Chapter 997： Industrial foundation

Chapter 997 The Foundation of Industry

Of course, the premise is that the Ottoman Empire joins the German side as in its previous life. In this way, in addition to the Suez Canal, East Africa can directly use the Persian Gulf and then transport supplies to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the Baghdad Railway.

After all, the Suez Canal has certain risks under British control, but even so, East Africa has a greater advantage than the United States, because the United States only has one Atlantic route to choose from, while East Africa has three trade routes. To be more extreme, East Africa can open up the Sahara-Mediterranean Sea The overland trade route along the coast is just too difficult and does not have any cost advantage.

Of course, the premise of all this is that history develops according to its original trajectory, East Africa's industry develops, and there is a strong navy to ensure East Africa's economic interests.

In the previous life, the basic guarantee for the United States to be able to take advantage of both sides in the war was the relatively strong naval strength of the United States. Otherwise, the British and French navies were fully capable of cutting off the trade between the United States and the Allies.

You must know that after the end of World War I, the total tonnage of the U.S. Navy was close to half that of the British Navy, with a total tonnage of nearly 500,000 tons. In the early and mid-term of World War I, the United States maintained its status as a neutral country and did not engage in the war, so during World War I , the fundamental guarantee that the United States can eat both ends is its strong naval strength.

This has a very high reference value for Ernst, so before the advent of all-out war in Europe, the strength of the East African military should also be greatly expanded and improved.

However, this does not interfere with East Africa's economic development policy during the First Five-Year Plan. East Africa's First Five-Year Plan is completely different from that of the former Soviet Union. The primary goal of the Soviet Union's First and Second Five-Year Plans was to develop defense industry and heavy industry.

The First Five-Year Plan for East Africa is relatively balanced. It focuses on heavy industry as a whole, but at the same time vigorously develops light industry and agriculture. Although it is biased toward heavy industry, light industry and agriculture also occupy a certain share. It is not as top-heavy as the first two Five-Year Plans of the Soviet Union.

The reason for this situation lies in the differences in national conditions and geopolitics between the two countries. The Soviet Union is facing a serious external crisis, and due to the harsh geopolitical environment, it is always exposed to the risk of joint armed intervention by European countries.

This forced the Soviet Union to solve the problem of natural security first, and this forced choice also laid hidden dangers for the subsequent imbalance of the Soviet industrial structure. Therefore, the economic development path of the Soviet Union was not easy, and various crises also led to a bipolar pattern. China and the Soviet Union were unable to cope with competition from the United States.

On the other hand, East Africa is completely different. East Africa's geopolitics is very safe, not far from the main trade route between Asia and Europe, and its sea routes are smooth. These are the most basic favorable conditions for East Africa's economic development.

In the First Five-Year Plan, the reason why East Africa continues to focus on heavy industry is related to the current national conditions of East Africa. There is a big gap between East Africa's industrial level and European and American countries, which makes East Africa's industrial output value seriously insufficient.

As the most basic industry, heavy industry can be called the foundation of industrial development. This can be seen from the definition of heavy industry. Heavy industry is the industry that provides the main means of production with the material and technical basis for various departments of the national economy.

Only with the foundation of heavy industry can we have the foundation for the development of light industry. Taking the first industrial development as an example, the development of the steel and coal industries is the most important driver of the development of the British textile industry. Steel provides raw materials for textile machinery manufacturing and at the same time promotes railways. and the development of shipbuilding manufacturing industry, promoted the development of transportation and facilitated the export of British textile industry, while coal was the main source of power for light industries such as textile industry.

Therefore, theoretically speaking, the development of light industry cannot be separated from heavy industry. Light industry without heavy industry is rootless and difficult to maintain.

Therefore, for East Africa, whether it is steel, coal, petroleum, electricity, chemicals and other basic industries, these are the goals and trends that mainly promote industrial development during the First Five-Year Plan period, especially the two major industries of steel and coal. East Africa, the United States, Germany , the gap between the three countries of the UK is huge, and after the completion of the First Five-Year Plan, the strength of these two basic industrial fields in East Africa will be greatly improved, especially the gap with the UK will be narrowed.

Only the development of these basic industries can provide raw materials and means of production for the development of light industry and agriculture in East Africa. For East Africa, as heavy industry develops, light industry and agriculture will naturally develop. To put it simply, during the First Five-Year Plan of East Africa, the most important thing is to explode the production capacity of basic industries and provide the most basic supply of raw materials for the economic development of East Africa. These raw materials will be invested in East Africa's infrastructure construction, urban construction, transportation construction, etc. .

So Ernst said to government officials: "In the construction of the west, we will build a new comprehensive industrial base in East Africa in the west coast provinces and promote the development of local light and heavy industries. This is completely different from our past construction experience. "

"In the past, East Africa tended to focus on agricultural construction. This was determined by the national conditions at the time. At that time, East Africa lacked funds, technology and talents, so we could only start with the most basic agriculture. But now we have the necessary elements to develop industry. All have been gathered, which is the main reason why our development focus shifted from agriculture to industry in the 1990s.”

"Of course, the gap between our European and American countries is still very large, so at this stage, focusing on the development of basic industry, that is, heavy industry, is the only way for us in East Africa."

"After heavy industry develops, we can use it as a basis to develop other industries. This is one of the important paths for the current world economic development. In fact, it is also the characteristic of German industrial development in the last century."

"In the last century, Germany's industrial development relied on steel, coal and railways. Later, it gradually surpassed the United Kingdom and France in many fields and became the third largest industrial country in the world. We in East Africa are subject to historical reasons. Naturally, it is impossible to do so in just a few years. One step at a time.”

"This process can only be accelerated through administrative and planning means, and my expectation is that at least after the completion of the two five-year plans, East Africa's overall industrial level will at least surpass Russia."

At present, Russia is known as the fifth industrial country in the world, which should be ranked between France and East Africa, while the Austro-Hungarian Empire has taken advantage of the trend to rank seventh in the world.

Of course, in the industrial strength ranking recognized by countries around the world (except the East African government), East Africa actually ranks seventh, behind the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In order, they are the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Russia, Austria, and East Africa. .

However, according to East Africa's own understanding of its own industry, East Africa's industrial strength and scale should actually exceed France's. However, the overall output value of East Africa's industry is lower, and one of the important reasons is the large proportion of heavy industry.

If the factors of output value are excluded, the industrial scale rankings of various countries are the United States, Germany, Britain, Russia, East Africa, France, Austria, and Russia ranks fourth in the world. Thanks to its huge population size, in this case, the East African industry Although the level is higher than that of Russia, it cannot close the gap with Russia's tens of millions of people in a short time.

France's industrial output value is higher than that of East Africa, but in the field of basic industry, France is obviously unable to surpass East Africa, because France itself lacks raw materials for industrial development among the major powers, which causes French industrial development funds to flow to light industry and high-profit industries.

Therefore, if France breaks out with East Africa, there is a high probability that East Africa will be better than France, not only in the source of troops, but also in the field of defense industry. However, the focus of East Africa's development is not military industry now, so at the current stage, East Africa has the scale and strength of the navy and army. Not as good as France.

This is obviously not good news for France, because France has been involved in a lot of energy by Germany and must maintain a relatively large army, which is bound to have a certain negative impact on the country's economy.

(End of chapter)