Chapter 1037: The Difficult Inter-Village Railway

  Chapter 1017: The Difficult Inter-Village Railroad

After a brief lecture from the managers, the assigned work tasks began.

As for Viscount Orteles, other than appearing at the welcome banquet, he disappeared from sight. Leaving many guys who wanted to hug their thighs in dismay.

In this regard, Yamani was not disappointed. The difference in status was too great, and he did not have the talent of the sky and the earth, even if he was good at kissing ass again, it was useless.

The most critical thing is that Yamani will not pat the ass, naturally do not want others to pat the ass on the throne.

Not to mention the high lord, even the management personnel responsible for assigning work, there are a large group of people around, hate to always follow the saddle.

Facts have proved that kissing ass also needs talent, not everyone can do it. Blindly go up to get close to, maybe the ass did not pat, but instead patted the horse’s hooves.

Look at the end result to know, a certain unlucky man in half-baked Austrian to go up to get close to, the result of using the wrong words to cause the management personnel angry, and almost be kicked out.

There is no way, the people of Shen Luo may not be very good at art, but they have one advantage, and that is – “rigor”.

The lords were all from the military, and when they managed their territories, they inevitably brought in some military style.

Unlike the ordinary lords with occupations, the laborers were all paid by the lords, so Yamani directly enjoyed a semi-military treatment.

In addition to the lack of military training, the management model was directly borrowed from the army model. Simply put: do whatever you’re told to do, don’t ask about other things, and don’t need to worry blindly.

Under the reprimand of the management, Yamani began his day’s work. There was no imbalance, it was inevitable to be scolded at work, especially if the one being scolded was not himself.

I don’t know whether it was luck or bad luck that Yamani’s group was assigned to the road-building army.

This meant that from now on, for a long time to come, they would be spending their time in the wilderness.

“Poisonous insects and beasts”, remembering the propaganda of the domestic media, an unsettling feeling of foreboding arose from Yamani’s mind.

Only looking at the loaded guards, the people resolutely swallowed back their words of refusal. Theory is impossible to theory, everyone is a good young man who loves labor.

In fact, Yamani was completely overthinking it. This was the African continent, if there was no military protection, it would be very difficult for ordinary people to survive in the wild.

Perhaps in the coastal areas, lions, elephants, crocodiles and other beasts have become extinct; but in the inland areas, these beasts that are about to become protected animals are still the jungle overlords.

Because of the sparseness of the land, even if the noble lords gave full play to their hunting talents, they could not avoid the fish that missed the net.

In the African continent, labor is very valuable, the death of a Viscount Outlet will feel heartache, after all, laborers also need to pay pensions.

When they arrived at the construction site, the crowd was a bit dumbfounded.

This is still the impression of the “barbaric continent”?

Only see a row of engineering machinery appeared in front of the crowd, Yamani only recognize the excavator, other machinery both feel familiar, but also some strange.

Shocked to shock, work or to do. Compared to the European continent, the African economy is indeed very backward. But the economy is backward, does not mean that productivity must be backward.

Essentially, it is still a question of money. As long as the pocket money, Europe has something, here can also buy, only the price is expensive so “a little”.

Yamani can now be sure, recruitment propaganda is not all a lie. At least one thing is certain, that is really do not need overtime.

The entire construction site, there is no large-scale lighting equipment, even if you want to work overtime at night, it is impossible to do.

“Work at sunrise, rest at sunset.”

The way of working and resting, which completely follows the laws of nature, has been difficult for ordinary people to enjoy since mankind entered the industrial age.

In a sense, Yamani and others are lucky. If it were not for the fact that the territory does not produce coal, and there are no coal mines for hundreds of miles around, resulting in high costs of power generation, otherwise it would not be a dream to work overtime!

……

The thoughts of the laborers were not of concern to Viscount Orteles, right now he was worried about the railroad.

Because of its geographic location, Viscount Outlet’s territory perfectly missed the government’s planned arteries.

There is no way to say, their own territory is under their own control, the central government doesn’t even collect taxes, so naturally they have no obligation to solve the transportation problem for them.

Of course, this “no tax” is limited to the direct tax within the territory, the central government still needs to collect the tax in the process of commodity trading and circulation.

Theoretically speaking, as long as you realize self-sufficiency. As long as you are self-sufficient and don’t buy goods from the outside world or sell products to the outside world, you can truly not pay taxes.

In practice, naturally, this does not exist. If you really don’t trade with the outside world, then you have to go back to a primitive society.

Rights and obligations are equal, the central government does not collect taxes directly from the territory, and is also exempt from the obligation to invest in the administration and infrastructure of the territory.

When planning for the main railroad line, it was natural to do whatever made sense. As a matter of fact, even if you are lucky enough to encounter a main line passing through your territory, it does not mean that your noble lord can just sit back and enjoy the benefits.

Everyone knows that the African railroad trunk line is a money-losing business. In order to strategic needs, Vienna certainly need to repair the main line, but it does not mean that you have to keep a lot of trains.

In order to reduce operating costs, reducing the number of trains on a money-losing line is a basic operation. There are railroads without rolling stock, it would be better not to have, so as not to look at the panic.

Ultimately these expenses, or by the central government and local lords to share the burden. Therefore, the African Railway Company, which is responsible for the construction of the African railroad network, has been a joint venture between the lords and the central government from the very beginning.

Including Viscount Outlet subscribed to the shares, in return for the main line to give him a reserved interface, you can build a branch line railroad and the main line docking.

Of course, this was not just for his own family, the neighboring lords also had a share. “Whoever benefits, whoever pays” was the natural order of things.

In order to build the branch line railroad, Viscount Outlet and his neighboring colleagues also set up a railroad company.

Even the main line was not profitable, let alone the branch line railroad. The shares of the railroads that everyone fought for elsewhere became hot potatoes here.

The more shares you get, the more money you need to lose in the future. As for profit, that is not even dare to think.

It wasn’t that Viscount Outlet was self-centered, it was really that the population of the African continent was too small. Taking his own territory as an example, plus the laborers only exceeded ten thousand.

The dozens of nobles who have partnered with the best developed territories also have a population of no more than 50,000 people. Everyone’s territories together were over 50,000 square kilometers, and the population was less than 200,000 people.

200,000 people divided into dozens of stations, proper inter-village railroad. If you want to rely on the railroad to make money, it is estimated that the population will have to be at least thirty times as large.

That’s almost half the population of the African continent. How long would it take for Shinra to realize the results of more than thirty years of operating the African continent on their own?

No matter how much the railroad company lost, in order for their own products to be shipped out, the railroad had to be built.

The key was still the investment in building the railroad, and even if the later maintenance costs were high, it was still cheaper than transporting supplies by wagon. In the long run, it was still profitable overall.

In fact, it’s not that people haven’t had the idea of throwing the branch line railroads to the central government to manage, and contributing a sum of money themselves.

However, the plan is no longer good, but also need to cooperate with others. Doomed to lose money goods, the Vienna government is also afraid.

Inter-village buses have to lose money, inter-village railroads will lose even more. The population is small, but the distance is not short at all.

If the entire African continent’s railroad network were built, it would cost more to operate than the entire European continent’s railroad network combined.

If you really take over the “inter-village railroad” money-losing business, then the Vienna government receives taxes from Africa every year, all ride in may not be enough.

Even so, there is still the possibility that the effort will not be favorable. “Expensive”, “fewer trains”, “late” and a series of other problems, the public can make the Vienna government scolded to doubt life.

Standing in Vienna’s position, control of the main railroad line will control the African railroad network. As for the branch line railroads, it is better to throw to the aristocrats to take care of themselves!

Slowly, slowly, sooner or later will be able to get out. The original space-time American development of the western period, the problem is more serious than this, the same completed infrastructure construction, God Luo no reason not to get out.

High operating costs, big deal, fewer trains. Aristocrats manage their own railroads, and it’s perfectly possible to put together a full load and send it out again. Scientific, rigorous, and still don’t need to worry about someone passing the buck.

Inwardly, Viscount Orteles envied his downstream noble colleagues more than once. Although they were in the same Niger River Basin, they could rely on river transportation to develop, but he could only bitterly build railroads.

The downstream river is deep enough and wide enough to be naturally navigable, but the upstream is a tragedy. Ottelenburg these several small river gorges, not only the water flow is rapid, the flow is also very unstable. Flooding in the summer, and in the winter it’s just a small creek.

There was no way around it, the road was his own father’s choice. Back then, after discovering a small gold mine, he tried to drag the relationship to set the fiefdom in the current location.

As a result, the opening was a king, but the closing was a bronze. Gold mine does exist, is the reserves are very touching. Mining less than half a year, declared cool.

Not to mention making money, even the cost is not received back. At one time also in the African aristocratic circle, made a big fuss.

To use the newspaper headline, that is “a territory deep in the jungle”. After many years of loneliness, until the end of the Continental War, when the fiefdom nobles flew all over the place, Ottelenburg ushered in the current neighbors.

Of course, there were advantages to being remote. After other people’s knighthoods were promoted, their territories were all in the east and west.

If you wanted to centralize it together, you still had to find a way to find someone to replace it. As long as one family didn’t agree halfway through, it was hopeless.

Viscount Outlet didn’t have this kind of trouble, once upon a time the surrounding area was all unclaimed land, so it was just a matter of rowing a piece over directly.

Not only is the territory centralized, but the area is also very large. If in the economically developed coastal areas, the Viscount’s territory can have half of the current area, that’s all God’s blessing.

Whether it is a disadvantage or an advantage, I am afraid that no one will be able to figure it out for a while.

For the issue of share distribution, the people had already discussed it many times. For many days in a row, Viscount Outlet’s wireless telegraph was like a hormone, dripping and ringing non-stop.

This was a by-product brought about by the war, the radio technology breakthrough in the late stage of the continental war, able to communicate hundreds of kilometers away. The army had just been equipped with it for a few days when the war ended.

In order to strengthen the control of the continent, and in order not to waste resources. After the general disarmament, Franz distributed the surplus radios as a bounty to meritorious officers.

Perhaps it was because the radios did not have to pay communication fees, this thing soon became a tool for the nobles to deliberate, chat and brag.

Putting down the telegram in his hand, Viscount Outlet extinguished the thought of building the railroad immediately. Share allocation is only one aspect, the key is now difficult to finance.

There is no way, after the acquisition of labor, the railroad attention of many people, one by one, all ran to apply for loans, the Royal Bank is also worried.

Unless the economic crisis is over and the financial sector of the Holy Roman Empire comes together, there is no way for anyone to raise funds for the construction of more than 100,000 kilometers of railroads.

Even the start-up capital, that is an astronomical amount.

Just because there is no way to build a railroad doesn’t mean that it won’t be built. There was no need for an agreement; preparations were being made by everyone, and some had even started work.

After all, how the shares of the railroad company are allocated is mainly related to the later operation, at most, do a little local string construction.

Specific railroad construction, certainly whoever’s territory’s road, whoever’s responsible for paying for the repair, don’t expect to be able to take advantage of it.

Don’t need to worry about someone messing up, the constitution has had provisions, all citizens must support infrastructure construction, noble lords can’t be an exception.

In the event of a dispute, the Governor’s Office would intervene to coordinate. The real problem that everyone needs to solve is still – money.

Knocking on the table, Viscount Orteles instructed the political officer: ”Don’t stop the road construction, the investment in the railroad is too big, and we can’t raise enough money for a while, so let’s build the highway first.

With the current income of the territory, together with the bank loan, it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to support it for a year. When the economic crisis passes, the funding problem will be solved.”

It could be seen that Viscount Orteles was conflicted inside.

On the one hand, he wanted the economic crisis to last longer so that he could attract immigrants from the territory; on the other hand, he wanted the economic crisis to pass earlier so that it would be easier to obtain more bank loans.

Who let the Royal Bank’s construction loans have low interest rates?

The annual interest rate of only 2 points is equivalent to no interest at all. You have to know that for ordinary commercial bank loans, the handling fee is more than two points.

As a matter of fact, the conditions in Fort Ottolen were quite good. Although it was a little bit remote, the land was fertile and water resources were relatively abundant.

North Africa and East Africa inland colleagues are even more miserable, now one is busy building reservoirs, railroads are not even think about it.

According to the Vienna government issued African construction goals, in order to solve the problem of insufficient water resources, just plan to build as many as 180,000 reservoirs.

Including Ottelenburg also has reservoirs planned, if Viscount Ottles wants to build a power station, the reservoir is an essential project.

But that was a future problem, right now there was no need to think that much. Anyway, with such a small population, it was fine to use gas and oil lamps. At the moment, the only thing that needed electricity was the Lord’s House.

“Alright, His Excellency the Viscount. It’s just that with the arrival of the laborers, the male-female balance of the territory is completely broken.

If nothing is done, I’m afraid that there will be a lot of law and order disputes in the future, and it’s likely that the morale of the people of the territory will be affected.”

Political officer Martin reminded.

Laborers were also ordinary people. As long as they were human beings, they had seven emotions and six desires, and with a serious imbalance in the ratio of men to women, it was inevitable that problems would arise.

Rubbing his forehead, Viscount Orteles fell into deep thought. It was only after a long time of work that he slowly said, ”Then let’s strengthen the management of the laborers first, and take a completely closed militarized management first.

It is said that there are female workers in this labor dispatch as well, I will mobilize my domestic connections and find a way to ask for a batch of them.”

It was not that Viscount Outlet deliberately ignored the problem of gender imbalance, the main reason was that infrastructure construction was all heavy physical work, naturally, male workers with stronger physical strength were preferred.

……

(End of chapter)