Chapter 1097 The Third Five-Year Plan
The war on the Pirate Coast was just an episode for East Africa. Although the East African army performed poorly, it was expected by the East African government.
After the South African War, the East African army has hardly fought any more wars for twenty years. Moreover, they fought in the desert and fought on nearly hundreds of thousands square kilometers of land. They wanted to pass thousands of It is unrealistic for people to control the situation.
In fact, the final stabilization of the local situation in East Africa was achieved through the old method of immigration. East Africa migrated nearly 2,000 people from the Somali region, and with more than 10,000 immigrants from the Far East, it was re-established in the Beibu Gulf territory. its governance framework and relied on these immigrants to underpin the stability of supplies in the later stages of the war.
The main purpose is to replace the oases, villages and water sources controlled by the original indigenous people. The most important one is the water source problem. When the local indigenous residents are not cleared in East Africa, these indigenous residents will try their best to help the guerrillas. Including poisoning water supplies for East African troops.
This forced the early East African armies to send troops to guard wells and other water sources. After replacing the residents with their own people, East Africa's control of the local area was greatly accelerated.
As for the original indigenous residents, they naturally suffered retaliation from the East African government. They were either eliminated with the resistance organizations, or they left their homes and integrated into other countries and regions.
The war of conquest of the pirate coast in East Africa can be said to have given the British a sigh of relief. After all, with the advantages of weapons and troops, the East African Army did not show its due advantages, so the British did not worry about East Africa against Qatar. British colonies such as Bahrain posed a threat.
The British only provided some negligible support to the pirate coast natives in this war, and East Africa was still fighting like this. The poor record of the East African Army can be said to have provided "reassurance" to the British.
Of course, Ernst himself believes that the performance of the East African army is still up to standard. After all, this is a remote battle. East Africa does not have an intelligence advantage, and guerrilla tactics are inherently troublesome. East Africa can be pacified within half a year. The situation in the Beibu Gulf Territory was enough to satisfy Ernst.
Moreover, Ernst believes that East Africa was able to settle the Beibu Gulf territory within half a year mainly because of the small local population. However, any country with a population of more than one million and a certain level of civilization needs to be carefully considered by East Africa.
In addition, the troops dispatched by East Africa to the Beibu Gulf Territory this time are elite troops and strong generals in the Northwest Military Region. However, under the background of East Africa’s military reform, this kind of pure infantry and cavalry in the traditional sense will not be used in the future. The East African Army has actually been marginalized. In order to hide its weakness, East Africa cannot send armored troops and motorized infantry to participate in the war. That would easily scare the British in Qatar next door.
Finally, and most importantly, this war of conquest of the Pirate Coast was originally an unjust war. As an imperialist country, East Africa brazenly invaded the Pirate Coast and was not on the side of morality. , in this case, East Africa relied on the hegemony of imperialism to achieve its own goals with relatively low losses, which is worthy of East Africa's own celebration.
Of course, Ernst was quite satisfied with the results and process of the war, which does not represent the attitude of the military, especially the participating troops in the Western Military District. It is conceivable that the East African military will set off a wave of self-indulgence. The trend of self-correction is to summarize the experience of this round of war, reshape the internal organizational structure of the East African Army, and respond to the war situation.
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When East Africa launched a war against the Persian Gulf region, East Africa's domestic Third Five-Year Plan was also in progress. Through previous accumulation and the support of the first two Five-Year Plans, East Africa's domestic industry has made great progress, surpassing many former industrial powers, so East Africa Domestic enthusiasm for the Third Five-Year Plan remains unprecedented.
During the Third Five-Year Plan, East Africa officially listed the development of light industry as a focus of its own development. As a shortcoming of East African industry, light industry has been significantly improved during the Second Five-Year Plan, but overall, the quality and In terms of total volume, it is still unable to compete with other industrial countries.
One of the main reasons for the easing of relations between East Africa and the UK is that East African industries are different from those of the UK. This difference mainly refers to the fact that East Africa is not good at light industry, so the development of light industry is relatively slow, which is unacceptable to East Africa. of.
While developing light industry, East Africa faces another serious problem, that is, the problem of differentiation of market commodities cannot be perfectly solved according to East Africa's plan. After all, people have different needs. Take the most basic light industrial product as an example. A skirt, even if it is made of the same material, can be divided into hundreds of categories based on cutting form, color, thickness, height, width and other characteristics. Thousands or even tens of thousands of products are available to meet the different needs of each individual.
Fortunately, in East Africa, this kind of individual demand can be temporarily suppressed, but when it comes to the international market, people in other countries will no longer buy into the East African government. It is almost difficult to compete with peers with monotonous product types.
One of the reasons for this situation is the insufficient computing power of the East African government. It is impossible for all the mathematicians and statisticians across the country to complete this workload, not to mention the lack of advanced and efficient computing in East Africa. mechanical.
So to develop light industry during the Third Five-Year Plan period, East Africa’s economic policies must make some changes, moderately relax the economy, and leave it to the market to solve this part of the problem.
As a monarchy in East Africa, it has not rejected the market from the very beginning. The reason why it coordinates the national economy completely in the form of a plan is actually for the sake of efficiency and to improve the country's industrial level in a short period of time. Will turn a blind eye to some problems.
Of course, this kind of economic policy change in East Africa still needs to be carried out step by step and will not be carried out in a one-step manner. Just like East Africa had already conducted experiments in the 1990s before the implementation of a fully planned economy. The period from 1896 to 1900 was even called the "Era of Quasi-Planned Economy".
At the same time, this round of economic policy adjustments in East Africa is also to connect with foreign investment. If East Africa wants to reap more dividends from a possible war, it must connect with the international market.
At the same time, as the quality of industry improves, East Africa needs to open the door wider, so that some of the already strong industrial fields in East Africa can directly compete with other industrial countries. This can also compete with the existing industries in East Africa. Prevent East African companies from resting on their laurels.
To give a typical example, why the U.S. civilian shipbuilding industry has been difficult to develop for a long time is inseparable to a certain extent from the Jones Act promulgated by the United States. After the end of World War I in 1920, the U.S. Congress officially Passes the Jones Act, also known as the Maritime Commerce Act.
This bill stipulates that ships sailing within the United States must be manufactured in the United States and registered in the United States; or at least 75% of the ownership of the ship must be owned by U.S. citizens, and the crew must be U.S. citizens. This bill is overly protective. The U.S. shipbuilding industry has turned the U.S. civilian shipbuilding industry into a flower in a greenhouse and completely lost its global competitiveness.
Of course, the failure of the U.S. civilian shipbuilding industry to develop in the past life must be related to deindustrialization and high labor costs. This was almost a common problem in many developed countries in the past life.
But the problem is that, except for the era of sailing battleships and special periods such as World War I and World War II, the civilian shipbuilding industry in the United States has been difficult to compete with other countries for most of the time.
For now, the United Kingdom is of course the most developed country in the world, and the United Kingdom has vigorously developed its financial industry, making the British industry inferior to that of the United States and Germany. However, the cost of the British shipbuilding industry is lower than that of the United States and Germany. There are so many ships, monopolizing most of the civilian ship market.
So only by allowing competition to exist can domestic enterprises actively transform and upgrade. Of course, even if East Africa liberalizes competition in some industrial fields, it will be extremely limited. After all, the light industry in East Africa is too weak now, so it needs continued policy support. , only after the light industry has developed to the current level of heavy industry in East Africa can we discuss more market opening issues.
(End of this chapter)