Chapter 412

Chapter 412

After discussing the name of the naval school, the construction of the Ferdinand Naval Academy was completed. Like the Hechingen Military Academy, Ernst also served as honorary director.

Prince Constantine said: "Ernst, are you addicted to being a director?"

"Father, you misunderstand me. Although my personal military knowledge is not very good, I am very knowledgeable about ideological construction in school."

Although Ernst did not regularly engage in teaching, he believed that his political and ideological construction had its own characteristics. After all, he had received this education since he was a child. "Strongly developing the navy is a necessary measure for the East African kingdom today. The East African Navy has become East Africa's fatal vulnerability, making the East African Kingdom more vulnerable to threats at sea than on land.

Relatively speaking, the East African army puts less pressure on defense because it has become the largest army in Africa. To put it bluntly, no country can defeat East Africa in Africa unless it uses its full strength.

Regarding the navy, our shortcomings are very clear: lack of personnel and lack of number of ships. As long as other countries send fleets, the entire East African navy is at risk of sinking into the sea, so developing a navy strong enough to protect East Africa's coastal waters is currently the goal. our main. . "Ernst said frankly.

The development of the East African navy is urgent. Of course, Ernst would not increase the size of the navy to excessive levels. The main reason is that, as Crown Prince Ferdinand said, what East Africa lacks is a system, not powerful ships and cannons. No matter how many ships you buy, if there is no maintenance system, they are just a pile of scrap metal.

Constantine: "The naval issue has a long way to go and cannot be resolved overnight. It is impossible to develop a navy at the same time even if it is not as strong as Germany's. This has not evolved in decades. So our East African Kingdom just needs to take it step by step and manage Africa realistically. "The surface area is sufficient. »

The size of Germany is much larger than that of East Africa. In addition to the advantage of land area, East Africa is far behind Germany in every aspect. But now Constantine is quite satisfied. At least the two are still comparable, like Hechingen used to be. The Princely Kingdom does not have this status at all.

But the East African Kingdom is certainly not at peace. First, East Africa became the world's largest slave exporter, going against the increasingly strong abolitionist movement of the international community.

In Ernst's view, the abolitionist movement was like crocodile tears, extremely hypocritical and could be used to deceive the Holy Mothers of Europe.

The real reason is that with the development of British industry, the slave trade no longer brought money. Previously, British industry was completely dependent on the slave trade and industrial products had to rely on slave ships to be sold around the world.

Now that productivity levels had improved and product quality had also improved significantly, the British no longer needed to sell their products through the slave trade but instead embarked on the path of promoting trade. free. In fact, when the British faced defeat, they would abandon old habits, the Opium War being an example.

There are many examples of Europe and the United States overcoming the wall in the past. For example, in the auto sector, when people make money, it is free trade, and when others make money, it is dumping and anti-dumping investigations are conducted. The market must be opened for you by someone else for you to enter, or you can forcefully open someone else's market like in colonial times. Otherwise, why should Europe and the United States cut off all the world's leeks and live a life that respects human rights? In fact, Ernst Before time travel, Europe was following the same path and leeks were becoming more and more difficult to cut. Therefore, we should first think about how to manage pensions and other benefits of our citizens.

As for the United States, it followed the path of foreign immigrants by eliminating its own residents. The glitter has been wiped off the Latino tableware. Downstream residents are suffering, as are old industrial areas and old-fashioned villages that have declined.

The same goes for the slave trade. So much of the actual profit was stolen by later participants that Britain and France improved their "morality" and moved from trading slaves to becoming "noble gentlemen" who opposed the trade. slave.

East Africa is one of these lagging countries. Now that the global economy is doing well, powers like Britain and France will no longer be interested in the East African Kingdom. Once the economy goes through a recession, it will inevitably return to the path of growth.

North America and South America, two traditional colonial regions, after hundreds of years of development have begun to escape the control of great powers, so Africa is the next favorite target of great powers. In this emerging undercurrent, if the East African Kingdom wants independence, it must develop its own navy to protect enemies outside the country.

Ernst continued to say: "Father-in-law, I need someone to pay more attention to the procurement of warships. Except for other small boats, there's no need to think about it for now.

Archduke Ferdinand: "Of course it is my duty, but small ships are also an indispensable part of the navy. What do you think ? »

Ernst explains: "My plan is to design and build these small ships at four large shipyards in Hechingen, in order to accumulate talent and technology for the independent shipbuilding industry in East Africa. »

There is absolutely no problem with delivering small vessels for personal use to the Hechingen shipyard for construction. In fact, if there is funding, it is possible to build a number of large warships.

However, Ernst did not dare to bet. The production of warships by private companies is very common in Europe. For example, the British Navy has also followed the path of civil-military integration. However, the Hechingen shipyard had no experience building military ships and especially lacked some advanced technology.

For wooden warships produced in East Africa in the past, the source of technology was the Venice shipyard. The Venice shipyard had experience building ships for the Venetian navy during the period of warship construction, while the other three shipyards copied the technology of the Venice shipyard.

However, with the rise of steam power and ironclad ships, Venetian shipyards effectively declined. Only after Ernst injected capital did she begin to revive steam power research. Ernst continued: "This time, Bagamoyo shipyard will undertake most of the work. Technology can be imported from Europe, but first workers must be properly trained."

Most of the workers at the Bagamoyo shipyard were immigrants from Germany and Italy, with only a few immigrants from the Far East.

It is also a feature of East Africa. It's actually more like a factory that requires a little more skill. The workers are mainly immigrants from the German region. Immigrants from the German region received basic education, making them more suitable to become industrial workers. However, some immigrants from the Far East cannot even distinguish left from right and cannot count to five. It's really difficult for them to get into the factory.

Of course, this situation is also evolving. The first generation of East African primary school students graduated last year. This was one of the reasons why East Africa was able to send students to Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

In this respect, East Africa has certain advantages over the Far East. There is no language barrier. The first official group of foreign students from the Far East also went to Germany and the US to study this year. There were fifty people in total, thirty of whom came to Germany on the recommendation of the East African embassy. and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The East African Embassy's reason is also very reasonable. You are a feudal monarchy and foreign students do not choose to study in Germany and Austria, which are also monarchies. Instead, they chose the United States. I really don't know what to think. You deserve the death of the Qing Dynasty.

The first batch of foreign students in East Africa was 500 people, a small number because in the early colonial days of East Africa, very few people brought their families to South Africa. In addition, East Africa has its own educational facility in Germany. The schools of the Principality of Hechingen welcome more than 20,000 students each year (including orphans from Europe and Germany).

(End of this chapter)