Chapter 81 Coal Mine
Tanzania still has some coal resources, but not much, and they are mainly distributed in the southern plateau area.
The reserves are about tens of billions of tons, mainly high-quality low-sulfur coal. This reserve is not outstanding in the whole of Africa, and cannot be compared with other coal-producing regions in the world.
Originally, Ernst had no intention of developing such a pitiful number of coal mines in Tanzania in advance, but for the subsequent agricultural development in East Africa, Ernst changed his mind and planned to develop Tanzania's coal resources in advance.
To develop agriculture, it is necessary to process agricultural products, but agricultural product processing in East Africa certainly cannot be completed by manpower.
If the indigenous people were used, it would go against Ernst's bottom line. If they were allowed to take root again, it would be easier to invite them in than to send them away.
Moreover, agricultural product processing is already the most basic industry. Ernst didn't even want to teach the natives about planting, let alone industry.
After all, the fundamental reason for the explosive growth of Africa’s population in the past was that European colonists taught Africans agricultural cultivation.
For example, in Tanzania's primitive society where people lived by hunting, the population always remained at a low level, but after the colonization by Germany and Britain, it developed due to the development of plantations.
The number of indigenous people who learned to farm doubled from a few million to 60 million in two hundred years.
Before that, Zanzibar was actually colonizing the eastern part of East Africa, but Zanzibar's engagement in the slave trade had a completely negative impact on the population growth of the indigenous people of East Africa.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar did not need the natives to farm for it; it simply coveted their bodies, so instigating tribal wars and capturing slaves was the way the Sultanate of Zanzibar made money.
Under such circumstances, the number of black people in East Africa is naturally decreasing. In fact, in the entire East Africa, including Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Arab sphere of influence, the indigenous population is showing a downward trend.
Therefore, Ernst wanted to prevent the situation of "teaching a man to fish". Heavy physical work such as road construction, canal digging, and mining, which are extremely labor-intensive and require no technical level, could be handed over to these natives.
Processing agricultural products in the colonies was done for higher profits and to facilitate food transportation.
Immigrants are currently a scarce commodity in East Africa, with the entire East African immigrant population totaling just over 200,000.
Therefore, we still have to import some machines from Europe for production, and the machines naturally require coal as power, and it is definitely unrealistic to import coal from Europe and other places.
Therefore, it is essential to develop Tanzania's local coal resources.
Mbeya, the capital of Upper Lake Malawi Region.
This was an important mining area in Tanzania in later generations, with gold, coal and iron distributed here.
The most attractive thing for colonists in this world right now is gold mines. Many colonies were established because of gold resources.
Mbeya was set up by Ernst himself as the capital of the Upper Lake Malawi region in complete accordance with the important cities in Tanzania in the previous life. No important resources had been discovered before that.
Now, as Ernst sent people to conduct on-site inspections and analyze the local mineral resources, its mineral resources have also surfaced.
If other colonists had discovered these resources, they would have been snatched away by everyone, and the East African colonial government would have already completely taken control of the East African region.
Moreover, the East African colonies were completely semi-militarized, without even currency or any free economy, so they were able to control these resources very well.
Since Mbeya is located inland, information is well controlled and it is not easily discovered by other colonists. Even if it is discovered, it is difficult for them to cross the East African colonies and go inland to seize it.
Unlike California in the United States where everyone can get a piece of the pie, all the wealth in the East African colonies is controlled by the Hexingan Consortium.
Therefore, the resources of Mbeya were quietly developed by the Hexingen Consortium, among which the coal and iron resources would be directly used for local construction, while the gold mines would be supplemented to the Hexingen Bank.
Mining was a physical job in this era, so the indigenous people captured by the East African colonies had a place to work again.
They were driven into the mines by the East African colonial government, working day and night in the mines with simple tools and crude safety facilities.
Currently, there is a large amount of idle indigenous labor in the East African colonies. Before their market opportunities become clear, most of them are working on the construction of roads and water conservancy projects.
In order to connect the various cities, towns and villages in the colony, the colony plans to build about 10,000 kilometers of roads this year using hundreds of thousands of indigenous people.
These roads are certainly not hardened cement and asphalt roads, but simple gravel roads. Even so, the amount of work was considered relatively large in that era.
East Africa was really poor. Except for some roads built by the Sultanate of Zanzibar in the coastal areas, there was not a single decent road, or no roads at all, in the vast inland areas before the establishment of the East African colonies.
Of course, as East Africa is a tropical savannah region, roads may be of no use to the natives.
The East African colonies certainly had to rely on roads to manage the colonies. The transportation of food alone would require certain requirements for roads. Currently, East Africa is vigorously developing animal-powered transportation tools such as horse-drawn carriages and ox-drawn carts.
Therefore, simple roads are necessary. Otherwise, according to the climate in East Africa, especially in the rainy season, the wheels will definitely sink into the mud and it will be difficult to move forward.
The transportation of mineral resources in the East African colonies also inevitably relied on these gravel roads.
The East African colonies are currently unable to develop railways, and if they want to transport coal and iron ore resources to various parts of the colonies, they must rely on animal power to pull carts.
The problem with railway development is not a lack of funds. The investment can be recovered just by developing the resources along the railway. The main problem is a lack of manpower.
The colony had just driven out most of the natives from the East African colonies and had only a few hundred thousand native captives.
It’s not that the East African colonies don’t want to recruit more laborers, but the main reason is that the current food production in the East African colonies cannot supply so many people.
Even for the indigenous people, their food level can only maintain the most basic survival, but the amount consumed by hundreds of thousands is not a small number.
The food in the East African colonies, in addition to the needs of the immigrants, was also used to provide them with initial food rations and seeds, and the rest was originally intended for export.
But now we have to feed these natives and build roads in the colonies, so exports have decreased and are basically consumed by the colonies themselves.
However, human energy is limited. As long as the current colonial roads are being built, there will be no energy left to carry out other projects. Even water conservancy projects that are built at the same time as the roads are actually mainly completed by the immigrants themselves.
Ernst will consider other large-scale projects only after the primary road system of the colony is completed. As for the natives, they are inexhaustible. The eight northwestern countries will be there, and their contributions will be indispensable for the future development of East Africa.
(End of this chapter)
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