African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 442: Chapter 119 Weak Foundation

On the train from Trieste to Vienna, Ernst was browsing the Austrian countryside scenery through the windows of his private compartment; on both sides of the railway were lush green wheat fields, bustling farmers on the paths, ox carts carrying goods, and the occasional village.

The Austrian countryside scene was actually not much different from the Middle Ages. If it weren’t for the train, you might not even feel it, resulting in Ernst experiencing a sensation of temporal confusion each time he traveled by train.

Such accelerated development led to the situation Ernst encountered, where the powerful driving force of the Industrial Revolution was actively changing European society, while a similar situation was happening in the far-off East Africa.

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With the railway workers in place, the East African railway project officially commenced. Indigenous railway workers were divided into over twenty groups to work on the railway line adjustment.

Faced with mountains, they carved through mountains; confronted with water, they built bridges. Under the command of technical personnel, the railway line was gradually cleared.

The northern side of the Mujinga Mountains was a major obstacle for the East African railway; there was a swamp here that the railway could not avoid.

The East African government’s approach was straightforward and brutal, utilizing a large number of Black people to manually dredge the area. Thousands of them, under the threat of rifles, removed the water using every kind of container to drain the swamp dry.

”Besides the numerous hippopotamuses and crocodiles residing in the swamp, there are other lurking dangers like venomous snakes. These creatures pose a lethal threat to our workers, so only the indigenous people were given this task.”

”This swamp can only be cleaned manually, and at the normal pace of engineering, it would take months to clear it. So we must rush to complete this section of work before the rainy season comes, to prevent rainwater from refilling the area once the rainy season arrives.”

Thus, to prevent accidents, East Africans forced the indigenous people to work day and night, trying to complete the swamp cleaning within two and a half months.

For the construction of the Central Railway, many similar tasks occurred, such as felling virgin forests to make way for the railway, and clearing large stones and other obstructions.

At the railway’s starting point, on the extension of the First Railway, large quantities of raw materials were carried inland by the flesh and blood of the indigenous people; rail tracks weighing thousands of pounds were entirely moved by hand, which could easily cause fatal injuries to workers if done carelessly.

Meanwhile, to ensure the construction of the railway, East Africa constructed three cement plants, twenty-three logging sites, and quarries along the line, and also established a new steel plant in the Kara Barri region of Zambia.

In 1873, East Africa’s annual steel production was 240,000 tons, and after the Kara Barri steel plant commenced production, East Africa’s steel output will exceed 300,000 tons.

Actually, the steel plant in Mbeya City, after upgrading its equipment, increased its annual output to over 80,000 tons, which can satisfy a large part of East Africa’s demand.

The total steel demand for the East African railway amounts to around 8 million tons, while in 1873, German steel production was roughly three to four million tons. Therefore, importing some steel from Germany and Austria can save East Africa a considerable amount of funds.

East Africa’s steel production is actually notable on the world stage; however, comparatively, coal production is somewhat insufficient, at only about 1.5 million tons. Concurrently, Germany has a coal production of 27 million tons, and Britain and America have surpassed 100 million tons.

However, due to the impact of economic crisis, the steel and coal production capacities of various countries will suffer massive shrinkage in the upcoming period, whereas East Africa will experience rapid growth.

Aside from the massive steel demand for railway construction, the demand from East African shipyards is also significant. Bajamojo shipyard, though it cannot build thousand-ton ironclad ships, has secured orders for more than a dozen gunboats under Ernst’s favor, with the tonnage of East African gunboats generally being above 400 tons.

The inland shipyards shouldn’t be overlooked either. By 1873, the number of East African inland shipyards had expanded to 37, with demands most intense outside the Great Lakes, in the regions of the Zambezi River and Congo River.

Beyond these two industries of railway and shipbuilding, East Africa will introduce a series of factories thereafter, and the steel demand will remain in a relatively booming phase.

These figures are some of the base data for East Africa before railway completion. Once the railway is completed, the main southern industrial zone (Zimbabwe) construction, and Zambia’s copper industry development, East Africa’s industrial growth can truly reflect the level of development amidst the economic crisis.

Ernst actually wants to learn from the five-year industrial plans, using the momentum of the economic crisis to allow East Africa to soar, but this is entirely impossible for East Africa.

Generally, when people observe a five-year plan, they feel like ’I can do it too,’ but in reality, there are only two examples of five-year plans: one in Soviet Russia and one in the Far East, with Soviet Russia’s first plan starting in 1928 and the Far East’s first plan commencing in 1953.

In textbooks, it seems that once the first plan is completed, the two countries shake off the status of agricultural nations. After completing the second five-year plan, the Soviet Union even directly ascended as an important industrial nation in the world.

Actually, in the Tsarist Russia era, Russia already had a complete industrial system; for instance, it is already the fifth-largest textile country in the world, has tens of thousands of kilometers of railway, and over three thousand factories, reaching nearly ten thousand factories with over three million workers before the Soviet era.

Currently, Russia is already among the powerful nations, so how far behind can it be? It can only be said that the Soviet Union fully tapped Russia’s potential, bringing Russia historically close to world leadership.

The Far East’s industrial level was subpar, but during the Self-Strengthening Movement, a batch of military enterprises and state-owned enterprises were established. During the Beiyang period to the time of the Republic, a batch of private capital also developed, so after 1953, there were actually a group of professionals in the region, plus support from the Soviet Union providing an initial realization of industrialization.

Ernst can be sure that the Far East in 1953 had a considerably better foundation than the current East African Kingdom, with a stronger leadership team than the East African Kingdom, and yet the Far East’s five-year plan was still challenging to accomplish.

Therefore, given East Africa’s current conditions, with a total of over 170 factories mostly engaged in low-technology-content rough manufacturing, the educational level among the populace is completely inadequate to support industrial development.

In planned economies, the key is reflected in the word ’planned’. Formulating and executing a plan is an immense test of a country’s execution ability. If Ernst wants to implement a five-year plan, the first issue he faces is how to solve the talent problem, all of which require high-quality personnel to execute.

The East African Kingdom’s development in agriculture can barely be sustained with the bureaucratic ability level in place, but industrial development presents a considerable challenge. As for the current industrial capacities of East Africa, it has been realized by talents flowing out from the German regions; the management of Heixinggen factories are all recruited and employed from Germany and Austria, fundamentally highlighting the issue of personnel shortage.