African Entrepreneurship Records

 Chapter 839 Powerful East African Power

However, only eight tractors are a drop in the bucket for Shaokui Town. Local agricultural construction still requires a lot of manpower.

As an area that Portugal has operated for a long time, Sauquet has a large number of plantations and farms nearby. The area is not small, otherwise Earl Roberts would not have chosen to set up the coalition headquarters here.

Before the Portuguese left on a large scale, there were tens of thousands of black slaves serving as labor force in the entire Sauquet town, serving local plantations and farms.

 When it became a battlefield, a large number of military facilities were built in the Shaokui area. Now there are still a large number of trenches and bunkers in the outer area of ​​Shaokui.

The East African government did not dismantle these military facilities on a large scale, which also delayed the agricultural development of Shaokui. Especially after the recent heavy rains, the trenches in Shaokui Town were filled with rainwater. At the same time, there were a large number of shell casings left in the Shaokui area. Underneath the land, these all need to be cleared.

Of course, this is not too difficult for the town of Sauquet. After the Portuguese surrender, hundreds of thousands of black slaves were left in East Africa to serve as soldiers. These are all ready-made labor forces.

Especially in the town of Saukui, 20,000 black people were left here after the war to maintain production and land reclamation activities in Saukui, and East Africa stationed a whole regiment of troops here.

 …

 The first town.

Ernst picked up his second daughter, kissed her and said, "What's wrong, baby? Do you want to listen to the radio too?"

 This is Ernst's second daughter, Princess Lena of East Africa, who was born in 1885. She is seven years old this year and has a twin brother.

Eastern News Agency is the abbreviation of East African National News Agency. Before that, the main communication channel of Eastern News Agency was newspapers. Now the emergence of cable broadcasting has once again enriched the way of information transmission in East Africa.

The eldest prince Friedrich, the eldest princess Jena, and the second prince Karls have all already entered school. As for the twin princess Lina and her brother, the third prince Antonio, they will also enter school in the second half of this year. The youngest son Maxim was born four years ago. He was only five years old when he was born, and now the royal family of Hechingen finally feels a bit prosperous. At least Ernst's great fortune will not be left without anyone to inherit it.

Of course, as the first batch of cable users, the residents of the first towns and cities are lucky. They are always the first to enjoy the improvement in the quality of life brought by technological progress.

“This is East Africa Radio. The current time is May 12, 1891, East Africa time, six o’clock in the afternoon. Welcome to listen to the news from East Africa News Agency..."

 “What is radio, daddy?” Princess Lena asked.

The Ernst family listened to the news from East Africa's first cable radio station in front of the radio.

In the past ten years, since the birth of his eldest daughter Jena, Ernst’s children have now reached six in total, including four princes and two princesses, including his eldest son Friedrich.

 “Dad, give me a hug...” A chirping porcelain doll disturbed Ernst’s mind while listening to the radio.

"Broadcasting means spreading the word widely. Many people can hear the news. You know the telephone? Broadcasting is a sound coming from a similar device, but this sound can be heard by many people, as long as they have one at home. radio."

Lina stared with big eyes, not knowing what her father was talking about.

Of course, what Ernst said is similar. Nowadays, cable broadcasting is actually transmitted by telephone lines, so there is no problem in saying that it is a device similar to a telephone.

Historically, in 1893, Budapest, the capital of Hungary, connected more than 700 telephone lines to broadcast news regularly, forming a formal cable broadcast, two years earlier than this in East Africa. This is not because the technology was not mature before, but because East Africa did not need cable broadcasting to deliver messages before. However, as the development level of East African cities improves, cable broadcasting technology can be released.

 And it is different from the past. In the past, the application of new technologies had to be launched in the European market first, such as electric lights, telephones, etc.

 The first city where cable broadcasting technology was applied this time was a local city in East Africa, which also illustrates the development status of East African cities.

Ernst strongly supports the development of the electric power industry. Today, East Africa’s electrification level ranks first in the world.

The development of the local power industry has also promoted the development of East African power companies such as Hechingen Electric Power Company. Just the previous year, Hechingen Power Company in Germany was overtaken by Deutsche Electric AG and fell to third place. The two are Siemens and Deutsche Electric AG, two monopolies supported by the German government.

However, the decline in the German market is only the result of the royal family of Hechingen transferring its industry to East Africa. In fact, Hechingen Electric Power Company is still one of the top monopolies in the world, ranking at the forefront in many countries. .

Of course, in addition to the royal enterprise of Hechingen Electric Power Company, there are many large state-owned power companies in East Africa. They and Hechingen Electric Power Company jointly monopolize the East African electricity market, forming a huge power monopoly organization.

 Enterprises moving toward monopoly was the normal development trend of enterprises in the 19th century. They can better participate in international social competition and improve resource utilization efficiency.

There are currently a total of five power entities in the world, which basically divide most of the world's market. The first is the Hechingen Electric Power Company, followed by the East African National Electric Power Company, then General Electric of the United States, and finally Siemens and Electric of Germany. head office.

 It is a very intuitive reflection of East Africa’s strong strength in the electric power field, and thanks to Ernst’s foresight, the general direction of East Africa’s electric power development is stable. For example, the promotion of alternating current in East Africa and the international community has been greatly accelerated.

In the past ten years, East Africa has been one of the countries with the largest number of new thermal power and hydropower plants in the world. In the central and eastern parts of East Africa, electricity is basically no longer a "luxury" and has been widely involved in social production and life activities. Major cities have basically realized "Electrify" goals.

At the same time, East African power has a huge market share in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Asia and other regions, and the international power tripartite pattern is basically stable.

And East Africa is supported by the East African National Electric Power University. This university in East Africa has been developed with national efforts. It can be said to be an institution of higher learning with the largest concentration of electric power talents and technologies in the world.

At the same time, almost every big city in East Africa has electricity-related colleges and universities, which have made great contributions to the popularization and promotion of electricity in East Africa. Therefore, in the field of electricity, East Africa has truly achieved comprehensive development, with almost no shortcomings.

Of course, the booming development of the power industry is not representative and cannot reflect the level of economic development in East Africa, such as machinery, chemicals, shipbuilding, medical care, etc. The gap between East Africa and European and American countries is still huge.

In the field of traditional industries, the problem is even more prominent. In this regard, countries such as Britain and France have an absolute advantage. For example, during the South African War, the United Kingdom almost completely banned the import of mid-to-high-end machinery to East Africa, which had a certain impact on the textile and mining industries in East Africa. .

In the past ten years, East Africa has mainly focused on the four major industries of steel, railways, mining, electricity, and automobiles. In these four areas, East Africa has caught up or even surpassed it, but its performance in other areas is unsatisfactory.

 Hence, East Africa must work hard in other industrial fields in the future, especially important industries such as chemicals, petroleum, textiles, and medical care.

However, this kind of thing may not be easy, because a large number of newly incorporated territories will inevitably involve a lot of energy, manpower, material and financial resources from the East African government in order to develop these new territories.

 If East Africa wants to achieve an industrial breakthrough, it must first meet the basic conditions for mass production, and this condition is to continuously expand production. Only when the quantity is achieved can qualitative changes be considered.

To put it simply, quantitative changes lead to qualitative changes. Now East Africa does not even have enough "quantity", so it naturally cannot lead to qualitative changes. It is like a person who solves the problem of "eating enough" first before thinking about other things.

 (End of this chapter)