Chapter 1254 Tin Mine

Of course, it is not wrong to insist that the Indo-Pacific Bridge is a land bridge. After all, the definition of a land bridge is "a land passage connecting two oceans, a convenient transportation passage that crosses the continent, takes railways as the backbone, and avoids detours by sea."

The Indo-Pacific Bridge meets all these points. It connects the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. After completion, it will indeed take railways as the backbone, and finally avoids detours by sea.

However, the East African government is still relatively modest, so it still named it "Indo-Pacific Bridge", and of course it can't afford to lose face.

Ernst said: "The current military arrangement for the Kra Isthmus Territory is like this. The General Staff's plan is relatively stable. We cannot ignore the difficulties and pain points of tropical jungle warfare, but should overcome unfavorable factors."

"After all, there are large areas of tropical rainforest climate in our country, and the Nanyang region is the most important and densely populated area of ​​our country's colonies."

East Africa's colonies in the Nanyang region are also the most abundant overseas products in East Africa, with a large amount of natural resources, which even exceeds the Beibu Gulf territory endowed with oil resources.

After all, the East African South Sea colonies also have rich oil resources. Although they are inferior to the Beibu Gulf Territory, their scale is also quite considerable.

And other mineral resources are countless, such as coal, iron, copper, aluminum, natural gas, tin ore, etc., which are not available in the Beibu Gulf Territory.

"Whether it is various types of minerals or its agricultural conditions, the South Sea colonies are considered good among the colonies of various countries. The only thing lacking is the development strength."

"In the future, the South Sea region will be our country's mines, plantations and forests, which will be a beneficial supplement to the local economic construction."

Ernst's words also basically established the core position of the South Sea colonies in the East African colonial system, just like India to Britain and Algeria to France.

The core of the East African South Sea colonies can be divided into four major blocks, namely East Kalimantan, Mindanao, East New Guinea, and the newly incorporated Kra Isthmus Territory.

Among these four colonies, the smallest Kra Isthmus Territory has an area of ​​more than 50,000 square kilometers, while East Africa's other colonies in the South Sea are all small islands that are almost invisible in terms of area.

The straight-line distance from the Isthmus of Kra to New Guinea in East Africa is nearly 5,000 kilometers. If it is further away to Samoa, it will be more than 10,000 kilometers.

Ernst said: "Let's discuss the economic and population development of the Isthmus of Kra. Finkel, you will introduce it to everyone."

Finkel: "Okay, Your Majesty, according to our discussion with the colonial department, the arrangements for the Isthmus of Kra are as follows."

"In terms of transportation, the Isthmus of Kra is related to the important channel of the Indo-Pacific Bridge, so we will build a railway from Satun to Songkhla there."

"The final length of this railway will not exceed 200 kilometers. It is the fastest land link project connecting the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. Because of the complex terrain of Satun, this railway cannot be in a straight line."

"And the Indo-Pacific Bridge includes two port projects, The first is the construction of Satun Port, and the second is the renovation of Songkhla Port. "

"There is no large-scale modern port in Satun Province of Siam, so we will select a site to build an important port locally to serve ships traveling between the mainland and the Isthmus of Kra."

"Songkhla itself is a well-developed port, but because it is far away from the Chao Phraya River Plain in the core of Siam, its infrastructure is quite backward and must be renovated on a large scale."

Sea-land transport must require ports as nodes, so the Indo-Pacific Bridge cannot be randomly selected, but to find two ports with similar distances on the east and west coasts of the Isthmus of Kra, and then build railways, highways and other transportation trunk lines between the two ports.

In fact, a better choice is the Perlis Port in Malaysia in the previous life. The conditions of the Perlis Port are more favorable and it is also closer to Songkhla.

But Perlis has been occupied by the British, and East Africa can only settle for the second best and choose a place from Satun to build a new port.

Finkel continued, "In the future, it is possible to build a backup line from Phuket to Wanlun, but this is not in our plan at present."

"In terms of economy, the agricultural development conditions in the Isthmus of Kra are far inferior to those in our country, and are suitable for tropical plantation economy."

"In terms of mineral resources, the dominant resource in this area is tin ore. The Isthmus of Kra has been an important tin ore producing area in the region since ancient times. We will organize personnel to go to the Isthmus of Kra to conduct key surveys and analysis of local tin ore resources."

Tin is a small metal that is highly valued in East Africa. With the increase of sophisticated electronic products in East Africa, the demand for tin ore is also increasing year by year.

However, tin ore is also a very scarce resource. Its scarcity is not only reflected in East Africa, but also in the world. Tin ore is a relatively rare resource. Ten thousand tons is enough to be considered the world's top mine.

Fortunately, its demand is not much. Even in the previous life, the annual demand in the world was only about hundreds of thousands of tons.

The tin ore producing areas in East Africa are currently mainly concentrated in the central region, mostly small mines, and the development benefits are not as good as those in the South Sea colonies.

Of course, this does not include the undeveloped Kra Isthmus Territory, but only the Lanfang Overseas Province in East Africa. Lanfang Overseas Province is currently the largest source of tin ore in East Africa. There are also tin mines in East Kalimantan, but they are also in the undeveloped stage.

However, the tin reserves in the Kra Isthmus Territory are indeed the most potential among the East African colonies. There are tin mines in all the provinces of the former Siam in the entire Kra Isthmus Territory.

In the previous life, Siam's tin ore reserves even ranked first in the world for a period of time, but were later surpassed by other countries due to over-exploitation.

More than 90% of Siam's tin mines are located in the Kra Isthmus region. Except for Ranong and Chumphon, the other tin mines in Siam in the previous life basically fell into the hands of East Africa.

Moreover, local tin mines are often associated with minerals, including ilmenite and tungsten ore, both of which are of relatively high value.

Of course, this is not clear in East Africa at present, and even Ernst could not have paid attention to the minerals in the Kra Isthmus area in his previous life.

The reason why the East African government knows that there are a large number of tin mines in the area is because the Siamese and Malays have a long history of developing local tin mines, and it is still an important tin mining area.

However, after East African experts conduct on-site inspections, the mineral resources of the Kra Isthmus will be more clearly presented to the East African government.

Fingel said: "The main uses of tin ore are tin solder for electronic component circuits and the tinplate industry. These two main uses currently have market prospects. The former has increased with the increase in the variety of home appliances in my country. With the expansion of production, the supply in the maintenance industry is exceeding the demand, and the latter also has a large gap due to the current strong export of canned products. "

Tinplate, also known as tin-plated iron, is corrosion-resistant, non-toxic, high-strength, and has excellent ductility.

It is widely used in cans and other food production enterprises, such as tea packaging boxes, beverage bottles, cigarette boxes, etc., and may be used. Under the current stimulation of the European battlefield, the sales of various military food cans are extremely good.

This has also laid the foundation for the current huge demand for tin ore in the East African industry. Therefore, it is reasonable for tin ore, the only advantageous mineral in the Kra Isthmus, to attract attention.

Fingel continued: "In terms of minerals, what we currently know about the Kra Isthmus, apart from tin mines, are only some small iron mines, but the local iron ore has little economic value."

"Generally speaking, the mineral resources of the Kra Isthmus are relatively poor. However, the territory of the Kra Isthmus only covers an area of ​​50,000 square kilometers. The Siamese people have not done much to develop the area, so the specific mineral potential still needs to be evaluated by subsequent professionals. ”

“As for the advantageous resource of tin mines, after we stabilize the situation in the Kra Isthmus territory, we will conduct unified planning and management of all tin mines, thereby increasing local production and replacing the original Siamese backward mining and smelting model. ”