Greece to roman road

Time came to 1887. After nearly three years of all-out efforts, the railway from Matadi to Kinshasa in the Congo River Basin was finally completed. This also meant that Congo could finally enter the normal development stage.

Through this strategic railway, Congo’s natural resources and European and American commodities can finally circulate with each other.

Thanks to the Berlin Conference in 1884, various countries allowed the Congo Committee to impose a 10% import and export tariff. Constantine spent a lot of energy over the years investing in the Congo region, and finally received his first return, 150,000 pounds. .

It was previously agreed with Banning that 5% of the Congolese finance is the income from the royal family's many huge investments over the years, and 10% will be allocated to the Royal Greek Education Foundation to develop education in Greece.

Everything is difficult without money. Previously, Constantine strongly advocated that the royal family invest in the Congo River Basin and acquire colonies. Over the years, more than 10 million francs of the royal family's funds have been successively invested in the early development of the Congo colony. This made Constantine Tandin was always on edge.

Except for some projects with strategic value, such as Tesla's AC system, Constantine has always been able to avoid other things that involve large expenses.

This put Constantine under a lot of pressure.

All good things come hard, and after many years of hard work, I finally have my first profit.

Looking at the two checks handed over by Schmidt, the Royal Greek Education Foundation, which has already been fully prepared, can finally vigorously promote compulsory education.

Among the reasons why Constantine attached great importance to the implementation of compulsory education, education can improve the quality of the people, which is only part of the reason.

Part of the reason is the special nature of the Balkans.

This land located at the junction of the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, due to its important strategic location, was successively ruled by major empires, including the Alexander Empire (the first empire spanning Asia, Europe and Africa), followed by the Ancient Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. , and finally the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

In the long history, the territory of the Balkan Peninsula has been part of a certain empire for most of the time.

The empires that ruled this land throughout the ages were almost always multi-ethnic and even multi-religious.

For example, the ancient Roman Empire (including the Eastern Roman Empire) governed the ethnic groups such as Latins, Jews, Greeks, Slavs, Germans, Armenians, Egyptians, Gauls, etc.

The Ottoman Empire also has a large number of ethnic groups. As for religions, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, and different schools of various religions.

It is precisely such a special geographical location and history that the Balkan Peninsula has mixed ethnic groups and confused religious beliefs.

Since it has been under the rule of a multi-ethnic empire for a long time, in order to maintain the stability of its rule, the empire naturally needs to weaken the self-identity of each ethnic group. For example, ancient Rome (Eastern Rome) supported Christianity, and Ottoman Turkey respected Islam.

Therefore, in the land of the Balkan Peninsula, the integration of ethnic groups is going on almost all the time.

For example, from the 7th to the 11th century, in the eyes of MSL in the Arabian Peninsula, those who believed in Orthodox Christianity were Romans, and they did not distinguish between Greeks, Slavs or Germans.

In addition, the mountainous geography of the Balkan Peninsula isolates and fragments the ground, making communication even more inconvenient for people living on this land.

Those residents who live in remote mountains use their own dialects to communicate with each other in daily life. They are also illiterate and have no writing at all.

Think about it, Ottoman Türkiye did not have its own written language, and the official government either preached or used Arabic.

The ability to assimilate is even weaker.

Ideographic characters, such as Chinese characters, even if they have different pronunciations, but the corresponding Chinese characters are the same, they are generally considered to speak the same language.

For example, Cantonese, Hokkien and northern dialects have very different pronunciations, but everyone still thinks they are the same language.

But phonetic characters are different. If people pronounce it differently, strictly speaking, it is not the same language.

The combined effect of many factors has led to the fact that a considerable number of people in the Balkans have no idea what ethnic group they are.

During the long-term rule of the multi-ethnic empire, some people lost their sense of national identity.

Therefore, in the Balkans, except for those people with extremely obvious national characteristics, for example, they speak Slavic or Greek, and they will definitely say that I am a Greek or a Slavic, many people cannot clearly identify their own nationality. nationality.

In this special case, if such a person receives compulsory education in Greek, he will be a Greek from then on.

For example, in Macedonia, due to long-term mixing, MSL, Bulgarians, Serbs, Greeks, Jews, and Armenians are mixed together. Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish between Bulgarians and Serbs, because they are all It's Slavs.

However, if a child is exposed to Greek education from an early age, he will naturally be close to Greece.

This is why Constantine attached great importance to compulsory education. In the chaotic ethnic distribution of the Balkan Peninsula, compulsory education is not only education, but its special influence on the local area cannot be ignored.

Wherever compulsory education in Greece is promoted, there will be more "Greek" people.

Coredis and Ichios walked into the conference room together.

Koredis had been working in a bank before and was a practitioner in the financial industry, while Ikios was the president of the University of Athens and had experience in education.

These two were the two executive members of the Royal Greek Educational Foundation selected by Constantine.

"I invite you two here today to tell you good news. The Congolese side has allocated the first tranche of foundation funds, and your work can begin," Constantine said to the two of them with joy.

“I want to hear about your plans to promote compulsory education in Greece”

"Mr. Duke, if it's convenient, could you first tell us how much the money is? After all, we need to live within our means," Coredis asked, pushing up the black-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"The first funding was £100,000"

“I think we should prioritize the promotion of education in some towns first. As we all know, farmers in Greece are not very willing for their children to go to school, and the 100,000 pounds is not enough. We can only promote it in towns with higher feasibility, and wait until later. When the funds are relatively abundant, we can then promote it to rural areas with backward infrastructure, so that the efficiency of popularizing compulsory education is relatively more guaranteed," Ichios said calmly.

"The initial investment in teaching facilities, such as the construction of teaching buildings, is a large amount of money, but fortunately it is not a recurring expenditure. Therefore, I am afraid that this money can only partially solve the education of school-age children in urban areas." said.