African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 852 - 156: The Power of East African Electricity

Only eight tractors are like a drop in the bucket for Shao Kui Town; local agricultural development still requires a large labor force.

Shao Kui, an area long managed by the Portuguese, has numerous plantations and farms nearby, with considerable acreage. Otherwise, Count Roberts wouldn't have chosen to set the Allies' command center here.

Before the Portuguese made their large-scale departure, Shao Kui Town employed over ten thousand Black slaves as labor force, serving local plantations and farms.

When it became a battleground, many military facilities were constructed in Shao Kui, and now, Shao Kui still has substantial trenches and bunkers on its outskirts.

The East African Government did not demolish these military facilities on a large scale, which has hindered Shao Kui's agricultural development, especially after recent heavy rains. The trenches in Shao Kui Town are filled with rainwater. There are also many shell casings left buried in the ground that need to be cleared.

Of course, this isn't too challenging for Shao Kui Town. After the Portuguese surrendered, tens of thousands of Black slave servants were left to East Africa, serving as a ready workforce.

Especially in Shao Kui Town, after the war, twenty thousand Black workers were retained here to maintain the production and land reclamation activities, while East Africa stationed a whole regiment of troops here.

...

First Town.

"This is East Africa Broadcasting Station. The time now is East African time, May 12, 1891, six o'clock in the afternoon. Welcome to listen to the news from East New Agency..."

The Ernst family listened attentively to the news broadcasted by East Africa's first cable radio station.

East New Agency is an abbreviation for the East African National News Agency; previously, its primary dissemination method was newspapers. Now, with the advent of cable broadcasting, the means of information transmission in East Africa have been further enriched.

As the first batch of wired users, the residents of First Town are fortunate. They are always the first to experience the improvements in life quality brought by technological advancements.

"Daddy, hug..." A sweet-sounding porcelain doll disrupted Ernst's concentration on the broadcast.

This is Ernst's second daughter, Princess Lina of East Africa, born in 1885, seven years old this year, and she has a twin brother.

Over the past ten years, from the birth of his eldest daughter Jena to now, Ernst's children total six, including Eldest Prince Friedrich—four princes and two princesses.

Eldest Prince Friedrich, Crown Princess Jena, and Second Prince Kars have already started school, while twins Princess Lina and her brother, Third Prince Antonio, will enroll later this year. The youngest son, Maxim, born four years ago, is only five years old. Finally, the Heixinggen Royal Family is starting to feel more prosperous, ensuring Ernst's vast empire will have successors.

Ernst picked up his second daughter, kissed her, and said, "What's wrong, darling? Do you want to listen to the broadcast too!"

"What is broadcasting, Daddy?" Princess Lina asked.

"Broadcasting means widely announcing, so many people can hear the news. You know telephones, right? Broadcasting is a sound that comes from a similar device, but the sound can be heard by many people as long as they have a radio at home."

Lina stared with big eyes, completely puzzled by what her father was saying.

Indeed, Ernst's explanation was close enough. The current cable broadcast actually relies on telephone lines for transmission, so saying it's a device similar to a telephone is perfectly fine.

Historically, in 1893, the capital of Hungary, Budapest, connected more than 700 telephone lines for timed news broadcasts, forming an official cable broadcast—East Africa did it two years earlier.

This wasn't because the technology was immature before; it was just that East Africa didn't need cable broadcast for communication at that time. But now, with the urban development level rising, cable broadcast technology is emerging.

Moreover, unlike before when new technology applications were first launched in the European market—like electric lights and telephones—this time, the first city to apply cable broadcast technology is East Africa's own city, reflecting the development status of East African cities.

Ernst strongly supports the development of the electricity industry. Today, East Africa's electrification level ranks among the top globally.

The development of the local electricity industry also promotes the growth of East African electric companies like Heixinggen Electric Company. Just last year, Heixinggen Electric Company in Germany was pushed down by the German Electrical Corporation, sliding to third place, behind Siemens and the German Electrical Corporation—both monopoly enterprises supported by the German government.

However, the decline in the German market was merely because the Heixinggen Royal Family shifted their industry to East Africa; in fact, globally, Heixinggen Electric Company remains one of the leading monopoly enterprises, ranking at the top in many countries.

Besides the royal enterprise, Heixinggen Electric Company, East Africa has several large state-owned electric companies as well, jointly monopolizing the East African electricity market and forming a massive monopoly power structure.

The move towards monopoly was the norm for enterprise development in the 19th century, enhancing competitiveness in the International Community and improving resource use efficiency.

Currently, there are a total of five major electricity entities worldwide, dividing most of the global market: first black Heixinggen Electric Company, second East African National Power Corporation, followed by the United States' General Electric, and finally Germany's Siemens and Electrical Corporation.

This clearly demonstrates East Africa's strong power in the electricity sector. With Ernst's prescient ability, the direction of power development in East Africa is stable—like the accelerated promotion of alternating current both in East Africa and the International Community.

In the past decade, East Africa has been one of the countries building the most new thermal and hydroelectric power plants. In central and eastern East Africa, electricity has become less of a "luxury" and widely participates in social production activities. Major cities have basically achieved the "electrification" goal.

Moreover, East Africa has massive market shares in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Asia, and other regions. The international power tripartite structure is basically solidified.

East Africa is supported by the East African National Power University, an institution developed nationwide by East Africa, which can be called the world's most concentrated university for power talents and technology.

Also, nearly all major cities in East Africa have power-related colleges, contributing significantly to the popularization and promotion of electricity, ensuring comprehensive development in the electricity sector with almost no weaknesses.

Of course, the thriving electricity industry is not representative and cannot reflect the economic development level of East Africa; in areas like machinery, chemicals, shipbuilding, healthcare, there is still a large gap between East Africa and Western countries.

In traditional industrial domains, the issue becomes more evident, with countries like England and France occupying absolute advantages. For instance, during the South African War, the United Kingdom nearly completely banned the import of mid-to-high-end machinery to East Africa, affecting the textile and mining industries.

In the past decade, East Africa primarily focused on steel, railways, mining, and automobiles. In these four areas, East Africa has achieved catching up, even surpassing, but the performance in other areas is lackluster.

Hence, East Africa must work hard in other industrial fields in the future, particularly in critical sectors such as chemicals, oil, textiles, and healthcare.

However, this matter might be challenging due to many newly annexed territories. To develop these new territories will inevitably consume significant energy, manpower, resources, and finances from the East African government.

For East Africa to achieve industrial breakthroughs, it must first establish the basic condition for mass production, which means continuous expansion is necessary, as only when the quantity is sufficient can the quality change be considered.

Simply put, quantity changes cause quality changes. Now, East Africa does not even have enough "quantity," hence point-on can't induce quality changes, like a person addressing the "hunger" problem before considering anything else.