Chapter 5: The Rich Resources of Gangu

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Is the Congo River Basin worth spending a lot of resources on?

For European countries that have not yet understood the specific situation of the Congo River Basin, they must have questions.

This determines that European countries will not pay too much attention to the Congo River Basin.

But this question did not exist for Constantine.

There are a large number of natural rubber forests growing in the Congo River Basin. Rubber trees like high temperature, high humidity, quiet wind and fertile soil. They require an annual average temperature of 26 to 27 degrees Celsius. They can grow and produce rubber normally within the range of 20 to 30 degrees Celsius. They are not cold-tolerant. If the temperature is below 5, it will suffer from freezing damage.

It requires an average annual precipitation of 1150 to 2500 mm, but it is not suitable for planting in low-humidity areas. Suitable for growth in acidic sandy loam soil with deep, fertile, moist and well-drained soil. It has shallow roots, fragile branches, and poor adaptability to wind. It is susceptible to wind and cold and reduces glue production.

These conditions are completely consistent with the Congo River Basin. The Congo River Basin is crossed by the equator and is distributed north and south of the equator. High temperature and rainy weather are the climate characteristics of the Congo River Basin.

At the end of the 19th century, in the second wave of the industrial revolution, the internal combustion engine was an epoch-making invention. The automobile industry developed rapidly. The main material of automobile tires was rubber. The rapid development of the automobile industry made rubber quickly become one of the important raw materials. The demand for rubber Volume increased dramatically.

Speaking of which, the demise of the Qing government was related to rubber.

At the end of the Qing Dynasty, when Sichuan was building a railway, the Qing government was in financial difficulty, so the people of Sichuan spontaneously raised funds and sold railway stocks. As a result, after waiting for two or three years, there was no movement on the railway.

The Qing government looked at it and said, come on, don't build it anymore. I can't accomplish anything even if I count on you. I'd better mortgage the right to build the road to a foreign country for a loan to build the railway.

When the people of Sichuan heard the news, they were in an uproar. The Qing government did this, and the railway stocks they bought were worthless. They rioted everywhere. After the Wuhan revolutionaries heard the news, they rose up in response, and the Qing government died.

Under the specific historical conditions of the late Qing Dynasty, the public was very sensitive to borrowing money from foreign countries to build railways. It was almost tantamount to losing power and humiliating the country.

Because when foreigners build railways, they often also require the right to station troops along the railway, the right to develop minerals, and other rights.

In fact, the Qing government was somewhat unjust, because the money raised by the Sichuan Railway coincided with the craze for rubber stocks at that time. The major shareholders enriched their own pockets behind the backs of the people, misappropriated the money, and used the money to speculate in rubber stocks. As a result, the rubber stocks plummeted. The money was wasted.

Of course, the railway cannot be repaired without money, nor can it be repaired. It has been delayed for two or three years. Whenever people ask questions, they just pretend that the route is being explored. What should we do?

When the major shareholders were at a loss what to do, the Qing government announced that the Sichuan Railway would be taken back from state ownership and loaned money to the great powers for construction. The major shareholders just went along with the situation and incited the people to riot, thereby moving the disaster eastward and diverting the contradictions.

As for what happened to the money raised by the poor deceived people?

That's a bad debt, let it go.

This can be seen in the rubber craze at the end of the 19th century.

Not to mention other things, the rubber planting industry alone has great potential in Congo.

In addition, there are a huge number of African elephants in the Congo River Basin. They live and multiply here, and the ivory carvings are white and delicate. (Animal protectors, please don’t scold me. I didn’t say it, didn’t do it, and I didn’t kill it. ), deeply loved by nobles and businessmen, such as folding fans with hollow ivory frames, jewelry boxes carved from ivory, and pianos with ivory keys.

According to later statistics, there were millions of elephants living in Congo at the end of the 19th century.

In addition to rubber and ivory, Africa is also blessed with abundant metal mineral deposits.

Later, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was known as the "World's Warehouse of Raw Materials", "The Gem of Central Africa" ​​and "The Geological Miracle".

Congo’s copper mines account for 15% of the world’s total copper reserves, and the province of Katanga alone accounts for 7%. One of the main features of the second industrial revolution is electrification. As electricity plays an important role in the production and life of human society A large number of applications require the use of a large amount of copper wires, and the demand for copper in Europe is growing rapidly.

In addition, it is used for ship propellers, bullets, cannonballs, and even coins.

Congo Congo's copper mines not only have high reserves, but also have high-quality copper ores. There are millions of tons of copper ores with a copper content of 30%.

What is the concept of 30%? You must know that in later generations, if copper reserves are 2%, it can be said to be a rich ore in China!

This is not because Huaxia copper reserves are low, but entirely because of the long development history and large scale of Huaxia copper mines.

For most of Chinese history, copper was synonymous with money, and copper coins were used on a large scale throughout the Chinese dynasties.

In the impression of later generations, influenced by unscrupulous film and television works, ancient people seemed to use silver as currency, and the concept of copper coins was indifferent.

In fact, it was quite late for China to use silver as currency on a large scale. Before the Ming Dynasty, copper coins were used in large quantities.

After the Ming Dynasty, because Spanish colonists discovered a large number of silver mines in the Americas, Spanish treasure ships, carrying silver and other American specialties, set out from Chile and Peru, crossed the South Pacific and arrived in the Philippines (the Philippines was then Spanish colonies), and maritime trade in the Ming Dynasty.

The Spanish colonists purchased large quantities of silk, tea, and porcelain from China, and merchants in the coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong and Fujian made a fortune.

Through transactions, a large amount of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty, which directly changed the Chinese people's concept that money is copper.

This also gave birth to the ancestors of Chinese local tyrants. The first generation of local tyrants, because the rich and wealthy who made a lot of silver from sea trade, only took in and never spent, and worried that their descendants would ruin their family business, melted the silver into silver lumps and buried them in the cellar. Is it rustic? Really rustic, is it luxurious? Really luxurious.

However, because of its high value, the precious metal silver is actually only used in large-scale trade. At that time, the common people still used copper coins in large quantities.

Just like in the 1980s and 1990s, people were exposed to a lot of one-yuan and fifty-cent coins, and 100-yuan bills were rare.

So a lot of copper was consumed in China.

So the copper in the Congo River Basin is of great significance to Greece.

The diamond reserves in the Kasai region are huge, and later the Congo is the world's main producer of industrial diamonds.

According to later estimates, the gold mined in the Oriental Province reached tens of thousands of kilograms.

The content of uranium ore is also very rich. Yes, it is the uranium used in atomic bombs. The Americans spent a lot of effort to obtain uranium ore in Congo during World War II.

As for other metals, whether they are rare metals or not, lead, manganese, zinc, tin, tungsten, lithium, platinum, palladium, and other metals, don’t ask what metals Congo has, just ask what metals Congo doesn’t have.

Congo is not only rich in metal resources, but also in forest resources.

The main vegetation in Congo can be roughly divided into two types: forest and tropical grassland.

Almost 48% of the entire area of ​​the Congo River Basin is covered by forests. The area of ​​tropical rainforests in Congo is second only to the Amazon tropical forest in South America, and it is called the second lung of the earth.

There are 25 kinds of precious woods in the forest, such as ebony, mahogany, ash wood, rosewood, and yellow lacquer wood.

What mahogany furniture, that’s not a problem.

In addition, tropical crops such as cocoa, sugarcane, and cotton can also be planted.

Cotton can be used in the textile industry, and cocoa can be used in chocolate manufacturing.

Congo’s hot, rainy, and high-temperature climate is also very suitable for growing sugarcane.

Sugarcane can be used to make sugar, which has great economic value.

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