Chapter 1034: Automobile Capital
December 3, 1905.
Rhine City.
As the capital of a country, the Rhine City is developing rapidly, and what is particularly eye-catching are the cars that are no longer uncommon on the streets of the Rhine City.
Although cars have widely appeared in major cities in the world and have become a symbol of industrial civilization, the more developed the city, the more cars there are.
Such strange things can be seen more or less on the streets of Berlin, Paris, London and New York, but in the Rhineland, the number of cars is a bit excessive, with the number of registered cars alone reaching an astonishing more than 33,000.
At that time, the total population of Rhine City was close to 400,000, which was equivalent to one car for every dozen people. Cars had completely become the mainstream travel tool in East Africa.
At the same time, the number of urban rail vehicles and buses has also increased significantly, and the density in the region ranks first in the world. As a medium-sized city in the world, the degree of development of Rhine City is evident.
Before the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa's automobile industry was relatively well-known in the world. At that time, East Africa's automobile production was still within the understanding of diplomats from various countries. However, after the First Five-Year Plan, the annual automobile output in East Africa has become difficult for the diplomats of various countries to understand. People understand.
Of course, diplomats from European and American countries can also find reasons to explain the scale of automobiles in Rhine City. For example, French Ambassador Thomson said: "East Africa did start earlier in the automobile industry, but this does not mean that East Africa has surpassed European countries. In fact, In a centralized country like Upper East Africa, it is easy to concentrate resources in the capital. I am afraid that the East African government has prioritized most of the country's automobile production to the Rhineland. This is not the case in France. "
"We in France cannot, like the East African government, use political means to pool the efforts of the whole country to build its own political center. This is an extremely wasteful performance project. If it is in France, as long as you are capable, even if you are outside Paris, Citizens can also buy cars, and in East Africa, except for a few developed cities such as the Rhine City, it is completely like Tsarist Russia."
Even if they saw it with their own eyes, Europeans would not be able to admit in a short period of time that East Africa has surpassed them in some fields. This is a kind of arrogance. In fact, both East Africa and the United States enjoy this kind of "discriminatory" treatment. As the center of world civilization, How could Europe be surpassed by countries in East Africa and the United States, two barbaric lands! This is unacceptable to those who currently hold Eurocentric views.
Of course, it is not that some knowledgeable people have noticed the rapid development of East Africa and the United States. There are traces of the rapid development of the United States. As a "chosen place", the basic conditions of the United States are not inferior to those of Europe, so it is possible for the United States to develop. Within reason.
However, when they want to explore the internal reasons in East Africa, they will encounter various setbacks. Take the automobile industry as an example. It is known that the East African automobile industry is the first echelon in the world, but the reasons for the success of the East African automobile industry are difficult to find.
Because East Africa is a closed country, the seven major automobile factories in East Africa are all located in inland areas, which are not accessible to foreigners. The coastal areas are relatively open, but from the coast you can only see a few small automobile factories of the same type as those in Europe and the United States. , there is essentially no difference.
The closest automobile production base to diplomats from various countries is New Frankfurt, but the "border" of the Rhine City prevents them from crossing only a few dozen kilometers away.
Fortunately, the East African automobile industry is relatively convergent. If it really connects with the international market, it will definitely be a disaster for the automobile industries of other countries.
France is equivalent to the industrially developed middle and eastern parts of East Africa. However, East Africa has a large land area and many regions are not highly developed. This has dragged down the degree of industrialization in East Africa. This is not to say that French industry is stronger than East Africa.
If the concept of per capita is excluded, East Africa's industry has surpassed France in both scale and quality, and the gap with the United Kingdom is not large. Of course, in terms of light industry, East Africa is different from the two countries. The rapid rise of East African industry is actually closely related to the second industrial revolution. East Africa, like Germany and the United States, is a leader in the second industrial revolution.
It’s just that Germany and the United States laid the foundation as early as the first industrial period. This is also the main reason why East Africa has difficulty competing with Germany and the United States in traditional industrial types.
In fact, Japan is also the main beneficiary of the second industrial revolution, but at present, Japanese industry is far from "amazing" in the eyes of other industrial countries.
The impact of the second industrial revolution on the world structure was quite strong. Germany and the United States surpassed the two established powers, Britain and France, and Japan also rose rapidly in the Far East, creating the "African monster" of East Africa.
As long as the late-developing countries seize the opportunity of the second industrial revolution, they will basically achieve a leap-forward growth in their own strength. On the contrary, they will continue to crawl forward slowly in front of the great powers.
From the colonial era to the present stage, East Africa is closely related to the second industrial revolution. The second industrial revolution originated in the 1970s. At that time, East Africa had completed preliminary colonial construction activities and had a certain economic scale and structure. quantity.
The 1970s was an important period of opportunity for East Africa to take advantage of the economic crisis in Europe and the United States to introduce industry on a large scale. At that time, although industrial construction was difficult in East Africa due to talent constraints, with the overflow of educational resources from the German region, that is, the per capita primary school education level, East Africa The industry has still completed the work of building the framework. In the 1980s and 1990s, this framework was continuously improved.
At the same time, local education in East Africa continued to develop, and finally in the late 1990s, East Africa finally bore fruit in the fields of scientific research and talent.
On this basis, the First Five-Year Plan for East Africa has been successfully implemented, and East Africa’s industrial production capacity has accelerated, making East Africa now one of the leading countries in the second industrial revolution.
At the end of the First Five-Year Plan, East Africa has completely formed a domestic cycle in important fields such as talent, industry, scientific research, and markets. Even if other countries imposed sanctions or blockades on East Africa at that time, it would not be able to stop East Africa's rise. .
Through decades of hard work, East Africa has turned East Africa into a semi-industrial power. Although its achievements have been questioned by European and American societies, it is enough to make countries other than Europe and the United States envious.
Li Ling, Ambassador of the Far Eastern Empire, said: "Thirty or forty years ago, we had various misunderstandings about East Africa. At that time, our country knew very little about overseas countries, which led us to think that East Africa was no different from other Western countries. But later we learned that East Africa only It is just the country with the shortest history in the world, even more so than the United States. But in less than fifty years, East Africa, even an uncivilized land, has turned into a world power with a considerable area, a large population, and a strong industry. ”
"The development experience of East Africa has a strong reference significance for our country. This country can quickly complete its transformation in a very short period of time. Although it is due to the wealth of Africa, at the beginning of its establishment, it could not even have a basic population. To be satisfied, we still need to introduce a large number of immigrants into our country.”
“So the East African model cannot be summed up in a few words. It is far from the European and American countries in terms of system, but it can stand out and stand out, which undoubtedly has great implications for our country’s rejuvenation.”
It was normal for diplomats of the Far Eastern Empire to be interested in East Africa. At that time, the Far Eastern Empire was still a monarchy, so government officials naturally tended to continue to maintain the monarchy.
(End of this chapter)