Is the Congo River Basin worth spending a lot of resources?
For European countries that have not yet understood the specific situation of the Congo River Basin, they must have doubts.
This determines that European countries will not pay too much attention to the Congo River basin.
But this question does not exist for Constantine.
A large number of natural rubber forests grow in the Congo River Basin. Rubber trees like high temperature, high humidity, calm wind and fertile soil. They require an average annual temperature of 26～27℃. They can grow normally and produce rubber within the range of 20～30℃. They are not cold-tolerant. , It is frost damage at the temperature below 5℃.
The average annual rainfall is required to be 1150～2500 mm, but it is not suitable for planting in low-humidity places. It is suitable for the growth of deep, fertile and moist acid sandy loam with good drainage. Shallow roots, weaker branches, poor adaptability to wind, susceptible to wind cold and lower glue production.
These conditions are completely compatible with the Congo River Basin. The Congo River Basin is traversed by the equator and distributed in the north and south of the equator. High temperature and rain are the climatic characteristics of the Congo River Basin.
At the end of the 19th century, in the second wave of industrial revolution, the internal combustion engine was an epoch-making invention. The automobile industry developed rapidly. The main material for automobile tires was rubber. The rapid development of the automobile industry made rubber quickly become one of the important raw materials. The demand for rubber The amount has increased dramatically.
Speaking of it, the demise of the Qing government and rubber can still be involved.
Sichuan built the railway in the late Qing Dynasty and the Qing government was in financial difficulties. The people of Sichuan raised funds spontaneously and sold railway stocks. As a result, they waited for two or three years without seeing any movement of the railway.
When the Qing government saw it, yes, you don't want to repair it. I hope you can't do anything. I'll use the right to build roads to mortgage foreign loans to build the railway.
The people in Sichuan heard the news, and the people's sentiment was turbulent. When the Qing government did so, the railway stocks they bought were worthless, and they were rioted everywhere. After the Wuhan revolutionaries heard the news, they responded by uprising and the Qing government died.
Under certain historical conditions at the end of the Qing Dynasty, people were very sensitive to borrowing money from foreign countries to build railways. It was almost equal to losing power and humiliating the country.
Because foreigners build railways, they often require the right to station troops along the railway, the right to develop minerals, and other rights.
In fact, the Qing government was a bit wronged, because the money raised by Sichuan Railway was catching up with the rubber stock craze at the time. The major shareholders carried the people's pockets, embezzled money, and took money to speculate rubber stocks. As a result, the rubber stocks plummeted. The silver was bleached.
The railway cannot be repaired if there is no money, nor can it be managed. It has been delayed for two or three years. Whenever people inquire, they just prevaricate as they are exploring the route. What should I do?
When the major shareholders were at a loss, the Qing government announced that the Sichuan Railway would be reclaimed from the state and loaned to the powers for the construction. The major shareholders happened to follow the tide and instigate the people to riots.
What happened to the money raised by the poor deceived people?
It was a bad debt, and nothing was left.
The rubber boom at the end of the 19th century can be seen.
Not to mention other things, just the rubber plantation industry has a lot to do in Congo.
In addition, there are a huge number of African elephants in the Congo River Basin, where they live and multiply. The ivory carvings are white and delicate. ), deeply loved by nobles and merchants, such as folding fans with hollowed out ivory as skeletons, jewelry boxes carved from ivory, and pianos with ivory as piano keys.
According to statistics from later generations, there were millions of elephants living in Congo at the end of the 19th century.
In addition to rubber and ivory, Africa has abundant metal deposits and is uniquely endowed by nature.
The later Democratic Republic of the Congo has the names "World Raw Material Warehouse", "Central African Gem" and "Geological Miracle".
Congo's copper mines account for 15% of the world's total copper reserves. Katanga alone accounts for 7%. One of the main features of the second industrial revolution is electrification. With electricity in the production and life of human society A large number of applications require the use of a large number of copper wires, and European demand for copper is growing rapidly.
In addition, ship propellers, bullets, cannonballs, and even coins are used.
Congo's Congo's copper mines not only have high reserves, but also the taste of copper ore. Copper mines with a copper content of 30% have millions of tons.
What is the concept of 30%? You must know that in the later generations, 2% of copper reserves can be said to be rich in China!
This is not because of the low copper reserves of Huaxia, but because of the long history and large scale of the development of Huaxia Copper Mine.
For most of the history of China, copper was synonymous with money, and copper coins were used on a large scale throughout the Chinese dynasties.
In the impression of later generations, influenced by unscrupulous film and television works, ancient people seemed to use silver as currency, but the concept of copper coins was weak.
In fact, China's large-scale use of silver as currency was quite late, and copper coins were used extensively before the Ming Dynasty.
After the Ming Dynasty, because Spanish colonists discovered a large number of silver mines in the Americas, the Spanish treasure ship, carrying silver and other American specialties, set off from Intellect and Peru, sailed through the South Pacific through the wind and waves, and came to the Philippines. Colony of Spain), trading with the maritime merchants of the Ming Dynasty.
Spanish colonists purchased Chinese silk in large quantities, In tea, porcelain, merchants from the coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and Guangdong and Fujian made huge fortunes.
Through the transaction, a large amount of silver flowed into the Ming Dynasty, which directly changed the concept of the Chinese people that money is copper.
From this, the ancestor of China's local tyrants, the first generation of local tyrants, was born. Because the rich and wealthy owners who made a large amount of money in the sea trade could only get in and could not get out, and worried that future generations would ruin the family business, they melted the silver into silver knots. Buried in the cellar, the soil is not soil, the real soil, how arrogant? Really ho. UU reading www.uukanshu.com
However, because of its large currency value, silver, a precious metal, was actually only used in large-scale trade. At that time, the common people used copper coins in large quantities.
Just like in the 1980s and 1990s, people were exposed to a lot of one yuan, five cents of money, and one hundred yuan bills were very rare.
Therefore, a large amount of copper was consumed in China.
Therefore, the copper in the Congo River Basin is of great significance to Greece.
The diamond reserves in the Kasai area are huge, and the later generation of the country is the most important producer of industrial diamonds in the world.
The gold of Eastern Province, according to later estimates, the amount of gold mined in Congo reaches tens of thousands of kilograms.
The content of uranium ore is also very rich. Yes, it is the uranium used in the atomic bomb. The Americans were very distracted in order to obtain the uranium ore of Congo during World War II.
As for other metals, whether they are rare metals, lead, manganese, zinc, tin, tungsten, lithium, platinum, palladium, etc., don't ask what metals are in the Congo, just ask if there is no metal in Congo.
Congo is not only rich in metal resources, but also forest resources.
The main vegetation of Congo can be roughly divided into two types: forest and savanna.
Almost 48% of the entire area of the Congo River Basin is covered by forests. The area of tropical rainforest in the Congo region is second only to the Amazon tropical forest in South America. It is called the second lung of the earth.
There are 25 kinds of precious woods in the forest, including ebony, mahogany, ash, rosewood, and yellow lacquered wood.
What kind of mahogany furniture is nothing.
In addition, tropical crops such as cocoa, sugarcane and cotton can also be grown.
Cotton can be used in the textile industry, and cocoa can be used in chocolate manufacturing.
The hot, rainy, and high-temperature climate in Congo is also very suitable for growing sugarcane.
Sugarcane can be used to make sugar and has great economic value.