Chapter 1093: Chapter 102: National Canal Plan
Yards: "There are many issues in our country’s water conservancy construction, especially some irrational planning in the early stages, which have led to ecological and environmental disasters, thereby causing economic losses, such as the 1876 Ankaleena Reservoir breach incident, resulting in hundreds of casualties, destroying some farmland and villages."
The Ankaleena Reservoir breach incident was clearly not as understated as Yards described, with actual casualties reaching thousands, but in East Africa, statistical data did not count Black laborers’ casualties.
The Ankaleena Reservoir was a large reservoir planned in the early days of East Africa, and technically it was rather feasible. The main issue was during construction when a miscalculation of weather led to floods, and at that time the Ankaleena Reservoir was not yet complete, with workers’ residences too close to the riverbank, which led to subsequent problems.
Early on, East Africa’s mastery of domestic hydrology was clearly not as comprehensive as it is now, and various reasons such as relatively backward technology and insufficient cultivation of professional personnel contributed to this tragedy.
According to the East African Government’s usual practices, such large-scale water conservancy construction projects evidently could not do without a large number of Black laborers, so many Black laborers perished in this disaster, and for such sacrifices, the East African Government would not even shed a crocodile’s tear, but instead, would act more excessively.
Yards continued, "However, overall, our water conservancy construction has brought tremendous benefits to the nation. Minor issues are insignificant compared to the massive economic and social benefits, so in the next decade, our country should pursue higher goals and further enhance the national water conservancy facilities, improving national transportation connectivity, to better serve the construction of our country’s agriculture, industry, and urban areas."
"Firstly, it is to further upgrade the existing national water conservancy facilities, solving a series of problems caused by past inadequacies in perception and technological deficiencies."
"Secondly, it is to further develop our country’s inland waterway network. Besides developing a batch of new canals, we also need to upgrade the already constructed canals. With the past economic development of our country, and the considerable increase in population, urban, and industrial scale, it also means a significant increase in logistics volume, making the originally designed navigable canals unable to meet the current needs of our industrial and urban development, so on the original basis of some canals, we need to deepen and widen them."
"Based on our experience with the East African canals, we have accumulated rich experience to formulate a more scientific and more macro national waterway network, covering most of the country’s water systems and lake systems, to achieve the interlinking of inland waterways nationwide."
"Thirdly, it is to dredge and manage the major rivers of the country, protecting our river ecosystems and reshaping the adverse effects on the environment."
Undoubtedly, these three proposals from the Ministry of Water Resources require significant manpower, material, and financial support, of course, if completed, the benefits to East Africa are also evident.
And the key to accomplishing the aforementioned proposals is Black labor, and East Africa’s intention to eliminate Black labor has never changed, and now these Black laborers still have considerable scope in both numbers and age.
Seven million people are needed to complete the East African Ministry of Water Resources’ plans, and once these three points are completed, it is estimated that the Black population of East Africa will be entirely exhausted.
The first step is to upgrade the original national water conservancy facilities. East Africa’s water conservancy facilities have accumulated many problems in construction, mainly due to early planning and construction, technology, personnel, and local industrial capacity led the East African Government to make many compromises, so just completing this point is not easy.
The second point is the East African canal plan, which is the most exaggerated. According to Yards, the East African Government is now far from being satisfied with the current national water transportation system.
As is well known, East Africa’s talent in water transportation is far inferior to the major economic entities like Europe, the Far East Empire, and America. Although East Africa has been striving for more than half a century, it still exhibits a notable gap with these countries or regions.
So the East African Government hopes to form a usable and effective canal system through large-scale manpower transformation across the country, further reducing logistics costs for East Africa and establishing a logistics advantage in competition with other major economic entities.
In this regard, East Africa’s rail and road systems are already on par with other countries, only water transportation remains East Africa’s greatest regret.
Yards said, "In the past few decades, through long-term evidence and investigation, our Ministry of Water Resources and other departments have gained an in-depth understanding of the national water system, climate, terrain, and topography, and in the long-term water conservancy construction work, we have accumulated rich experience and lessons learned. Combined with the cultivation of domestic professional talents, on these foundations, our Ministry of Water Resources and Transportation Department have formulated a national canal system development plan draft."
"That is, to enhance the national water transportation system by building forty-eight large canals, with an estimated total length of 2,730 kilometers nationwide."
"Once this plan is realized, our inland water transport will achieve a qualitative leap forward. Although national water transportation conditions cannot reach the extent of the Far East Empire and Europe, they will surpass the United States, and our national inland water transportation costs will be significantly reduced, further supplementing an important link in national transportation."
Europe, America, and the Far East Empire are characterized by having large plains and interwoven rivers, forming developed inland waterway networks, and these countries and regions have emblematic rivers representing domestic water transportation. For Europe, it’s the Rhine River and Danube River, for America, it’s the Mississippi River, and the most representative for the Far East Empire is the Yangtze River.
In contrast, East Africa, although it has world-class rivers like the Congo, Nile, Zambezi, and Orange River, their navigational value is restricted by terrain, and the only way to break this restriction is through artificial transformation.
East Africa’s canal plan evidently has a frantic nature. Based on the experience of the East African Grand Canal, wanting to complete this national canal plan in a short time would require sacrificing at least three million workers.
The East African Grand Canal is over a thousand kilometers long, with a construction period of about thirteen years, and the national canal plan’s construction length is almost 2.5 times that of the East African Grand Canal, almost equivalent to the Far East Empire’s Sui Dynasty Grand Canal.
The Sui Dynasty Grand Canal is over 2,700 kilometers long, completed in six years by millions of laborers, with sacrifices numbering at least two million.
Viewed in this light, East Africa’s construction of the East African Grand Canal doesn’t compare to the Sui Dynasty. After all, East Africa paid almost the same human cost, and, in a technological and tool aspect far beyond the Sui Dynasty, only achieved half of the Sui Dynasty’s engineering, and it took twice as long as the Sui Dynasty Grand Canal.
This is quite understandable; even when constructing the East African Grand Canal, East Africa’s technology or tools were far superior to those of the Sui Dynasty, this advantage was not obvious, in the end, it still relied on a vast amount of human labor to finish.
At that time, although East Africa could produce modern engineering construction tools like tractors and cars, the output was pitifully low, and they were never put into canal construction.
The East African Grand Canal can fully be said to have been completed step by step with Black laborers under East African suppression using hoes, shovels, and other tools.
Moreover, at that time, the conditions for building canals in East Africa were not as good as the Sui Dynasty. The East African Grand Canal primarily connected the Zambezi and Congo river systems, and these two regions were not yet fully developed, particularly along the East African Grand Canal route.
Whereas the Sui Dynasty Grand Canal traversed regions that were the core economic areas of the Sui Dynasty at the time, mostly located in plain areas, which to a certain extent saved construction costs and risks for the Sui Dynasty Grand Canal.
In contrast, the East African Grand Canal, especially the Congo River basin projects, often had to go through dense primeval forests or avoid valleys and ravines, thereby increasing construction difficulty.
