Chapter 79 The Crappy Canal

After listening to these analyses, it is not surprising that the Greek government wants to build a canal here.

But a series of events later proved that this was a huge mistake.

The length of this canal is indeed not long, only about 5 kilometers, but its "quality" is high.

The ground where the Corinth Canal is located is all hard limestone, not soil, which makes the excavation of this canal as difficult as Yugong moving mountains, with a knife and an axe.

To make matters worse, the ground height in the Corinth area is far higher than the sea level, which greatly increases the excavation depth of this canal. The two banks of this canal in later generations are nearly 79 meters above the river surface!

The difficulty of excavating this canal was unexpected, causing several companies that accepted it to go bankrupt one after another!

In the original historical time and space, the original contractor of the Corinth Canal was a French company. The company's initial capital was about 30 million francs (about 300 million yuan), and it also issued about 60,000 500 franc bonds (30 million francs). After 8 years of digging, the canal was not completed and the company went bankrupt due to exhaustion of funds. In other words, the canal consumed at least 60 million francs (about 600 million yuan).

It can be imagined that Greece's financial bankruptcy in 1897, the canal played an "irreplaceable" role in it.

In the end, the canal was taken over by a Greek company, and it was completed after several years of digging.

The construction of the Corinth Canal was very difficult. It can be said that it was a waterway opened up between rocky cliffs using manpower.

The high limestone walls on both sides are very solid. It is one of the very few canals in the world that were dug in solid rock areas.

At the end of the 19th century, even such a large-scale project was limited by the technical conditions at the time, and the power of machinery was far from enough to replace manpower.

If the problem of the Corinth Canal was just the high development cost and difficult construction, it would be fine.

After all, this canal can generate huge economic benefits after it is completed, which is indeed more beneficial than harmful to Greece.

However, when the canal was built, there was no reasonable estimate to leave enough redundant width, which led to the dilemma of insufficient use of the canal just after it was dug.

The late 19th century and the early 20th century were the eras of rapid development in the history of world shipping.

Due to the maturity of technical conditions and the need for economic efficiency of ocean transportation, the displacement of ocean-going cargo ships is getting larger and larger.

The larger the tonnage of the cargo ship, the lower the unit cost of cargo transportation. This feature has led ocean shipping companies to order giant cargo ships of more than 10,000 tons.

The surface of the Corinth River is only 25 meters wide, which is not enough for large ships. It can only accommodate some small cargo ships or cruise ships.

People ridiculed and mocked it as "the most useless canal".

In later generations, this canal is a famous tourist attraction in Greece.

The Greek government originally relied on borrowing for infrastructure construction, but it spent a huge amount of money of more than 60 million francs to create a useless drainage ditch.

If the river is widened, it will continue to invest no less than the previous funds, which made the later Greek government completely give up the idea.

So, you can imagine how much Constantine's mood fluctuated when he heard that Trikoupis was going to approve the construction of this pitfall canal!

"Mr. Trikoupis, I have no opinion on the railway and highway plans you mentioned, but only this Corinth Canal, you'd better make a detailed investigation in advance and then decide whether to build this canal"

Constantine said with a serious face.

"Although this canal is not long, as far as I know, the area where it is located is all hard limestone, and because the ground in the Corinth area is far above sea level, it can be said that the construction of the canal is very difficult"

Hearing Constantine's words, Trikoupis was skeptical.

To be honest, he trusted the French ability to build canals. Look, since the completion of the construction, the Suez Canal, which has been regarded as a world strategic waterway, is a masterpiece of the French.

The Suez Canal, which is hundreds of kilometers long, can run smoothly. There is no reason why the French cannot build this small canal in Greece, which is only 5 kilometers long.

As a politician, Trikupis has no idea about such technical projects.

Therefore, he rashly judged the difficulty of construction from the length of the canal.

However, Constantine, as the crown prince, strongly opposed the construction of this canal, and Trikupis did not want to confront Constantine head-on.

"Prime Minister, regarding this canal, we should entrust some professional institutions to make a comprehensive assessment. If you don't object, I will take care of this matter." Constantine chased after him, eager to dispel Trikupis' idea of ​​building this canal.

"Okay, the matter about the canal can be postponed first," Trikupis made a concession.

"But as you said just now, the industrial zone plan also needs to leave space for the steel plant. Regarding the construction of the steel plant, has anyone decided to invest?" Trikupis asked curiously.

Trikupis' policy has always been to unwaveringly support Greece in developing its own industry.

Although Trikupis was not like Delianis, who always called for war to realize the Greek ideal of regaining lost territory and regaining glory, Constantine knew that this was also Trikupis's inner ideal.

However, Trikupis knew that Greece was weak, so he always advocated strengthening his own strength first and then looking for opportunities. Compared with Delianis, Trikupis could be said to have good intentions.

How to measure the strength of a country is a complicated matter. Parameters such as national income, GDP, land area, population, food production, resources, etc. are all factors that cannot be ignored.

However, at the end of the 19th century, if people wanted to use a particularly simple indicator to measure the strength of a country, then steel production would definitely be an appropriate choice.

In other words, at the end of the 19th century, it can be simply and crudely believed that whoever has a high steel production has strong strength.

Therefore, when Constantine talked about the steel plant, Trikoupis would pay special attention.

Although the feasibility of Greece's development of the steel industry had been discussed when the two met last time, it was only verbal after all.

"Speaking of the steel plant, it just so happens that Prime Minister, you are planning to build a railway. Why not take this opportunity to purchase the equipment and materials of the railway and the steel plant together, put them together and quote them, and get a good price," Constantine responded.

For Greece, the equipment of the steel plant must be purchased from other countries.

Greece also has no ability to produce the rails and locomotives used to build the railway, and also needs to purchase them from foreign countries.

The products of large steel mills in Western European countries often include rails and steelmaking equipment, among which rails are an important commodity component of each steel mill. The production of rails requires a large amount of steel, so Constantine suggested purchasing them together.