Chapter 1434 Sahara Railway (Second update, please subscribe)
"beep……"
Accompanied by the sound of the train whistle, a train loaded with various goods was running on the railway with a "clang, clang" sound.
Between the front of the train and the freight cars, there were two passenger cars and a dining car. All the passengers in the cars were wearing military uniforms, but their uniforms were not the imperial green uniforms, but dark blue uniforms.
They came from the Tang Empire and were a military inspection team sent by the Tang Empire. They appeared here to visit the French battlefield and of course to learn.
For safety reasons, after the Tang merchant ship sent them to Kenya, they took a train to Tunisia, and then entered France from Tunisia. Compared with the Atlantic Ocean, the sea power in the Mediterranean is now under the control of France and Rome.
While in the carriage, Yuan Shikai would occasionally look at the vast desert outside the carriage. The undulating sand dunes looked very spectacular.
"Building a railway in the desert is really beyond people's expectations!"
The reason why Yuan Shikai had such an emotion was that ten years ago, when the Imperial Railway Company and the French-African Railway Company signed an agreement to build a railway from Madita at the mouth of the Congo River to Tunisia, the whole world thought it was impossible. In the eyes of many people, it was simply a joke.
If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, who would have thought that it was possible to cultivate in such a vast desert.
"This railway is a joke. Maybe they can build it to Mali, but then what? The Sahara Desert will block their ambitions..."
In the UK and Europe, almost everyone thinks this is a joke. After all, it is simply impossible to build a railway through the desert. The most difficult section of this railway is through the largest desert on earth - the Sahara Railway. Not only is there desert everywhere along the way, there is no water or coal supply on most of the road, and what is even more deadly?
It is normal that sandstorms will push huge sand dunes across the road over the years, and the railway will eventually be swallowed by the sand dunes, making it inaccessible to traffic.
So, in the eyes of the whole world, building the Sahara Railway is simply a joke.
But finally, with the joint efforts of the two empires, after nine years of hard work, the "Central African Railway" starting from Madita at the mouth of the Congo River and ending in Tunisia was finally built. In the year when the railway was completed, more than one million French immigrants entered French colonies such as Niger, Chad and Central Africa through this railway. There were even tens of thousands of French immigrants entering the colonies of the Ming Empire. According to the immigration decree signed by the empire and France, the imperial colonies could accept 300,000 French immigrants each year.
Why did Ming Dynasty and France build this railway with huge investment?
Just to facilitate the entry and exit of immigrants?
Indeed, the completion of the Central African Railway and its extension lines made it easier for the French to immigrate to inland colonies. They built plantations there, drove cheap African laborers to immigrate to the colonies, and even increased France's fertility rate - this has long been confirmed. In the Middle Eastern colonies, the fertility rate of French immigrants was 2.3 times that of the native population.
"Before the war broke out, no one knew what this railway meant. When I was inspecting in the UK, many people said that this railway was France's ambition to get involved in Africa. But now it seems that this railway is not the ambition to get involved in Africa, but the key to connecting France with its vast African colonies!"
Just at this time, the railway meandered through the sand dunes, and Yuan Shikai pointed to the towering railway bridge among the sand dunes outside the carriage and said.
"With this railway, food, meat and minerals from the African colonies will flow into France continuously. With these supplies, the French can continue the war. Moreover, the Empire's reinforcements can also flow into France continuously through the railway. If it weren't for this railway, how could the Empire's African Corps reach France at the first moment of the war?"
Duan Qirui agreed deeply with Yuan Shikai's words.
"That's true. This railway has great military significance. It's just..."
Pointing at the towering railway bridge, Duan Qirui said.
"Weiting, look, the section of the railway that passes through the Sahara Desert is almost all built with wooden railway bridges that are more than ten feet high. Such wooden bridges and wooden beams are easily destroyed. If the British send an elite detachment, it will be easy to be..."
Building railways in the desert does not mean that everything will be fine once the tracks are laid. Sand is highly fluid and a slight breeze may cover the tracks, making it impossible for trains to pass. In order to prevent the tracks from being covered by sand, viaducts are built on some sections of the Sahara Desert to allow the railway to leave the sand surface. However, this also led to a substantial increase in railway construction costs. In order to reduce costs, the Imperial Railway engineers drew on the experience of the United States in building the Pacific Railway and adopted wooden bridges.
The reason why wood is used instead of steel to build bridges is mainly because there are a lot of forests in central Africa, and the required wood can be obtained locally. Not only is the construction process relatively easy, but the cost will also be lower than that of steel materials, after all, there is only the cost of logging.
"Well, if it's damaged, just repair it. It's easy to build a wooden bridge..."
The speaker was Cao Yunda, an army colonel who graduated from the Imperial Army Officers School. He pointed at the wooden bridge outside the car window that came into view because of its obvious curvature.
"Several of my classmates participated in the construction of the Sahara Railway. They said that if the railway was damaged, it would only take two to three days to rebuild it, and the natural environment of the Sahara Desert is very suitable for wooden bridges. Although according to American experience, the lifespan of wooden bridges is very short. If they are not maintained, they can generally only be used for about 20 years. But in the Sahara, there is very little precipitation, so the lifespan of wooden bridges is very long. According to their estimates, the lifespan should be about 40 years."
This is true. After all, with little rainfall, the wood decays naturally very slowly.
After saying this, Cao Yunda spoke in an admiring tone.
"I heard that the tallest wooden bridge on the Sahara Railway is over 63 meters high. It's really hard to imagine..."
In fact, such tall wooden frame railways are very common in North America, but for these newly arrived Tang Dynasty officers, such a tall railway bridge is indeed very rare.
"It's obvious that the Empire's engineering is advanced!"
The officers couldn't help but sigh, staring at the desert outside the car window and listening to their colleagues' praise. Yuan Shikai suddenly had a feeling that perhaps as early as ten years ago, the empire had been deliberately preparing for this war, and this railway bridge was a clear proof of that!
It was as if I suddenly remembered a joke, Yuan Shikai said.
"France can transport supplies through the Central African Railway, but what can the British do? Their supplies need to be transported from India and Africa to the British mainland, but there are fleets of the Empire and France in both the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. How can the British merchant fleet bypass them?"
Although his question is a bit alarmist, it is true that Britain does face difficulties in this regard...
The old group is down, so I created a new book club group: 739209015. Everyone is welcome to join and discuss and deduce the plot together.
(End of this chapter)
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