Chapter 81 Coal Mine
Tanzania still has some coal resources, but not many, mainly distributed in the southern plateau.
The reserves are about one billion tons, mainly high-quality low-sulfur coal. This reserve is not outstanding in the whole of Africa, let alone compared with other coal-producing regions in the world.
Originally, Ernst did not plan to develop such a pitiful number of coal mines in Tanzania in advance, but in order to follow up the agricultural development in East Africa, Ernst changed his mind and planned to develop Tanzania’s coal resources in advance.
To develop agriculture, agricultural product processing is inseparable, and agricultural product processing cannot be done by manpower in East Africa.
If the natives are used, it will deviate from Ernst's bottom line. If they are allowed to take root again, it will be easy to ask God to give up.
Moreover, the processing of agricultural products is already the most basic industry. Even Ernst does not want to teach the natives about planting, let alone industry.
After all, the root cause of the explosive growth of African population in previous lives was that European colonists taught Africans how to grow.
For example, in the primitive society of Tanzania, which relied on hunting for a living, the population was always maintained at a low level, but after the colonization of Germany and Britain, it was because of the development of plantations.
The number of indigenous people who learned how to farm the land doubled from a few million to 60 million within two hundred years.
Before that, Zanzibar was actually colonizing East Africa, but Zanzibar, which was engaged in the slave trade, was completely negative for the population growth of East African indigenous people.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar does not need the natives to farm for themselves, it is completely greedy for their bodies, so instigating tribal wars to capture slaves is the way for the Sultanate of Zanzibar to make money.
Under this environment, there are naturally fewer and fewer blacks in East Africa. In fact, throughout East Africa, including Somalia, Ethiopia, the sphere of influence of the Arabs, and the indigenous population are showing a decreasing trend.
So Ernst wants to put an end to the situation of "teaching a man to fish", such as building roads, digging canals, and mining, which consume a lot of energy, and the heavy physical strength without any technical level can still be handed over to these indigenous people.
The purpose of processing agricultural products in the colonies is for higher profits, and it is also convenient for food transportation.
Immigration is currently a rare commodity in East Africa, and the total immigrant population in East Africa is only in the early 200,000s.
So it is still necessary to import some machines from Europe for production, and the power of the machines naturally requires coal, and it is definitely unrealistic to import coal from Europe and other places.
So it is essential to develop Tanzania's local coal resources.
Mbeya, the capital of Upper Lake Malawi.
This is an important mining area in Tanzania for later generations, where gold, coal, and iron are all distributed.
The most attractive thing for colonists in this world is gold mines. Many colonies were established because of gold mine resources.
Mbeya was set by Ernst himself as the capital of the Upper Malawi Lake District, an important city in Tanzania in his previous life, and no important resources have been discovered before.
Now, as Ernst sent people to conduct field inspections and analyze the local mineral resources, their mineral resources have also surfaced.
And the East African colony is completely semi-militarized management, not even a currency, and any free economy, so these resources can be well controlled.
Mbeya is located inland, so the news is well controlled, and it is not easy to be discovered by other colonists. Even if it is discovered, it is not easy to cross the East African colony to the inland to **** it.
Unlike California, where everyone can get a share, all the wealth in the East African colonies is controlled by the Hexingen consortium.
So the resources of Mbeya were quietly developed by the Hexingen consortium. Among them, the coal and iron resources will be directly used for local construction, and the gold mine will be supplemented to the Hexingen Bank.
In this era, mining is an individual labor, so the aborigines captured by the East African colonies have employment again.
They were driven into the mines by the East African colonial government, fighting day and night in the mines with simple tools and rudimentary safety facilities.
Currently, the East African colonies have a large number of idle indigenous laborers. Before their market is clear, most of them are struggling to build roads and water conservancy projects.
In order to connect the various cities, villages and towns in the colony, the colony plans to use hundreds of thousands of indigenous people to build about 10,000 kilometers of roads this year.
These roads are of course not hardened cement and asphalt roads, but simple gravel roads. Even so, the amount of work is relatively large in this era.
East Africa is really poor and empty. Except for some roads built by the Sultanate of Zanzibar in the coastal area, the vast inland areas did not have a decent road before the East African colony was established, or there were no roads at all.
Of course, as a tropical grassland area in East Africa, roads may not be useful to the indigenous people.
The East African colonies must rely on roads to manage the colonies. Just the transportation of food requires certain requirements for roads. At present, East Africa is vigorously developing horse-drawn carts and ox carts.
So simple roads are necessary, otherwise, according to the climate in East Africa, especially the rainy season, the wheels will definitely get stuck in the mud and it will be difficult to move forward.
The transportation of mineral resources in the East African colonies must also rely on these gravel roads.
The current East African colonies are unable to develop railways. If they want to transport coal and iron ore resources to all parts of the colonies, they must rely on animal power to pull the carts.
Railway development is not a lack of funds, only the development of resources along the railway can pay back the cost, the main reason is the lack of manpower.
The colony has just driven out most of the aborigines in the colony of East Africa, with only hundreds of thousands of aboriginal captives in their hands.
It’s not that the East African colonies don’t want to recruit more labor, the main reason is that the food production in the East African colonies can’t supply so many people.
Even for the natives, their food level can only maintain the most basic survival, but the consumption of hundreds of thousands is not a small amount.
The food in the East African colonies, in addition to the part needed by the immigrants, was also used to provide the immigrants with initial rations and seeds, and the rest was originally used for export.
But now we have to feed these natives and build the roads of the colony, so the export is reduced, and it is basically digested by the colony itself.
Man's energy is limited, and the current colonial road construction, it is impossible to have the energy to engage in other projects, even if it is a water conservancy project at the same time as the road construction, in fact, it is mainly completed by the immigrants themselves.
Wait until the primary road system in the colony is completed before Ernst will consider other large-scale projects. As for the indigenous people, they are inexhaustible. Putting the eight northwestern countries there, their contribution will be indispensable for the future development of East Africa.
(end of this chapter)