Chapter 81 Coal Mine
Tanzania still has some coal resources, but not much, mainly distributed in the southern plateau.
The reserves are about a billion tons, mainly high-quality low-sulfur coal. This reserve is not outstanding in the entire Africa, let alone compared with other coal-producing regions in the world.
Originally, Ernst did not plan to develop such a pitiful amount of coal mines in Tanzania in advance. However, in order to follow the agricultural development of East Africa, Ernst changed his mind and planned to develop Tanzania's coal resources in advance.
To develop agriculture, we cannot do without the processing of agricultural products, and the processing of agricultural products in East Africa certainly cannot be completed by manpower.
If the indigenous people were used, it would deviate from Ernst's bottom line. If they were allowed to take root again, it would be easier to invite gods than to send them away.
And the processing of agricultural products is already the most basic industry. Ernst didn’t even want to teach the indigenous people about planting, let alone industry.
After all, the fundamental reason for the explosive growth of Africa's population in the previous life was that European colonists taught Africans about agriculture.
For example, in Tanzania, a primitive society that relied on hunting for a living, the population always remained at a low level. However, after German and British colonization, due to the development of plantations.
The number of indigenous people who learned to farm doubled from a few million to 60 million in two hundred years.
Prior to this, Zanzibar was actually colonizing eastern East Africa, but Zanzibar, which was engaged in the slave trade, was completely negative for the population growth of the indigenous East Africans.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar does not need the indigenous people to farm their own land. It is completely greedy for their bodies. Therefore, inciting tribal wars and capturing slaves is the way for the Sultanate of Zanzibar to make money.
Under this environment, there are naturally fewer and fewer black people in East Africa. In fact, throughout East Africa, including Somalia, Ethiopia, and the Arab sphere of influence, the indigenous population is showing a decreasing trend.
So Ernst wanted to put an end to the situation of "teaching a man to fish". Heavy physical work such as road construction, canal digging, and mining, which consumes a lot of energy and does not have any technical level, can still be left to these indigenous people.
The purpose of processing agricultural products in the colonies was for higher profits and to facilitate food transportation.
Immigrants are currently a rare commodity in East Africa. The total immigrant population in East Africa is just over 200,000.
So we still need to import some machines from Europe for production, and the power of the machines naturally requires coal. It is definitely unrealistic to import coal from Europe and other places.
So it is essential to develop Tanzania’s local coal resources.
Mbeya, the capital of the Upper Malawi Lakes District.
This was an important mining area in Tanzania in later generations, where gold, coal, and iron were all distributed.
The most attractive thing for colonists in this world is the gold mine. Many colonies were established because of gold mine resources.
Mbeya was set up as the capital of the Upper Malawi Lake District by Ernst himself based on the previous important city in Tanzania. No important resources had been discovered before.
Now, as Ernst sent people to conduct on-site inspections and analyze the local mineral resources, its mineral resources have also surfaced.
If other colonists had discovered these resources, then this place must have been robbed, and the East African colonial government had already completely controlled the East African region.
And the East African colonies were completely under semi-military management, without even currency or any free economy, so they had good control over these resources.
Mbeya is located inland, and the news is easy to control. It is not easy to be discovered by other colonists. Even if it is discovered, it is difficult to cross the East African colonies to the interior to rob it. Unlike California in the United States, where everyone can get a share of the pie, all the wealth in the East African colonies was controlled by the Hechingen consortium.
So the resources of Mbeya were quietly developed by the Hechingen Consortium. The coal and iron resources will be directly used for local construction, and the gold mines will be replenished. To the Hechingen Bank.
In this era, mining was a manual job, so the natives who were captured by the East African colonies had a place to find employment.
They were driven into the mines by the colonial government of East Africa, and fought day and night in the mines with simple tools and rudimentary safety facilities.
Currently, there is a large amount of idle indigenous labor in the East African colonies. Before their market is clear, most of them are working on roads and water conservancy projects.
In order to connect cities, villages and towns in the colony, the colony plans to use hundreds of thousands of indigenous people to build about 10,000 kilometers of roads this year.
Of course these roads are not hardened cement and asphalt roads, but simple gravel roads. Even so, the amount of work is relatively large in this era.
East Africa is really poor. Except for some roads built by the Zanzibar Sultanate in the coastal areas, in the vast inland areas, before the establishment of the East African colonies, there was no decent road, or no road at all.
Of course, as East Africa is a savanna region, roads may not be of any use to the indigenous people.
The East African colonies must rely on roads to manage the colonies. Just the transportation of food requires certain requirements for roads. Currently, East Africa is vigorously developing animal-driven transportation such as horse-drawn carriages and ox-carts.
So simple roads are a must, otherwise according to the climate in East Africa, especially during the rainy season, the wheels will definitely get stuck in the mud and it will be difficult to move forward.
The transportation of mineral resources in the East African colonies must also rely on these gravel roads.
At present, the East African colonies are unable to develop railways. If you want to transport coal and iron ore resources to various parts of the colonies, you must rely on animal power to pull the carts.
Railway development is not due to lack of funds. Simply developing the resources along the railway can make the money back. The main reason is the lack of manpower.
The colonies had just driven away most of the indigenous people in the East African colonies, and they only had hundreds of thousands of indigenous captives in their hands.
It’s not that the East African colonies don’t want to recruit more labor force, the main reason is that the current food production of the East African colonies cannot supply so many people.
Even for the indigenous people, their food level can only maintain the most basic survival, but the consumption of hundreds of thousands is not a small amount.
In addition to the food needed by the immigrants, the food in the East African colonies was also used to provide initial rations and seeds for the immigrants. The rest was originally used for export.
But now we have to feed these indigenous people to build roads in the colony, so exports have decreased and have been basically absorbed by the colonies themselves.
And human energy is limited. Currently, it is impossible to have the energy to carry out other projects during the construction of colonial roads. Even the water conservancy projects at the same time as the road construction are actually mainly completed by the immigrants themselves.
When the primary road system in the colony is completed, Ernst will consider other large-scale projects. As for the indigenous people, they are inexhaustible. If the eight northwest countries are placed there, their efforts will be indispensable for the future development of East Africa.
(End of this chapter)