Chapter 818 Maputo Railway
New Hamburg Port City.
October 29, 1889.
As the war subsided, East Africa's construction in the south was also put on the agenda. The first thing was to build a railway from the port city of New Hamburgo to Maputo, connecting Maputo with other cities in East Africa by rail.
This is the simplest way to connect Maputo with East Africa. It only requires building a railway of less than 400 kilometers to connect Maputo, the former capital of the Mozambique colony, to the East African railway network.
Of course, Maputo’s location will definitely be used to build an east-west railway in the future, and it will serve as the seaport for provinces such as Matabele Province in the central region.
However, Matabele Province is not very interested in Maputo. They prefer the Beira region in central Mozambique.
Beira was one of the important seaports in Mozambique in the past. It is located due west of Matabele Province and is the fastest route to the sea in Matabele Province.
Maputo is too far to the south for Matabele Province, and it is not the best option for Hechingen Province either, as the Drakensberg Mountains stand between the two.
On the contrary, the terrain between the southern port city of New Hamburg and the Hechingen Province is relatively flat, making the construction of the central railway less difficult, while the connection between Maputo and the inland of East Africa can only wait until the future.
Under current conditions, the East African Navy is actually the one most interested in Maputo. They are preparing to concentrate the naval forces of the New Hamburg Port City in the Maputo area.
The reason why Maputo became a military fortress for the Portuguese in the western Indian Ocean is that its location is self-evident, and its port conditions are also unique in the entire eastern coast of East Africa.
Its economic role is secondary. Just like Mozambique in the past, Maputo is located too far south. If it is not a political center, it can only radiate to the southern plains of Mozambique.
This is a kind of historical inertia. Just like the capital of German East Africa was not moved from Bagamoyo to Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo may have been the most economically developed area in the Tanzanian mainland in the past.
In the fields between the Port of New Hamburgo and the Port of Maputo, the railroad tracks are neatly stacked on the grass. The distance from the Port of New Hamburgo to Maputo is not long and the terrain is flat, so the construction of the railway is not difficult.
All these rails are produced by the New Hamburg Steel Plant. As an important coal base in East Africa, New Hamburg is also one of the important steel production bases.
The iron ore in the Port of New Hamburg is mainly imported from other places, which is similar to most coastal cities in East Africa. With the end of the South African War, the sea routes have been reopened, and the cheap iron ore in regions such as India and the Middle East is obviously cheaper than that from inland areas.
On the more than 300-kilometer road from the Port of New Hamburgo to Maputo, black railway workers can be seen everywhere. They are wearing simple work clothes and swinging sledgehammers to hammer the rivets at the joints of the rails.
As a technical job, even black railroad workers needed training, so this group of black railroad workers were actually brought here from the East, rather than just recruiting a group of black slaves locally to start work.
There are more than 200,000 black railway workers in East Africa, most of whom are front-line workers. Excluding blacks, there are actually only 150,000 informal railway workers in East Africa.
Of course, a large number of temporary workers are used during railway construction, and East Africa cleverly assigns black workers to these floating jobs to maintain the stability of East African railway employees.
This situation is very common in East Africa, and has caused some skilled blacks to stay in East Africa longer, but the casualties are also relatively high.
The number of employees in the East African Railway system alone exceeded the number of workers in the entire Far Eastern Empire at the same time, and it is one of the symbols of East Africa's basic industrialization.
Of course, the large number of railway workers in East Africa is related to the fact that railways are the pillar industry in East Africa. Similar industries include the steel industry, electric power industry, machinery manufacturing industry, military industry, etc.
However, there is still a huge gap compared with European and American countries. In European and American countries, especially in Western Europe, the industrial population has surpassed the agricultural population, while East Africa is just in the starting stage.
East Africa now has more than one million workers, thanks in large part to policy changes in the 1970s and 1980s, as well as the siphoning of unemployed workers from Germany and the United States during the economic crisis, which rapidly narrowed the gap between East Africa and developed countries.
This is similar to the previous life in the 1930s when the world was in the midst of the Great Depression, when the Soviet Union achieved industrialization with only two five-year plans. Historical opportunities are very important.
However, the economic crisis of 1873 obviously cannot be compared with the global crisis, and cannot serve as a springboard for East Africa's industry. So far, the industrial population in East Africa accounts for about 5% of the national population, and this is a conservative estimate without taking into account the nearly 20 million blacks. Therefore, East Africa's industrialization still has a long way to go.
Of course, based on East Africa's current size, about 5% would be about two to three million people, which is more than the total population of some countries in the world. This is an effective proof of the so-called "big is strong" theory.
In the past, India was a "world power". Although its economic level was poor, it was the world's number one national power among the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. Moreover, when Britain and France declined, they might not have more advantages than India.
Of course, if we delve deeper into India's combat capability, many countries in East Asia are definitely much stronger than India. Ernst has never doubted this. Even if Vietnam and India go to war, without using nuclear weapons, the two sides might be evenly matched.
This is not nonsense, but considering the national character of Indians, as a typical tropical country, India's social efficiency is basically maintained at the same efficiency level as Africa and Southeast Asia. Among tropical countries, Singapore has the highest efficiency, followed by Vietnam.
It is difficult for people to stay energetic in a damp and humid environment. This is very obvious in some parts of East Africa, most notably the Nile Basin and the Congo rainforest.
For example, why Juba, the capital of the Nile Province, became a training ground in East Africa was not because the environment was so superior, but because it was too harsh.
An army that can maintain daily training in Juba will be able to demonstrate greater combat effectiveness in more difficult conditions in the future.
After all, the environment in the southern part of the Nile Basin is too humid and hot, and the entire area is like a "steamer". It would be very difficult to live in such an environment for 365 days.
Although East Africa is a tropical region, the climate in most areas is mainly dry. For example, in the capital city, the temperature occasionally rises in the summer, but the humidity is not high, so it can barely be considered a livable area.
This is also reflected in the Nile Province. The most economically powerful area in the Nile Province is the Gezira Plain in the north. The Gezira Plain and its surrounding areas have a typical tropical desert climate and are on the edge of the Sahara Desert. They are more suitable for agricultural production activities and industrial development.
The plateau areas of East Africa have even more obvious climatic advantages. They are naturally dry, with appropriate precipitation and evaporation, and flat and open terrain. The plateau areas with the east and central parts as the core are also the most densely populated and economically developed areas in East Africa.
In the future, the plateau areas of South Africa, Mozambique, and western Angola will also be the focus of East Africa's development, and climate factors are one of the important prerequisites.
(End of this chapter)
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