African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 530 Juba Comprehensive Training Base

 Juba, the capital of the Nile Province.

There has been obviously a big move in Juba recently, that is, a large number of workers and black slaves have moved in. Of course, the most eye-catching one is the army. The 311th East African Division has entered this place.

Those who didn’t know better thought there was a big battle to be fought, but it was obvious that this was a normal transfer. After all, Juba belonged to the rear. If you wanted to fight, you should go to the north or the east. The north was Egypt, and the east was the Abyssinian Empire. But even if East Africa is at war with these two countries, there is no need to station troops in Juba.

The so-called Nile Province is South Sudan and parts of Sudan in the previous life. The development of the Nile Province in recent years has been inconspicuous.

 The first is the issue of terrain. As a basin, among the plateaus in East Africa, the Nile River Province is not a livable area.

 Originally located in the tropics, while the livable areas in the tropics and the temperate cold zones, conversely, areas with cooler climates such as mountains and plateaus are more suitable for human survival.

The most typical example in the past life is Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Due to the existence of East Africa in this time and space, Brazil cannot be uniquely beautiful. However, this does not prevent the Brazilian plateau from being a good land.

Therefore, tropical countries like East Africa, which are dominated by plateau terrain, are rare and good places. In fact, this is also true. In the past, several major countries in the tropical region were all plateau countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico...

 Indonesia may be a bit special, but the population is definitely concentrated in the plateaus and mountains. This can be seen from the population gap in islands such as Java and Kalimantan.

The Nile Province is located in the tropics and is a basin, so it is quite hot and humid. This stifling "cooking" environment is not necessarily better than the desert area in the north.

Although the northern desert is hot, it is dry. The southern part of the Nile River Province is like a big pot filled with water for steaming steamed buns. It is the same as a sauna. If you occasionally enter the sauna, it is okay to say that it is like living in it. And it’s a metaphor.

Ernst even believes that in the future, the development advantages of the northern part of the Nile River Province may be greater than that of the south. The first is oil, and the second is the part of the Jezira Plain that East Africa obtained from Sudan for free, which is the same as the Nile River in Egypt. The area of ​​fertile land is not large, but it is easy to develop, save trouble and worry. In fact, the population of the Nile Province is mainly distributed in the northernmost Jezira Plain.

Of course, most of the Jezira Plain is located in Sudan (Egypt), and East Africa is not the one to kill them all. Anyway, the oil field area is occupied, so there is no need to include Sudan in the territory. The premise is that Egypt does not make small plans to target East Africa. However, Egypt is so useless now that it does not dare to have a fight with East Africa.

 In fact, Egypt used to be a very strong country, especially during the Ali era. It almost succeeded the Ottoman Empire's hegemony in the Arab world. If Britain and France hadn't been behind the scenes, the people in the Arab world would have changed a long time ago.

  Such a good place as the Jezira Plain is naturally used to grow food. Ernst planned only two agricultures here, one is wheat, and the other is Egyptian long-staple cotton.

Wheat is originally a product of the Arab region. Although the Jezira Plain belongs to East Africa, its climate is no different from that of most Arab regions.

The business of long-staple cotton is quite easy. After all, the quality of cotton in the German region is not as good as that of East Africa. East Africa also has the "soft gold" of long-staple cotton. Naturally, the supply exceeds demand, so the cotton planting area in East Africa is also increasing. , mostly sold to the German region.

 Otherwise Bulawayo in Matabele Province would not have taken a fancy to this business. The textile industry has great potential and is full of potential, which is exactly what East Africa and the German region lack.

The development of the cotton textile industry in the German region is limited by raw materials, so efforts are made in heavy industry and railways, while East Africa needs to develop military industry and heavy industry, and its policies are the same as those in the German region.

This mainly depends on what Ernst thinks. Ernst definitely favored heavy industry and manufacturing, and these two industries are closely related to the military industry, so the East African central government will also tilt its policies towards these industries.

The energy of the central government is limited, so the light industry naturally has a lot of room for local governments to play. Therefore, if the city of Bulawayo can seize the opportunity, Ernst is willing to give them a boost.

This is also related to Ernst’s industrial layout. Bulawayo is deeply inland. If it can develop well, it will be conducive to the balanced development of East African industries. Of course, it is undeniable that Bulawayo’s success in the textile industry in Africa in his previous life is inseparable from the quality of local cotton. Although it is not as good as top-grade cotton, it is still a high-quality product, especially suitable for making jeans. Jeans made of Zimbabwean cotton are also very popular. In previous generations, most of Zimbabwe's cotton was sold to Europe and the United States, so its strength should not be underestimated.

Back to the Nile Province, the climate in the north is obviously different from that in the south, so the crops in the savanna area in the south are also completely opposite.

As mentioned before, the Nile River Province is a basin terrain, surrounded by the Azande Plateau, the East African Plateau, and the Ethiopian Plateau. These three plateaus are areas with abundant precipitation, so large and small rivers flow into the Nile River Province from the plateaus. The Nile River Province has only one river that leads to the sea, the Nile River, so the drainage is not smooth. The Nile River Province is dotted with vast swamps and wetlands.

The main food crop in the Nile River Province is naturally rice, and various plantation agriculture are also added, but the area is not as open as that in the plateau area.

This is still caused by too many rivers and swamps. If you want to develop South Sudan on a large scale, you cannot avoid rivers and wetlands. But East Africa has no such plan, because the land in East Africa is completely sufficient and quite abundant, so there is no need to compete with swamps.

 After the 311th Division was stationed, Juba underwent earth-shaking changes, mainly due to the construction of a large number of military facilities. What struck the citizens of Juba most was the establishment of a large number of military restricted areas.

 Wooden signs have been put up in many places, with big words written in big paint: "This is an important military area, no one is allowed to enter."

At the same time, he thoughtfully painted a no-passage pattern on the wooden sign. The blood-red cross pattern is still quite familiar to East Africans.

 The reason behind such a big move in East Africa is to build a super-large training ground centered on Juba City.

Training grounds are of course no stranger to such things. In the past, the relatively well-known U.S. Army Fort Irwin National Training Center, the Russian 42nd Air Defense Combat Training Center, Zhu Rihe of the Far Eastern Empire, etc.

 There is no essential difference between the Juba Comprehensive Combat Training Base built by East Africa in Juba and these training grounds.

 It's just that the conditions here are more complex, with plateaus, mountains, plains (basins), rivers, lakes, swamps, deserts (sands), jungles, grasslands...it can be said to be comprehensive coverage.

And the Nile River Province is a typical vast and sparsely populated area in East Africa. At least it has low development potential before oil development, so it is very suitable for military training.

East Africa is the country that attaches the most importance to combat in tropical areas, and combat in tropical areas cannot avoid several tropical climate types. Areas like Juba and its surrounding areas that bring together various tropical climate types are rare, and even if they exist, they are not as good as here. The area is large, and even the entire East African army can be trained here.

The most important training subjects here in East Africa are tropical jungle warfare, land and water coordinated warfare, and mountain training.

These can be said to be the three most common types of combat in tropical areas, and East Africa focuses on these three combat modes. The idea is very simple, it is aimed at the Southeast Asia region.

East Africa has already established a firm foothold in Lanfang Overseas Province, and Ernst regards the future of Nanyang as an important part of East Africa's world strategy.

Furthermore, fighting in the tropics is not easy. Ernst has always been wary of the lessons learned by the United States in the jungles of Vietnam in previous lives. East Africa naturally needs to adapt to this combat mode in advance.

Furthermore, East Africa itself is also a tropical country with a vast area, diverse climate types, complex terrain, and diverse defense needs. This is why Ernst built the Juba Comprehensive Training Base.

 (End of this chapter)