African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1729 West Coast Trade

The Kalahari Desert nuclear test site.

As the highest-level strategic testing site in East Africa, the Kalahari Desert nuclear test site is located deep in the heart of the Kalahari Desert, with the nearest city being Upington in East Africa.

Upington is more than 450 kilometers from the nuclear test site, while Bulawayo is more than 800 kilometers away.

Bulawayo is also the core city for nuclear research in East Africa and the largest city closest to the nuclear test site. Ernst met with East African nuclear physics experts and personnel from the nuclear test site in Bulawayo at that time.

"The success of this nuclear test is a great event of great significance to the Empire, and even to the progress of world civilization."

"However, everyone should also be clearly aware of the dangers of nuclear physics research and related experiments. Therefore, going forward, the focus of the Imperial nuclear engineering development must always revolve around the principle of 'safety' and proceed in an orderly manner, without ever being impatient for quick success."

"At the same time, everyone's contributions and achievements to this nuclear test are kept highly confidential due to national strategic needs."

"I hope everyone can understand this, but rest assured, those who participated in this national plan and project will certainly not be forgotten by history."

Ernst's words here also explain why East African newspapers published news about the successful nuclear test.

This can be understood as "leaving a record of the work." As the first country in the world to complete a nuclear test, East Africa, while not able to publicize it extensively, should still clearly acknowledge its pioneering status and position.

Later, when the atomic bomb became known to the world, other countries could learn from the archives of East African official newspapers from 1939 that East Africa was the first to use it.

There is only one reason for doing this: the atomic bomb cannot be used in East Africa at present, especially for deterring other countries. Otherwise, how could World War II be fought?
Ultimately, East Africa should seek world hegemony through an image of "justice," not an image of "tyrant."

Ernst continued, "Of course, the corresponding welfare benefits will be arranged by the state. When the time is right, your historical contributions will be declassified and included in the history textbooks of the future empire."

Those in East Africa who participated in the nuclear tests naturally believed the Emperor's promise, although it was somewhat regrettable that their achievements could not be made public at that time.

However, before participating in this national strategic project, they had already prepared themselves to remain anonymous, and Ernst is merely mentioning it again.

……

West coast of East Africa.

Lobito.

With the outbreak of war in Europe, trade on the west coast of East Africa surged in early 1939, and the port of Lobito operated almost around the clock, with the docks piled high with goods waiting to be loaded onto ships.

As an important port for sea-rail intermodal transport in East Africa, a large amount of goods are continuously gathered at the port of Lobito from the East African interior by rail, and then transported to Europe by ships.

Britain and France are now facing huge shortages of supplies. They urgently need to replenish almost all goods, from military supplies to civilian necessities. After all, unlike Germany, they did not make sufficient preparations for the war in advance and had always harbored illusions about Germany.

This has directly led to both countries now having an even more urgent need to fill the gap in supplies.

This greatly excited shipping companies in East Africa, including the owner of Mars Glemy Ocean Trading Company.

He sat in his office, looking at the recent financial reports, and said excitedly to his secretary, "This time it's finally our turn on the West Coast to get a taste of the good stuff. Before, it was always those trading companies on the East Coast who were eating the meat, which made us so envious."

Prior to 1939, trade in East Africa, especially along the east coast, was very active.

At that time, although the war in Europe had not yet started, tensions were already high, especially since the Axis powers were actively preparing for war.

In order to stockpile supplies in preparation for war, the Axis powers would typically place orders with trading companies in East Africa.

Since the Axis powers were concentrated in Central and Eastern Europe, trade with them via the Suez Canal was more convenient on the east coast.

In addition, the Far East wars also played a certain role in promoting trade in East Africa. However, the Far Eastern empires themselves had weak consumption power and were not as wealthy as the Axis powers in Europe.

Moreover, with the Japanese occupation of Guangzhou at the end of 1938, this further blocked the trade routes between the Far Eastern Empire and East Africa.

Overall, however, before 1939, trade on the east coast of East Africa was far more comfortable than on the west coast due to the war.

This situation persisted until Germany formally declared war on Britain and France.

After completely breaking ties with Germany, Britain and France finally abandoned any illusions and began placing large orders from regions such as East Africa and the United States, thus preparing for a decisive battle with Germany.

Mars Grammy's secretary, Tate, said, "Boss, we must seize this opportunity in the European war. If the European war evolves into a repeat of World War I, it means that the next four or five years will be the best time to make money."

"Britain and France are both wealthy countries, so their order volume is definitely not small."

"The company should focus on Western Europe, and losing some South American orders is worthwhile in doing so."

Trade along the west coast of East Africa can be broadly categorized into three main types: trade with Europe, particularly Western Europe; trade with South American countries; and trade with North America.

In order of size, these three major trading partners are ranked as follows: Western Europe first, followed by South America, and finally North America.

The reason is quite simple: Western European countries have large markets and strong purchasing power. For example, the UK and France together constitute a high-consumption market with a population of nearly 90 million. If you include Spain and Portugal, the population of the Low Countries exceeds 100 million, and their consumption levels are not low.

However, Britain and France are the most typical examples. These two countries are large in size and have large populations, and their current strength lies in the financial industry.

As former world powers and beneficiaries of the now-defunct old international system, there is no doubt about the immense wealth of both countries.

The consumption habits of the people in both countries have not changed much despite the decline in national strength in recent years. This can be seen by referring to the developed countries that deindustrialized in the previous life.

Compared to these Western European countries, South America, although also large in scale, is somewhat lacking.

Leaving aside the level of consumption, South America's population is only slightly over 100 million, and the entire population of South America is not even greater than that of Western Europe. Therefore, even if the per capita consumption capacity of the two were the same, the South American market could not possibly be larger than the Western European market, not to mention that Western Europe is backed by the whole of Europe. For example, Germany's positioning is rather ambiguous; it can be classified as Western Europe, Central Europe, or even related to Northern and Southern Europe.

Finally, there's North America. North America's consumption level is naturally much higher than South America's, but it's basically considered by the United States to be its own sphere of influence, and the US industry is also quite strong, so East African goods have a hard time competing locally.

At the same time, in addition to competition with East Africa in industry, North America also faces considerable competition in agriculture, especially in the Caribbean region, which is also an important global producer of tropical cash crops.

Therefore, trade between East African and North American countries is relatively limited due to political and economic factors.

Previously, Mars Graeme Ocean Trading Company's business mainly focused on Western Europe and South America.

Company owner Mars Grameen said, "That's right, but we can't completely abandon trade in South America for short-term gains. After all, we'll have to continue our previous operating model after the war ends."

"We can make some big changes to the trade share with North America. After all, there aren't many customers in North America to begin with, and they are easily affected by US policies. We can give up on them appropriately and focus on trade with Western Europe."

In recent years, East Africa and the United States have engaged in fierce commercial competition, leading to numerous conflicts between the two sides. Although these conflicts have been relatively small in scale and the governments of both countries have exercised restraint, the situation is quite different for some trading companies in the two countries.

Any policy change could result in significant losses for the company.

For example, if the United States suddenly imposes high tariffs on steel from East Africa, East Africa as a country will indeed suffer some losses, but such losses are obviously insignificant to East Africa as a whole, and East African governments can also retaliate against the United States in kind.

However, if it were a company in East Africa that specializes in doing steel business with the United States, then this policy of the United States towards East Africa would obviously be extremely fatal.

The East African government obviously won't bail them out. After all, market behavior inherently involves risks. Before doing business, they should have considered that East Africa and the United States are competing fiercely and have many conflicts. They should have sought solutions on their own or avoided the risks altogether.

For East African governments, the amount of steel they export to the United States is negligible compared to their exports to other markets.

For such a small amount of money, are East African governments really willing to break ties with the United States and even start a war?
The answer is obvious: no. After all, East African governments need to consider the overall situation, not just the interests of individual companies.

Furthermore, the East African governments have taken countermeasures, which is already more than enough.

Secretary Tatti nodded and said, "The North American market is indeed insignificant to us; in fact, the United States is now a competitor of Imperial Trade."

"If the United States hadn't existed, we wouldn't have had to share the spoils of this European war with the Americans."

The market demand generated by the war between Britain and France would obviously not be monopolized by East Africa. In fact, the United States had some advantages in trade with Britain and France than East Africa.

After all, the United States is closer to the Western European market, and the United States has a stronger penetration into the United Kingdom, etc.

The capital ties between Britain and the United States are very close, and in many ways they are even intertwined. This is something that East Africa obviously cannot do, while the situation in France is relatively better.

However, France now follows Britain's lead, so from the perspective of cost and profit chain, the United States has a considerable advantage in exporting to the Western European market.

However, fortunately, trade between East Africa and the Axis powers was clearly something the United States could not match.

Of course, Japan was excluded from the Axis powers, while the United States and Japan had relatively close trade relations.

Mars Grammy said, "Right now, our most important task is to quickly recruit people and place orders with shipyards, seize this opportunity, and make a profit."

The outbreak of war in Europe has also made shipyards in East Africa even busier. Now, government orders and private orders are piling up, and they simply can't keep up with the demand.

Not only Lobito, but the entire west coast of East Africa is eager to join this feast.

On the contrary, the changes on the east coast are not as significant, and the reason is simple: the Suez Canal shipping route is now affected.

Britain has begun to block trade between other countries and Germany, and the Suez Canal, a key node controlled by Britain, has become an important obstacle to trade between East Africa and the European axis.

The region most affected is the east coast of East Africa, where trade with Europe has even decreased rather than increased.

This directly led to the North African Railway and the Berlin-Baghdad Railway becoming two major arteries for trade between East Africa and the Axis powers.

Ultimately, rail transport cannot compare with the scale of maritime transport and is far from meeting the cargo demand between the European axis countries and East Africa.

However, the European Axis powers were not too concerned about this. For example, Germany knew it would face this situation before the war started, so it placed large orders with East Africa several years ago to purchase a large amount of strategic materials to increase its reserves.

Italy, on the other hand, is not worried at all. With the North African railway, trade between Italy and East Africa will be less affected. In fact, as an intermediary, Italy can take the opportunity to make a profit in trade between East Africa and the Axis powers.

Spain is in a similar situation, but like in the previous life, it has not yet expressed a clear attitude towards the war and has maintained "neutrality".

The Ottoman Empire was also in a wait-and-see mode, and it could be said that the Axis powers were not so closely united.

However, one thing is clear: the Axis powers were highly united in their attitude toward the Soviet Union. Even Franco told Adolf that if Germany and the Soviet Union went to war, Spain would definitely come to their aid.

The Ottoman Empire and the East Slavs had a long-standing feud, having fought more than a dozen Russo-Turkish wars. Even after the Soviet Union replaced Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire's view of the Soviet Union remained unchanged, and even intensified due to ideological reasons.

Other countries such as Poland and western Ukraine were even more eager to destroy the Soviet Union and tear it to pieces. Romania and Bulgaria also harbored suspicion and vigilance towards the Soviet Union.

Among the Axis powers, Italy was probably the only one that wasn't very interested in the Soviet Union, but that was only relative to the other Axis powers.

Italy was also ideologically irreconcilable with the Soviet Union. However, other countries, especially those surrounding the Soviet Union, not only had ideological hostility towards the Soviet Union, but also historical grievances with the East Slavs.

It can be said that even without the Soviet Union, and still under Tsarist Russia, the animosity between these countries and Tsarist Russia would not be much less.

Compared to the Soviet Union, the attitudes of the other Axis powers, apart from Germany and Italy, towards Britain and France were completely different, since their own interests did not conflict much with those of Britain and France.

(End of this chapter)