Greece’s Roman Road

"Besides that, Costerbloom, there is another job that may be entrusted to you. Greece needs copper ore, and the Congo should have a lot of copper mines." Constantine looked at Costerbloom and said.

With the development of the electric power industry, the best transmission tool for electricity is copper wire. Arms also need copper, such as bullets and shells.

Greece needs more and more copper, but Greece itself is not rich in copper mines, and Constantine can only resort to the Congo.

"Speaking of copper mines, Congo is indeed rich in copper mines, and a large amount of copper-cobalt ore has been discovered. Recently, explorers have discovered hundreds of kilometers in central Africa, mainly in Zambia and the Katanga province of Congo. The 60-kilometer-wide copper belt is more than enough to supply Greece, but it's just a bit embarrassed," Costerbro said here.

"Is it a traffic problem?" Constantine asked.

There are world-class copper mines in Africa, but the transportation facilities in Africa are backward. Such large quantities of industrial raw materials do not have supporting basic transportation. Even if they are discovered, transportation is still a problem.

"The Katanga province is located in the middle of Africa. If the copper ore from here is to be transported out, a railway has to be built, after which it will go through a navigable river to Kinshasa, and through the Matadi Kinshasa railway, it will be possible to transport Out of Congo," Costebro said.

"Since such a copper belt has been discovered, the people of the Congolese Railway Company should be ecstatic to build the railway. After all, these ores will be transported by their railways in the future, so why are you in trouble?" Constantine asked curiously.

Katanga Province is located almost in the center of southern Africa, and it is impossible to develop such a geographical location without building a railway.

"You also know that in the case of Congo, the news of the discovery of a large copper ore belt cannot be concealed from anyone. The British are eyeing the copper ore there."

Constantine suddenly realized that this is the case. Zambia under British control is close to Katanga Province in Congo. Since a copper belt of several hundred kilometers has been discovered in Congo-Zambia, the British cannot intervene.

There is no way to do this kind of thing. After all, Congo is a colony that depends on the compromise of the major powers. The elder brother has spoken, and the younger brother, Greece, has no ability to resist, and Constantine did not bother about it.

"Then your Greek Congo head office should negotiate with the British to establish an English-Greek joint venture to mine copper in the Katanga area of ​​the Congo."

"In any case, the equity cannot be less than half," Constantine urged.

In fact, the area and reserves of this copper belt in Zambia are much larger than those in Congo, but since the British were interested, Constantine didn’t want to make trouble with the British just for the copper mine.

"Scalloy, the machinery factory under your steel factory is not only used to produce bicycles," Constantine turned and said to Scalloy who was beside him.

"After you reminded me last time, I thought about it carefully. It would definitely lose money to build a factory to produce guns and artillery for Greece alone."

"But you also know that Greece will only need this machinery factory to turn on horsepower to produce guns during a certain period of time. If you don't receive arms orders, you can produce bicycles, of course, other commodities."

After all, he looked at Sculloy, waiting for his reply.

This is also the inspiration for Constantine to think that many factories that originally produced civilian goods could also be used to produce arms when the war came, after modifying the production lines.

Hearing Constantine's words, Scarroy was stunned, and then said: "It's not impossible, it just requires workers to master more skills, and because it is a machine prepared for different industrial products, it is very difficult to produce When a certain industrial product is used, some of the machines will be idle, which will affect the efficiency.”

"And it takes a long time for such a factory to switch production of guns and artillery during a war," Scalloy said in advance.

Hearing Scaroi's answer, Constantine was relieved. As for the current Greece, as long as it can build a factory for the production of arms, there is no room for nitpicking.

Seeing Scarroy contemplating with a wine glass in his hand, looking like he was hesitant to speak, Constantine thought that Scarroy might have found it difficult to do so.

"If you feel embarrassed, there is nothing wrong with the machinery factory specializing in the production of bicycles," Constantine said quickly.

This is an expert in the management of a steel plant that was finally invited.

"It's not about the machine shop," Scalloy was thinking about how to express it to Constantine.

"Your Highness, Greece is rich in bauxite, do you know that?" Scalloy asked.

To be honest, if there is any resource in Greece that can be said to be abundant, it is bauxite. This mineral has billions of tons of reserves in Greece, and it is the only resource that Greece can take.

"That's right"

"Your Excellency the Duke, you know that the smelting of aluminum mainly uses electrolysis. Greece has recently built a large AC power station. I also visited this power station recently. Congratulations, Your Highness."

Having said this, Sculloy turned to Tesla: "And your erudition, Mr. Tesla"

"This is the world's first alternating current power station~www.wuxiax.com~ It has been proved that alternating current is indeed more suitable for industrial production than direct current, and the long-distance transmission efficiency completely surpasses direct current"

"Almost half of the cost of electrolytic aluminum is in electricity, Your Highness, Mr. Tesla."

"What does this mean?" said here, Scarroy sold out and asked Constantine and Tesla.

Tesla looked at Scarloy blankly, not knowing what he meant.

Constantine was also at a loss. He couldn't guess what Scalloy meant. What was the relationship between the cost of electrolytic aluminum and the AC power station?

Seeing how the two of them didn't know what to say, Scalloy was worth reminding: "Your Highness, electrolytic aluminum is still a relatively expensive metal."

Scalloy said here, and Constantine finally realized what he meant.

Although in the 21st century, aluminum is already a metal used on a large scale by human beings, it can be seen everywhere in life, and it seems that it has nothing to do with expensive.

However, aluminum was indeed an expensive metal in the 19th century.

As the saying goes, what is rare is more expensive. People's evaluation of the value of a metal largely depends on how easy it is to obtain.

Although aluminum is the only element in the earth's crust other than oxygen and silicon, elemental aluminum does not exist in nature.

Since electricity is required to obtain aluminum, in the era when electricity is not easily available, human beings need to pay a high price to obtain aluminum.

For example, once, when Napoleon III held a dinner, in addition to his own use of aluminum tableware, everyone else used gold and silver tableware, in order to highlight his dignity.

At this time, aluminum was more valuable than gold and silver.

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