Greece’s Roman Road

Is the Congo River Basin worth spending a lot of resources on?

For European countries that have not yet understood the specific conditions of the Ganguo River Basin, they must have doubts.

This determines that European countries will not pay too much attention to the Ganguo River Basin.

But this question did not exist for Constantine.

There are a large number of natural rubber forests growing in the Congo River Basin. Rubber trees like high temperature, high humidity, calm wind and fertile soil. They require an average annual temperature of 26 to 27 °C, and they can grow and produce rubber normally within the range of 20 to 30 °C. They are not cold-resistant. , Freezing damage occurs when the temperature is below 5°C.

The annual average precipitation is required to be 1150-2500 mm, but it should not be planted in places with low humidity. It is suitable for the growth of deep, fertile and moist, well-drained acidic sandy loam soil. Shallow roots, weak branches, poor adaptability to wind, easy to suffer from wind chill and reduce gum yield.

These conditions are completely compatible with the Congo River Basin. The Congo River Basin is crossed by the equator and distributed in the north and south of the equator. High temperature and rain are the climatic characteristics of the Congo River Basin.

At the end of the 19th century, in the second industrial revolution, the internal combustion engine was an epoch-making invention. The automobile industry developed rapidly. The main material of automobile tires was rubber. The rapid development of the automobile industry made rubber quickly become one of the important raw materials. volume increased sharply.

Speaking of which, the demise of the Qing government can still be related to rubber.

In the late Qing Dynasty, when the railway was built in Sichuan, and the Qing government was in financial difficulties, the people of Sichuan spontaneously raised funds and sold railway stocks. As a result, after waiting for two or three years, there was no news of the railway.

When the Qing government saw it, it's okay, don't build it. I can't expect you to do anything. I'll use the foreign mortgage loan to build the railway.

When the people of Sichuan heard the news, the public sentiment was turbulent. The Qing government did this, and the railway stocks bought by the people were worthless and went to waste. There were riots everywhere. After the Wuhan revolutionaries heard the news, the uprising responded and the Qing government died.

Under certain historical conditions in the late Qing Dynasty, the people were very sensitive to borrowing from foreign countries to build railways, which almost amounted to losing their power and humiliating the country.

Because foreigners build railways, they often also require the right to garrison troops along the railway, the right to develop mineral resources, and other rights.

In fact, the Qing government was also a little wronged, because the money raised by the Sichuan Railway was catching up with the rubber stock frenzy at the time. The major shareholders were carrying money from the people, embezzling money, and using the money to fry rubber stocks. As a result, the rubber stocks plummeted. The silver was lost.

Naturally, the railway could not be repaired without money, and the management could not contain the fire. It has been delayed for two or three years. Whenever people inquired, they would prevaricate as they are exploring the route. What should I do?

When the major shareholders were at a loss, the Qing government announced that the Sichuan Railway would be reclaimed by the state and borrowed from foreign powers to build it.

As for the money raised by the poor and deceived people later, what happened to it?

It was a bad debt, and it was over.

The rubber boom at the end of the 19th century is evident.

Not to mention other things, just the rubber planting industry has a lot to do in Congo.

In addition, there are a huge number of African elephants in the Congo River Basin, where they live and reproduce, and the ivory carvings are white and delicate (animal protectionists don’t scold me, I didn’t say it, I didn’t do it, and I didn’t kill it. ), loved by nobles and merchants, such as folding fans with ivory hollowed out skeletons, jewelry boxes carved from ivory, and pianos with ivory keys.

According to the statistics of later generations, there were several million elephants living in Gang Kingdom at the end of the 19th century.

In addition to rubber and ivory, Africa is blessed with abundant metal deposits.

The later Democratic Republic of Congo has the names of "World Raw Material Warehouse", "Central African Gem" and "Geological Miracle".

Congo’s copper mines account for 15% of the world’s total copper mine reserves, and just Katanga province alone accounts for 7%. One of the main features of the second industrial revolution is electrification. With electricity in the production and life of human society A large number of applications need to use a large amount of copper wire, and the demand for copper in Europe is growing rapidly.

In addition to the propellers of ships, bullets and shells, and even coins.

Congo's copper mines not only have high reserves, but also have high grades of copper ore. There are several million tons of copper mines with a copper content of 30%.

What is the concept of 30%? You must know that in later generations, copper reserves of 2% in China can be said to be a bonanza!

This is not because Huaxia copper reserves are low, but entirely because of the long development history and large scale of Huaxia Copper Mine.

In most of the history of China, copper was synonymous with money, and copper coins were used on a large scale in all dynasties of China.

In the impression of later generations, influenced by unscrupulous film and television works, ancient people seem to use silver as currency, but the concept of copper coins is weak.

In fact, it was quite late in China to use silver as currency on a large scale. Before the Ming Dynasty, copper coins were used in large quantities.

After the Ming Dynasty, because the Spanish colonists discovered a large number of silver mines in the Americas, the Spanish treasure ships, carrying silver and other American specialties, departed from Chile and Peru, crossed the South Pacific by wind and waves, and came to the Philippines (the Philippines was Spanish colony), and traded with Ming sea merchants.

The Spanish colonists purchased large quantities of silk, tea, and porcelain from China, and merchants in the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang and Guangdong and Fujian made a fortune.

Through transactions, a large amount of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty, which directly changed the Chinese people's concept that money is copper.

From this, the first generation of local tyrants, the first generation of local tyrants in China, was born. The wealthy rich owners who made a lot of money because of sea trade could not get in. They were worried that future generations would ruin their family business, so they melted the silver into silver lumps, and then Buried in the cellar, the soil is not soil, the real soil, is it proud or not? How proud. UU reading www.uukanshu.com

However, due to the high value of the precious metal silver, it was actually only used in large-scale trade. At that time, the common people used copper coins in large quantities.

Just like in the 1980s and 1990s, a lot of people came into contact with one dollar, five cents, and hundred-yuan bills.

So a lot of copper was consumed in China.

Therefore, the copper in the Congo River Basin is of great significance to Greece.

The diamond reserves in the Kasai area are huge, and the later Gang Kingdom is the most important producer of industrial diamonds in the world.

As for the gold in Eastern Province, according to later estimates, the amount of gold mined in the Kongo Kingdom reaches tens of thousands of kilograms.

The content of uranium ore is also very rich. Yes, it is the uranium used in the atomic bomb. During World War II, the Americans spent a lot of time trying to obtain the uranium ore from the Republic of Congo.

As for other metals, whether they are rare metals, lead, manganese, zinc, tin, tungsten, lithium, platinum, palladium, etc., don't ask what metals are in the country, just ask what metals there are in the country.

Congo is not only rich in metal resources, but also in forest resources.

The main vegetation in Congo can be roughly divided into two types: forest and savannah.

Almost 48% of the entire area of ​​the Congo River Basin is covered by forests. The area of ​​tropical rainforest in the Congo region is second only to the Amazon tropical forest in South America, and is called the second lung of the earth.

There are 25 kinds of precious woods in the forest, such as ebony, mahogany, ash wood, rosewood and yellow lacquer wood.

What kind of mahogany furniture, that's not a problem.

In addition, tropical crops such as cocoa, sugarcane and cotton can also be grown.

Cotton can be used in the textile industry and cocoa can be used in chocolate.

Congo's hot, rainy and high-temperature climate is also very suitable for growing sugarcane.

Sugar cane can be used to make sugar, and its economic value is huge.

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