Chapter 74 Banquet 3

As long as you open the geographical map, you will find that although the territory of the Ottoman Empire is vast, there are not many areas suitable for growing food.

For example, the core territory of the Ottoman Empire, Asia Minor, also has another nickname "Anatolian Plateau".

When you see the word "plateau", you will understand that this is a region with continuous hills. It is okay to engage in agriculture and animal husbandry, such as raising sheep and horses, but agriculture and animal husbandry cannot support a large population.

In the whole of Asia Minor, only a small piece of land in the coastal plain in the west, namely the Smyrna area, is suitable for agricultural production.

As for the Arabian Peninsula, the endless khaki desert is the main theme of the Arabian Peninsula, so don't expect to engage in agriculture here.

Therefore, after the Ottoman Empire lost the essence of Europe, the material basis for maintaining a world empire no longer exists.

As for whether agricultural production is important to an empire, looking at the world's powers, except for Britain, which is a bit special, the other countries such as France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia are all major grain producers.

Everyone thought about Constantine's analysis and was silent for a while.

"Okay, let's talk about other things. I invited everyone here this time to discuss with you how to promote the application of alternating current in Greece," Constantine said, changing the subject.

Even if the Ottoman Empire has declined, a lean camel is bigger than a horse, and it is not something that Greece can do now.

"Your Excellency the Duke, please tell us about your views on the alternating current system. After all, we don't know much about such cutting-edge technology," said Kontoriotis.

This businessman from Alexandria, Egypt, was introduced by Prime Minister Trikupis.

Kontoriotis naturally knew why he was invited.

Constantine did not shirk his responsibilities and stood up to say to everyone; "As you all know, Greece was severely restricted in introducing steam engines due to the lack of high-quality coal in Greece before."

In the first wave of the Industrial Revolution led by Britain, to measure the level of a country's industrial capacity, count the coal production and the number of steam engines, and you will have a rough estimate.

Greece lacks high-quality hard coal, and even if it introduces steam engines, it will face the embarrassing situation of no coal available.

"And the alternating current technology developed by Mr. Tesla can help Greece get rid of this fatal shortcoming."

"As we all know, although Greece does not have hard coal, it has abundant reserves of lignite. After burning to generate electricity, the electricity will not have different quality due to the use of different coals, unlike coal, which is divided into different grades according to quality." Constantine said happily.

Greece's coal production is about 5 billion tons, which is enough for one use.

"In other words, Greece's lack of energy has disappeared?" Kantoliotis asked hurriedly.

"You can understand it this way," Constantine responded.

"So, my idea is to build a large-scale alternating current power station in Greece, and develop Greece's industry based on this."

"For example, the cotton textile industry, Greece itself also has a certain amount of cotton production, although the amount is not large, but Greece is close to Asia Minor and Egypt, both of which are important raw cotton production areas, and Greece's own cotton cloth market currently also needs imports," Constantine talked freely.

"We can completely replace imports"

"Greece has advantages in developing the cotton textile industry"

After hearing Constantine's vision, Alexandros was not interested in the cotton textile industry, but thought of olives.

In addition to exporting a large number of raisins, Greece actually also has olives, which are also a specialty of Greece.

It's just that due to Greece's limited industrial capacity, although Greek family workshops can also press olive oil by hand or animal power, the efficiency is low and the cost is high, so olives are still exported in large quantities.

Since electricity can be used to spin cotton, it can naturally be used to press olive oil.

Thinking of the large olive groves on the relatively barren mountainous land in the family, if these olives can be processed and exported abroad, the annual income will be considerable, and I can't help but be moved.

Different from his idea is Cantoriotis, a Greek in Alexandria, who dominates the local raw cotton trade. Every year after the cotton harvest, most of it is purchased by the Greeks and then sold to British and French merchants who come to trade.

Although they are called leaders, they are actually middlemen, who save buyers from dealing with cotton growers in person and earn hard-earned money.

As compradors of European merchants, they hand over raw cotton to buyers, and then these buyers transport the cotton back to Europe, weave it into cloth, print and dye it, and then turn around and hand over the finished cotton cloth to these middlemen to sell to Egyptians without having to work with two masters.

Egyptian handicraft workshops are no match for European factories at all. Under the dumping of cheap cotton cloth by Europeans, they went bankrupt one after another, and Egyptians could only buy European cotton cloth.

The price of raw cotton is very different from that of finished cotton cloth.

The two sides have dealt with each other more and more. Cantoriotis has fantasized more than once that if he could have a textile factory, why should he let these Europeans make this money.

The originally cheap cotton, after being woven into cloth, the price has doubled several times. For these compradors who handle it personally, the stimulation is too great.

After purchasing the raw cotton, they directly process it into cotton cloth. Even if they need to purchase dyes, the profits they earn are much better than simply selling raw cotton.

Developing upstream in the cotton industry is naturally tempting for those who dominate the import and export of raw cotton in Egypt.

If they succeed, they will have a cotton trust.

Therefore, this time Trikupis slightly revealed to him that Constantine invited technicians to develop alternating current. After obtaining the information of the breakthrough, Cantoriotis immediately hired a professional scholar and consulted him about electricity. After learning about the use of electricity, he couldn't wait to come to the banquet.

"Therefore, everyone works together. As long as the cotton textile factory is established, I personally think it is very promising."

In order to stimulate everyone, Constantine struck while the iron was hot and continued to paint a beautiful blueprint for everyone.

"Besides, as you all know, the Congo River Basin is now under my control. There are about 20 million people in the Congo region. If every Congolese buys a set of clothes, how much cotton cloth will be needed?"

"So far, this huge market has been completely divided up by several industrial powers in Europe. If Greek cotton cloth can grab one-tenth of the market, it will be quite impressive."

"Do you know? Congolese people will rush to buy old goods that were piled up in warehouses in Europe before."

In fact, Constantine's words are half true and half false.

The 20 million Congolese people do have a huge consumer market, but Congo is located near the equator, and the temperature hovers between 25 and 40 degrees all year round, so it's okay even if you are naked.

The clothes they weave with leaves to cover the vital parts are enough to cope with it.