My Italy

With the small flames in the Balkans calmed down, Italy can finally begin to enjoy the fruitful results of the war with all its strength.

In Albania and Kosovo, tens of thousands of railway builders are stepping up construction of the Durrës-Pristina railway line. As the most important transportation line in Kosovo and a mountain railway, this railway also adopts the latest construction technology, reinforced concrete pouring technology.

Bridge piers and bridges poured with reinforced concrete have greater bearing capacity, higher strength, and sturdiness. It can carry heavier trains, so the emergence of this technology has brought great development to the engineering community.

However, although reinforced concrete has various advantages, it is not currently used much around the world.

In fact, the technology of reinforced concrete has been around for more than 20 years. In 1868, a French gardener poured the first practical object, a reinforced concrete flowerpot.

That's right, it's a flowerpot.

It was not until 1872 that the first reinforced concrete building appeared in New York.

As for now, reinforced concrete is not used much, because the reason that restricts the development of reinforced concrete technology is still cost. This technology requires the use of a large amount of steel bars and cement, and the current prices of steel and cement are not cheap. If this technology is adopted on a large scale, it will drive up the cost.

This is also the main reason why reinforced concrete was not used on a large scale before 1900.

As for why Italy wants to use this technology on this railway, in the final analysis it is for transportation. Compared with pushing up the cost, the benefits it brings will benefit the development of Italian industry more. The government can still settle this account.

Moreover, the mineral development in Kosovo has made railway construction even more urgent. Currently, there are three large coal mines under construction in Kosovo, as well as one neutral lead mine, two neutral zinc mines, one large chromium mine, and two silver mines. The development of so many mines is due to the hard work of a large number of geological exploration teams in Kosovo.

After the construction of these mines is completed, in addition to rough screening and processing locally, they all need to be transported to the mainland.

Without this railway, transportation would be a big problem.

Therefore, this railway connecting Durres and Pristina is currently the most important project of the Italian Ministry of Transport. Tens of thousands of road construction workers are busy here. They used various tools and machinery to build bridges across rivers and roads across mountains. Finally, at the end of 1892, they spent a year and a half to build this artery, which was related to the development of Italian industry.

Of course, the Durrës to Pristina railway is not the only railway currently under construction in Italy, and other railways are also under construction.

For example, the Sofia-Pristina railway has just completed line exploration, but this railway is mostly built by Bulgarians, and Italy only needs to build a small section in Kosovo.

Of course, there is another railway that the Italian government has not forgotten, that is, the railway from Sabha to the Libyan port of Sirte. Although the railway does not have to cross valley rivers, it is more difficult to build than the Durrës-Pristina railway because it crosses the Sahara.

The line surveyors also have a big headache for this railway. They need to avoid desert terrain and try to choose the railway in the Gobi. Otherwise, the railway maintenance workers will cry after a sandstorm.

In addition, the choice of site is also a difficult problem. You must know that around the world, tractor engines are still driven by steam engines. This will mean that the trains need to add coal and water. What is the situation in the Sahara? Therefore, in order to reasonably arrange sites and perform daily maintenance work, line exploration is extremely difficult. Fortunately, the hard work over the past year was not in vain, and the line exploration was finally completed.

In November 1892, the construction of this railway line for iron ore transportation finally started from the Port of Sirte.

Of course, the construction of this railway does not attract as much attention as the Balkan railway, and it also has a lot of time. The five-year construction period is more than enough for an 800-kilometer railway, even if the railway needs to be built in the Gobi desert.

There was no railway construction in Italy in 1892. The construction of the three steel plants in the south planned by the government also started at the sites that had already been selected. Thousands of people worked hard for these three steel plants.

As important pillars of the development of the south, the Italian government has also devoted a lot of effort to these three steel plants. Italy invested a lot of money and purchased technology from abroad to lay the foundation for the three steel plants.

It strives to reach a scale of 1.2 million tons of pig iron and 450,000 tons of crude steel in Italy by 1895.

Don't look at this steel output, which is not even as good as a small steel plant now, but you only need to compare it with neighboring countries to know that France's current pig iron production is 2 million tons and crude steel is 870,000 tons. Even Germany, which currently has the strongest output in Europe, only produces 4.35 million tons of pig iron and 2.65 million tons of crude steel every year, adding up to a total steel production of only 7 million tons.

Italy will not be able to reach Germany's current output for at least ten years. On the one hand, it is due to raw materials, and on the other hand, it is a market problem. It will be used to produce so much steel. At present, Italy simply cannot afford that much steel, and even the shipbuilding industry, which uses the most materials, cannot share much.

Therefore, Italy's current layout in the steel industry is to try its best to let the steel industry drive out steel from other countries.

Of course, Italy's light industry has not been forgotten at present, but compared to heavy industry, which can better reflect national strength, the government does not spend much energy on light industry. After all, the capital on hand is too little, and good steel needs to be used on the blade.

Of course, large-scale construction also brought another benefit to Italy, that is, Italian immigration fell below the 100,000 mark, an unprecedented drop to 40,000 (excluding immigrants to the colonies). This is truly an unprecedented achievement.

You must know that Italy used to emigrate more than 100,000 or 200,000 people every year. If there is a disaster year, there will be no problem at all if there is an impact of 300,000 or 400,000 people.

The reason for such large-scale immigration is that Italy cannot retain so many people, or that there is no land to support so many people.

The current population of Italy is 31.78 million. Due to Italy's emphasis on family, the annual birth rate is as high as about 3.34%. After deducting the mortality rate of about 2.2%, the natural growth rate is about 1.14%. This means that Italy has an additional population of more than 300,000 people every year. So without immigration, Italy's barren land (compared to Germany and France, Italian land is really poor) would not be able to support so many people.

The reason why the number of immigrants will be reduced this time is not only because industrial development can accommodate more people, but also because Carlo's behavior of expelling new territories gives people more places to go.

Traveling across the ocean to earn a living is not as satisfying as settling down nearby. The unkempt land in the new territory was a waste, and naturally it attracted a large number of Italians to flock across the sea.

In just over a year, more than half a million Italians went to the new territory, immediately occupying all the Albanian territory.

As for why there are more than 100,000 more Albanian people, the production and construction of various minerals and the construction of road facilities also require manpower.

Of course, Italy's development in 1892 was far more than the above.

And as the bell rang in 1893, a new situation emerged.

Sorry, the title of the previous chapter was repeated. Since I couldn’t change it, I mentioned it in this chapter.