Chapter 522: Goalkeepers of Great Powers
End of 1879.
The light rainy season that was supposed to arrive has not arrived. Not surprisingly, it triggered a drought in eastern East Africa. This drought affected two important agricultural production areas in East Africa. One is the coastal plain. , one is a dry agricultural production area on the East African plateau.
The Great Lakes region does not have much impact. Benefiting from its geographical location, the Great Lakes region can enjoy some residual water vapor from the Congo Basin. In addition, the Great Lakes region is already rich in water resources, so it will not have much impact.
“This rainy season has not arrived due to special reasons, so we must do a good job in dividing water sources, and at the same time, the release of water from reservoirs must be carried out in a timely manner to ensure the steady development of agricultural work.”
"According to local reports, five eastern provinces will be affected, including Central Province, Oriental Province, Neu-Württemberg Province, Plateau Province and South Salzburg Province, so this drought will affect a wide range of areas, including parts of the west and south. It will also be affected, but now the west and south are not very affected because of their late development and sparsely populated areas.”
Faced with drought, East Africa can deal with it calmly, and the entire country machine operates smoothly. However, the scope of this drought is somewhat large, so it has attracted great attention from the central government.
After more than ten years of development, black people have been virtually eliminated from eastern East Africa, and the population has reached the level of a normal country, which is obviously different from Australia, Canada, Argentina and other countries with large populations and sparse populations.
In fact, Brazil is quite vast and sparsely populated, but Brazil has a population of more than 10 million, so it makes sense, but East Africa is an exaggeration. In East Africa, the immigrant population in Tanganyika alone exceeds one Ten million, not counting the new population in East Africa.
So East Africa is no longer at the same level as the above-mentioned countries in terms of size. Of course, because of the rapid territorial expansion of East Africa, the population is still unbalanced with the land.
However, country populations are generally compared horizontally. The population of East Africa is already a steadily large country compared to most countries in the world.
As 1880 is approaching, the work of governments at all levels in East Africa has also intensified, because in Ernst’s heart, 1880 is an important historical node, so in order to get a thorough understanding of the national conditions in East Africa, starting from September this year , the census work that had been stalled for several years was restarted.
For a country with a large population and territory like East Africa, Ernst’s psychological expectation was that East Africa should develop better than Japan and Spain.
Although Japan is not yet a great power, it has developed rapidly through the Meiji Restoration, and Japan's first-mover advantage is much stronger than that of East Africa. The main problem is population. Japan is a country with a large population, and the population of East Africa is from other countries. Moving the country over cost a lot of time and money.
After all, without population, value cannot be created. The East African colonies were almost in the same period as the Meiji Restoration. At that time, East Africa, which was a piece of white land, did not even have full control of Tanganyika.
Therefore, Japan at that period could be said to be at the front of the track, while East Africa had just started. Except for its land area, Japan was stronger than East Africa in all aspects at that time.
Looking at the development of the two countries more than ten years later, East Africa has made up for most of its shortcomings and has caught up with Japan in some areas.
Take railways as an example. The railway mileage in East Africa was approaching 10,000 kilometers in 1879, while Japan only had about 1,500 kilometers.
In terms of steel, coal and other minerals, East Africa will not bully Japan in this regard, and Japan cannot get minerals out of the ground for nothing.
Lack of resources is also an important reason why Japan’s railway mileage is far less than that of East Africa. In order to build more than a thousand kilometers of railway, Ernst can think of the tight living conditions in Japan. In 1879, Japan was still an agricultural country, with more than 80% of its fiscal revenue relying on agricultural expenditures. The situation in East Africa was slightly better. There was the Hesingen Consortium out there attacking cities and territories. Of course, the Hessingen Consortium could not be considered pure. of East African assets.
In addition to agriculture, Japan’s biggest bet is the textile industry, especially the silk industry. This is Japan’s most important export product. Finally, it is mainly about working abroad. Japanese people working all over the world have a steady stream of support. Japan's development, as for Japan's mining industry, is almost negligible.
After all, what Japan does is hard work, but Ernst admires this kind of spirit. To be honest, the living conditions of the Japanese are probably not comparable to those of black people in East Africa.
The focus of East African industries is on emerging industries such as agriculture, industry, mining, and electric power. The development of agriculture in East Africa is different from Japan.
Japan squeezes the value of land and farmers to the extreme, using meager agricultural income to support industrial and commercial development, so its investment in agriculture is far less than the value it extracts.
The investment in the development of agriculture in East Africa is quite high, and it is truly developed as a pillar industry. After all, such good land and environmental resources give East Africa reason to do so. Of course, Ernst also has some thoughts about agricultural hegemony in his heart, and he certainly cannot reflect it now. If you come out, you can at least get a share of the pie in the future.
Emerging industries such as electric power are still in their infancy in East Africa. Ernst has been paving the way for East Africa, mainly through education and talent introduction, which has not yet emerged.
Needless to say about the industry and mining industry, East Africa followed the path of Germany and vigorously supported heavy industry, which resulted in East Africa's steel output exceeding one million tons.
Of course, the biggest gap between the two countries is their military level. East Africa's defense strength has actually reached the level of the great powers. Especially after defeating Portugal, no country dared to underestimate East Africa's military strength.
Although Japan is relatively poor in its military, it cannot catch up with the military level of East Africa. The East African navy alone is what Japan looks up to.
It can be said that East Africa is far ahead of Japan except in terms of population. In fact, East Africa has the advantage in terms of population on both sides. After all, black lives matter. The 20 million black people in East Africa have made important contributions to the development of East Africa.
The reason why Ernst compared Japan to Japan was because of helplessness. In this era, there are almost no emerging countries that can compare with the development of East Africa. East Africa has not yet reached the level of Germany and the United States. Italy, a laggard country, is lagging behind because of The reason for the collapse of the United States is that other countries like Belgium and Romania are small and pitiful.
The countries closest to East Africa in terms of national strength should actually be the Ottomans and Spain. Ernst personally believes that the Ottomans have stronger military strength than Spain. After all, the Ottomans performed very well in the 10th Russo-Turkish War. As you can see, Spain did not perform well at the end of the century. However, the geographical situation faced by the Ottoman Empire was much worse than that of Spain, but this did not affect the Ottomans' status as a great power.
Spain's strength is more reflected in its oceans and colonies, and its homeland is not bad either. It is quite satisfactory in Europe.
In addition to these countries, the ones in front of East Africa are nothing more than Britain, France, Russia, Germany, Ogilvy and the United States, plus a Far Eastern Empire. Ernst did not praise the Far Eastern Empire because of his identity as a Far Easterner in his previous life, but the Far Eastern Empire in this era is indeed An extremely influential power, in addition to the above powers, the Far East Empire really has this strength.
It's just that the Far East Empire couldn't exert its own strength. The Qing government was timid for its own rule. On the one hand, it vigorously supported the development of military industry, but it did not dare to invest too much in the military. After all, the Qing government's Eight Banners system had become a waste. The Han people were strictly guarded against the Han people, and the foreign military was always hesitant. Naturally, they suffered repeated defeats. However, if you look closely, many wars were actually fought well in the early stages, but once capable people took the lead, they would be restricted.
So by comparing with other countries in the world, Ernst believes that the national strength of East Africa should be right between the great powers and non-great powers. Without Italy, the goalkeeper position of the great powers is Spain, and East Africa should be ranked behind Spain. lower position.
(End of this chapter)