African Entrepreneurship Record

March 11, 1869.

Professional cable-laying ships have once again appeared in the Mediterranean and Red Seas. For people on the Mediterranean coast, this is no surprise. In recent years, as countries have paid more and more attention to the role of telegraphs, capable countries and companies are all under the sea. Laying telegraph lines.

One of the ships for laying cables at sea this time came from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the other came from Germany, and they started work in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea respectively.

From Trieste in the Austro-Hungarian Empire to Egypt, and then from Egypt to the sea in East Africa, another cable laying work began.

This time it is a double line laying work. After all, it is not safe to maintain the connection between East Africa and Europe with a single cable.

The plan to lay double lines had long been in Ernst's desk. It was planned when the first cable from East Africa to Europe was laid, but due to financial constraints at the time, it was not implemented together.

Later, the first cable has been kept in good working condition. After all, the entire line is not used for civil affairs. It is a government line in East Africa. The workload is not heavy. The second line has not been started yet, or Ernst I almost forgot about this plan.

Now that Dad is leaving for East Africa, contact between father and son is essential. In order to prevent accidents, Ernst decides to restart the cable laying work.

After all, submarine cables are relatively fragile things, so laying double lines is equivalent to installing insurance. Even if an accident occurs on the commonly used lines, backup lines can be activated immediately.

East Africa, the first town.

"This is a document sent by His Highness. Now go and send letters to the governments along the inland route in advance to let them prepare." Von der Leyen handed the document about the laying of telegraph lines in East Africa to everyone in the conference room.

"This is really a big workload!" the officials in the conference room said after reading the document.

"It's not too difficult. Although the entire project line is more than 4,000 kilometers long, we only need to set up telegraph poles along both sides of the road. The local governments along the way only need to be responsible for the work within their jurisdiction." Feng De Ryan said.

"That's true. The telephone poles can be made from local materials, and the machine room must be prepared in advance to facilitate the subsequent installation of the generator."

What everyone is discussing is the land part of this telegraph line construction plan. As early as last year, the East African colonies established a land telegraph line from Mombasa to Dar es Salaam and then to the first town.

Therefore, the telegraph was not unfamiliar to the officials of the First Town. After all, the submarine cable only went to Mombasa, which was some distance from Dar es Salaam and the First Town. It was impossible to rely on stagecoach to deliver the news.

Currently, in East Africa, horses are the main way to deliver messages. Post offices are set up in various cities to form a communication network. Telegraphs are only available in the first towns, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa.

“This time the telegraph line erection work will be divided into two main lines and less than one branch line, one originating from Mombasa and one originating from First Town.

The Mombasa line passes through Nairobi, then reaches Kisumu, and finally reaches the new northwest city of Kampala. At the same time, it branches off a branch line from Nairobi to the north directly to the town of Omolat above Lake Turkana, so that if anything happens in the north, it will be can be conveyed to us in time.

The first town line, with Dodoma as the transfer station, the southern line all the way to Mbeya City as the end point, the northern line first passes through Mwanza in the north, and then goes west to the north shore of Lake Solon (Tanganyika) Bujumbura so that the government can keep abreast of news from the west. "Technical Director Kane concluded.

At this time, the Mbeya government sent Merkel and Becker to the Yeke Kingdom for negotiations not long ago, but they have not returned yet, so everyone did not know that the Yeke Kingdom had been sold to the East African Colony by Msili, so the telegraph line was planned this time The first town route only reaches Mbeya in the west.

Above, the East Africa-Europe Haiti cable line, the First Town Line, and the Mombasa Line are the latest communication projects in East Africa designed by Ernst, and were also named the "Third Line" plan by Ernst.

Basically covering the main directions in East Africa, only the south has no line construction plan, because the south and the Portuguese forces are separated by the Rufuma River, there is less defensive pressure, and the Portuguese side is mainly populated by indigenous tribes, two colonies Not really bordering.

East Africa placed these indigenous tribes under the sphere of influence of the Portuguese, which could be regarded as an expression of goodwill to the Portuguese. If the two colonies were really close to each other, there would definitely be a misfire.

So far, the expansion activities of the East African colonies have been quite smooth, and naturally they were not won through peaceful negotiations such as Becker's.

Moreover, Becker's success also relied on the strength of East Africa. Musili was a slave trader and was not a good man. The reason why he sold the Kingdom of Yeke to East Africa at a very low price was because he knew that East Africa was really greedy and had nothing to do with himself. It's a type of person.

But he still couldn't beat the other party, and since the slave trade became a unilateral claim in East Africa, Msiri couldn't get anything out of it, and the interest group of the Yeke Kingdom began to falter, so it was better to sell it to the East Africans.

The deal with the Yeke Kingdom reflects the imperialist style of East Africa. Putting East Africa in Europe will probably make other countries happy, but it is an insurmountable mountain in front of the African natives.

At present, the main direction of expansion in East Africa is Central and South Africa, so it is necessary to lay a telegraph line to Mbeya.

The Bujumbura region is responsible for liaison with the Mitumba Mountains region that is penetrating East Africa.

Kampala is responsible for information exchange in the northwest region of the Great Lakes region.

The town of Omorat is responsible for the Omo River Basin. After all, it is very close to the Abyssinian Empire. It must be carefully guarded and at the same time it can monitor the movements of the Egyptian Sudan region.

Through the "Third Line" plan, the above key areas of focus in East Africa can be directly contacted with the central government of East Africa, and Ernst can also keep abreast of the trends in East Africa.

In addition to the above areas, only Mozambique in the south and Somalia in the north are not covered by this plan. The Portuguese have already said that, and Somalia is not worth mentioning at all.

The border between Somalia and East Africa is dominated by desert, which is a natural geographical barrier. Moreover, the Sultanate of Gradi in the direction of Somalia is too weak and has a small population. It would be a blessing if East Africa did not cause trouble with it.

Just do it, and soon, the first town and the Mombasa government, which were the first to receive the news, began to organize personnel to erect the telegraph poles needed for the telegraph line.

Telephone poles are all made from local materials. The forest coverage in East Africa is quite scary in this era, reaching more than 40%. The wood is very cheap, with basically no cost. With so few people in East Africa, the rate of felling cannot keep up with its growth rate. .

After simple processing of these woods, just add wooden wedges on top to serve as fulcrums for later fixing the wires.

In the future, as long as European wires, generators, iron wire and other materials are transported, the lines can be fixed above, and small maintenance and inspection points will be built at regular intervals to facilitate workers to detect problems early and maintain smooth lines.

Some buildings are machine rooms, used to power the entire telegraph line system. The generators are high-power DC generators imported from Siemens. A large part of the cost of this "Third Line" plan was spent on generators and other equipment.

Taking advantage of Prince Constantine's trip to East Africa, Ernst directly completed the East African land telegraph line and the submarine line in one step.