Chapter 70 Mombasa
March 11, 1867.
Mombasa is the only port in East Africa that is as famous as Dar es Salaam. This port was built by the Arabs in the 11th century.
Now with the signing of the East-Zan Treaty, Mombasa, the second most important port of the Zanzibar Sultanate, has also fallen into the hands of the East African colonies. In order to improve the operational capabilities of the Mombasa Port, the East African colonial government began Renovation of port infrastructure.
Today, the highest temperature in Mombasa is 33 degrees Celsius and the lowest temperature is 22 degrees Celsius.
Working in the port during the day was still a bit stuffy, but it was still bearable.
Colonial soldiers are directing black slaves to push wheelbarrows to and from the port area to transport sand and gravel. The dredging of the port area is also completed by black slaves.
These black slaves are all from Zanzibar The assets of the Sultanate were temporarily expropriated by the East African colonies because the colonial handover had not yet been completed.
Except for the soldiers and black slaves who supervised the port reconstruction, most of the others were Chinese workers and immigrants from the Austrian Empire.
In order to transform and repair Mombasa, an important port city, the East African colonial Mombasa government has come up with cement from the bottom of the box.
Currently, cement for the colonies is still shipped from Europe by ship, so the quantity is limited.
On the dock, Mitrovic, an immigrant from the Austrian Empire, was directing his workers to build the buildings on the dock.
Mitrovic was a Yugoslav farmer from the southern part of the Austrian Empire. Fortunately, this guy had attended school for two years and had participated in the construction of a church in his hometown, so he was appointed by the Mombasa colonial government. As the foreman, he comes to direct the workers in construction.
These days, farmers themselves are all good at crafts, and some repairs are not a problem. After all, most of the one or two dilapidated houses in the family can be passed down for four or five generations.
So cement, a new thing that Chinese workers have never been exposed to before, can be mastered quickly as long as the immigrants from the Austrian Empire take the lead in demonstrating it. It just changes from mud to cement.
Several workers used iron drills to pry away loose and rotten masonry and even some rammed earth foundations.
The staff nearby used shovels to shovel the knocked-out masonry and debris into the wheelbarrow carriage. After the whole vehicle was full, they pushed it to the shore and dumped it on the temporary mound. These waste materials will be returned later. Probably used to pave roads.
“Here, we need to build it to half a meter.” Mitrovic said to the workers.
He held the measuring ruler, turned the ruler outward, and cut off the ruler half a meter away from the scale with his hand perpendicular to the ruler. This was a matter for the Chinese workers to pay attention to.
"That's it, do you understand?" Mitrovic said.
This is the disadvantage of the language barrier. Communication between the two parties requires a lot of body language. Although both parties know some German, they don't know much.
Among the immigrants from the Austrian Empire, many of them can speak German, but more of them only know the local dialect in the Austrian Empire. They only know one or two sentences in German, and they may have heard and learned it from the ruling nobles. of.
The Chinese immigrants also received German education, mostly in temporary classes run by the colonies, teaching some simple vocabulary and phrases.
But there was not enough time, and there was no environment for using German. After all, the early immigrants were basically Chinese except for German mercenaries, and there was no place for German to be used. Even students from the Hechingen Military Academy were responsible for the translation work.
However, the recruitment of workers in the East African colonies was not a fool's errand. They took full advantage of this fact. Only old immigrants who also knew a little German were qualified to be workers in the colonies.
Therefore, the immigrants from the Austrian Empire and Chinese immigrants working in Mombasa knew some German, but not much.
In the colonies, the number of workers was quite small, but from the moment they left the fields, the status of Chinese immigrants improved.
At present, there are more soldiers than workers in the East African colonies, and workers are more than farmers. Only those who can speak German (at least a little) can become workers and soldiers, otherwise they can just farm the land honestly. Chinese workers have at least reached the same stage as those who continued to engage in agriculture among immigrants from the Austrian Empire, and this is reflected in wages.
Immigrants from the Austrian Empire are not fools. They can’t get any benefits, and it’s not easy to get through with just a full meal.
They may not have the ability to resist the colonies, but they still have the courage to fight for their legitimate rights and interests from the colonies.
After all, when they boarded the ship to the East African colonies, they still had a yearning for a better life in their hearts.
The colonial government of East Africa did not disappoint the immigrants from the Austrian Empire. Although they received less money, it was better than stability. Moreover, there are currently almost no entertainment venues in East Africa, so there is no place to spend the money. In this way Over time, the money saved is considerable.
Of course, the colonial government has now begun to use the accounting system. After all, the colonial government in East Africa cannot print money, so the currency in the hands of immigrants is "virtual".
When they need it, they can withdraw money from the Hechingen Bank through the account book, but this method has only been used by German mercenaries.
German mercenaries only come to East Africa to make money. Strictly speaking, they are not immigrants, so their families are in Europe and they can also keep in touch with their families in Europe. It just takes some time. Sometimes they need money at home, and they can use blackmail to Hingen Bank advances his salary and sends it to his family.
……
As dusk approaches, more than half of Mombasa Port has been renovated.
After all, there are no commodities that can be sold in Africa, so the cargo volume is not large, so the scale of Mombasa Port is not considered large in the world.
At most, it has some status in one-third of an acre of Africa. This is why the colonial repair work is progressing quickly.
Of course, the use of slaves also played an important role. Mombasa is still in the handover stage, and the local residents of the Zanzibar Sultanate have not yet completely evacuated, so slaves plundered from Uganda and other places have been temporarily requisitioned by the colonial government.
After the ships were vacated, the East African colonial government packed these black slaves and the residents of the Zanzibar Sultanate and sent them to Zanzibar Island.
Due to Majid Sultan's insomnia in his later years, the Port of Mombasa fell into disrepair, silt settled, and its transportation capacity was greatly reduced.
The most important industry in the East African colonies is agriculture, and as a bulk commodity, food requires a large amount of transportation.
Not to mention immigrants, machinery, and merchant ships from various countries docking, which all require the East African colonies to prepare more excellent ports.
Africa is a continent that lacks excellent ports, so it is necessary to make use of current ports.
The Bagamoyo Port is also currently under construction. By then, the East African colonies will have four excellent ports: Dar es Salaam, Bagamoyo, Tanga and Mombasa, which will greatly increase shipping capacity. question.
After renovation in Mombasa, the road to the port has been doubled, and the road is paved with a thick layer of gravel and construction waste.
The pier was reinforced and widened, unreasonable structures were demolished, safety hazards were gradually investigated, and old facilities were replaced.
The transportation capacity of Mombasa Port will now be about 1.5 times that before the transformation, and it is currently the northernmost important port in the East African colonies.
Mombasa will replace the Port of Dar es Salaam and the Port of Tanga. After the opening of the Suez Canal in the future, Mombasa will take on the reception of merchant ships from Europe and Asia, becoming the most important port with the largest shipping volume in East Africa in the future.
(End of this chapter)