Chapter 895 The Second National Water Conservancy Project
As the world's current number one energy source and East Africa's number one energy source, coal's dominant position remains unshakable.
After the annexation of Angola and Mozambique, East Africa's coal reserves increased further, especially in Tete, Mozambique, which is an important coal producing area and is adjacent to the Central Industrial Zone and Lake Malawi Industrial Zone. These two industrial zones are the most densely populated areas of heavy industry in East Africa. Therefore, the reason why the Zambia River Railway, that is, the railway from Quelimane to New Frankfurt, was built through Tete is self-evident.
East Africa's coal reserves are relatively small compared to other large countries in the world. Countries like Tsarist Russia, the United States, the Far Eastern Empire, and the United Kingdom (Canada, Australia, and India) are all major coal-producing countries, while Brazil has relatively small reserves.
However, the quality of East African coal is very impressive in the world, and the impact of coal quality on the industrial field is also enormous.
For example, the secret "Thomas Steelmaking Process" that allowed Germany to surpass Britain in steel production capacity is to improve coal utilization through technical means.
In 1877, the British Thomas and Gilchrist invented the Thomas process for steelmaking. However, the iron ore in Germany and in Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War was mainly phosphotyrite. The dephosphorization problem could not be solved for a long time, and the cost was very high, which greatly affected steel production.
The Thomas Steelmaking Process solved the dephosphorization problem by adding lime to the Bessemer converter. The promotion of this technology enabled Germany's steel production capacity to achieve cross-domain growth. In 1879, Germany adopted this technology on a large scale and applied it to steel production, solving the dephosphorization problem. It also carried out transformation and greatly reduced production costs.
The utilization rate of coal in East Africa is relatively low. After all, the quality of East African coal is different from that of German coal. Therefore, local scientific researchers in East Africa need to develop relevant technologies based on the characteristics of East African coal.
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After summarizing the energy landscape in East Africa, everyone moved on to the next topic.
This time, Yarsde from the Ministry of Water Resources said, "Your Highness, the Ministry of Water Resources mainly wants to mention the issue of inland waterway navigation in the central and eastern regions. After the national water conservancy construction, the navigation capacity of the rivers in the two places has reached a new level, but it is still far inferior to that in the eastern coastal areas."
"So this time our Ministry of Water Resources' idea is to improve the regional navigation capacity of East African rivers in the East African Plateau and the Central Plateau, and on this basis, to transform and upgrade the rivers in Mozambique and Angola. At the same time, water conservancy construction in the latter two places is also a big problem. After all, during the Portuguese rule, the Portuguese government did not develop the two places enough."
In Ernst's view, these requests from the Ministry of Water Resources were not excessive at all. Although East Africa had paid a "heavy price" for the construction of water conservancy facilities, with a conservative estimate that at least 700,000 people had died, of course, East Africa could only express condolences for those black people who had sacrificed their lives in the water conservancy construction projects in East Africa.
After a three-second silence for these black people, Ernst said decisively: "The agricultural water conservancy facilities in Angola and Mozambique must be improved as soon as possible. Although the contribution to the local area during the Portuguese government period was very small, it is not completely without foundation, especially in Angola. We will rebuild and construct the local area according to East African standards based on the original water conservancy foundation."
Angola's water conservancy facilities were the most complete of the two main Portuguese colonies in Africa, but compared with the construction standards of East Africa, they could be said to be shoddy.
After all, much of its colonial water conservancy construction was done independently by local plantations, with little overall scientific planning, and there was also a severe lack of materials and tools.
Although the work of East African slaves was hard, the tools and materials they used were all produced locally in East Africa. Don't underestimate this. Colonies like the Portuguese could only rely on imports from their own country, and the cost of importing was too high. So in order to save money, many plantation owners relied entirely on the black people's "strong hands to make miracles happen."
Coupled with the lack of scientific planning and guidance, the water conservancy facilities in the two places are unsystematic, very scattered, and of uneven quality.
"Your Highness, please rest assured about this. After more than 30 years of experience, our Water Resources Department has already summed up enough experience. Now everything is ready. We only lack the manpower and materials to mobilize."
After all, the Ministry of Water Resources still needs people. After all, although there are many blacks under the Ministry of Water Resources, they are also consumables. As for the mobilization of materials, it is not a big problem. After all, the railway and road systems in East Africa were not as developed as they are today. The current hardware facilities will only be more advanced than before, and East Africa has always been a major grain producer. Although the population is also increasing, the expansion of East Africa's territory is even more astonishing.
The new population needs food, and increasing food production may require further land reclamation. It just so happens that East Africa's territory has increased, so there is more space to develop agriculture. Agricultural development is inseparable from water conservancy construction, thus forming a closed loop.
"This time, our Ministry of Water Resources needs to directly mobilize at least two million workers across the country. In addition to the construction of water conservancy facilities in Angola and Mozambique, water conservancy construction in other regions of the country must also be further improved, so this requires the active cooperation of other government departments." Yarsde said.
"Well, water conservancy construction has always been a national policy in East Africa. When the last national water conservancy construction began, our country's territory was not as large as it is today, so it is completely reasonable for the Ministry of Water Resources to ask for more manpower."
Ernst naturally supports this, but this will mean a greater workload for East African black workers. Last year, the number of East African black workers had dropped to more than 19 million, a drop of more than 3 million in the past four years.
This shows the extent of East Africa's exploitation of black laborers. Of course, the more than three million black people who disappeared certainly did not all die of exhaustion on the construction sites. A large part of them were sent out of East Africa. After all, East Africa has a system of scrapping black laborers.
The impact of this water conservancy construction on East Africa is certainly profound. After all, water conservancy construction is different from railways. The number of black workers needed for railways was only more than 300,000 at the peak period.
The number of workers required for water conservancy construction is often in the millions. Moreover, it is not entirely black laborers, but also a large number of East African citizens participate in water conservancy construction.
Based on the experience of the first national water conservancy construction, the number of people participating in this national water conservancy construction is conservatively estimated at more than 20 million.
Water conservancy construction is a national project that basically covers every region of the country. After all, it involves tens of thousands of rivers, thousands of reservoirs, and even the ditches in every field are part of water conservancy construction.
In today's world without mechanization, all these projects can only be completed by manpower, and East Africa is taking the "speed-through" approach. Without the extreme mobilization mode, it would have been impossible for East Africa to achieve leapfrog growth in national strength in more than 30 years and become an important grain producer and the largest producer of cash crops in the world.
So in Ernst's view, the two million blacks required by the Ministry of Water Resources were very conservative. Taking the Far Eastern Empire in the past as an example, in the mid-to-late twentieth century, hundreds of millions of people were mobilized across the country to build water conservancy projects.
The Far Eastern Empire has a history of thousands of years in water conservancy development, while East Africa has only a history of more than 30 years. From this perspective, East Africa cannot even compare with the Far Eastern Empire.
Therefore, in this way, the only way is to add more burdens to black laborers on the basis of mobilizing people from all over East Africa. The tasks of water conservancy construction projects are large and small. Just like building new ditches in farmland, they are basically completed when the land is reclaimed, while digging canals and building reservoirs are really difficult.
(End of this chapter)
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