where the Belgian Congo meets, only Bangui and Kinshasa are barely worth looking at, and their military significance is greater than their economic significance. However, according to the above information, Kinshasa will continue to expand in the next few years, and it will be directly led by the central government."
The Congo Basin area has not been divided into provinces so far, but exists as a region like Southwest Africa.
The only "big" city here is Kinshasa, so it is normal for it to be directly managed by the central government, just like the three cities in Southwest Africa are jointly managed by the Ministry of Defense and the government.
Kinshasa is of great significance to the East African military. It will serve as East Africa's forward urban position against Portugal in the future.
Because Kinshasa is built on the border between the two countries, it is the confluence of the Kwango River and the Congo River and a hub for land and water transportation. The only thing it lacks now is population. Therefore, in order to conquer Angola, the development of Kinshasa has also been put on the East African agenda. It is also a key development city near the South Atlantic in the future.
In fact, there is Brazzaville on the other side of Kinshasa, but Brazzaville is located in a narrow strip of land close to the left bank of the Congo River, and to the north is the Belgian Congo, so it is not a key development target in East Africa. Kinshasa, which is separated by a river, can use the river to play a certain military defense and transportation function.
Moreover, in the future, East Africa intends to directly build a bridge to open up transportation between Kinshasa and Brazzaville. After all, there is no need to develop two cities on both sides of the river.
(End of this chapter)
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