Chapter 1228 Inland Water Transport—Bell Port
While the immigration project was being carried out in the northeastern direction of the Great Lakes region, the cities along the Great Lakes, especially the port cities, were not idle either.
The focus shifts to Kampala and Entebbe in April 1916.
Kampala is now the seat of the provincial capital of North Great Lakes Province in East Africa, while Entebbe was the capital of the former Kingdom of Buganda and is now the second largest city in North Great Lakes Province in East Africa, only more than 20 kilometers away from Kampala.
As for the third largest city in the North Great Lakes Province, it is not located along the Great Lakes, but along the shores of Lake Albert in the previous life. There are many cities in the North Great Lakes Province, except for the most famous ones in the previous life: Lake Victoria, Lake Albert, Lake Kioga, and Lake Wa. Mara Lake, etc., are among the largest lakes in the world based on their water area alone.
It's just that it seems a bit insignificant in front of the many outstanding giant lakes in the Great Lakes Group of East Africa.
Therefore, the North Great Lakes Province, which was centered on the territory of Uganda in the previous life, can definitely be regarded as the "land of plenty" in East Africa. Lakes, rivers, plains, hills and mountains complement each other. In the agricultural era, there was no better land than here.
The two cities of Kampala and Entebbe are located on this fertile and fertile land.
Take the city of Kampala as an example. In its previous life, Uganda was called the Pearl of the East African Plateau by the British, while Kampala was called the "Pearl of Pearls."
Although the value of the pearl has seriously depreciated because the British talked too much, the double certification can also prove the British's high hopes for the land of Uganda.
In fact, if you look at the historical origins, Kampala once served as the capital of the Buganda Kingdom. After all, Kampala and Entebbe are very close to each other.
Kampala City, Port Bell.
Rob Kertz, an engineer at the East African Laguna Port Research Institute, is directing workers to transform Bell Port.
This middle-aged man, who has more than 20 years of experience in port construction and renovation in East Africa, guided the various persons in charge of the construction site with drawings.
"The complete transformation of Bell Port will be completed by July next year, and the silt on the periphery of the original port area will be cleaned up before the Xingguo Reservoir begins to fill."
"So everyone must take active action. This is a big project. The excavators and earth-moving trucks must coordinate well. First, clear out the silt and dry soil at the bottom of the lake and along the coast."
Bell Port is also the name of Kampala City Port, which is only about ten kilometers away from Kampala city.
The construction of the Xingguo Reservoir will inevitably cause the water level of the original Great Lakes to rise. As a result, many Great Lakes ports in East Africa will be affected, and even some small fishing ports in the northeast may be submerged by the lake water.
Therefore, the transformation of Bell Port is, on the one hand, the need for the growth of freight logistics in Kampala City, and on the other hand, it is to cope with the water level changes after the construction of Xingguo Reservoir.
Robkotz continued: "To sum up the preliminary work, it is to dig deeper, widen, and enlarge to create the prototype of the future Bell Port, so as to build an excellent deep-water port along the Great Lakes."
"In addition, the port will add advanced equipment such as container cranes and transform the port's containerized logistics system. This will greatly increase the logistics efficiency of Bell Port."
"After all, in the last century, we could not have imagined that East Africa's economy would grow so fast and that the logistics system would have such an event as the container revolution."
"Nowadays, most domestic ports can be said to have reached the point where they must be transformed to adapt to the changes in technology and social production in the new era." "According to the instructions of the provincial government, this round of expansion of Bell Port must be implemented in accordance with the highest standards. Ensure that the port can maintain normal operations in the future and even within thirty years.”
Here we can see the great ambitions of the East African government. The Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) has always been the most developed water transport area in East Africa, and the development of the economic belt along the lake is obviously centered on the Great Lakes, closely connecting coastal cities through water transport.
Port construction is the most important part of this. Taking advantage of the opportunity of the construction of Xingguo Reservoir, the water level of the Great Lakes will rise, and the water level of the entire Great Lakes will rise by two to three meters, which will further strengthen the shipping conditions in the Great Lakes area.
Of course, the shortcomings of the Great Lakes area are also obvious, that is, there is no direct outlet to the sea, and you need to go to the sea from Mombasa by rail.
And this is obviously part of the calculation of the East African government, that is, the National Canal Plan. In the National Canal Plan, the water network of the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) and Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) has been connected. The artificial river channel east of Lake Lun can reach directly to the eastern coast of East Africa.
Although it takes a long circle, this also means that ships starting from the Great Lakes can reach the Indian Ocean unimpeded.
In fact, with the help of the national canal system, ships from the Great Lakes region can also reach the Atlantic Ocean in the future.
There is no doubt that the national canal plan in East Africa is a pretty crazy project, and the cost of completing this project is that after 1915, there were only about 800,000 black slaves left in East Africa, and millions of black slaves worked for the canal plan in East Africa. Counting the early East African Grand Canal plan and the construction of water conservancy projects across East Africa, nearly five million black people "may" have paid the price with their lives for water conservancy construction in East Africa.
In fact, the official statistics of East Africa are around 2.6 million, but due to the completion schedule and implementation differences, the number should be far higher than the official statistics of East Africa.
From this aspect alone, Ernst's "great achievements" are no longer something that can be evaluated after the reincarnation of Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty, but "a man who is better than his master". This kind of achievement can only be compared with that of Leopold II and Leopold II in his previous life. , Americans, Portuguese, French, Spanish, British... can be compared.
It seems that there are few innocent people among the great powers and many European countries.
In this time and space, Leopold II had no room for maneuver, but there should be millions of natives who died at his hands. As for Americans, Ernst was relatively worse. After all, there are almost no traces of Indians in the entire United States. , other great powers needless to say. Without tens of thousands of lives on their hands, it was simply impossible to become an industrial power in the 19th century.
Moreover, the nature of Ernst is somewhat different from that of them. Leopold II and the Americans and other great powers were "massacres" in the true sense, while in East Africa this was "just" normal engineering losses.
Even if these projects are not carried out by black slaves, the East Africans will definitely suffer huge losses. This is the price of development, so there is no problem with "normal" losses, but there are people in East Africa who bear these losses on behalf of the East African citizens. cost.
But now East Africa can be regarded as "receiving its own consequences." After using black slaves, projects in East Africa can basically only be borne by its own citizens.
However, the difference is still very big, and there is no need to say more about the salary. The engineering team under Robkotz can be said to be very well-equipped, with no shortage of excavators, bulldozers, cranes, and transportation vehicles.
The heavy engineering equipment that has emerged in recent years is the real confidence that East Africa dared to completely eliminate black slaves during the "Fourth Five-Year Plan" period.
With the development of the automobile and machinery industries, coupled with Ernst's guidance in the general direction, and the unremitting efforts of East African scientific researchers, many engineering equipment from previous lives naturally appeared in the world earlier.
Take excavators as an example. As early as the end of the last century, Ernst had already begun the research and development of hydraulic excavators. After nearly two decades of hard work, hydraulic excavators have finally become mass-produced. and used in actual production.
The emergence of this small construction machinery can be said to be a complete technological revolution for engineering construction. At least in Ernst's own opinion, its importance is no less important than technological changes such as internal combustion engines and electricity.
(End of chapter)