Chapter 638 Exchange of Interests
After hearing this, Franz’s mouth twitched and said: “It’s really a toss-up!”
Britain has always been a troublemaker, and most countries in Europe, especially the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Those who are "taken care of" by the British have a clear conscience.
“Now the Boers should be considered their own people, and they still engage in checks and balances, but this is also in line with the consistent practice of the British.”
Franz is very fond of the British. No idea, but one thing I really admire is that the British methods are indeed superb. Not to mention other things, the British mainland is composed of three parts, plus Ireland, it is four parts, but England is very capable of easily handling the other three parts. Franz deserves admiration.
After all, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Austria couldn't control Hungary if it wanted to, and there were a bunch of other countries and regions behind it that wanted to be as evil as Hungary.
If Austria had the skills of England, Hungary would have to taste the power of the Great Famine in Ireland. However, Britain is an island country after all and is not susceptible to foreign interference, so the two countries are still very different.
"If you can't deal with Britain, we can also provide some support. Although we can't come forward directly, we can still help you solve some problems." Franz said.
Now the status of East Africa is different, so it is valuable to be attracted. If it is still the East African colony huddled in "Tanganyika", I am afraid that it will only get "Who is East Africa? I don't know." situation.
"Haha, that's not necessary. The most important thing in East Africa now is economic development, so it would be great if the Austro-Hungarian Empire could give us more water in the fields of education, technology, culture and other fields." Ernst said.
It is better to teach a man to fish than to teach him to fish. The Austro-Hungarian Empire will definitely not do the Soviet Union's hand-in-hand teaching. However, there is still no problem for East Africans to pay their own tuition and come to study.
"Of course there is no problem, but will you help share more of our industrial products?"
"I can't make decisions blindly. Although East Africa is a big place, it is really poor! But We can help digest many commodities that we cannot produce in East Africa.”
Commodities and industrial products are still different, including agricultural products, which can also be used as commodities. The Austro-Hungarian Empire itself was an agricultural power and was located in the temperate zone. Many crops are not available in East Africa, so this aspect can be considered.
As for industrial products, East Africa needs to be cautious. Ernst thought about it and then said: "The main source of economy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is agriculture. The industry is not as strong as Germany, Britain and France, but we in East Africa are busy now. When it comes to infrastructure construction, my uncle also knows that the land in Africa has never been developed before, and we in East Africa have to build everything ourselves. This year, we and Romania plan to build a railway directly to the Chad region in the hinterland of Africa. This railway There are many technical problems. If Austria-Hungary participates, we can transfer more benefits.”
The difficulty of the central and western sections of the Northern Railway is no less than that of the Siberian Railway. If East Africa alone can build it and work hard to achieve miracles, it can indeed be done, but it will be very uneconomical.
In this regard, involving the Austro-Hungarian Empire may have unexpected results. After all, the terrain in the Austro-Hungarian Empire is quite complex, and it has the most experience in building mountain railways in Europe.
Although the main force in building railways is black people, the lives of black people also matter! Therefore, it would not be harmful to East Africa to have the Austro-Hungarian Empire participate in reducing some human losses, and it would also speed up the progress of the project. The sooner the northern railway is opened to traffic, the sooner the population isolation zone in northern East Africa can be built.
“Austro-Hungary’s oil production is also the largest in Europe, and we in East Africa can import more.” Ernst said. The Austro-Hungarian Empire still has part of the territory of Romania in its former life, so it is relatively rich in oil resources, and its production ranks first in Europe.
To promote the development of the internal combustion engine and automobile industries in East Africa, oil resources are indispensable, so they can only import them.
As for the local oil in East Africa, although Ernst knew the approximate location, the current technology and theory may not be able to support inland oil exploration, and resource exploration is also a very laborious task.
Geologists often have to sleep in the open and go into mountains to explore caves. They stay outside for ten days and a half, so it is very time-consuming and labor-intensive. In addition, the understanding of elements and minerals in this era is also very rudimentary, and the technology is also very poor. It is backward, so prospecting is a very difficult technical job.
The advantage of domestic mineral exploration in East Africa is that black people have hardly developed this land. Many minerals may be on the ground. If they were placed in Eurasia, they would have been exhausted by predecessors.
The development of transportation in East Africa in recent years has further promoted the development and progress of the mining industry. Not only can geological surveyors penetrate into more areas, but mechanical equipment can also enter development through railways and roads, and finally through railways Being transported out and then used or exported by East Africa itself fully proves the truth that if you want to get rich, you must first build roads.
Railway investment is the trend of this era, just like new energy, artificial intelligence, etc. in the 21st century. Railways are such new things in this era. Although European railways have been widely popularized, they are only for the five gangsters in Europe. Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Russia, other countries are much different.
By bringing the Austro-Hungarian Empire in, East Africa can further digest the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s domestic steel production capacity and promote the development of related industries. This is already a great deal of sincerity. After all, the central and western sections of the Northern Railway are placed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Here is a proper nationwide project, because the Austro-Hungarian Empire is only so large compared to East Africa.
And Ernst added an oil import, which made Franz even more satisfied. Although oil production was limited in this era, it also showed that the price of oil was high. After all, scarcity is the most expensive thing. In addition to being used as fuel, oil has a wide range of uses, otherwise Rockefeller would not have made a fortune from oil.
East Africa imported oil from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was not a small income for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although Ernst did not say the specific amount, it was definitely indispensable.
Ernst doesn’t care, because a large part of the oil industry in Austria-Hungary and Romania is invested by the Hechingen Consortium. In this way, importing oil from his own company is nothing more than paying more to the Austria-Hungary Empire. Taxes are unavoidable when doing business on other people's territory.
Franz, who received a satisfactory answer, also asked: "You mentioned education before, so I didn't ask too much. But this depends on the needs of each school in the empire. After all, they have to recruit students according to their own abilities. , and there are already a lot of East African students studying in the Austro-Hungarian Empire every year, so we can discuss it in terms of technology and culture.”
East Africa is the largest group of international students in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, basically every school. There are East African students in universities, so there is nothing wrong with what Franz said. However, East Africans are also considered half-Germans, so studying abroad in Germany is not too out of the ordinary. The level and quality of universities in this era are also high, so it will not happen What kind of issues like discrimination?
There are countless countries studying in Europe, and many shrewd speculators will run some pheasant schools to defraud tuition fees. In this era, the cost of studying abroad is high. This method of studying abroad in East Africa, which directly cooperates with the governments of various countries, avoids many problems, so East Africa does take a lot of advantages.
(End of this chapter)