African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1279: Chapter 288: Fuwah River Reservoir

Four people toured Rhein City, with the cityscape visible in full through the car window.

”Currently, East Africa is in a phase of rapid economic growth, with stable yet vibrant order. There are two industrial areas, one on the south side of the Fuwah River Reservoir and another in the northwest of the city.”

”When you first arrived in Rhein City, you passed through the northwest industrial area, which relies on convenient and developed rail and road transportation, with many heavy industries located there for easy transport of raw materials and products.”

”The Fuwah River Industrial Area, on the other hand, is built upon the Fuwah River Reservoir. The reservoir covers nearly eighty square kilometers and holds approximately 1.7 billion cubic meters of water, satisfying the entire water demand of Rhein City.”

”The Rhine Palace is built not far from this large artificial lake, but it is upstream of the reservoir, which is constructed on the basis of the Renshaw Fowa River.”

”The Empire built the Fuwah River Dam, cutting off the Renshaw Fowa River, utilizing the low-lying terrain here, and after seven years of artificial transformation, finally formed the Fuwah River Reservoir.”

Of course, Prince Maxim didn’t mention that during the construction of the Fuwah River Reservoir, most of the workforce was Black laborers. Now, standing on the Katanga Plateau, one can no longer see the Black slaves who built this reservoir.

Aleksey said in surprise, ”So the Fuwah River Reservoir is actually the name of this great lake, previously we thought it was a natural lake!”

Maxim said, ”East Africa has plenty of natural great lakes, especially the three major lakes, which are giant lakes naturally formed in the world, comparable to the Great Lakes in the United States, and even more commendable is that these three great lakes are all freshwater lakes.”

The three major lakes of East Africa are the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), Soron Lake (Tanganyika), and Lake Malawi (or Lake Niassa).

As East Africa opened up, the worldwide recognition of these three major lakes has been increasingly rising, resulting in significant adjustments to world maps.

The main reason for this situation was last century, East Africa’s expansion on the East African Plateau interrupted the original exploration route by European adventurers into the heart of Africa.

It wasn’t until East Africa officially opened up that the data on these three major lakes was formally released to the outside world by the East African Government.

It’s not surprising, in the mid-last century, Europeans’ progress in exploring Africa was quite slow, before East Africa, only a handful of adventurers ventured deep.

Maxim continued, ”When compared to these three great lakes, the Fuwah River Reservoir is like an ant before an elephant, and for the development of the Fuwah River Reservoir, we’ve cleverly utilized the local terrain characteristics.”

”Before East Africa overhauled the place, the banks of the Renshaw Fowa River were a natural river valley terrain, and the middle section just so happened to form an area suitable for reservoir construction, with both upstream and downstream river channels relatively narrow.”

”We built a 300-meter concrete dam that bisected it, and this dam also serves a power generation function, especially during the rainy season, the electricity generation is great, ensuring a stable annual power supply for the city, and during the rainy season, it can also support the power needs of nearby industrial cities, such as New Frankfurt, Kabwe, or the northern copper belt cities through the power grid.”

The rainy season in Rhein City is quite long, lasting up to half a year, and even in the dry season, the river’s volume doesn’t decrease, which is primarily related to the flow of the Renshaw Fowa River.

The Renshaw Fowa River mainly runs in a north-south direction, flowing from the northern rainforest climate region to the savanna climate region, with Rhein City lying between the two.

So even during the dry season in Rhein City, rainfall in the upstream regions can ensure the Renshaw Fowa River has adequate water, and especially after building water regulation projects like the Fuwah River Reservoir, it ensures the stability of both water and electricity supply for Rhein City.

Moreover, East Africa’s initial selection of this location as the capital was also due to the higher terrain on both banks, preventing river floods from posing any threat during the rainy season.

Maxim joked, ”The Fuwah River Reservoir could be considered Rhein City’s very own ’sea.’ Currently, the reservoir’s area is even slightly larger than the built-up area of Rhein City.”

”On weekends, many city residents choose to visit or fish at the reservoir area, and from a high point in the Rhine Palace, you can also see the Fuwah River Reservoir, with the royal gardens being developed alongside it.”

”There are still vast undeveloped forests on the east and south sides of the Fuwah River Reservoir, with railways leading to Tete City, as well as Xinde and Kilimane City, being one of Rhein City’s routes to the sea.”

Since the East African railway network has basically taken shape, the inland dependence on the Port of Dar es Salaam has greatly reduced. Take Rhein City, the fastest way to the sea includes Dar es Salaam City, Kilimane City, Xinde City, Luanda City, Benguela City, Lobito City, Cabinda, and so on.

All these rising stars among East African port cities have direct trains to Rhein City, greatly reducing its reliance on Dar es Salaam City.

This is one of the reasons Dar es Salaam City’s development has been relatively sluggish in recent years, but East Africa is content to see this happen.

This just proves the achievements of East African transportation construction. After all, the more routes there are, the more the number of hub cities increases, and the original hub would see a decrease in its status and importance accordingly.

However, Dar es Salaam City’s conditions are laid there. Even if it’s ”declining,” it’s only relative; it’s not that Dar es Salaam City is developing slowly, but that other port cities are developing too quickly.

In this regard, Mombasa’s conditions are much better. So far, Mombasa is still the only seaway outlet for the Northern Railway, and the Gabon segment of the Northern Railway has progressed slowly, which is estimated to take another two to three years to complete, officially making the Northern Railway a mainline connecting two oceans in the East African countries.

Along with Mombasa’s rapid increase in financial properties in recent years, the gap between Mombasa and Dar es Salaam City is narrowing, and it might become the largest city in East Africa someday in the future.

Of course, surpassing Dar es Salaam City doesn’t mean resting easy. Besides possibly being surpassed by Dar es Salaam City again, it also faces competition from new port cities like Luanda, Cabinda, and Bela.

Compared to these port cities, the inland cities’ development in East Africa requires more coordination from the East African Government. As the capital, Rhein City’s development status represents the economic situation of inland East Africa to some extent.

In recent years, Rhein City’s development speed ranks among the top in East African domestic cities, especially in non-economic fields, with abundant resources invested to quickly make it an administrative, financial, academic, educational, medical, and transportation national center city.

Maxim said, ”In a while, I will take you to see the Fuwah River Dam. From there, you will see how we cut off the Renshaw Fowa River, and now it is the rainy season, and the Renshaw Fowa River has an abundant volume of water, with the water level of the Fuwah River Reservoir being high.”

”Standing on the Fuwah River Dam, you can see quite a spectacular scene. Before that, we will pass through the southwestern industrial area of Rhein City, and after a few blocks, turn left to enter the Southwest Industrial Avenue, along which the Fuwah River Dam can be reached in less than fifteen minutes.”

”Though the Fuwah River Reservoir, in terms of East African water projects, is only of medium-upper scale, it’s not small, and there are not many countries in the world capable of independently building hydroelectric stations of this scale.”

Upon hearing Maxim say this, Aleksey and the others were even more interested in this large-scale water project artificially constructed by East Africa.

Although the Fuwah River Reservoir is, as Maxim stated, only a medium-upper scale project among East African water projects, this is only in the context of East Africa.

In fact, from stepping into East Africa, and traveling via the Central Railway, delving into East Africa’s heart, and witnessing the infrastructure from the coast inland, the group clearly knew East Africa’s accomplishments in infrastructure could rank among the best globally.