Chapter 1254 Tin Mine
Of course, it would be correct to say that the Indo-Pacific Bridge is a continental bridge. After all, the definition of a continental bridge is "a land passage connecting two oceans. It is a transcontinental passage with railway as the backbone and avoids maritime detours." Convenient transportation channel for transportation.”
The Indo-Pacific Bridge is consistent with these points. It connects the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. When completed, it will indeed use railways as its backbone. It is also consistent with the fact that it will avoid sea bypass transportation in the end.
However, the East African government is still relatively modest, so it still named it the "Indo-Pacific Bridge". Of course, it could not afford to lose that person.
Ernst said: "The current military arrangements for the Kra Isthmus territory are like this. The General Staff's plan is relatively stable. We cannot ignore the difficulties and pain points of tropical jungle warfare. Instead, we should overcome the disadvantages."
"After all, a large area of our country has a tropical rainforest climate, and the Nanyang region is the most important and densely populated area of our country's colonies."
East Africa's colonies in the Southeast Asia region are also the areas with the richest overseas products in East Africa and possess a large amount of natural resources. This is even more than the Beibu Gulf territory, which is endowed with oil resources.
After all, the East African and Southeast Asian colonies also have abundant oil resources. Although they are inferior to those of the Beibu Gulf Territory, their scale is still considerable.
There are countless other mineral resources, such as coal, iron, copper, aluminum, natural gas, tin ore, etc., which are not available in the Beibu Gulf Territory.
"Whether it is various types of minerals or agricultural conditions, the Nanyang colonies are considered good among the colonies of various countries. The only thing lacking is development efforts."
"In the future, the Nanyang region will be our country's mines, plantations and forest farms, which will be a beneficial supplement to local economic construction."
Ernst's words basically established the core position of the Southeast Asian colonies in the East African colonial system, just like India to Britain and Algeria to France.
The core of the East African Southeast Asian colonies can be divided into four major parts, namely East Kalimantan, Mindanao, East New Guinea, and the newly incorporated Kra Isthmus territory.
Among these four large colonies, the smallest territory of the Isthmus of Kra is more than 50,000 square kilometers, while the other colonies in East Africa in the Southeast Asia are all so small in area that there are almost no islands.
The straight-line distance from the Kra Isthmus territory to New Guinea in East Africa is nearly 5,000 kilometers, and if you row to Samoa, it is more than 10,000 kilometers.
Ernst said: "Now we will discuss the economic and population development of the Kra Isthmus territory. Fingel, you will introduce it to everyone."
Fingel: "Okay Your Majesty, based on our discussions with the colonial department, the arrangements for the Kra Isthmus territory are as follows."
"In terms of transportation, the Kra Isthmus is related to the important passage of the Indo-Pacific Road Bridge, so we will build a railway from Sandun to Songkhla there."
"The final length of this railway will not exceed 200 kilometers. It is the fastest land link project connecting the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Because of the complex terrain of Sand Dunes, it is impossible for this railway to take a straight line."
"The Indo-Pacific Road Bridge includes two port projects, one is the construction of Sadun Port, and the other is the Songkhla Port reconstruction project."
"The former Satun province in Siam did not have a large-scale modern port, so we will choose a local site to build an important port to serve ships between the mainland and the Kra Isthmus."
"Songkhla itself is a developed port with good conditions, but because it is far away from the Chao Phraya River plain at the core of Siam, the infrastructure is quite backward and must be renovated on a large scale."
Sea-land combined transportation inevitably requires ports as nodes, so the Indo-Pacific road bridge cannot be randomly selected. Instead, it is necessary to find two ports that are close to each other on the east and west coasts of the Kra Isthmus, and then build railways, highways and other transportation trunk lines between the two ports.
However, Perlis had been occupied by the British, and East Africa could only settle for the second best and choose a place from Sand Dunes to build a new port.
Fingel continued: "In the future, it is possible to build an alternate line from Phuket to Bandung, but this is currently not within our plans." "In terms of economy, the agricultural development conditions in the Kra Isthmus territory are far inferior to those in mainland my country. , suitable for tropical plantation economy.”
"In terms of minerals, the dominant resource in this region is tin ore. The Kra Isthmus has been an important tin ore producing area in the region since ancient times. We will organize personnel to go to the Kra Isthmus territory to conduct key exploration and analysis of local tin ore resources."
Tin is a small metal that is highly valued in East Africa. With the increase in fine electronic products in East Africa, the demand for tin ore is also increasing year by year.
But tin ore is a very scarce resource. Its scarcity is not only reflected in East Africa, but is a relatively rare resource in the world. Tens of thousands of tons is enough to be considered the world's top mine.
Fortunately, its demand is not large. Even in the previous life, the world's annual demand was only around a few hundred thousand tons.
The local tin mining areas in East Africa are currently mainly concentrated in the central region. Most of them are small mines, and the development efficiency is not as good as that of the Southeast Asian colonies.
Of course, this does not include the undeveloped Kra Isthmus territory, but only Lanfang Overseas Province in East Africa. Lanfang Overseas Province is currently the largest source of tin mines in East Africa. There are also tin mines in East Kalimantan, but they are also in Undeveloped stage.
However, the tin mine reserves in the Kra Isthmus Territory have the greatest potential among the East African colonies. There are tin mines in the entire Kra Isthmus Territory and all the former Siam provinces.
In the previous life, Siam's tin ore reserves even ranked first in the world for a period of time, but were later surpassed by other countries due to over-exploitation.
More than 90% of Siam's tin mines are located in the Kra Isthmus region. With the exception of Ranong and Chumphon, the other tin mines in Siam in the previous life basically fell into the hands of East Africa.
Moreover, local tin mines are often associated with minerals, including ilmenite and tungsten ore, both of which are of relatively high value.
Of course, this is not clear in East Africa at present, and even Ernst could not have paid attention to the minerals in the Kra Isthmus area in his previous life.
The reason why the East African government knows that there are a large number of tin mines in the area is because the Siamese and Malays have a long history of developing local tin mines, and it is still an important tin mining area.
However, after East African experts conduct on-site inspections, the mineral resources of the Kra Isthmus will be more clearly presented to the East African government.
Fingel said: "The main uses of tin ore are tin solder for electronic component circuits and the tinplate industry. These two main uses currently have market prospects. The former has increased with the increase in the variety of home appliances in my country. With the expansion of production, the supply in the maintenance industry is exceeding the demand, and the latter also has a large gap due to the current strong export of canned products. "
Tinplate, also known as tin-plated iron, is corrosion-resistant, non-toxic, high-strength, and has excellent ductility.
It is widely used in cans and other food production enterprises, such as tea packaging boxes, beverage bottles, cigarette boxes, etc., and may be used. Under the current stimulation of the European battlefield, the sales of various military food cans are extremely good.
This has also laid the foundation for the current huge demand for tin ore in the East African industry. Therefore, it is reasonable for tin ore, the only advantageous mineral in the Kra Isthmus, to attract attention.
Fingel continued: "In terms of minerals, what we currently know about the Kra Isthmus, apart from tin mines, are only some small iron mines, but the local iron ore has little economic value."
"Generally speaking, the mineral resources of the Kra Isthmus are relatively poor. However, the territory of the Kra Isthmus only covers an area of 50,000 square kilometers. The Siamese people have not done much to develop the area, so the specific mineral potential still needs to be evaluated by subsequent professionals. ”
“As for the advantageous resource of tin mines, after we stabilize the situation in the Kra Isthmus territory, we will conduct unified planning and management of all tin mines, thereby increasing local production and replacing the original Siamese backward mining and smelting model. ”
(End of chapter)