Chapter 20 The First Town (Mlandizi)
Starting from Dar es Salaam and heading west for about 58 kilometers, you can see a brand new village here, which is the Hechingen Colonial Team The first stronghold established in East Africa.
To commemorate this important place, Yaman, the leader of the colonial team, named this place the First Town (later Mlandizi Town, Tanzania), symbolizing that this was the first step in colonial development. step.
The First Town is located in the buffer zone between the East African coastal plain and the plateau. There are no mountains passing by around it. There are only a few hills in the southwest, and the terrain is relatively flat and open.
The First Town is located in the coastal plain area not far from the Indian Ocean, close to the border of the Zanzibar Sultanate. Affected by the warm and humid air currents near the equator, the annual precipitation in the First Town is more than 1300mm. Lush vegetation.
Because of the uneven distribution of precipitation in Africa, a large amount of precipitation in the upper reaches of the river during the rainy season may accumulate in the lower reaches and cause floods. Therefore, the first town was built on a high ground to avoid the impact of sudden floods during the rainy season. .
There is a large river passing through the north of the first town. It originates from the Ulugulu Mountains. Captain Yaman named it the Little Rhine River (Rufu River). This river extends to the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Bagamoyo enters the Strait of Zanzibar.
The first town is located in the Little Rhine River Basin. The entire area has abundant rainfall, and because it is located near the equator, there is sufficient light and heat, which is suitable for the growth of rice, flax, corn and other crops.
Currently, this place is still deserted. In addition to the wild animals everywhere, only the slave hunting team of the Zanzibar Sultanate occasionally passes through this place.
Due to the perennial slave hunting operation of the Zanzibar Sultanate, there are basically no large-scale indigenous tribes nearby. The slave hunting team must go deep into the interior to gain anything, so they only stopped here briefly.
The Hechingen colonial team dug trenches around the first town and built low fences to prevent wild beasts from attacking. This was a large amount of work, so the size of the village was not large.
There are currently about 800 residents in the First Town, including members of the colonial team staying here and Chinese immigrants who have just come from afar, and more than 500 indigenous people are temporarily detained here.
In February, the first batch of 700 East Asian immigrants arrived here via the Dutch fleet. Most of them were deceived in the name of recruiting workers. In fact, they may not be able to leave East Africa for the rest of their lives. Back to my hometown again.
The employment contract in Hechingen lasted for twenty years, so there was no need to think about it, and he could only work for the Hohenzollern family for the rest of his life. After all, the people here are all adults. In this era when the average life expectancy is not long, twenty years basically means that most of the life will be spent here.
However, with the development of East Africa in the future, even if Ernst sends people to ask them to leave East Africa, they may not be willing to return to their distant and troubled hometown.
After docking at the Port of Dar es Salaam, the immigrants were kicked off the ship by staff, and the port personnel who had been prepared long ago disinfected the immigrants.
In the temporary shack, every group of fifty people stripped off their clothes and used water in a wooden bucket with soap to clean themselves. In hot weather, there was no need to worry about catching cold.
Put on uniform German clothing (mostly second-hand Prussian military uniforms bought by Ernst) and start cutting your hair and shaving.
Cutting off the pigtails caused a small panic. After all, after being suppressed for nearly a hundred years, there was still fear in my heart. But when you come here, it's not up to you. Even if you don't want to, you have to accept it honestly.
After the cleaning work was completed, these people were sent to the first town to carry out reclamation work. It took the colonial team a month to eliminate the surrounding wild animals, and the surrounding five or six kilometers were safe zones.
Because it is close to Zanzibar, there are few indigenous tribes nearby, only a few small villages. Most of them were driven away under the physical threat of the colonial team, and a few disobedient people were directly captured and used as free labor.
As for why they didn’t arrest them all but chose to expel them, is it because there are too few manpower? Every member of the colonial team is currently a valuable asset. It is not cost-effective to use strong methods against these tribes, but those who are unwilling The indigenous people who left their own land were still set as examples.
We are currently digging canals and building roads in the prisoner-of-war camp in the first town. They were used to complete the village trenches in the past few days. Currently, more than 500 people are building the trenches from the first town to Dar es Salaam. Port's first gravel road.
In the early days, these natives were substitutes for livestock and machines, and were the source of power for the colony. There were dozens of miles of land around the first town waiting for them to serve as livestock power.
The land in Tanzania is flat and open, and these immigrants did not feel uncomfortable coming here, because the first batch of immigrants basically came from the north of the Qing Dynasty, which was also an open plain. Although the weather is a little hotter, it is still better than cold. As for the strong ultraviolet rays in Africa, it is nothing to these farmers who face the loess and turn their backs to the sky all year round.
What is the first problem that new immigrants encounter? Even Ernst did not expect, or perhaps forgot to explain, that the climate in East Africa near the coast is relatively humid and hot, which is more suitable for growing rice.
However, most of these immigrants were northerners and had no experience in rice cultivation, and Ernst had not prepared rice seeds.
That’s not to say that wheat cannot be grown. Wheat can actually be grown in tropical areas, but the yield is not high. Tropical wheat is suitable for planting in plateau areas, but the first town is located on the coastal plains of East Africa.
For example, in India, the Deccan Plateau is dominated by wheat cultivation, and the Ganges River Plain is dominated by rice cultivation. India's annual wheat output is no less than rice.
In this case, we will temporarily use wheat instead of rice cultivation, but we no longer pursue yield, just plant some rations, and switch to cash crops in other areas.
Sisal was the key development crop of the Hechingen colonial team. In later generations, tropical Tanzania became a world-renowned sisal producing area. Sisal fiber has strong toughness and is not afraid of seawater erosion. It is an excellent raw material for making ship cables, sacks and carpets.
The current era is still the era of wooden-hulled ships. The good characteristics of sisal and the huge market have made the economic value of this crop on the rise. Compared with food, Ernst can do it for nothing. It is no exaggeration to say that you will reap what you sow.
After all, the development of the grain market is a long process. The largest number of people in the world are farmers, and the largest industry is agriculture. Each country has its own grain industry, and the intensity of market competition can be imagined, and all staple foods They all make small profits but quick turnover, and cannot make profits quickly. This is why there are so many plantations in the United States.
The situation is different for sisal, which is in short supply. Basically, it can only be widely planted in tropical areas, and it has high requirements on rainfall. After all, the tropics are not all places with abundant rain, and there are also climates like tropical deserts. exist.
Tropical rainforests are also not suitable for sisal cultivation. This does not mean that the climate conditions of tropical rainforests are not good, but that development is difficult. In terms of land alone, there are too many trees in tropical rainforests, and it is more difficult to cut down trees. The economic benefits of planting in small plots are also limited. Not prominent.
Tanzania is different. In addition to its superior climatic conditions, it has a vast land area, especially arable land.
According to later statistics, the arable land area of Tanzania may reach 600 million acres, accounting for more than 40% of the land area, and can feed 400 million people.
Ernst didn’t know where the data came from, but his personal experience in his previous life told him that East Africa was indeed suitable for agriculture.
The East African Plateau covers a vast area. Although it is called a plateau, Ernst, who grew up in the North China Plain, feels that East Africa is very similar to North China. That is to say, the altitude of East Africa is a bit higher. Otherwise, in Ernst's eyes, it is basically the same as North China. There are no other differences in the plains.
The most unique thing about the East African Plateau is that there is no shield like Brazil's on the coast. The coastal plain and plateau transition slowly, and the conditions in the economic hinterland are superior.
So the population of Tanzania in later generations was very evenly distributed, unlike the Brazilian population, which was all crowded in the southeastern corner of the Brazilian Plateau.
The entire main body of Tanzania is on the East African Plateau. The terrain in the country is undulating and stable, basically on the same plane. The mountains are distributed in the East African Rift Valley on the border, such as Kilimanjaro, the kind of towering mountains that suddenly appear on the plains. The mountains are quite spectacular.
This is also a puzzle that puzzles Ernst, because Kilimanjaro is clearly separated from the African grasslands, unlike other areas where there is a buffer between mountains and plains.
In any case, Ernst believed that East Africa’s natural conditions were favorable, and the only restriction on land development was water resources. This was the reason for Tanzania’s agricultural dilemma in the previous life.
Lack of water conservancy facilities and reservoirs to store water. A large amount of precipitation in the rainy season flows into the Indian Ocean along rivers without being effectively utilized.
So in the future, if the problems of water diversion and water storage in the East African colonies are solved, the biggest restriction factor on agricultural development in East Africa can be solved.
(End of this chapter)