Chapter 968 Disagreement
After two days, Tirpitz and his party finally arrived at the Rhine City. After passing Mbeya, they continued to the Rhine City. Along the way, they never saw anything like Mbeya City. There are big cities in the country, and the middle area is the eastern part of Zambia's land in the previous life. On the contrary, the agricultural development situation is good.
"This is the Rhine City, our new capital in East Africa. Because the capital has just been moved, the city's population and industry are still relatively scarce, so the whole city looks relatively empty." Aaron introduced to the German people.
“It can be seen that the building density is far less than that of Mbeya and Dar es Salaam, but the urban framework is very large, and it can be seen from the road network construction alone that East Africa has given Rhine City High hopes, and the number of railways is relatively large.”
At this time, Tirpitz and others. As the train approaches the Rhine City Station, as the capital of East Africa, it is naturally not inferior to a central railway hub like New Frankfurt. Therefore, the closer it gets to the Rhine City Station, the number of railways increases visible to the naked eye, and there are two trunk railways at the same time. The railway lines where Tirpitz and others were on gradually overlapped.
"The railway planning of Rhine City should be your national railway hub. This location should be at the geographical and economic heart of East Africa." Tirpitz said.
Aaron explained: "It will take time before the railway hub takes shape. Currently, one of the three lines has not been completed. Only a section eastward from the Rhine City has been completed, but it only accounts for the entire About one-third of the railway.”
Now the railway in Rhine City has been separated from the Central Railway, so there is no need to transfer through New Frankfurt City, which also prevents Tirpitz and others from seeing the new city. Frankfurt situation.
As the new capital of East Africa, the urban layout of Rhine City is completely different from the East African cities Tirpitz has seen such as First Town, Dar es Salaam, Dodoma, and Mbeya.
A trend can be seen here. The closer to the hinterland of East Africa, the more different its urban architectural style is from Germany.
In the early days, East African cities completely imitated European architectural styles. However, as East Africa developed, the germination of local architectural styles gradually formed. And because of later development than coastal development and other reasons, the styles of inland cities became more bold and open.
This architectural feature has been fully reflected in the Rhine City. Although the overall core of the Rhine City is still similar to that in Europe, a large number of simple industrial style elements have been added.
Coupled with the exaggerated roads and green construction as usual in East Africa, the entire Rhine City presents the vitality of a new city.
Tirpitz and his party finally got off the train at the Rhine City Station. The Rhine Station felt quite majestic. The scale of this station should be among the best in the world. This is similar to Tirpitz. The Mbeya and Dar es Salaam cities that Erpitz had seen before were different.
Subsequently, under the arrangement of the East African government, the German naval delegation officially visited the political center of East Africa. Ernst, who was busy dealing with the large amount of official duties accumulated due to the capital relocation work, also took the time to talk to Tirpitz, the former I also met a relatively famous person.
"Count Tirpitz, welcome to East Africa."
"Thank you, Your Highness, for taking the time to meet us." Facing Ernst, even though Tirpitz was older, he seemed quite dignified. Awe.
Even putting aside Ernst's many titles and status in East Africa, the Hechingen royal family is relatively prestigious in Europe, especially in Germany.
“This time Count Tirpitz, as the new German Navy Minister, can make East Africa his first stop. We in East Africa are very honored. I believe that in the future, Germany and East Africa can cooperate sincerely and play a greater role in the ocean field. role." Ernst set the tone.
As for the German Navy's initiative to seek cooperation with East Africa, Ernst would naturally not refuse. Although the East African Navy has become mature, there is still a big quality gap with Europe.
The early development of the East African Navy was inseparable from the support of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. However, the Austro-Hungarian Navy was not particularly outstanding in Europe, especially compared with Western Europe and Nordic countries. It was at the middle and lower reaches among the great powers. This It will also inevitably lead to the East African Navy having a lot of lessons to make up for.
Although the German navy developed late and Germany is not a traditional naval power, Germany is currently the world's science and technology and academic center, and its industrial strength and cutting-edge technology are on par with the United States. From the end of the 19th century to the early 20th century, the world's navy was in an era of great changes, especially the resurgence of battleships. Under this situation, the German Navy was one of the new forces that could lead the development of the world's navy in a short period of time.
Although Germany lost the First World War in its previous life, the performance of the German Navy from the beginning to the end of the war was remarkable, especially the German warships. Compared with the British warships, There is no difference in quality and stability.
With the East African Navy temporarily not expanding its capacity, the pressure on East African coastal defense has actually increased. Especially after East Africa has a coastline in the west that can be developed and constructed on a large scale, the original available scale of the East African Navy will be even greater. Stretched.
If we can cooperate with the navies of Germany and other countries at this time, we can undoubtedly reduce the military pressure on East Africa during this special period.
Although Ernst emphasized that economic development is the current top priority in East Africa, this does not mean that Ernst ignored the possible risk of war.
After confirming Ernst's supportive attitude, Tirpitz was naturally very happy. With Ernst's instruction, it means that the general direction of the next naval cooperation between the two countries is stable. .
Of course, Germany and East Africa each have their own interests and strategic considerations, so there will be many differences. However, these differences are only conceptual differences and do not hinder the cooperation between the two navies.
Tirpitz and William II are undoubtedly supporters of the ocean-going navy and are in line with Germany's world policy, so they want to exert the influence of the German navy around the world.
The East African Navy currently still takes offshore defense as its mainstream policy direction, even though East Africa has many colonies and economic spheres of influence in the world.
The completely different development strategies of the two navies will inevitably have an impact on the cooperation between the two navies. The first is the conflict in ideological concepts.
When it comes to East Africa’s economic sphere of influence, Germany and East Africa also have differences, especially in their attitudes towards the Far East Empire. The focus is undoubtedly East Africa’s two economic cooperation zones in the Far East, especially the core Jiaozhou port.
With the development led by East African capital, Jiaozhou has obviously become a more attractive bait than in the previous life. Every country is greedy. In the previous life, Germany took a fancy to Jiaozhou, not to mention the development with the support of East Africa. Later Jiaozhou.
Ernst naturally could not give up his dominance in Jiaozhou, which was the communication window and the most important economic channel for the East African and Far Eastern empires.
Due to the need to win over East Africa, the German naval delegation headed by Tirpitz was naturally unable to rob it. However, one thing is certain, that is, Germany cannot sit back and watch other powers carve up the Far Eastern Empire market.
Although Jiaozhou is nominally an area where East Africa, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and other German countries have common interests, the dominance of the region has always been in the hands of East Africa.
So if Germany wants to have a German-led core port in the Far Eastern Empire, it can only find other places to build and develop, or snatch it from Britain, France and other countries. The latter is obviously unrealistic, so Germany There is a possibility that it will re-circulate territory outside the sphere of influence of various countries as its commercial base in the Far East.
Ernst was helpless. After all, East Africa could not stand on the opposite side of Germany, and there was no reason to interfere with Germany's national policies. East Africa's ability to guarantee Jiaozhou's independence was actually a threat to the Far Eastern Empire. A huge help. Although for various reasons, East Africa will inevitably penetrate Jiaozhou in the fields of culture and economy, the Far East Empire at least has some dominance and will not be completely called back and forth by other powers like other ports.
(End of this chapter)