Chapter 895 The Second National Water Conservancy Project

As the world's first energy source and East Africa's first energy source, coal's dominant position remains unshakable.

After annexing Angola and Mozambique, East Africa's coal reserves have further increased, 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, so the reason why the railway along the Zambia River, that is, the railway from Quelimane to New Frankfurt, is built through Tete is self-evident.

East Africa's coal reserves are relatively small compared to other countries with large land areas in the world. Countries like Tsarist Russia, the United States, the Far East Empire, and the United Kingdom (Canada, Australia, and India) are all coal powers, and only Brazil is relatively small.

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 very huge.

For example, the secret "Thomas Steelmaking" that allowed Germany to surpass Britain in steel production capacity is to improve coal utilization through technical means.

In 1877, Thomas and Gilchrist, British, invented the Thomas steelmaking process. Iron ores in Germany and Alsace and Lorraine after the Franco-Prussian War were mainly phosphite. The dephosphorization problem could not be solved for a long time, and the cost was very high, which greatly affected the 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 in large quantities and applied it to steel production, solving the dephosphorization problem and carrying out transformation, which greatly reduced production costs.

The utilization rate of coal in East Africa is relatively low. After all, the quality of East African coal is another matter than that of Germany, so local 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 structure of East Africa, everyone started to move on to the next topic.

This time, Yarsde from the Ministry of Water Resources said: "Your Highness, this time our Ministry of Water Resources mainly wants to mention the problem of inland waterway navigation in the central and eastern regions. After the national water conservancy construction, the navigability of the rivers in the two places has reached a new level, but it is still far inferior to the eastern coastal areas."

"So this time our Ministry of Water Resources' idea is to improve the regional navigability 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, the water conservancy construction of the latter two is also a big problem. After all, during the Portuguese rule, the Portuguese government's development of the two places was too low."

These requests from the Ministry of Water Resources are not excessive in Ernst's view. Although East Africa paid a "painful price" for the construction of water conservancy facilities, it is conservatively estimated that at least 700,000 people died for this. Of course, East Africa can only express condolences for these blacks who died 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 Portuguese government made very little contribution to the local area during the period, it is not completely without foundation, especially in Angola. We will reconstruct and build the local area according to East African standards based on the original water conservancy."

Angola's water conservancy facilities are the most complete among the two major Portuguese colonies in Africa, but compared with the construction standards of East Africa, they can be said to be shoddy.

After all, many of its colonial water conservancy constructions are local plantations fighting on their own, with few overall scientific plans, and they are also very lacking in materials and tools.

Although the work of East African black slaves is also hard, the tools and materials they use are all produced in East Africa. Don't underestimate this point. For example, the Portuguese colonies can only rely on imports from the local area, and the cost of importing is too high, so in order to save money, many plantation owners rely entirely on black people to "work hard to create miracles".

In addition to the lack of scientific planning and guidance, the water conservancy facilities in the two places are not systematic, very scattered, and the quality is uneven.

"Your Highness, please rest assured about this. After more than 30 years of experience, our Ministry of Water Resources has summed up enough experience. Now everything is ready, and we only lack manpower and material mobilization."

In the final analysis, 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. Now the hardware facilities will only be more advanced than before. 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 amazing.

The new population needs food, and the improvement of food production may require further land reclamation. It just so happens that the territory of East Africa has increased, and there is more space to develop agriculture. Agricultural development cannot be separated from water conservancy construction, so a closed loop is formed.

"This time, our Ministry of Water Resources needs to directly mobilize at least more than two million workers nationwide. 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 require more manpower."

Ernst naturally supports this point, but in this way, the workload of East African black workers will be even greater. Last year, the number of black workers in East Africa had dropped to more than 19 million, which is equivalent to a drop of more than 3 million in the past four years.

From this, it can be seen that East Africa has exploited black workers to a great extent. Of course, the more than 3 million black people who disappeared must not all have died of exhaustion on the construction site. A large part of them were sent out by East Africa. After all, East Africa has a black labor scrapping system.

This water conservancy construction will definitely have a far-reaching impact on East Africa. After all, water conservancy construction is different from railways. The peak period of the number of black workers required for railways is only more than 300,000.

The number of workers required for water conservancy construction is often in the millions, not to mention that it is not entirely black workers who contribute, but also a large number of East African citizens who participate in water conservancy construction.

Based on the experience of the first national water conservancy construction, the number of participants in this national water conservancy construction is conservatively more than 20 million.

Water conservancy construction is a national project that can basically cover all regions 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 on the "speed pass" path. If the extreme mobilization mode is not used, East Africa will not be able to achieve a leapfrog growth in national strength in more than 30 years and become an important grain producer in the world and the largest country in cash crops.

So in Ernst's view, the two million blacks required by the Ministry of Water Resources are very conservative. Taking the Far Eastern Empire in the past as an example, in the mid-to-late 20th century, hundreds of millions of people were mobilized across the country to build national water conservancy.

The Far Eastern Empire has a history of thousands of years of water conservancy development, but East Africa has only a history of more than 30 years. From this point of view, East Africa cannot compare with the Far Eastern Empire even if it flatters.

Therefore, in this way, it can only add more burdens to black workers on the basis of mobilizing people from all over East Africa. The tasks of water conservancy construction projects are large and small, just like the construction of new ditches in farmland, which is basically completed by the way when the land is reclaimed, while digging canals and building reservoirs are really difficult.