Greece’s Roman Road

Hearing Constantine's question, Trikupis answered in a leisurely manner; "Then it depends on your choice? If His Highness is ambitious, Zhangkou will build a steel plant with an annual output of hundreds of thousands of tons. I'll definitely throw cold water on you to wake you up."

Having said that, Trikupis paused and looked up to observe Constantine's reaction.

Seeing that Constantine was listening intently, he had no intention of refuting, and continued:

"But if it's just a steel plant with an annual output of tens of thousands of tons, I think it's still possible."

This sentence made Constantine's eyes light up, and he did not dislike the low production capacity of tens of thousands of tons of steel plants.

If it were another country, the production capacity of tens of thousands of tons of steel plants would be unattractive, but in Greece, such a small country, the scale is already considerable.

On average, there are hundreds of kilograms per person, which is enough for one use.

"As for the method of obtaining raw materials, Your Excellency, you know that the Greeks are the leader in the shipping industry in the Eastern Mediterranean, and there are a lot of ships under the name of Greek shipowners."

"After all, these ships have a limited lifespan. After the service period expires, they are usually decommissioned. Aren't these ships that are about to be scrapped the best source of steel?" But when he happened to watch the steel ships coming and going at the pier, he got something on a whim.

"You also know that today's ships have a displacement of thousands of tons. For a steel plant with an annual output of tens of thousands of tons, it only needs to dismantle a few scrapped ships every year, and the output will be enough."

Constantine stroked his chin, thinking about Trikupis' opinion, the more he thought about it, the more reasonable it became.

In fact, after the fall of Eastern Rome, among the merchant groups in the Ottoman Empire, the Greeks always came out on top.

For example, on the coast of the Black Sea and the commerce in the Eastern Mediterranean, after the rise of the Ottoman Empire, there were many Greeks engaged in commercial trade, and the trade in the Eastern Mediterranean was almost monopolized by the Greeks.

In addition, the footprints of Greek merchants followed almost the entire European region.

Such as Odessa in Ukraine, Kaffa City in Crimea, Thessaloniki on the coast of the Love Sea, the port of Toulon on the Mediterranean coast of France, London in England, Berlin in Germany, Syria and Palestine. There are Greek settlements.

It was these Greek elites who were doing business all over the world who brought back to their Greek compatriots the popular European enlightenment ideas of "democracy, freedom, and fraternity" after the French Revolution. The Greek region, which was suffering from domination, set the flames of the uprising.

This led directly to the later Greek independence movement.

Of course, after Greece became independent in 1823, the status of Greek merchants changed. The Ottoman Turkish authorities no longer trusted Greek merchants, and Jews took advantage of the rise in the Ottoman business community.

But in the Balkans and Asia Minor in the Eastern Mediterranean, Greek merchants still had considerable influence.

These Greek merchants engaged in maritime trade, and ships were an indispensable means of transportation.

These Greek merchants usually buy ships in Western European countries.

For example, the famous Greek ship king Onassis family was a microcosm of Greek merchants.

It is indeed a feasible strategy to build a ship recycling yard and use scrap steel as the raw material for the steel plant.

"Of course, even so, the steel plant still needs a large amount of coal and a small amount of iron ore. After all, the source of scrapped ships is unstable, and the cost is still not low compared to steel plants in big countries."

Seeing that Stantine listened carefully to his own thoughts, Trikupis continued to talk eloquently.

"So, even though Greece doesn't have high-quality coal and iron mines, it's no problem to build a small steel plant."

"What you said is very reasonable, Prime Minister Terry Kupis. Thank you for your sincere opinion. Of course, if you have friends who are interested in the steel plant, you can ask them to contact me." Constantine stood up said.

Trikupis advocates the development of industry in Greece, so he has some friends in the business world.

Since the time of the naval siege, Constantine has always had a sense of urgency, and driven by this sense of urgency, he came up with the idea of ​​speeding up the industrialization of Greece.

United States, New York.

Sanford hurried to Tesla's residence after receiving Constantine's telegram.

A tall and tall young man with a handsome face, a pair of mustaches, opened the door.

"What's the matter? Sir?" Tesla looked at the well-dressed stranger standing in front of the door with a puzzled expression.

Looking at the tall man in front of him, Sanford couldn't help but stunned. Tesla's 1.9-meter tall man gave people a strong sense of oppression.

"Mr. Tesla?" Sanford responded.

Seeing that Sanford had called out his name, he came to the door because of something, and Tesla welcomed Sanford into the house.

"It's like this, Mr. Tesla, I was commissioned by the Duke of Constantine in Greece to hire you to help study the modern power application system~www.wuxiax.com~ Sanford said.

In fact, this was the idea that came to Constantine after seeing Edison's lightbulb show last time he came to New York.

The only energy source in Greece is lignite, which has a low calorific value and a large amount of smoke.

The greatest value of this thing now is to generate electricity after being burned. Besides, Constantine couldn't think of any other use for it.

Without the application of energy, all industries are castles in the air.

Coal-fired power generation, vigorously promoting the use of electricity as a basic energy source, is also the only way for Greece to break the development dilemma that Constantine could imagine.

So Constantine telegraphed to Sanford, digging the American corner.

"How did you know me?" Tesla asked curiously.

"I heard from Mr. Edison. Edison and I are friends. I heard him say that a talented engineer came to his laboratory," Sanford replied.

Tesla is a Croatian who has just immigrated to the United States for two years. In the past two years, the strong contrast between the prosperity of the United States and the poverty and poverty of his hometown, Croatia under the rule of the Austro-Hungarian Empire has left a deep impression on him.

The turbulent Eastern Europe has limited appeal to him.

Hearing Sanford's words, Tesla, who was sitting on the sofa with his chin in his hand and his elbow on the side of the sofa, didn't have any obvious response.

Seeing Tesla's noncommittal behavior, Sanford continued:

"You'll get $100,000 a year and a laboratory, your own modern laboratory"

Hearing this condition, Tesla frowned.

In fact, during this time, he and Edison had a very unpleasant quarrel.

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