Chapter 308 The Road Ahead Is Long and Difficult

"Archduke Franz, I have some bad news for you. The Brazilians can't deliver the rubber you ordered on time. The situation of the civil war is very unfavorable to them. The rebels have occupied some rubber producing areas and even cut down rubber trees for fuel.

But our rubber gap is getting bigger and bigger. The production of civilian rubber tires has to be stopped, and materials are concentrated to complete the orders delivered by the army."

Ajani is very worried about this, because Austria has a rubber crisis almost every year.

Although Brazil has been expanding its production capacity since 1839, rubber is not something you can expand immediately if you want to. Even if you invest more money, you still need to wait for it to grow slowly, and this long is 8-10 years.

These years, the Brazilians have only found some wild rubber forests, but the total output has not reached 700 tons, while the actual demand for rubber in Austria is more than 1,000 tons per year. The huge gap even makes Franz feel that the rubber forests planted in Zhenla are not enough.

It seems that in order to deliver the military's orders, Franz can only make the pneumatic tires available ahead of time.

But this time Franz was wrong. Although pneumatic tires are a great progress in the history of tires, solid tires are actually better if only durability is considered.

Pneumatic tires have better shock resistance and are more labor-saving. They have successfully improved the efficiency of transportation and made riding a kind of enjoyment.

In fact, before the invention of pneumatic tires, the carriage was very bumpy. In order to sit more comfortably, the nobles at that time often equipped expensive carriage shock absorbers.

And pneumatic tires are actually more adaptable and operable than solid tires, because solid tires themselves have the characteristics of high elasticity and high wear resistance, which makes it more difficult to control when facing complex roads, and even prone to rollover.

But after this operation, Austria's rubber gap became larger and larger. In order to improve their own experience, the dignitaries placed orders to Franz's factory, and some even had the idea of ​​the army.

Back to the point, Franz also knew this situation, but the rubber problem was really unsolvable. In order to solve this situation, he even had the idea of ​​artificial synthetic rubber.

But the "artificial rubber" plan has been silent for several years. After all, the previous technology is a bit far behind, but it has promoted the development of material chemistry.

Now Franz can only further expand the area of ​​rubber planting, at least to prepare for the future.

At the same time, due to the increasingly widespread application of electrolysis in industry, the problem of power shortage has become more and more serious, and traditional hand-cranked generators cannot meet the growing demand at all.

Franz also invested a lot of money in research, but the result is only a change from hand-cranked power to steam lever, and the efficiency is still very low.

But at this time, Nikola Tesla was not born yet, and even the electromagnetic principle that supported him to complete the AC generator had not been perfected, so Franz could only use this stupidest way to increase power.

Fortunately, the invention of the steam turbine did not make the cost of electricity too high.

Of course, Franz did not reduce his investment in electrical research. After all, the second industrial revolution was the so-called electrical age, and this period was the best opportunity for the Austrian Empire to overtake on the curve.

After that, Ajani reported some of the latest developments in the Near East.

The Ottoman Empire borrowed heavily and seemed to be preparing to rebuild its navy, but it still built traditional wooden sailing battleships, and planned to import artillery from Britain.

But it is worth noting that the wood they used did not come from Russia, but from distant Spain. It is unknown what kind of national relations it reveals and how many unknown transactions are behind the scenes.

Egyptian Pasha Muhammad Ali abdicated and passed the position of Pasha to his eldest son Ibrahim, and successfully quit opium.

This surprised Franz a little.

However, although Muhammad Ali abdicated and passed the position to Ibrahim, Franz was sure that the hero must be planning something.

If he really gave up on himself or let it go, how could he quit opium?

Muhammad Ali was indeed a generation of heroes, but in the current situation, even if he had ambitions, it would be difficult to change the situation.

To the west of Egypt, the Karamanli family's control over Tripoli became more and more solid. Except for two tentative attacks launched by Tunisia, other countries did not take any action.

However, since the ban on slave trade, Tripoli's economic situation has been very bleak. It mainly relies on fishing, dates and wool to make money, and its main trading partner is naturally Austria.

However, they did not find oil, but found a lot of other mineral deposits. However, at this time, Tripoli's infrastructure was extremely backward and there were no precious metals, so it was of no value to mine.

Tunisia felt a crisis. After all, it seemed that it was the only country around that still maintained its independence. But this Tunisian monarch named "Ahmed Bey" also trained a Western-style army like all the monarchs who were keen on reform in this era, with a number of more than 20,000 people all year round.

At the same time, a navy consisting of 18 warships was formed to keep the enemy out of the country, but the largest tonnage did not exceed 600 tons, and the firepower was not even as good as the armed merchant ships of the powers during this period.

The Bey once demolished temples for the sake of reform, burned the head of the religious group who opposed him, and even executed his eldest son.

But reality dealt him a heavy blow, that is, the defeat of Muhammad Ali. Egypt was far superior to Tunisia in terms of land and navy, but it lost to the great powers.

The current Bey is a simple man who often makes some strange remarks and sends envoys to Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Turkey to form alliances.

The voices against reform in the country are getting louder and louder, but they are all brutally suppressed by his new army. In one case, a city with a population of 16,000 was killed and only an old blind man was left.

Algeria and Morocco are being invaded by France. Although the French army has won many battles, it has never been able to stabilize the situation.

But Algeria and Morocco have no way to deal with the French. The casualty ratio is usually more than seven to one, and what is more fatal is that France sent warships to block the coast, making it impossible for them to continue to buy weapons from Britain, Austria and other countries.

There were even cases where British merchant ships broke through the blockade and were sunk by French warships.

Afterwards, the British government sent a note to the French ambassador hoping that the other party could give a reasonable explanation, but only received a compensation of 100 francs per person.

Faced with the tough attitude of the French, the British government finally had to inform its merchants not to continue to provoke French warships.

Of course, this was not Guizot's intention, but the intention of the French military controlled by the Bonapartists. They had had enough of the shamelessness and contempt of the British.

This was also recognized by King Louis Philippe. After all, he regarded North Africa as his own territory just like Spain. And now France's power has penetrated into Spain, and even the self-righteous regent queen has been undermined.