Greece to roman road

Compared with the open-hearth steelmaking method commonly used in various countries, the main difference between electric furnace steelmaking lies in energy and raw materials.

With the current technical level, the electric furnace steelmaking technology, which is still in its primitive state, still needs to be improved and improved.

However, for Greece, there is no better choice.

It was already 1913, and Greece needed to import more than 1 million tons of high-quality coal from Britain every year, mainly for steel smelting and railway transportation.

Of the more than one million tons of coal, Greek steel plants alone consume more than 700,000 tons.

Greek steel plants are one of the pillars of the Greek economy. Once British coal cannot be transported to Greece in time, Greek steel plants will immediately be in trouble.

As a producer of basic industrial steel, once Greek steel plants stop operating, the Greek economy will be severely hit.

Important energy sources such as coal are indispensable industrial food in the era of industrialization.

After discussing with Scaloy, the manager of the steel plant, Constantine decided to take the risk of using electric furnace steelmaking to build a new steel plant in Thessaloniki.

After hearing Scaloy explain the high cost of steelmaking in electric furnaces, everyone understood why Constantine would support this.

In recent years, Greece has used lignite combustion to generate electricity, and the annual power generation has been rising steadily. The booming thermal power generation has provided sufficient power for Greece's industrial development.

Building electric furnaces to make steel could reduce Greek steel plants' dependence on British coal.

In addition, Constantine was also worried about Britain's control of Greece's energy import channels.

At a critical moment, Greece's massive demand for coal will become Britain's reliance on threatening Greece.

Even if Britain does not use the coal issue to threaten Greece, once Britain is involved in a war in Europe, it will lose the ability to export coal to Greece.

At present, the major coal exporting countries in Europe are Germany, the United Kingdom and Russia.

Among them, the high-quality coal that Russia has the conditions to export is produced in Ukraine.

For Greece, the Bosporus Strait and the narrow Dardanelles Strait are necessary places to import coal from Russia.

According to the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Greece, once the situation in Europe is disturbed, this route will be immediately cut off by the Ottoman government.

In recent years, German coal exports have increased significantly, and they are competing fiercely with British coal in Western Europe for the energy market.

With its price advantage, German coal has now occupied the coal market in the Netherlands, Denmark and Switzerland.

But the cost of transporting German coal to Greece will be higher than that of British coal.

Moreover, like coal in Russia and Ukraine, once the situation in Europe changes, the route for coal imports from Germany will also be cut off.

Therefore, British coal has become almost the only option for Greek imports.

"Although electric furnace steelmaking does not use coal, its raw material is scrap steel. Mr. Scaloy, where can we get the scrap steel?" Emmanuel asked still puzzled.

As the de facto supreme commander of the Greek army, Emmanuel has also noticed the cloud of war hanging over Europe, and is often worried about Greece's high reliance on imported energy.

Steel production is closely related to the military's military production. Once the Greek steel plants are in trouble, it means that the Greek army will be in a dilemma of lack of weapons and ammunition.

"As for the source of scrap steel, we will follow the previous practice of the Athens Steel Plant and increase the import of scrapped ships from foreign countries. In the initial stage, we will dismantle decommissioned ships and use them as raw materials for the steel plant."

"The second step is to collect scrap steel in Greece and remanufacture it. With the industrial development in Greece for so many years, there is already a considerable stock of scrap steel in Greece. These scrap steel will be the source of raw materials for the Thessaloniki Steel Plant in the future." Roy replied.

"The Macedonian region also has abundant lignite reserves, which are very convenient for thermal power generation. The electricity produced can also supply electricity to the city of Thessaloniki nearby. Soon this dilapidated city will be transformed." Calloy said.

"If all goes well, Macedonia will slowly become the largest industrial region in Greece," Constantine said to the crowd.

"Textile mills and cigarette factories will also be established to facilitate the processing of tobacco and cotton, the economic crops produced in Macedonia in the future."

"In addition to meeting the needs of the army, the cigarettes produced will also be put on the Greek domestic market."

In addition to coal, the second largest commodity imported by Greece from the UK is cigarettes.

According to data from the Ministry of Commerce, Greece imports approximately 12 million drachmas of cigarettes or tobacco from the British Empire every year.

The import value of coal is approximately 145 million drachmas, not counting other imported British goods, such as tea.

In the commodity trade between Greece and the United Kingdom, the exported goods are mainly low-value agricultural products such as wine and pickled olives, with a total value of only 11 million drachmas.

The annual trade deficit between Britain and Greece reaches about 140 million drachmas.

Regarding this phenomenon, there are actually quite a few factions in Greek society, especially the Greek banking community. They are watching helplessly such a trade deficit and huge outflows of precious metals. They have a very strong attitude and continue to express their dissatisfaction to the government and demand that measures be taken. Correcting unfair trade between Greece and Britain.

It's just that the top leaders of the Greek government have reached a consensus and acquiesced to the existence of this status quo.

And this is the price paid for the harmonious diplomatic relations between Greece and the United Kingdom.

In recent years, Britain's acquiescence in Greece's expansion in the Balkans has a lot to do with this huge trade deficit.

Of course, the key to Britain's acquiescence in Greek expansion was that the Balkans generally maintained a political and military balance.

In other words, Britain has great interests in Greece.

However, against the background of the increasingly heavy shadow of war over Europe, Greece has to consider how to reduce domestic turmoil in Greece if it interrupts trade with the United Kingdom.

Speaking of this, Jacob behind Constantine echoed: "The cigarette factory will be invested and constructed by the Greek Education Foundation."

It is most reasonable for a hugely profitable industry like tobacco to be handled by an education foundation. This is the conclusion Constantine came to after careful consideration.

The huge profits from tobacco are used to promote the development of education in Greece, benefiting all Greeks.

In contrast, an industry like tobacco, which overdrafts people's health and produces bloody benefits, is unfairly obtained by private producers.

The reason why Constantine revealed this news to everyone in advance was that the new Greek nobles could seize the opportunity and join the tide of developing Macedonia.