African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1180: Chapter 189: Engineering Miracle

In East Africa, road transportation has already formed significant competition with the railways, and this is still under the condition where the potential of road construction in East Africa has not been fully unleashed.

As for inland water transport, which is evidently a shortcoming in East African transportation, it has been making consistent efforts in recent years, with market share growing substantially, especially in the several major lake regions of East Africa, forming quite a developed regional water transport network.

Entering the 20th century, East Africa’s inland shipbuilding industry also entered a phase of great development. The Great Lake, Soron Lake, Lake Malawi, Congo River, Zambezi River and other basins, as well as artificial canals in East Africa, saw a significant increase in navigation.

Of course, Duke Franz IV could hardly have an intuitive feel for this point, as most of the regions he passed through avoided the areas in East Africa where water transport is developed.

However, the splendid achievements of East Africa’s railway and road construction alone were enough to leave Duke Franz IV deeply unsettled.

Looking at the majestic New Frankfurt City’s central train station, Duke Franz IV developed a significant curiosity for New Frankfurt City.

Besides Rhein City, this was his first detailed visit to a major East African city, although he had made brief stops in Dar es Salaam and Mbeya along the way. As for Dodoma, Iringa, and First Town which are quite spectacular, they could not rival European cities, and the gap with major East African cities was still visible to the naked eye.

New Frankfurt City was clearly one of East Africa’s major cities, as evidenced by its extensive urban development scale.

”I intend to stay in New Frankfurt City for a few days to thoroughly experience the details of your country’s urban construction. I’ll be counting on you.” Duke Franz IV said to Kopel.

”It’s both my honor and my duty, Your Grace.” Kopel replied with neither arrogance nor servility.

Subsequently, Kopel began arranging for the attendants to unload luggage from the special train and informed New Frankfurt City to come over for liaison work.

After Kopel presented the documents, the group waited in the VIP lounge at the central train station for the staff from New Frankfurt City government.

Twenty minutes later, a fleet of government cars from New Frankfurt City drove into the central train station.

For this duke, the New Frankfurt City government dared not neglect, to be precise, Duke Franz IV was indeed a foreign head of state, although the Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was just a duchy under the German Empire rather than an independent country, it did not hinder its status as a state.

”Your Grace, in the next few days, which areas would you like to visit in our city? Although New Frankfurt City is just an emerging city, it has quite a few unique sights.” New Frankfurt City’s Deputy Mayor Lascelles asked Duke Franz IV from the front passenger seat.

This aroused the interest of Duke Franz IV, after all, East Africa’s history was short, lacking famous monuments. As for scenery, it was rather better to visit some undeveloped areas of East Africa, such as savannas, rainforests, and lakes. Of course, East Africa had some well-known natural landscapes.

For example, the East African Rift Valley, King’s Falls (Victoria Falls), Nile River, Congo River, etc., but these places evidently had little relation to New Frankfurt City.

Thus Duke Franz IV asked, ”Does New Frankfurt City have any famous natural landscapes?”

Lascelles: ”We don’t have famous natural landscapes in our city, but there are quite a few man-made sights, like New Frankfurt City People’s Park, the East African Grand Canal, the central football stadium, and so on.”

Duke Franz IV was indifferent to East African parks, after all, as a great noble, he had seen many gardens and private estates; although East Africa had many parks, could they really be more scenic than the gardens of Rhine Palace?

However, regarding the East African Grand Canal mentioned by Lascelles, Duke Franz IV was more interested, as the name suggested significant scale.

He asked Lascelles, ”Can you introduce what the East African Grand Canal is? I am indeed interested in East African canal engineering.”

Now that East Africa has opened up, these projects naturally need not be concealed. Lascelles introduced to Duke Franz IV: ”The East African Grand Canal is one of the wonders of our water transport construction in East Africa, comparable to your country’s Kiel Canal as a large-scale project. Of course, if examined closely, your country’s Central German Canal is actually more comparable.”

”Because the main function of the East African Grand Canal is to link the central and western water networks of East Africa, thus achieving water transport connectivity to the regions along the two great oceans, so in function, it’s much like linking the central northern part of Germany with the Central German Canal.”

”Moreover, the East African Grand Canal is also a large canal project completed by our country this century, similar to your country’s Central German Canal.”

The Central German Canal could also be called the German Central Canal or Mittel Canal, planned to be an artificial canal built by pre-war Germany, started in 1905 and currently suspended due to the war.

Duke Franz IV was also familiar with the Central German Canal, after all, for the entire Germany, it was considered a national strategic project, if completed, it could link Berlin, Wolfsburg, Hanover, Dortmund, Duisburg, and other important German cities, greatly strengthening the connection between the capital Berlin and the Ruhr industrial area.

Lascelles actually compared the East African Grand Canal with the Central German Canal, which evidently in Lascelles’ mind, the East African Grand Canal was quite remarkable.

This left Duke Franz IV somewhat skeptical, as in Duke Franz IV’s view, the Central German Canal was already a grand project.

So Duke Franz IV asked Lascelles, ”I wonder about the scale of your country’s canal and its construction progress?”

Lascelles did not notice Duke Franz IV’s inner change but directly replied, ”This project was completed four years ago, regarding the length, the entire line of artificial excavated canal measures over a thousand kilometers, it’s said the scale is only smaller than that ancient canal constructed by the Far East Empire.”

Duke Franz IV seemed to have heard something laughable, and incredulously asked, ”How is that possible?”

”An artificial canal of over a thousand kilometers, apart from that ancient canal in the Far East Empire, I’m afraid there hasn’t been such a wild project in the world, and you just said East Africa started excavating this canal in this century! How could it be accomplished in such a short time?”

Facing the skepticism of Duke Franz IV, Lascelles said, ”Indeed, our Empire completed this unbelievable project, and at present, East Africa is constructing even larger canal projects, though it’s hard to believe.”

After speaking, Lascelles couldn’t help but think, if he were a foreigner, he clearly might not believe that East Africa could independently complete such a massive project.

On the contrary, Kopel besides him said to Franz IV, ”Although difficult to believe, the Empire indeed completed the East African Grand Canal a few years ago, its project volume rivaling six or seven Suez Canals, and it indeed passes through New Frankfurt City’s territory. Of course, the cost was not small, but for us East Africans, the project volume is not impossible to complete, considering East Africa’s population exceeds one hundred million, along with far more advanced tools and materials than those during the construction of the Suez Canal, so it’s not beyond common sense.”

With Kopel’s confirmation, Duke Franz IV had to believe in the canal’s existence; after all, having interacted along the way, Duke Franz IV did not think Kopel was exaggerating, and East Africans had no need to joke about such matters with him.

Upon reluctantly accepting the fact about the East African Grand Canal, Duke Franz IV said, ”It seems your country’s infrastructure capacity indeed exceeds the imagination of the world. Before coming to East Africa, I thought East Africa’s national power might be on par with Russia, but now I must pay the price for my ignorance; your country’s capacity is far superior to Russia’s, especially in terms of infrastructure, it does not pale compared to all of Europe.”