African Entrepreneurship Records

  Chapter 354 Telegram

  The horse-drawn carriage drove on the flat and wide road leading to the first town without any sense of bumps. Through the window, the members of the Far East Assistance Mission were eye-opened by the level of construction of the East African Highway.

  Li Ge asked Vilix who was sent by the first town government to pick him up: "Mr. Vilix, what are the threads hanging on the wooden poles at intervals beside the road?"

  Since Vilix is ​​from Austria, the communication between the two requires Aryan to translate.

  Aryan: "That is the wire used for communication, it can connect the city of Dar es Salaam with the first town."

  Li Ge: "Communication? Just rely on those two lines!"

  Aryan: "Yes, this is the charm of science. If you explain it to you, you may not understand it, but you only need to know that with these cables, news from Europe can reach East Africa within a day."

  Li Ge suspected that Aryan was questioning his IQ. He didn't explain the principle to himself, how did he know the operating mechanism of these two lines.

Li Ge: "Mr. Aryan, I know that you Westerners have many inventions in terms of technology. You can build large steam ships, advanced guns and cannons, and industrial products for various purposes. This aspect may be a little more advanced than our Far East, but We just didn’t pay much attention to technology research before.”

Aryan: "Of course I know this. Mr. Lige, I used to be from the Far East, so I know it quite well. The Far East is indeed quite backward in this respect. Needless to say, ordinary people's understanding of science, even many officials may also understand it." It’s unbelievable that something like the telegraph exists.”

  The education level in the Far East can be sure that it is now far behind the German region. After all, universal compulsory education is something that the whole world is now relatively unique in the German region.

  Aryan then told Aryan about the general operating principle of the telegram, and Li Ge was taken aback for a while. This was indeed a bit brain-burning for Li Ge, who only read the Four Books and Five Classics.

  Li Ge: "You mean that you made thunder and lightning and used him to deliver messages?"

  Aryan: "That's not lightning, it's just ordinary electricity. With the current science and technology, no one can master lightning. Its energy is too powerful and uncontrollable."

  Li Ge: "Then you said that you can create thunder...electricity by using a generator!"

  Aryan: "Electricity originally existed in nature, and European scientists studied electricity itself and converted it into energy. This energy is the magnetic field."

   "Magnetic field?" Li Geyou heard a new term, but it was still difficult to understand. In Li Ge's view, thunder and lightning are "the wrath of heaven", and these foreigners' attempt to manipulate thunder and lightning is simply outrageous.

  In fact, there have been countless capable men and strangers with scientific spirits in the Far East since ancient times, and they are not superstitious about the induction between heaven and man like Li Ge.

For example, in the "Huainanzi" of the Han Dynasty, it was believed that "the thinness of yin and yang is thunder, and the agitation is electricity." Although "Huainanzi" has no basis for understanding thunder and lightning, it shows that the ancients had dialectical thinking about thunder and lightning, rather than superstitious Confucian heaven and man. induction theory.

  It was written in the Warring States Period, and it was recorded earlier in "Gu Liang Zhuan": Yin and Yang are weak in relation to each other, and when you feel it, you become thunder, and when you are excited, you become thunder.

Yin and Yang just correspond to positive and negative charges. Thinking about it makes one feel creepy. After all, the ancients could have such a cognition thousands of years ago when science and technology were so low. Even if it is just a coincidence, it will make people awe-inspiring, but really Is it just a coincidence!

  Aryan: "Mr. Lige, you don't have to be surprised. Telegrams actually exist in the Far East now, but you may not know it."

  Li Ge: "There are also in the Far East?"

Aryan: "Yes, the Hong Kong-Shanghai and Nagasaki-Shanghai telegraph lines laid by Britain, Norway, Tsarist Russia and Denmark at the beginning of this year are estimated to be almost completed, and the Hexingen Power Company is also planning a telegraph line from Shanghai to Jiaozhou .”

  The reason why Aryan knew this was because the person in charge of coordinating this matter at that time was himself. It was really not easy to find a German translator in the Far East, so the Hechingen Consortium often borrowed staff from the East African embassy.

When Aryan and the aid team left the Far East, the submarine cable from Shanghai to Jiaozhou had already begun to be laid, and it would be directly connected to the Danish Great Northern Telegraph Company led by Denmark. It can be done via telegram.

   It's just that the news has to be transferred from Europe, and there is an extra procedure, but it is harmless. The "Dan Country Great Northern Telegraph Company" is headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Although it has a multi-national capital background, it is still a Danish company.

  Only the top officials of the Far East government and some local officials knew about the laying of telegraph lines in the Far East, and little people like Li Ge really didn't know about it.

In fact, the Far East government is still opposed to foreign companies laying telegraph lines in the Far East, but the situation is stronger than others, so they just turned a blind eye. Among them, the Heixingen Consortium is the most excessive, and they just bluffed The Austrian businessman was driven to invest in the Xuzhou-centered telegraph network in the Huaihai Economic Zone. However, many European countries and regions have not yet fully popularized telegraph, so this approach is a bit advanced.

If this network is built, it is still uncertain whether it will be profitable in the early stage, because the Huaihai Economic Zone is currently considered an economically backward area in the Far East, and there are many impoverished people. After the development of the Huaihai Economic Zone, telegraphs, a new thing, became well known.

Although the Huaihai Economic Zone was proposed by East Africa, East Africa itself does not invest much in the local area. The bulk is the Austrian businessmen brought in by East Africa. Many of the factories they invest in and build will drive local development in the future, but no one can develop the economy here. Know how many years.

However, the difficulty is not too great. After all, the investment excludes the interference factors of the local government. As long as there are no foreigners to make trouble, basically there will be no major problems, and the Huaihai Economic Zone represents the two world powers of Germany and Austria, even if Britain and France Russia and others should also do what they can.

  This is a profitable business, but it takes time. Whether it can make a profit in the initial stage depends on whether Xuzhou, a battleground for military strategists, can take on the function of a hub city as a north-south transportation hub.

However, judging from the investment enthusiasm of Austrian businessmen, they are more optimistic about this project. With the development of the times, things like telegraph will definitely be popularized all over the world. Although the average consumption level in the Far East is not high, the volume is large enough, and Xuzhou Located in the Central Plains, Zhili, Shandong, Anhui, Jiangsu centers, the contact center of these areas is Xuzhou. Therefore, building a telegraph company in Xuzhou should, with a high probability, be profitable!

   In this matter, the Hexingen Consortium is only taking the lead, and the specific decision should be made by the German Far East Chamber of Commerce.

The focus of the Heixingen Consortium is how to strengthen the connection between East Africa and the Far East. The Xuzhou Telegraph Company is initially envisaged as an inland information exchange node, and it also pays more attention to profitability issues. The Huaihai Economic Zone’s external exchange node is located in Jiaozhou. There is only this excellent port in the entire Huaihai Economic Zone, which is also the background for the laying of the telegraph line from Shanghai to Jiaozhou.

  (end of this chapter)