Chapter 1394 Situation judgment
At present, the difficulties faced by the East African economy are very similar to those of the Far East Empire in the previous life. In terms of high-end industries and technology, the countries that have the advantage are still Britain, France, Germany, the United States, etc. Traditional European and American industrial power.
East Africa is in an embarrassing position of being neither up nor down, although East Africa has made great progress in recent years through relatively reasonable industrial and scientific research layout.
However, compared with the current economic scale of East Africa, the mid-to-high-end industries in East Africa are still relatively weak.
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century (generally referring to the first twenty years of the 20th century), the United States, Germany and East Africa also had similar situations, but they had a deep accumulation and could achieve a strong accumulation of strength. Before World War I, two China has basically overtaken the UK and France in terms of industry and technology.
Since independence, the United States has almost never had bad luck, and its development has been smooth. Its basic conditions such as geography, climate, resources, and agricultural development are worthy of the positioning of "a chosen place" in the words of the previous life.
From Ernst's perspective, unless Europe can be integrated into a country, objectively speaking, there is no better place in the world than the United States in the industrial age.
As for East Africa, although it has become the world's largest economy through half a century of efforts, the price it pays is much greater than that of the United States.
For example, the steel industry, the United States' coal and iron ore are not only rich in reserves, but also relatively concentrated in the distribution of the two resources. It is also supported by the shipping of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, which is simply feeding the food to the American population.
In contrast, in East Africa, the coal and iron ore resources in early East Africa were actually not outstanding. They only had coal resources that were sufficient for the early industrial development in the area near Lake Malawi in the southern part of the colony, and the iron ore distribution was also More limited.
Even though East Africa finally made up for its resource shortcomings through endless wars and territorial expansion, the cost of the East Africa steel industry development is still higher than that of the United States, especially before obtaining South Africa, the region with the most concentrated mineral resources in Africa. Many steel enterprises in East Africa can be built by land transportation construction.
In other words, in the early stages of East Africa's industrial development, the development of the steel industry was achieved based on railway transportation.
The railway construction is obviously far less than the excellent shipping convenience of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, and the construction, operation and maintenance costs are also higher.
In the early stage of industrialization, the advantages of coal-iron complexes were significant, and the premise of coal-iron complex was to be close to iron ore and coal mines, thus developing the steel industry.
The British mainland, Germany Ruhr area, and the Great Lakes industrial zone in the United States are all typical, and the negative example is France. French industry gradually fell behind because it lacked sufficient coal.
Only after East Africa acquires South Africa and Mozambique, can it be possible to build a coal-iron complex. For example, the Taite Industrial Zone is a region with rich and concentrated coal and steel resources.
In addition to the existence, reserves and distribution of resources, East Africa will obviously only be higher than that of the United States. The United States has open central plains, railways and highway construction costs can be said to be the lowest in the world. one.
East Africa has a more complex terrain, with plateaus, basins, mountains and plains intertwined, and many canyons, which all increase the difficulty of transportation construction in East Africa.
However, East Africa is not too bad in terms of terrain, it can only be said to be at a moderate level. Because of the plateau, East Africa is still relatively flat overall, but the transportation construction cost is definitely higher than that of the United States and Europe. High, there is no doubt about this.
The solution to this relatively unfavorable factor in East Africa is also very simple, that is, to carry out large-scale transportation infrastructure construction for half a century.
The main difficulties in the construction of transportation infrastructure are concentrated in the early stages. Once the construction is completed, it will be considered a huge profit later. The sacrifices in East Africa are mainly millions of black workers. From the last century to the beginning of this century, blacks were just for the East African government. A string of numbers, or consumables.
The solution to infrastructure problems such as transportation is the basis for the leapfrog development of East Africa's industrial industry at the beginning of this century.
However, the industrial development cost in East Africa was obviously much higher than that in Europe and the United States.
Enst told Friedrich: "Although our East Africa seems to be nouveau riche in other countries in the world, especially in Europe and the United States, in fact, they have not seen us pay for the development of East Africa. "
"Nearly tens of millions of people died for the construction of East Africa. It is precisely because of the sacrifice of these tens of millions of black workers that we have built the world's largest agricultural scale. The first power system, the third transportation network in the world, the fourth water conservancy system in the world, etc., thus laying the solid foundation for the world's largest industrial country."
In the agricultural field, East Africa has the largest arable land area in the world. After all, East Africa itself is a country with a large population and consumes more agriculture than the United States, so the growth of arable land in East Africa has always been relatively fast.
In terms of power systems, East Africa has made early arrangements and has played the advantage of concentrating its efforts on major tasks, and has built East Africa into the most popular and developed region in the world.
In terms of transportation, East Africa has the third largest railway network in the world, second only to North America and Europe. In terms of roads, East Africa's highway construction length is second only to Europe, and the hardened road length ranks first in the world. , it is also the world's largest automobile producer, and finally shipping. East Africa's shipping development is also second only to Europe and the United States.
In terms of water conservancy system, East Africa can only rank fourth in the world, and the previous regions of East Africa were Europe, the United States and the Far East Empire.
The first two are easy to understand. After all, European and American industries have developed early, Europe itself has developed relatively well in water conservancy and has the advantages of historical accumulation. The United States also has its own local benefits, and the cost of water conservancy construction is low.
As for why the Far East Empire was ranked ahead of East Africa, this is because of the long-term historical heritage and rich family property. The historical materials in the field of water conservancy construction in the history of the Far East Empire are deeper than those of most countries.
Of course, there is another common reason why these three regions can rank ahead of East Africa, that is, their natural conditions are much better than those of East Africa.
Yangtze River, Pearl River, Huai River...
Rhine River, Danube River, Volga River...
Mississippi River...
The river conditions in the above three areas are enough to make East Africa envious, and their average regional precipitation is generally higher than that in East Africa, and it is more stable compared to East Africa.
This also provides favorable natural basic conditions for the construction of their water conservancy facilities. After all, the prerequisite for water conservancy construction lies in "water". Without water, water conservancy cannot be discussed.
Of course, if you change the standards, East Africa's water conservancy construction should actually be ranked second in the world, which is slightly worse than Europe and is at the same level as the United States, for example, from the perspective of efficiency From the perspective of this, East Africa's water conservancy system ranks second in the world.
Although the scale of water conservancy construction in the Far East Empire has experienced long-term historical accumulation, and there are even living fossils like Dujiangyan that have been operating for thousands of years, this cannot change the current reality of the large and useless water conservancy system of the Far East Empire. After all, the water conservancy system needs uninterrupted maintenance, and the Far East Empire is now in a "chaotic world", the water conservancy system has also been affected, and many water conservancy facilities are in a waste stage.
Not to mention, the Far East Empire's technical level is relatively low at this stage. Even if it stabilizes, it will be difficult to catch up with the gap with other industrial powers in a short period of time.
Ernst said: "In the past few decades, your grandfather and I have made a lot of efforts for this country to achieve what we are today and build East Africa into a relatively powerful country." "But in fact, East Africa still has a long way to go, such as the construction of highway network in East Africa, further improvement of inland shipping, and the construction of medium and large water conservancy facilities, railway electrification, people's livelihood projects, etc. . "
"An important reason why it is not implemented now is that in order to be done by you and your successors, these will become your achievements, thereby increasing the prestige of the royal family and maintaining the rule of the empire." >
The era of large-scale infrastructure in East Africa has not actually ended, or it may not end, but after the second five-year plan ended, Ernst suspended these large-scale projects.
After all, if Ernst completes all these tasks, Friedrich may be in an awkward position after he takes office.
In this way, it will be difficult for Friedrich to achieve results after he became the helm of the empire, and people will naturally compare him with Ernst.
Of course, in addition to this reason, Ernst has other considerations.
"In addition to being your achievements in the future, these projects are also the bargaining chips that I feel that the world economy may have a big problem, so I have prepared for you."
The newest⊥small ⊥ Say⊥ Posted on ⊥Six⊥9⊥⊥Book⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥⊥!
"Although the world economy is showing signs of recovery now, and it is very likely that the world economy will flourish unprecedentedly in the next period of time, but I have a feeling that after the next great prosperity, the world economy is likely to decline. "
"This triggered an unprecedented global economic crisis. After all, we all know very clearly that the increase in industrial capacity in the whole world must correspond to a reasonable market size, and the world market itself is fixed, at least relative to This is the case with blindly increasing industrial capacity. "
"But now, industries in all countries around the world will usher in an explosion period in the next few years, including Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria, Russia, and the Far East Countries such as Empire and Japan will launch military competitions for industrial development. "
Developing industry is the only way out for most countries, but this also means that the industrial development of the world will become more internal in the future. roll.
If you do not choose to follow up, then industrial backwardness means backwardness in national strength, and it may become the fish on other people's tables in the next conflict.
Therefore, the economic crisis and World War II are bound to happen, and Ernst estimates that it is likely to be more tragic and larger than in previous lives.
Of course, this result was also driven to a certain extent by Ernst. After all, without the existence of East Africa established by Ernst, the war would not have ended in such a "sloppy" way.
This means that next time, the conflicts in Europe will be more acute, the war will be larger in scale, the scope of the impact will be wider, and the intensity will be stronger.
Enster was not opposed to the emergence of this result. After all, judging from the current situation, East Africa is invincible. In the next war, East Africa will definitely not choose to stand idly by like in World War I. Instead, we must fight to set the world and become one of the leaders and builders of the new international order.
"The development of industry will naturally drive the development of national defense and military fields in various countries, and you have also seen that the tragic level of war during the World War period can be said to be unprecedented. If another world war occurs, That also means a more tragic situation. ”
"And our East Africa has a clear advantage, that is, like the United States, away from Europe, a place of right and wrong. After the European war broke out again, East Africa will not be affected in a short period of time."
"But If this war really happens, we will most likely not choose to sit on the watchbi like in the previous World War, but let East Africa sit in the position he should have sat there."
While Friedrich listened to Ernst's prediction, a storm broke out in his heart. After all, past experience proved that his father had always seen the general trend of world development.
He asked calmly: "Father, you mean there will be World War II, so when will it happen?"
Enster said: " The outbreak of a world war is essentially a breakthrough in the threshold for the accumulation of conflicts between countries, and ultimately, the destructive power of the outbreak of conflicts has to be transferred and alleviated through war means. ”
"When will the contradictions completely break out? In international politics, it is naturally a situation where the world's economy is in a downturn. For example, in the last World War, the world's economic development was hit by a bottleneck before, and countries such as Russia had to start a war. "
To be honest, Russia is the culprit of World War I. There is no need to doubt this, because only Russia's economy has reached the brink of collapse. If the Tsarist Russian government does not launch a war, Russia will explode itself .
Although other countries have more or less problems, they are not fatal to their own regimes and rule. They launched wars more because of greed.
The typical example is Germany. The rapid development of Germany's economic, industry, military and other fields in the last century and the beginning of this century made Germany's ambitions expand rapidly. Therefore, before World War I, William II and other German senior executives not only He has no fear of war, but instead wants to achieve the great cause of his country's domination of Europe through war.
Of course, from the perspective of the German senior management, there is actually no big problem, but the funny thing is that Germany, a country that supports the war, hastily started the war without being prepared for the war. Not to mention, if Germany made sufficient mobilization and material reserves at the beginning of the war, it would not have fallen into a state of sluggishness in the middle and late stages of the Western Front.
After all, Germany's early offensive was very rapid and was close to Paris. If he could do his best, France would probably be gone.
Enster said: "The next time the world economic crisis breaks out, it may be the most tense and crisis in the global situation. This is common sense. Of course, as long as we are prepared, then what is the world situation? Development can also remain unmoved."
"At present, don't be confused by the development of the world economic situation, but should take advantage of the opportunity to unswervingly make up for the shortcomings of the empire, so that East Africa can better To deal with future crises, or even wars. "
In short, Ernst does not believe in the current European and American economists. East Africa should not only intervene and adjust its own economic development before the outbreak of the future economic crisis, but also Before the economic crisis breaks out, we must do some work in advance instead of acting as the so-called economic "night watchman" like the US government.
(This chapter ends)