"Uncle Karl, if you are interested in supporting the future construction of the Northern Railway, I have a way to get the best of both worlds, not only to not delay the construction of other projects in East Africa, but also to make the extension of the Northern Railway start ahead of schedule, to open up the connection between East Africa and the Chad colony as soon as possible, and to contribute to the colonization of Sigmalin's roots." Ernst said.

Prince Karl was really interested, and he asked, "I don't know what the way is?" ”

Ernst was not embarrassed, and said generously: "Uncle Karl, you also know that the construction of railways is not very difficult, it is nothing more than a matter of money, just like the United States and Germany, the capitalists were crazy about building railways, and a lot of hot money poured in, so the railways in these two countries grew blindly and rapidly every year, which eventually caused the economic crisis in 1873. ”

"I naturally know this, but now that the economic crisis has passed, the railway market has returned to the right track, and Germany is now developing more gradually, and before I came to East Africa, the crisis has been greatly eased, and the society has developed very rapidly."

In fact, the world economy is still in a depression, far less than before the crisis, but the society is constantly developing, and it is impossible to really stagnate.

And the older generation, like Prince Karl, is well-informed, and although the economy was developing rapidly before the economic crisis, they knew that this was not the norm.

Ernst continued: "So if East Africa wants to build a railway ahead of schedule, it only needs to solve the problem of funding, but the East African government has spent a lot of money in recent years, so there is no extra money to support the development of both railways at the same time." ”

Ernst was not wrong when he said that the East African government has never had enough money, but there has never been a government in the world that has enough money to spend.

For example, in recent years, the East African government's fiscal revenue has been much stronger than that of the vast majority of countries in the world, and it is also the wealth created by 50 million people, and the East African government can obtain a relatively considerable income by relying on taxes alone, and there are also a number of state-owned enterprises in East Africa, and the income of these enterprises is also very rich.

Therefore, if you want to build two railways in East Africa at the same time, there may be financial pressure, but you can't really afford to build them, but you want to spend the money on the real thing, the Azander Plateau of the northern railway extension section is not of high value to East Africa, so it is not cost-effective to build, and it is better to build more feeder railways in Matabele Province to make full use of the mineral resources of Matabele Province and develop inland industries.

People like Ernst have an obsession with wanting the inland and coastal areas to develop in a balanced manner, which was not possible in the Far East in the previous life, but the East Africa and the Far East have different national conditions after all.

One is that the inland climate of East Africa is better than that of the coast, and tropical countries like East Africa, the cooler the climate, the more popular they are, while temperate countries prefer warmer zones, which is also an important reason for the southward migration of the population of China, the United States and Russia in later generations.

For example, in the Far Eastern Empire, the population of the Northeast region migrated to the south, and the population of the Northeast region of the United States migrated to the "sunshine belt" of the south, not to mention Russia.

Therefore, the climatic advantages of the interior of East Africa are still more conducive to the balanced development of all parts of East Africa, and most of the East African country is a savannah climate, which is conducive to the balanced distribution of the population.

The second is that East Africa's inland resources are far better than those of the coast, and the inland resources are abundant, especially in the provinces of Matabele and Hexingen, which have almost the resources to meet most industrial needs, the only thing lacking is oil.

However, the two most important oil-rich provinces in East Africa are also landlocked, namely the Nile Province and the Northern Lakes Province (Uganda).

The resource conditions of the inland of East Africa make the lower limit of inland development in the future very high, which can form a favorable competition with the coast.

The only advantage of the coast over the inland is shipping, but this advantage is enough, and the comparison between the advantages and disadvantages of the two sides is half a catty.

However, these Prince Karl did not know much, after all, he only looked at the appearance of East Africa, and the actual development of East Africa was only understood by Ernst and a few East African high-level officials.

Prince Karl asked: "Then you mean that as long as the funding problem is solved, the construction of the Northern Railway can be started ahead of schedule?" ”

Enstie nodded, the meaning was already very obvious, and he said: "If Sigmaringen can invest a part, then we in East Africa are gritting our teeth and tightening our belts can still realize the extension of the Northern Railway in advance." ”

This made Prince Karl very difficult, if the northern railway extension is to be realized, it will be at least more than 1,000 kilometers, which is not a difficult thing for a large country like East Africa, but it is even more difficult for Sigmaringen.

Now a lot of money has been spent just to invest in the Chad colony, but the acquisition of nearly 2 million square kilometers of land is indeed a good deal, and it can be regarded as a return money, but investing in railways is not a score.

So Prince Karl said with some embarrassment: "Ernst, you also know that we Sigmaringen are the same as we used to be in Heixingen, although we are great nobles, in fact we do not have much money. ”

This is true, as far as the big aristocracy of Heixingen and Sigmaringen is not bad in Europe, but it is not uncommon, Sigmaringen and Heixingen were both traditional military aristocrats, developed in the army, and the aristocracy is more about personal connections, force and power, social status, and financial resources are really not as good as capitalists.

"Uncle Karl, Sigmaringen naturally can't come up with so much money, but Sigmaringen also has Romania, and Romania is also a country in size, and its energy is no worse than many countries."

Ernst was the idea of Carol I, in fact, today's Romania is a purely small and weak country, in the previous life Romania was strong, that was developed after swallowing the territory of Hungary.

But having said that, Romania is also much stronger than Sigmaringen, a pro-kingdom the size of a township, and there are many wealthy people, and Carol I, as the monarch of Romania, led Romania to independence from the Ottoman Empire, and his reputation is still good.

"But although the ruler of Romania is your cousin, it is impossible for our family to control the wealth of Romania." Prince Karl said.

Ernst: "I mean issuing bonds, in the name of the Romanian royal family, Sigmaringen can't develop Chad on its own, it must have Romania's support. ”

Ernst deeply understands this, just like East Africa would have lost all its money if it had looked at the original Heixingen royal family, and the greatest contribution to the colonization of East Africa was the financial resources of the Heixingen consortium.

Prince Karl: "The question is how do we pay our debts?" ”

"This is easy to do, Uncle Carl, you can't look at the problem with the previous thinking now, you now have nearly two million square kilometers of land in your hands, these two million square kilometers of land, there must be a lot of mineral resources, just use mineral resources to pay off debts, and this is also the reason why I let you invest in the Northern Railway, if you want to sell these minerals, you must rely on the railway, the extension of the Northern Railway is completed one day earlier, you can get rich with mineral resources one day earlier, correspondingly, with mineral resources, You will be able to attract investment and further strengthen the colony. ”

Prince Karl listened carefully to Ernst's words and thought that it was very reasonable, thinking that the Northern Railway was indeed very important to Sigmaringen, and it seemed that it would be very cost-effective to invest in this railway.

(End of chapter)