It was agreed to meet up in the port city of Cotonou in Benin, so there was no need to hurry. Everyone rushed to the Ibogu tribe to rest for a while, and then set off northward after dark.
The moon was bright and the stars were sparse. Several off-road vehicles were heading north along the newly built gravel road on the east bank of the Gray Crow River. On both sides were rolling mountains and stretches of jungle under the moonlight. The sound of gurgling water could be heard in their ears.
This is a newly built border road in the middle of last year. It has just been completed and has not yet been officially opened to the outside world.
Except for the gurgling water and the occasional movement from deep in the jungle, the roar of several off-road vehicle engines and the sound of wheels rapidly crushing gravel, the surroundings were very quiet.
Mei held her chin in her hand, her soft and beautiful face pressed against the car window, looking at the distant mountains and dark jungle under the moon.
She is very clear about the past and present life of this border road connecting Benin and the northwest coastal area of Canem.
The Kanem section of the border highway starts from the Gray Crow River No. 3 Hydropower Station and ends at Zum Mountain at the junction of Benin and Kanem.
As early as the rise of Cornero Energy and Ibogu Mining, some narrow forest trails were successively built in this area due to hydropower resource development and gold resource exploration, barely allowing off-road vehicles and engineering vehicles to pass through the Gray Crow River.
Later, it connects with the urban highway of Lonta and Draculamo.
In the Benin section northwest of Mount Zum, all located in the Oguta area, Ibogu Mining and Cornero Foods contracted for gold mine exploration, mining and cocoa tree planting, and opened up narrow winding mountain corridors.
If Cao Mo only wanted to use these access roads for smuggling, it could be said to be completely under his control. However, at the beginning of last year, Cao Mo instructed Xie Sipeng and others to actively mediate. The Benin military police finally cracked down on smuggling, cross-border poaching and other crimes.
In the name of the activity, we first set up a border checkpoint in Zum Mountain and started to widen and build the border road between Zum Mountain and the town of Oguta.
Kanem could only passively set up corresponding armed checkpoints at the southeastern foothills of Zum Mountain.
Not only this section of the border road in Benin but also the border road in Canem was also constructed by the Cornero Construction Company with the support of Blake and others.
Mei Yi knew the inside story very well, but she did not expect that in just over a year, this border road would be ready for traffic, and the quality of the road would be much better than she imagined.
In fact, when the Economic Community of West African States was established in the 1970s, countries along the Gulf of Guinea such as Benin, Kanem and Akwa planned to build a coastal cross-border highway to connect the coastal areas of each country.
However, due to the complex terrain, the difficulty of construction, and the tight funding of various countries, it was not until thirty years later that even a simple road was built in the coastal areas.
Who could have imagined that after 30 years of quarreling between countries, the first section of the coastal cross-border highway, even though it is extremely simple and cannot be compared with the planned high-grade highway, was built in such a short time by a foreigner?
“The two countries of Benin and Kanem, including the budgets of the federal government and local state governments, I read relevant reports and spent a total of 20 million U.S. dollars, and this border is located deep in dense forests, with steep mountains and rivers.
There are so many rivers that it is extremely difficult to build even a simple gravel road.
, the original estimated cost was as high as 70 to 80 million US dollars, how did you build it?" May Mantar couldn't help but asked Cao Mo out of curiosity.
"If we go by the normal quotation, if this border road is handed over to a regular civil construction contractor, it will not be less than 60 million US dollars. However, Cornero Construction Company uses the original road and is familiar with the local villages and tribes to hire workers. As well as purchasing materials nearby, it can save a lot of costs. At the same time, Cornero Construction Company did not make a penny of profit from this road. Even so, Ibogu Mining added an additional 20 million to it. It took only US$200,000 to barely build this six-meter-wide, 40-kilometer-long winding gravel road," Cao Mo said. "Even so, the Benin and Oyo state governments promised to allocate a total of US$20 million for the project. , until today we have only paid less than one-tenth to build this border road, we have really lost even our underwear.”
Cao Mo was complaining, but Mei Mantar saw that there was no bitter look on his face, but she was not used to wiping her face to tell Cao Mo a joke, so she turned her eyes to the car window again.
The significance of this gravel road is very significant. For the two countries of Benin and Canem, it is to connect the two most important cities of the two countries, Bodonov, the capital of Benin, and Deutsche, the economic capital of Canem. The land distance of Gulamo has been shortened by more than half.
Of course, if a high-grade highway can be built between the Augustalon Towers and the winding winding gravel road can be straightened, not only will the distance be greatly shortened, but the driving speed will also be greatly increased.
By then, the distance from Draculamore to Bodonov, the capital of Benin, will be shortened to 120 kilometers, and the time will be controlled within one and a half hours.
Only then will these two important cities along the Gulf of Guinea be truly connected. This was also an important goal of the Economic Community of West African States in initially planning the coastal cross-border corridor.
However, this involves a large number of bridge and tunnel projects, and the investment is not worth US$3 to 4 billion.
The finances of both countries are extremely tight, and no one is willing to invest such a high amount of money. Even if each country bears half, it is unrealistic.
Of course, the border road between Augusta and Longta was opened, and Mei Mantar also knew very well how much this meant to Cao Mo.
In addition to the two major mining areas of Oguta and Ibogu, six mines are connected, connecting the plantations of Cornero Food in the northwest of Lonta and the south of Oguta, Cornero Cement and Dongsheng Aluminum, etc. The company's products can be more conveniently sold to southern and eastern Benin via this border road.
They were riding seven large cross-country mountains. Apart from the driver and Du Ganjie, who was sitting in the passenger seat, Mei Mantar and Zhou Han sat in the last row, Cao Mo and Bram sat in the middle row, and Mei Mantar sat in the middle row. Tal also heard Cao Mo and Bram discussing how to maximize the value potential of this border road.
The most important point is that Cornero Energy should immediately negotiate an agreement with the National Electricity Group of Benin to invest in the construction of a transmission line between Oguta and Lonta, roughly along the border road, so as to connect Cornero The hydropower station and natural gas power plant built by Luo Energy between Augusta and Lonta are connected to the power grids of Bodonov and Cotonou.
At this juncture, Cao Mo and Labram went to Benin together and discussed many details of the Oguta-Lonta transmission grid in the car, not just to promote the further development of Cornero Energy.
all along,
Cao Modu worked hard to build an industrial base with Chinese businessmen as the leading force on the shores of Lake Cornero, and make it the core and most important place for Tianyue to take root on the African continent.
A few days ago, when Cao Mo just returned to Kanem, he approached Huang Hebin to discuss the construction of the new port city, which was also centered around this strategic goal.
However, the change of situation really left the plan far behind.
Even if Cao Mo could stop the Severi family and the Evans Foundation's greed for the Wusang River copper and gold mine in the short term, he would not be able to avoid a long-term struggle with the Evans Foundation.
The descendants of the colonists are the main tentacles of the Evans Foundation to extend to the African continent and carry out new economic plunder. Cao Mo wants to attack and weaken the Evans Foundation by wooing the descendants of the colonists, but it has a natural disadvantage.
To make up for this disadvantage, it is necessary to bring out elites such as Juan Mantar and other descendants of colonists who are alert and aware of the Evans Foundation, and use them as the core to organize and lead the Gulf of Guinea coast
The descendants of colonists from various countries weaken the influence and penetration of the Evans Foundation.
Juan Mantal has always had a wish, which is to have the descendants of colonists from various countries in the Gulf of Guinea be more closely connected and unite in order to better alleviate conflicts with the indigenous peoples who make up the absolute majority of the population in each country, and avoid
Falling victim to populist political struggles in various countries.
Juan Mantal even wanted to set up a loose organization similar to the Alliance of Colonist Descendants to unite small political parties in various countries that are mainly descendants of colonizers.
Cao Mo's next step is to help Juan Mantar do this and make it an important strategy against the Evans Foundation.
Compared with Kanem, Akwa, and Benin, the total population is less than five million. At the same time, Benin has a single ethnic group, without complicated and bloody ethnic populist struggles. The social security and politics are quite stable. After independence, the indigenous residents and the colonists
There have been no bloody struggles or sharp conflicts among the descendants.
Therefore, Benin is the best choice to establish relevant organizations to unite the descendants of colonists from various countries along the Gulf of Guinea. It is also easier to be tolerated by the Benin authorities and indigenous groups.
Simply establishing a loose alliance organization is actually far from enough.
However, if the descendants of the colonists want to gain strong enough influence and penetration in the Benin authorities, and then further make the Benin authorities willing to become an important force in protecting the descendants of the colonists, using both national will and diplomatic means, this is absolutely inseparable.
Support from economic forces.
The Oguta-Lonta transmission grid is just a first move by Cao Mo to shift part of the focus of his industrial layout to Benin.
In order to clarify his thoughts before meeting Juan Mantal, Cao Mo did not rest in the car along the way.
He communicated with Yang Deshan, Xie Sipeng, Sturgeon, Abacha, and Ochosan through satellite phones.
They initially agreed that after arriving in Benin, they would go directly to the Benin authorities to discuss the investment plan, which was for Tianyue Industrial to borrow US$60 million from domestic sources to inject it into Conero Energy and increase Conero Energy's shareholding to 60%.
After Conero Energy received this capital injection, in addition to part of it being used for the construction of the Oguta-Lonta transmission grid, a more important item was the acquisition of Benin's largest state-owned power plant in Cotonou, promoting Benin in advance.