Chapter 968 Disagreement

After two days, Tirpitz and his party finally arrived at Rhine City. After passing Mbeya, they never saw a big city like Mbeya along the way. The middle area was the eastern part of Zambia in the previous life. On the contrary, the agricultural development was good.

"This is Rhine City, our new capital of East Africa. Because the capital has just been moved, the city's population and industry are still relatively scarce, so the whole city looks relatively empty." Aaron introduced to the Germans.

"It can be seen that the building density is far less than that of Mbeya and Dar es Salaam, but the city framework is very large. The road network construction alone can show that East Africa has high hopes for Rhine City, and there are also many railways."

At this time, Tirpitz and others were approaching the Rhine City Station with the train. As the capital of East Africa, it is naturally not inferior to the central railway hub like New Frankfurt. Therefore, the closer to the Rhine City Station, the more railways there are visible to the naked eye, and two trunk railways gradually overlap with the railway lines where Tirpitz and others are.

"The railway planning of Rhine City should be the railway hub of your country. This location should be in the geographical and economic heart of East Africa." Tirpitz said.

Aaron explained: "It will take time for the railway hub to take shape. At present, one of the three lines has not been completed. Only a section from Rhine City to the east has been completed, but it only accounts for about one-third of the entire railway."

Now that the railway in Rhine City has been separated from the Central Railway, it does not need to transit through New Frankfurt City, which also makes Tirpitz and others have no chance to see the situation in New Frankfurt.

As the new capital of East Africa, the urban layout of Rhine City is completely different from the East African cities that Tirpitz has seen, such as the First Town City, Dar es Salaam City, Dodoma, Mbeya, etc.

Here we can see a trend that the closer to the hinterland of East Africa, the more different its urban architectural style is from Germany.

In the early days, East African cities completely imitated the European architectural style, but with the development of East Africa, the embryo of local architectural style gradually formed. Because of the later development than the coastal areas, the style of inland cities became more bold and open.

And when it came to Rhine City, this architectural feature was fully reflected. Although the overall core of Rhine City is still similar to Europe, a large number of simple industrial style elements have been added.

Combined with the exaggerated roads and greening construction in East Africa, the entire Rhine City presents a kind of vitality of a new city.

Tirpitz and his party finally got off at the Rhine City Station, and the Rhine Station gave people a very majestic feeling. The scale of this station should be ranked among the top even in the world, which is different from Mbeya and Dar es Salaam that Tirpitz had seen before.

Later, under the arrangement of the East African government, the German Navy delegation officially visited the political center of East Africa, and Ernst, who was busy dealing with a lot of official business accumulated due to the relocation of the capital, also took the time to meet with Tirpitz, a relatively famous figure in his previous life.

"Count Tirpitz, welcome to East Africa."

"Thank you, Your Highness, for taking the time to meet us." Facing Ernst, even though Tirpitz was older, he seemed quite awed.

Even if Ernst's titles and identities in East Africa were put aside, the Hechingen royal family was quite prestigious in Europe, especially in Germany.

"This time, Count Tirpitz, as the new German Navy Minister, was able to choose East Africa as the first stop. We in East Africa are very honored. I believe that in the future, Germany and East Africa will be able to cooperate sincerely and play a greater role in the ocean field." Ernst set the tone.

Ernst would naturally not refuse the German Navy's initiative to seek cooperation with East Africa. Although the East African Navy has matured, there is still a big gap in quality with Europe.

The early development of the East African Navy was inseparable from the support of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, but the Austro-Hungarian Navy was not particularly outstanding in Europe, especially compared with Western Europe and Northern Europe. It was at the middle and lower levels among the powers, which was bound to lead to a lot of lessons for the East African Navy.

Although the German Navy developed late and Germany is not a traditional naval power, Germany is currently the world's science and academic center, and its industrial strength and cutting-edge technology fields are on par with the United States.

From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, the world's navy was in an era of great change, especially the revival of battleships. In this case, the German Navy is one of the new forces that can lead the development of the world's navy in the short term in the future.

Although Germany lost the First World War in the past, the performance of the German Navy was remarkable from the beginning to the end of the war, especially the German warships, which were no worse than British warships in quality and stability.

In the context of the East African Navy not expanding for the time being, the pressure on East African coastal defense has actually increased, especially after East Africa has a coastline in the west that can be developed and constructed on a large scale, the original available scale of the East African Navy has become even more stretched.

At this time, if it can cooperate with the navies of Germany and other countries, it will undoubtedly reduce the military pressure on East Africa during special periods.

Although Ernst emphasized that economic development is the current priority for East Africa, this does not mean that Ernst ignored the possible risk of war.

After confirming Ernst's supportive attitude, Tirpitz was naturally very happy. With Ernst's instructions, it meant that the general direction of the two countries' naval cooperation was stable.

Of course, Germany and East Africa each have their own interests and strategic considerations, so there will be no shortage of differences, but these differences are only differences in concepts and do not hinder the cooperation between the two navies.

Tirpitz and William II are undoubtedly supporters of the ocean-going navy, which is in line with Germany's world policy, so they want to exert the influence of the German navy on the world.

The East African Navy is still the mainstream policy direction of offshore defense, even though East Africa has many colonies and economic spheres of influence in the world.

The stark difference in the naval development strategies of the two countries is bound to have an impact on the naval cooperation between the two countries, first of all, the conflict of ideas.

When it comes to the economic sphere of influence in East Africa, Germany and East Africa also have differences, especially in their attitudes towards the Far East Empire. The focus is undoubtedly the two economic cooperation zones in East Africa in the Far East, especially the core Jiaozhou Port.

With the development led by East African capital, Jiaozhou has obviously become a more tempting bait than in the past. Any country is jealous. In the past, Germany took a fancy to Jiaozhou, not to mention Jiaozhou after the support and development of East Africa.

Ernst naturally could not give up the dominance of Jiaozhou, which is the communication window and the most important economic channel between East Africa and the Far East Empire.

In order to win over East Africa, the German naval delegation headed by Tirpitz naturally could not rob it, but one thing is certain, that is, Germany could not sit idly by and watch other powers divide the Far East Empire market.

Although Jiaozhou is nominally a region of common interests between East Africa, Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and other German countries, the dominance of the region has always been in the hands of East Africa.

Therefore, if Germany wants to have a German-dominated core port in the Far East Empire, it can only find another place to build and develop, or snatch it from Britain, France and other countries. The latter is obviously unrealistic, so Germany is likely to re-enclose land outside the sphere of influence of various countries as its commercial base in the Far East.

Ernst could do nothing to help. After all, East Africa could not stand against Germany, nor had any reason to interfere in Germany's national policy. East Africa's guarantee of Jiaozhou's independence was actually a great help to the Far Eastern Empire. Although for various reasons, East Africa inevitably infiltrated Jiaozhou in cultural and economic fields, the Far Eastern Empire at least had some dominance and was not completely at the mercy of other powers like other ports.