On March 2, 1498, the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama led a fleet to India, passing through the "port of Mozambique" and being kindly received by the local sultan. The name of the Sultan is Muza Aru Bique, which is also the origin of the name of Mozambique by the Portuguese, which is also the origin of the name of Mozambique, which still exists now, but the port of Mozambique, the origin of the Mozambique colony, is in our hands, and I don't know how the Portuguese in the city feel. ”

Rear Admiral Roald of the East African Navy triumphantly said to his subordinates that the port of Mozambique, like the Sultanate of Zanzibar, is actually an offshore island, and that Mombasa and Mozambique are similar to the port of Mozambique in East Africa.

Ernst did not understand this very well, the Arabs seemed to like to occupy the islands off the coast of East Africa, so why didn't they go further in the direction of the mainland!

It would be nonsense to say that these islands are more habitable than the mainland, and the islands off the coast of East Africa are more humid and hotter than ideal settlements, although they did have a convenient way to control trade routes in the Indian Ocean in the past.

However, the port of Mozambique is already in a period of rapid decline, all due to the decline of the slave trade and the opening of the Suez Canal, so the economic value of the port of Mozambique has plummeted, but the navy has taken a fancy to the place, so it has been used as a new naval base.

The Dutch had fought with Portugal for the area, so the island of Mozambique had built a fairly strong military fortification, and the East African Navy could move in without too much tidying.

Ernst was not very interested in developing the island of Mozambique, which was occupied by East Africa in several bays with better conditions than Mozambique.

The most important of these are Nacala and Pemba, both of which are now de facto barren harbors, but which in the past life overtook the island of Mozambique to become the third and fifth largest ports in Mozambique, and Mozambique was not ranked among Mozambique's ports in the twentieth century.

The port of Nacala is located at the southern tip of Bengo Island in northern Mozambique and has the best deep-water port in South Africa. It is a large port with a channel eight hundred meters wide and sixty meters deep.

Pemba Port can actually be called Pemba Port, and like the name of Pemba Island in East Africa, the bay where Pemba Port is located is actually called Pemba Bay.

The port of Pemba developed very late in the Portuguese colonial era, it was built in 1904, and later developed into a port, called Port of America, which is the same name as the Americas, so the name of Port Pemba was just given by Ernst.

In the previous life, Port Pemba was ranked fifth in Mozambique, and in fact Ernst thought that Port Pemba could be moved up the ranking.

Because the conditions here are good, that is, in the previous life, Mozambique's economy was too backward, the urbanization was low, the trade demand was weak, and there were many ports, so it was not fully developed.

If this port is placed in the Far East, it should be able to develop into a super port, not under Jiaozhou.

First of all, the area of Pemba Bay is not much different from Jiaozhou Bay, slightly smaller, but the conditions in the bay are much stronger than Jiaozhou Bay, and the water conditions are better than those of Jiaozhou Bay.

Moreover, the economic hinterland of Pemba Port is wider than that of Jiaozhou, and the inland of Shandong has mountains to shield Jiaozhou from the inland economy, while Pemba Port is a plateau flat land to the west to Lake Malawi.

The only pity is that there is competition between the ports of Nacala and Pemba, which makes it difficult for Ernst to decide which port to focus on.

This is just like there is a competitive relationship between Lianyungang and Jiaozhou, of course, Lianyungang's economy and scale are indeed inferior to Jiaozhou.

But these two ports in East Africa are still wasteland, and if they are allowed to develop freely, it is impossible to see who is good and who is bad.

The problem is that East Africa is currently a country that attaches more importance to planning, and it is impossible to allow the two places to develop freely, so which of these two ports can rise first depends entirely on how Ernst positions these two ports.

For example, First Town, which was once a small town attached to Dar es Salaam, is now the political hub of East Africa.

However, Ernst didn't think much about it for long, and it dawned on him that he could develop Nacala and Pemba into twin cities. Ernst was primarily afraid of wasting resources, but given the pace of development in East Africa, his own concerns were unfounded.

In the future, the economic center of gravity of East Africa will definitely be the eastern region, so it is unlikely that the coastal economy will decline, and as long as East Africa does a good job of immigration, the economic volume of northern Mozambique will naturally increase.

The Central Province now has the rudiments of urban agglomerations, and Mozambique can also develop in the same way, and in the past there were three economic zones in the Far East, namely the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, and similar coastal economic zones in the eastern part of East Africa.

In Sterst's mind, it is also possible to take Maputo in the future, with the help of South Africa's mineral resources and the transportation conditions of southern ports such as Maputo and the Port of New Hamburg, it is equivalent to the South African version of the Pearl River Delta.

In the middle is the central urban agglomeration led by the port of Pemba and the port of Nacala, which plays the role of the Yangtze River Delta, and if it were not for the poor navigation capacity of the Zambezi River, Ernst would definitely not have done this.

In fact, the coastal urban agglomeration envisioned by Ernst also takes into account many factors, such as the northern part of East Africa, the environmental carrying capacity is too poor, otherwise Ernst will definitely focus on the development of Mombasa, now the development of Mombasa relies on the northern industrial belt, and Nairobi, the Great Lakes region linkage development, the future Mombasa will become a large northern city, but will definitely not develop an urban cluster.

The three places selected by Ernst all have something in common, that is, there are many ports, flat terrain, large economic hinterland, excellent climatic conditions, and excellent comprehensive conditions, which can accommodate the development of multiple cities.

Of course, if you follow the above advantages, Angola can also plan one in the future, these are the setting of coastal cities, inland must also be indispensable, the Great Lakes region is good, Lake Malawi can also do the same, Matabele province (Zimbabwe) must also be this routine, Swabian and Hohenzollern provinces can also develop together (Zambia and southern Congo).

Ernst called this layout the economic East African economic pattern of four seas, two lakes and two inlands, with four coastal urban agglomerations, two economic agglomerations along the lake, and two inland urban agglomerations.

In fact, in Ernst's previous life, Africa (within East Africa) was almost like this, and the biggest difference was that South Africa did not have it.

In the past, South Africa was the most economically developed region in sub-Saharan Africa, especially in the former Transvaal Republic, with Johannesburg and Pretoria as the core.

Ernst effectively annexed the region to Zimbabwe and the eastern seaboard (mainly southern Mozambique), making it a raw material supply base for industrial development in both regions.

As for why the local industry is not vigorously developed, in the final analysis, the local water resources are relatively scarce, the ecological environment is fragile, and overdevelopment may cause the Kalahari Desert to expand eastward.

Ernst is not an environmentalist, but he is quite wary of desertification, especially in the steppe areas, which are most vulnerable to anthropogenic development.

In order to alleviate the water problem here, South Africa carried out a south-to-north water diversion project to divert water from Lesotho, while East Africa has no such demand at all, East Africa has a vast land area and has more options than South Africa.

(End of chapter)