African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1394 Situation Assessment
For now, the difficulties faced by the East African economy are very similar to those of the Far Eastern Empire in the past. In terms of high-end industries and technologies, the countries that have the advantage are still traditional European and American industrial powers such as Britain, France, Germany and the United States.

East Africa is in an awkward position, neither going up nor down, although it has made rapid progress in recent years through a relatively reasonable industrial and scientific research layout.

However, compared with the current economic scale of East Africa, East Africa's mid- and high-end industries 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 deep accumulation and were able to achieve rapid development. Before World War I, the two countries basically overtook Britain and France in industry and technology.

Since its independence, the United States has had almost no bad luck and has developed smoothly. The basic conditions in terms of geography, climate, resources, and basic conditions for agricultural development, to name a few, are worthy of its positioning as the "chosen place" in the words of the past.

From Ernst's perspective, unless Europe can be integrated into one country, objectively speaking there is no place in the world with better conditions 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 paid is much greater than that of the United States.

For example, in the steel industry, the United States not only has abundant reserves of coal and iron ore, but the distribution of the two resources is also relatively concentrated. In addition, with the support of shipping from the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, it is simply feeding food to the American population.

In contrast, East Africa's early coal and iron ore resources were not actually outstanding. Only in the southern part of the colony near Lake Malawi were there sufficient coal resources for early industrial development, and the distribution of iron ore was also relatively limited.

Even though East Africa finally made up for its resource shortcomings through endless wars and territorial expansion, the cost of developing the steel industry in East Africa is still higher than that in the United States. Especially before taking over South Africa, the region with the most concentrated mineral resources in Africa, many steel companies in East Africa were able to be built thanks to land transportation construction.

That is to say, in the early stages of East Africa's industrial development, the development of the steel industry was based on railway transportation.

Railway construction is obviously far inferior to the excellent shipping facilities of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River, and the construction, operation and maintenance costs are also higher.

In the early stages of industrialization, the advantages of the coal-iron complex were obvious. The premise of the coal-iron complex was to be close to both iron ore and coal resources, thereby developing the steel industry.

The United Kingdom, Germany's Ruhr area, and the United States' Great Lakes industrial region are typical examples, while the opposite example is France, where industry has gradually fallen behind due to a lack of sufficient coal.

Only after East Africa acquired the two regions of South Africa and Mozambique did it have the conditions to build a coal-iron complex. For example, the Tete Industrial Zone is a region where coal and steel resources are relatively rich and concentrated.

In addition to the availability, reserves and distribution of resources, transportation costs in East Africa will obviously be higher than those in the United States. The United States has the vast Great Central Plains, and the cost of building railways and roads can be said to be one of the lowest in the world.

The terrain in East Africa is more complex, with plateaus, basins, mountains and plains interlaced, and many canyons, which increases the difficulty of transportation construction in East Africa.

However, East Africa's terrain is not too bad. It can only be said to be at a decent level. Because it is mainly plateaus, East Africa is relatively flat as a whole. But there is no doubt that the cost of transportation construction is definitely higher than that of the United States and Europe.

East Africa’s solution to this relative disadvantage is very simple, which is to carry out large-scale transportation infrastructure construction for half a century.

The main difficulties in transport infrastructure construction are concentrated in the early stages. Once the construction is completed, it will be very profitable. The sacrifices in East Africa are mainly millions of black laborers. From the last century to the beginning of this century, blacks were just a string of numbers, or consumables, to the East African governments.

Solving infrastructure problems such as transportation is the basis for the leapfrog development of East Africa's industry at the beginning of this century.

However, the cost of industrial development in East Africa was obviously much higher than that in Europe and the United States.

Ernst said to Friedrich: "Although we in East Africa are seen as nouveau riche by other countries in the world, especially European and American countries, in fact, they do not see how much effort we have made for the development of East Africa."

"Nearly 10 million people lost their lives for the construction of East Africa. It was because of the sacrifices of these 10 million black workers that we were able to build the world's largest agricultural scale, the world's largest power system, the world's third largest transportation network, the world's fourth largest water conservancy system, etc., thus laying a 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 populous country and its consumption of agriculture is greater than that of the United States, so the growth of arable land in East Africa has been relatively fast.

In terms of the power system, East Africa had an early layout and took advantage of concentrating resources to accomplish major tasks, thus building East Africa into the region with the most popular and developed electricity in the world.

In terms of transportation, East Africa has the world's third largest railway network, second only to North America and Europe. In terms of roads, the length of East Africa's road construction is second only to Europe, and the length of hardened roads ranks first in the world. It is also the world's largest automobile producer. Finally, in terms of shipping, East Africa's level of 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 regions before East Africa are Europe, the United States and the Far East Empire.

The first two are easier to understand. After all, Europe and the United States developed their industries early, Europe itself has relatively developed water conservancy, and has the advantage of historical accumulation. The United States also has the blessing of its geographical location, and the cost of water conservancy construction is low.

As for why the Far Eastern Empire ranks before East Africa, it is because the Far Eastern Empire has a long historical heritage and rich legacy. The historical materials in the field of water conservancy construction in the history of the Far Eastern 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 East Africa.

Yangtze River, Pearl River, Huai River...

The Rhine, the Danube, the Volga...

Mississippi River...

The river conditions in the above three regions are enough to make East Africa jealous, and their regional average precipitation is generally higher than that in East Africa and more stable than that in 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, there is no water conservancy.

Of course, if we change the standards, East Africa's water conservancy construction should actually rank second in the world, only slightly lower than Europe and on par with the United States. For example, from the perspective of efficiency, East Africa's water conservancy system ranks second in the world.

Although the scale of water conservancy construction in the Far Eastern Empire has gone through a long period of historical accumulation, and even has living fossils such as the Dujiangyan Irrigation System that has been in operation for thousands of years, this cannot change the reality that the Far Eastern Empire's water conservancy system is now large but useless. After all, the water conservancy system requires uninterrupted maintenance, and the Far Eastern Empire is now in a "turbulent time", and the water conservancy system has also been affected, with many water conservancy facilities in a state of disrepair.

Not to mention, the Far East Empire’s current technological level is relatively low. Even if it stabilizes, it will be difficult to catch up with other industrial powers in a short period of time.

Ernst said: "Over the past few decades, your grandfather and I have made a lot of efforts for this country to achieve today's achievements and build East Africa into a relatively strong country."

"But in fact, East Africa still has a long way to go, such as the construction of East Africa's highway network, further improvement of inland shipping, construction of medium and large water conservancy facilities, railway electrification, livelihood projects, etc."

"An important reason why it has not been implemented now is to leave it for you and your successors to complete. These will become your achievements, thereby enhancing 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 does not have to end, but after the end of the second five-year plan, Ernst suspended these large-scale projects.

After all, if Ernst completed all these tasks, Friedrich might be in an embarrassing position after taking office.

As a result, it was difficult for Friedrich to achieve results after becoming the helmsman of the empire, and people naturally compared him with Ernst.

Of course, in addition to this reason, Ernst had other considerations.

"These projects, in addition to being used as your achievements in the future, are also my bargaining chips prepared for you as I sense that the world economy may face a major problem."

"Although the world economy is showing signs of recovery now, and it is very likely that the world economy will be unprecedentedly prosperous in the coming period, I have a hunch that after the next great prosperity, the world economy is also likely to decline."

"This triggered an unprecedented global economic crisis. After all, we all know very well that the increase in industrial capacity throughout the world must correspond to a reasonable market size, and the world market itself is fixed, at least relative to the blind increase in industrial capacity."

"However, the industries of countries around the world will usher in a period of explosive growth in the next few years. Countries such as Britain, France, Germany, the United States, Austria, Russia, the Far East Empire and Japan will all launch a military competition for industrial development."

Developing industry is the only way out for most countries, but it also means that industrial development around the world will become more inward-looking in the future.

If we do not choose to follow suit, then industrial backwardness means backwardness in national strength, and we may become fish on someone else's table in the next conflict.

Therefore, the economic crisis and World War II were bound to happen, and Ernst estimated that they would most likely be more tragic and larger in scale than in the previous life.

Of course, this result was also driven by Ernst to a certain extent. After all, without the East Africa established by Ernst, the war would not have ended so "hastily".

This means that next time, the conflicts in Europe will be more acute, the scale of the war will be larger, the scope of impact will be wider, and the intensity will be greater.

Ernst is not opposed to this outcome. After all, judging from the current situation, East Africa is in an invincible position. In the next war, East Africa will certainly not choose to stand idly by as it did in World War I. Instead, it will fight to decide the outcome and become one of the leaders and builders of the new international order.

"Industrial development will naturally drive the development of national defense and military fields in various countries. As you can see, the brutality of the wars during the World Wars was unprecedented. If another World War breaks out, it will mean an even more brutal situation."

"And the advantage of our East Africa is obvious. Like the United States, we are far away from Europe, a place of trouble. If the war breaks out again in Europe, East Africa will not be affected in a short time."

"However, if this war really happens, we will most likely not choose to sit on the throne like we did in the previous world war, but let East Africa sit in the position it should have sat in."

When Friedrich listened to Ernst's prediction, he felt a surge of shock in his heart. After all, past experience had proved that his father had always been very accurate in his predictions about the general trends of world development.

He asked calmly, "Father, you mean there will be a Second World War. When might it happen?"

Ernst said: "The outbreak of a world war is essentially the result of the accumulation of conflicts between countries breaking through the threshold, and ultimately having to use war to divert and alleviate the destructive power of the outbreak of conflicts."

"As for when the conflict will completely break out, in international politics, it is naturally when the world economy is in recession. For example, before the last world war, the world economic development had reached a bottleneck, and countries such as Russia had no choice but to start a war."

To be honest, Russia was the main culprit of World War I. There is no doubt about this because Russia's economy was on the brink of collapse. If the Tsarist Russian government had not launched a war, Russia would have exploded on its own.

Although other countries have more or less problems, they are not fatal to their own regimes and rule. They wage wars more out of greed.

A typical example is Germany. The rapid development of Germany's economy, 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, German senior officials such as William II not only had no respect for war, but wanted to achieve the great cause of dominating Europe through war.

Of course, from the perspective of the German top leaders, this was not a big problem. But the funny thing was that Germany, a country that supported the war, rashly started the war without being well prepared. Apart from anything else, if Germany had made adequate mobilization and material reserves at the beginning of the war, it would not have fallen into a sluggish state in the middle and late stages of the Western Front.

After all, Germany's early offensive was very swift and it was very close to Paris. If it had gone all out, France would most likely have been lost.

Ernst said: "When the next global economic crisis breaks out, it may be the time when the global situation is the most tense and critical. This is common sense. Of course, as long as we are prepared, we can remain unmoved no matter how the world situation develops."

“Right now, you should not be misled by the development of the world economic situation, but should take advantage of the opportunity and unwaveringly make up for the shortcomings of the empire, so that East Africa can better cope with future crises and even wars.”

In short, Ernst does not believe in what European and American economists are saying now. East Africa should not only intervene and adjust its own economic development before future economic crises break out, but also do some work in advance before the economic crisis breaks out, instead of acting as the so-called economic "night watchman" like the US government.

(End of this chapter)