Chapter 241 White Chief and Cotton

After Franz's inquiry, he learned that the chiefs who were released did not fulfill their promise. They took advantage of the opportunity to help build the port and intended to capture the Austrian troops left in Togo.

Of course, the Austrian soldiers saw through the attempt of these indigenous advance troops to infiltrate with their personal weapons, so the chiefs who were hiding behind and observing simply revealed their true colors. They directly sent out a large force and tried to break through the Austrian defense with their superiority in manpower.

However, the natives who had not experienced it personally knew nothing about the horror of naval guns. In the baptism of artillery fire from eight battleships, solid iron balls flew all over the sky, and blood and flesh were everywhere.

What's even funnier is that the natives did not choose to escape, but surrendered by offering the heads of their chiefs. So far, all seven tribes in southern Togo have surrendered, and they unanimously demanded that a white man be their chief.

"Surrender to the enemy on the battlefield?" Friedrich thought it was ridiculous.

"No? This is called a battlefield uprising, or more accurately, a surrender to the light." Franz corrected.

"Then the docks were built by the natives?" Friedrich was a little unbelievable.

"Yes, Grand Duke Friedrich. Colonel Morrison supervised the construction of the natives." Captain Parrish, who was in charge of staying behind, said.

"The quality of this project is still good. Well, for your serious work, Morrison, you can stay and be their chief." Friedrich said half-jokingly.

Morrison majored in architecture in college, but his father hoped that his second son would have a better future, so he sent him to the navy.

Morrison is a typical Austrian, that is, he is not doing his job properly. A naval colonel who does not want to be a chief is not a good architect.

The talents of these people are all messed up, just like Austria, a land power, has never lacked naval geniuses. The inland navy beat up the Barbary pirates who were rampant in Europe, and the regular knights could not beat the peasants who rebelled against the Hussein uprising.

"Okay, Grand Duke Friedrich, I will follow your orders and build this into the best port in West Africa!" Morrison saluted Friedrich solemnly.

"I" Friedrich didn't want to take such a big pot, but he was interrupted by Franz.

"Congratulations, Mr. Morrison. You finally found a career you are willing to devote your life to."

"I will use my actions to prove that your decision is not wrong." Morrison swore again solemnly.

"Have you found out who is behind the scenes?" Franz was actually quite curious about who was behind it.

Morrison and Parrish shook their heads. The natives couldn't explain it at all. They only knew that the attack was discussed by the chiefs before.

However, in that war, almost all those who knew the secret died. Later, in order to eliminate the influence left by the chiefs, those who had supported them were crucified.

The tribes in southern Togo are very weak. After years of slave wars and the recent wars, the indigenous population in southern Togo is less than 50,000.

After the protection agreement of Togo was completed, Franz's trip to West Africa was successfully concluded.

If everything goes well, Austria will receive the first batch of cotton from the colonies in six months.

The importance of cotton is actually far beyond the imagination of most people.

Cotton not only supports the textile industry of this era, but also has an immeasurable role in the medical, military and people's livelihood fields in the future.

The textile industry in this period has become the most important industry. The amount of cotton processed by a country can directly reflect the strength of that country.

What do those black slaves grow in the evil plantation economy? That's right, in addition to sugar cane, it is cotton!

The sugar business at this time is no longer what it used to be. According to Americans, this is a black and white era (black represents opium, and white refers to cotton.)

Historically, in 1840, the Austrian Empire produced 1 million spindles of cotton cloth, France 3 million spindles, Britain 15 million spindles, and the German states produced 1.2 million spindles, of which Saxony produced 600,000 spindles.

This is why Saxony, which only has one-third of its original territory, still dares to challenge Prussia.

At this time (the world line in the book), the Austrian Empire produced 1.5 million spindles of cotton cloth, because the textile industry was supported by Mexican cotton, and at the same time, it opened up the markets in Germany and Italy.

France's cotton cloth reached 3.6 million spindles. Although it suffered heavy losses in Egypt, it unexpectedly obtained the cotton producing area of ​​Texas. A large amount of cheap cotton poured into France, promoting the development of the textile industry.

In fact, Austria's industrial capacity was not inferior to France at that time. In terms of machinery manufacturing alone, it was the first in Europe. Even the textile machines used in Saxony (the German and Italian states also used Austrian looms, but the amount was not large.) were all produced in Austria.

But the Austrian Empire only produced 1.5 million spindles of cotton cloth, not for other reasons, but because there was not enough cotton.

Britain and France took 84% of the cotton shipped to Europe, and the rest of Europe could only eat the leftovers of Britain and France.

At that time, the world's largest cotton supplier was the United States, which was actually a lackey of the British. It might conspire with them at any time to raise cotton prices and impose sanctions on a certain country, or even directly cut off supply. This feeling of being strangled by others was quite bad.

The combined cotton production of Brazil and Mexico during the same period was about 3% of that of the United States. In these two countries, Mexico has been in war for years, and many other reasons, such as lack of human resources, small planting area, and market, have made its cotton industry never form a scale.

Although Brazil is a slave plantation economy like the United States, due to management problems, Brazil's cotton yield is very low.

Moreover, the local Brazilian estate owners are very lazy or abnormal. For example, Franz has been frantically importing rubber from them many times, but the speed of expanding production capacity still cannot keep up with demand. He would rather send slave workers to collect wild rubber than expand production capacity.

Egypt was once close to 10% of the United States, but cotton planting suffered a major blow due to the war and the loss of power of the Ali government.

Local farmers do not believe in cotton or currency, they believe more in edible food. As a result, large tracts of cotton fields became food bases, which made the French feel very helpless, but it had little impact on the British because they did not rely on Egyptian cotton.

At the same time, there is no excellent cotton producing area in the whole of Europe. Only a small part of southern Spain and some parts of southern Greece are suitable for cotton growth. Not only is the yield low, but the quality is also poor, which is completely different from the long-staple cotton grown in Africa.

Cotton can not only be made into cotton cloth, but also a strategic material.

Nitrocellulose is an important raw material for the famous smokeless gunpowder in the future. Nitrocellulose with low nitrogen content is used to make spray paint, artificial leather, film, plastic, ink, etc.

The value of smokeless gunpowder must be very clear to everyone. It is the second most widely used explosive after black gunpowder. Without it, even modern wars cannot be carried out.

Any powerful country has a strong demand for high-quality cotton. Without it, wars cannot be sustained.

With the development of modern medicine and the popularization of the concept of disinfection and sterilization, the consumption of cotton in medical treatment will also increase exponentially.

The development of light industry is also inseparable from cotton

The low yield of modern African cotton is due to many reasons such as low investment, small planting area, lack of basic water conservancy facilities, management omissions, and deterioration of varieties. It is not that this land is not suitable for growing cotton.

If the Austrian Empire wants to become a truly powerful country, it must break through the limitation of cotton, so the colonization plan in West Africa is necessary.

Thanks to the book friend 202210140011311291 for the reward. Today, the hunting trip in Africa is over, and I will write about Europe tomorrow.