African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 586: Deceiving the Joint Venture

"Uncle Carl, if you are interested in supporting the future construction of the Northern Railway, I have a solution that has the best of both worlds. It will not delay the construction schedule of other projects in East Africa, but it will also allow the extension of the Northern Railway to start early and open up the connection between East Africa and the Chad colony as soon as possible. The connection between them has contributed to the colonial cause of the Sigmaring root system," Ernst said.

Prince Carl was really interested, and he asked: "I don't know what to do?"

Ernst was not embarrassed and said openly: "Uncle Carl, you also know that railway construction is not that difficult. It is just a matter of money. Just like in the United States and Germany before, capitalists were crazy about building railways, and a large number of Hot money poured in, so the railways in these two countries grew blindly and rapidly every year, which ultimately led to the economic crisis in 1873."

"Of course I know this, but the economic crisis has now passed and the railway market has returned to normal. Germany's development is now relatively gradual. Before I arrived in East Africa, the crisis had been greatly eased and social development was very rapid."

In fact, the world economy is still in depression and is far worse than before the crisis. However, society is constantly developing and it is impossible to really stagnate. Although Germany's development speed has slowed down a bit, compared with other countries of the same era, it is very optimistic. .

 And the older generation like Prince Karl are well-informed. Although the economy was developing rapidly before the economic crisis, they knew that this was not the norm.

Ernst continued: “So if East Africa wants to build railways ahead of schedule, it only needs to solve the funding problem. However, the East African government has spent a lot of money in recent years, so there is no extra money to support the development of two railways at the same time. "

What Ernst said is not wrong. As for the East African government's finances, it has never been sufficient, but there has never been a government in the world with enough finances.

For example, the fiscal revenue of the East African government in recent years has been much higher than that of most countries in the world. In any case, it is the wealth created by 50 million people. The East African government can obtain relatively considerable revenue from taxation alone, and East Africa also has There are a number of state-owned enterprises, and the profits of these enterprises are also very rich.

Therefore, if East Africa wants to build two railways at the same time, there may be financial pressure, but it does not mean that it cannot afford to build it, but it wants to spend the money in practical ways. For East Africa, the Azande Plateau in the extension of the Northern Railway is currently The value is not high, so it is not cost-effective to build. If we have this time, it is better to build more branch railways in Matabele Province to make full use of the mineral resources in Matabele Province and develop inland industry.

People like Ernst have an obsession, that is, they hope that the inland and coastal areas can develop in a balanced way. This was not possible in the Far East in the previous life, but after all, the national conditions of East Africa and the Far East are different.

One is that the climate in the interior of East Africa is better than that on the coast. In tropical countries like East Africa, the cooler the climate, the more popular it is. However, temperate countries like to go to warmer zones. This is also the reason why the populations of China, the United States and Russia migrated southward in later generations. important reason.

For example, in the Far Eastern Empire, the population of the northeastern region moved to the south, and the population of the northeastern region of the United States migrated to the "sunbelt" of the south, not to mention Russia.

 Hence, the climate advantage of inland East Africa is relatively conducive to the balanced development of various parts of East Africa. Most areas in East Africa have a tropical grassland climate, which is conducive to the balanced distribution of the population.

The second is that the resources in the inland areas of East Africa are far better than those along the coast, and the inland resources are rich in categories, especially in Matabele and Hechingen provinces. The resources in these two provinces can almost meet most industrial needs. The only thing they lack is It's oil.

 However, currently the two most important oil resource provinces in East Africa are also inland, namely the Nile Province and the Northern Great Lakes Province (Uganda).

 The resource conditions of East Africa’s inland areas make the lower limit for future inland development very high and can form favorable competition with coastal areas.

 The only advantage of the coast over the inland is maritime transportation, but this advantage is enough. The comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the two sides is evenly matched.

However, Prince Karl didn’t know much about these. After all, he only looked at the appearance of East Africa. Only Ernst and a few East African senior officials knew about the actual development of East Africa. Prince Karl asked: "Then you mean that as long as the funding problem is solved, the Northern Railway can be started ahead of schedule?"

Ernst nodded, and the meaning was very obvious. He said: "If Sigmaringen can invest part of it, then we in East Africa are gritting our teeth and tightening our belts to realize the northern railway extension ahead of schedule."

This puts Prince Karl in a very difficult position. If the northern railway extension is to be realized, it will be at least more than a thousand kilometers long. This is not difficult for a large country like East Africa, but it is difficult for Sigmaringen. It’s getting harder.

Now just investing in the Chad colony has already cost a lot of money, but acquiring nearly two million square kilometers of land is indeed a good deal, and it can be considered as a return on money, but investing in the railway is out of the question.

So Prince Carl said with some embarrassment: "Ernst, you also know that we in Sigmaringen are just like the people in Hechingen before. Although we are big nobles, we actually don't have much money."

This is true. Great aristocrats like Hechingen and Sigmaringen are not bad in Europe, but they are not uncommon. Before Sigmaringen and Hechingen, they were traditional military nobles who developed in the army. Nobles are more about personal connections, force and power, and social status. As for financial resources, they are really not as good as capitalists.

“Uncle Carl, Sigmaringen naturally can’t afford so much money, but Sigmaringen also has Romania. Romania is a country the same size, and its energy is no worse than many countries.”

Ernst’s idea was based on Carol I’s idea. In fact, Romania today is a purely small and weak country. In its previous life, Romania was quite strong, and it developed after absorbing the territory of Hungary.

But having said that, Romania is much stronger than the principality of Sigmaringen, which is only the size of a town, and there are many rich people. As the Romanian monarch, Carol I led Romania to become independent from the Ottoman Empire, and his reputation is still good. .

“Although the ruler of Romania is your cousin, it is impossible for our family to control the wealth of Romania.” Prince Carl said.

Ernst: "What I mean is to issue bonds in the name of the Romanian royal family. If Sigmaringen wants to develop Chad, it cannot rely solely on its own strength. It must have the support of Romania."

Ernst understood this very well. Just like if East Africa had looked at the wealth of the original Hechingen royal family, it would have been wiped out long ago. The greatest contribution to the colonization of East Africa was the financial resources of the Hechingen consortium.

 Prince Karl: “The question is how do we repay the debt?”

"This is easy to handle. Uncle Carl, you can no longer look at the problem with the previous thinking. You now have nearly two million square kilometers of land in your hands. These two million square kilometers of land must have a lot of mineral resources. Use Just use mineral resources to repay the debt, and this is why I asked you to invest in the Northern Railway. If you want to sell these minerals, you must rely on the railway. The sooner the extension of the Northern Railway is completed, the sooner you can rely on minerals. Get rich with resources. Correspondingly, with mineral resources, you can attract investment and further strengthen colonial construction."

Prince Carl listened carefully to Ernst's words and thought it was very reasonable. He thought that the Northern Railway was indeed very important to Sigmaringen, and it seemed to be a good deal to invest in this railway.

 (End of this chapter)