African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1486 External Standard Output
When the East African military base in Bolivia is officially completed, the seven southern South American countries, including Bolivia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Brazil, will be within the military radiation range of East Africa.

The land area of ​​these seven countries alone is close to 15 million square kilometers, almost occupying the vast majority of South America. It is larger than East Africa itself, and has a population of 50 to 60 million. This does not take into account Venezuela and Colombia, which have a deeper influence in East Africa.

In 1929, the combined population of these two countries was about million, Venezuela had about million, and Colombia had perhaps million. Therefore, East Africa could influence the South American market with a population of about million.

Of course, this market of nearly 70 million people is not monopolized by East Africa alone. Other countries also have a share, such as the United States, Britain, France and Germany, but East Africa definitely accounts for the largest share.

Especially after Bolivia was controlled by East Africa, it is almost impossible for other countries to compete with East Africa in South America. In terms of economic sphere of influence and military radiation, East Africa has become the only dominant power in South America. This also means that the US "Monroe Doctrine" has failed halfway.

The slogan of the United States' Monroe Doctrine is "America is America for the Americans." Now, with East Africa's intervention, almost half of South America will no longer be at the mercy of the United States.

In 1904, then-President Theodore Roosevelt declared that if Latin American countries "act recklessly or become so weak that all the ties of civilized society are loosened, then in the end it will be necessary for a civilized nation to intervene, and the United States cannot neglect its responsibilities in the Western Hemisphere."

This proposition is called the Roosevelt Corollary, and it also shows the US government's determination to further strengthen the "Monroe Doctrine" and thus completely regard the entire Latin America as the US "backyard".

According to Roosevelt's inference, the United States can directly intervene and interfere in the affairs of Latin American countries and become the "Latin American police."

However, the new supplement to the "Monroe Doctrine", namely the Roosevelt Corollary, is now basically in name only, especially in South America. The future direction of major countries will more importantly depend on the attitude of East Africa.

Any South American country that goes against the will of the East African government, or that pretends to obey but actually disobeys, and does not consider and follow East Africa’s attitude in its participation and choices in international affairs, then East Africa’s “iron fist” will obviously be more deterrent than the verbal threats of the United States.

The influence of the United States further retreated to the northern region, including the Panama Canal, that is, North America.

……

Rhine City.

Bolivia becoming a semi-colony in East Africa was a huge victory for the Rhine Empire government. The East African government held a special meeting to further strengthen the empire's control over South American market resources.

Hans Layton, the Minister of Commerce of East Africa, said excitedly: "Through this war in Bolivia and Paraguay, most of South America will be covered by the economic map of the empire, which will put us in an advantageous position in the competition with other powers for the South American market."

"This will open up a new market of at least tens of millions of people for the Empire, effectively alleviating the crisis of international industrial overproduction that the Empire is currently facing."

"I suggest that we immediately start a new round of economic cooperation with Bolivia and other countries, export the Empire's technological standards, and at least take the lead in connecting their transportation, energy, industry, agriculture, etc. with the Empire's market in Uruguay, Paraguay, and Bolivia."

The Ministry of Railways naturally supports this. Wells said: "Now, we have approved the Asuncion-Lima railway project, but this is far from enough. In the past, railways in South America were mostly based on British and American standards."

"However, the Empire's export of railway standards is not satisfactory. Apart from our colonies, mainly some countries in North Africa and West Africa, which have fully adopted the Imperial standards, other regions and countries have only sporadic distributions."

Other regions and countries mainly refer to the Far Eastern Empire, the Middle East, Dalmatia, etc. Although these regions and countries also have railways built in East Africa, they are not mainstream.

For example, the Far Eastern Empire has a total railway mileage of about 14,000 kilometers, but the Jiaoxu Railway, which is more than 300 kilometers long, was built according to East African standards.

The Jiao-Xu Railway was built during the First World War. Before that, the Bian-Luo Railway was built and planned to be merged into the Longhai Line. At that time, the Kaifeng-Xuzhou railway was already under construction, and its terminus was chosen to be Haizhou. For their own interests, the Jiaozhou Municipal Government and business people raised funds to build the Jiao-Xu Railway.

At the same time, there is an important difference between this railway and the local railways in East Africa. That is, the Jiaoxu Railway is strictly speaking a "three-track railway" with an extra track, which makes it compatible with standard track gauge while being able to run East African locomotives.

The most typical East African standard railway in the Middle East is the Baghdad-Basra Railway. This railway is designed strictly in accordance with East African standards. However, when the Basra Railway was first built, it was not intended to be connected to the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. Otherwise, Britain would never have allowed this railway to be built.

Of course, East Africa also tends not to allow the Baghdad Railway and the Basra Railway to be completed. After all, East Africa is not happy with Germany extending its influence to the coast of the Persian Gulf.

As for the Dalmatian Kingdom Railway, it was a complete mess. At that time, the Austro-Hungarian government did not attach much importance to Dalmatia and had no railway construction plan. In addition, the railway system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire itself was relatively chaotic, so East African companies took advantage of the opportunity.

The construction of these railways will undoubtedly have limited impact on regional railways. For example, if the Austro-Hungarian Empire can continue to exist in the future, it will inevitably gradually unify domestic railway standards.

The future of the Jiaoxu Railway will depend on the attitude of the Far Eastern Empire Government. Although it is a wide-gauge railway, it is also compatible with standard gauge. Whether it should be demolished and renovated is not something that East Africa can decide.

In fact, East Africa has never been interested in building railways in the Far Eastern Empire. The completion of the Jiao-Xu Railway was mainly due to the private cooperation between the two countries. If the East African government had intervened, it would have promoted the construction of railways in the Huaihai area as early as the last century, instead of waiting until the First World War to build a Jiao-Xu Railway of only more than 300 kilometers in the Far Eastern Empire.

Of course, the export of East African railway standards is not limited to this achievement. For example, the colonies in East Africa must be fully integrated with the mainland.

In addition, there are the Abyssinian Empire, Darfur, the Kingdom of South Germany, and the Belgian Congo. Although these regions and countries are not numerous, their areas are not small.

Although the Abyssinian Empire only covered an area of ​​more than 200,000 square kilometers, its population was as high as more than 10 million. Darfur had an area of ​​nearly 600,000 square kilometers. The Kingdom of South Germany had a territory of nearly 2 million square kilometers, and the Belgian Congo also had an area of ​​more than 200,000 square kilometers.

The area of ​​these four countries and regions alone is about 3 million square kilometers, and their railway standards are built completely in accordance with East African standards. Including East Africa, colonies, and other regions, that is, the East African railway standards cover an area of ​​about 20 million square kilometers.

At the same time, with the growing strength of East Africa, the export of East Africa's railway standards is still on the rise. For example, the Middle East, North Africa, West Africa, and South America have all been growing in recent years.

However, Wells was obviously not satisfied with this. He said: "The gap between the Imperial Railway standards and the British standards is still large, and now is a good opportunity for us to seize the international market. Especially since the Imperial Railway technology is leading the world, we should speed up the export of railway technology to other countries."

"Especially in countries like South America where railway standards are relatively chaotic and there are relatively few railway lines, as long as we can seize this opportunity, we can occupy a large market in the future."

In South American countries, except Argentina, the railway construction in most countries is extremely backward, such as Bolivia.

There are only more than 2,000 kilometers of domestic railways, and most of them are narrow-gauge and meter-gauge. Even the track gauge is not uniform. Moreover, the already scarce railways are basically distributed in the west.

You should know that the Asuncion-Lima railway that East Africa is planning to build is nearly 1,000 kilometers long in Bolivia. When completed, this railway will be approximately equal to half of Bolivia's current national railways. And East Africa will obviously not only build this one railway in Bolivia in the future.

For example, Bolivia’s iron ore area is located in the northeast bordering Brazil. In the future, East Africa will definitely build a separate railway line to develop local resources.

In addition, the Asuncion-Lima railway covers three countries: Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. How could East Africa ignore Chile, a major mineral country? Therefore, in the future, East Africa will inevitably take the lead in building a railway between Bolivia and Chile to strengthen trade and connections with Chile.

After the construction of these three railways is completed, the East African Standard Railway will completely exceed the current total mileage of Bolivian railways and become the mainstream of Bolivian railways.

These three railways are not the entirety of the East African government’s railway plan for Bolivia. Wells said: “In the government’s expectation, the Bolivian economy will be integrated with the empire in the future.”

"This means that Bolivia's economic center of gravity will shift from the Pacific Ocean in the west to the east. The eastern part of Bolivia has an open terrain and is suitable for transportation construction such as railways."

"Bolivia looks small on the map, but its actual area is one million square kilometers, which is almost the same as the East African Plateau and much larger than many countries in the world. In addition, Bolivia is located in the heart of South America and borders many countries, so the railway market in Bolivia has huge potential."

Bolivia and Paraguay can easily give people the illusion on the map that their land area is small, but this is because of the visual differences caused by reference objects.

Not to mention big countries like Argentina and Brazil, even Peru has a land area of ​​more than one million square kilometers. Chile has a long and narrow terrain, but it also has an area of ​​more than 700,000 square kilometers. Compared with these countries, Bolivia and Paraguay seem small.

But even Paraguay's area is only a few tens of thousands of square kilometers smaller than France. Paraguay has an area of ​​480,000 square kilometers, while France has an area of ​​just over 500,000 square kilometers. Bolivia has an area of ​​one million square kilometers, which is definitely a country with a large land area in Europe, second only to the Soviet Union.

One million square kilometers is larger than two Huanghuai Plains.

So Wells said: "As long as Bolivia and Paraguay can be used well, a railway network with unified standards can be formed in the heart of South America. This will be of great benefit to strengthening trade between the empire and South American countries."

"Especially now, in the context of the world economic crisis, this will be conducive to the development of foreign exports in our railway and steel industries, thereby driving the imperial economy out of the siege."

"Moreover, the South American market is a rapidly developing emerging market with far greater potential. With future development and population growth, it will become one of the two stable wings of the empire's economy."

East Africa’s global strategy also includes the concept of “flying on both wings”. There are two interpretations of these two wings. One refers to the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic, and the second refers to the South Pacific and South America. East Africa’s military and economic expansion in recent years has also proved its efforts in this regard.

Crown Prince Friedrich agreed with Wells and Hans Leighton's proposal: "The importance of South America to the empire is self-evident, especially at the moment, against the backdrop of a new round of global economic crisis."

"Apart from war, it is difficult for countries to expand into new wars. This was the case with our participation in the wars in Paraguay and Bolivia. This war opened a gap for us to break out of the economic crisis."

"However, in order to ensure the fruits of victory, we must also prevent counterattacks from other countries, especially the United States and the United Kingdom. Now, although the US economy has collapsed, it also means that the United States is likely to become dangerous."

This is not alarmist. After all, based on past experience, especially industrial countries, when dealing with economic crises, there is a high probability that they will embark on the path of military expansion.

In the previous life, the United States finally relied on reforms and the opportunities of World War II to land smoothly, but who can guarantee that in this time and space, the United States will not go astray and go to war, especially after East Africa has forcibly divided up the South American market, which will inevitably make the US economy more difficult than in the previous life.

This is the case with the United States, let alone other countries in the world. One reason why East Africa can remain unaffected now is that after World War I, it continued to encroach on and expand new economic spheres of influence, coordinating with its own economic adjustments, and was barely unaffected.

One important reason for comparing the United States and East Africa is that, in terms of East Africa’s international image from the late 19th century to the early 20th century, East Africa was clearly a more "aggressive" and "barbaric" country, while the United States is now truly a "white lotus."

Therefore, if East Africa had not made early adjustments and economic crises broke out simultaneously in the United States and East Africa, other countries would probably be more willing to believe that East Africa would start a war and thus shift the crisis.

Friedrich went on to say, "Now that we have established our advantage in the South American market, we should press on and make Bolivia a vassal of the empire in the fields of economy, transportation, military, etc. Therefore, the government should speed up the formulation of Bolivia's economic development policy. Among them, railway construction and military deployment should be given priority to speed up the development of the South American market."

The wool comes from the sheep. Bolivia will inevitably bear most of the responsibility for East Africa's subsequent economic development in Bolivia. As for the problem of Bolivia having no money, there is no need to think too much about it. After all, Bolivia itself is a country rich in mineral resources.

(End of this chapter)