Chapter 30 Dodoma
Dodoma was the destination of the first unit of the East African Advance Regiment. While other teams are still on their way, the first team has begun construction work.
Dodoma, later the administrative capital of Tanzania, is more than 1,100 meters above sea level and has a cool climate. It is located near the upper source of the Wami River, with undulating low hills and diverse terrain.
This is the stopping point for caravans from the Swahili Coast to Lake Tanganyika. In its previous life, it was an important railway hub in Tanzania, so its geographical location is quite important.
Goods disembarked from the Port of Dar es Salaam can be transferred through Dodoma and sent to various strongholds in the East African colonies, and it can also facilitate subsequent immigration.
The annual precipitation in Dodoma is about 600 millimeters, and the annual temperature hovers between 15 and 30 degrees, making it very suitable for human habitation.
This provided convenience to the first team of the East African Advance Regiment. Before the rainy season, the first team used kerosene lighters produced by the Hechingen Company to set fires everywhere.
With the southeast wind, the fire spread to the northwest, and many animals fled in all directions. The unlucky ones who did not escape gave the soldiers a meal of meat, which was paired with picked wild bananas and roasted on the fire until they were sizzling and oily.
After the fire, the plant ash left behind just neutralized the acidic substances in the soil, and more than 500 immigrants accompanying the army began to plow the land.
There are also indigenous tribes near Dodoma, and this is a trading place between them and Arab merchants. They saw the first team of the new advance team carrying firearms (the Arabs also had them), and people are naturally wary of unfamiliar things.
The most important thing is that it is rare to see East Asian faces here. Most of the local indigenous people are Bantu people who migrated here from West Africa hundreds of years ago. They have dark skin and have dealt with both San and white people in East Africa. The skin color of the first team is between the two, and the style of clothing has not been seen before. You can see the difference from a distance.
The first team has no intention of conflict with these indigenous tribes for the time being. After all, they are new here and they should build the camp first.
Fortunately, East Africa at this time was still vast and sparsely populated. The total population of the entire East African grasslands in Tanzania was probably not as large as that of the Mongolian grasslands.
After all, the Mongols herd horses and sheep, but these indigenous people were still in the hunting and gathering stage, and their low productivity meant that they could feed a small population.
There are also Arabs who often provoke tribal conflicts, trigger wars, and traffic in people. In recent years, the population of East Africa has decreased instead of increasing.
In later generations, Tanzania had a population of 50 million thanks to the Germans and the British. Although the motives of the colonists were not pure, they really brought these barbarians into the agricultural era.
Therefore, after the independence of African countries, without the constraints of colonialists, and with the increase in productivity, the population doubled. For example, Tanzania's population was just over 10 million in the 1960s, and it was close to 60 million before Ernst's crossing. The fertility rate continues to increase.
Currently, in Tanzania's 940,000 square kilometers of land, Ernst suspects that the population may not even reach 5 million.
Because after decades of development in the previous life, German East Africa only had a population of more than 7 million before World War I. German East Africa included relatively densely populated areas in Africa such as Rwanda and Burundi.
That's why Ernst dared to pursue the idea of colonizing East Africa. After all, many of the counties Ernst saw in his previous life had populations close to one million, and some even had two million.
Think about it, if you try to evacuate a country's population, you will definitely be called a fool's errand. If you try to evacuate the population of a few counties, it is still possible.
After all, the mobilization ability of the motherland in the previous life was terrible, such as the South-to-North Water Diversion Project, the Three Gorges Reservoir... there are many such examples.
Moreover, large-scale population resettlement work was completed in a relatively short period of time. Ernst still had time to spend the next thirty to fifty years concentrating on sending away the indigenous people, so that there would be no racial problems in East Africa.
As for Chinese and white people, this is easy to solve, at least Ernst thinks it is easy to solve. After all, there are real cases of national integration. For example, in Brazil, where everyone is poor, there is no time to do this. On the contrary, it is highly Developed Americans use race as an excuse to deflect conflicts all day long.
Such an example is Cuba. Ernst admired the Cuban government very much. All races lived harmoniously under the same system. This would have been a fool's errand in other small capitalist countries in later generations.
There are also negative examples, that is, Yugoslavia. It is not that Ernst looked at this country through colored glasses. Ernst felt that the disintegration of this country was caused by its leaders. They perished in compromise and freedom. They did not even understand their own positions and failed to play their part. Show superiority. (Afraid, shivering.)
That said, at least Ernst felt that he had the ability to solve this matter. After all, he had lived in a country with a tradition of three thousand years of centralization and two thousand years of unification, and he still knew some methods.
Ernst felt that the feudal system like that of the Western Zhou Dynasty was more centralized than the West. After all, the feudal system of the Western Zhou Dynasty also had a core. In the later period, the Zhou royal family was still the nominal co-owner of the world. Europe directly had Rome per capita, and the subsequent two world wars were in vain. Not a good EU.
Russia is the only country in Europe with bottom-level centralization ideas, so it’s no wonder that Americans are afraid of Russia, because it really has the ability to unify Europe.
…
In Dodoma, the temperature today is 23 degrees. The clothes worn by the Chinese immigrants are relatively simple, mostly Prussian military uniforms. When we were in the first town, the hot and humid environment was stuffy and hot, but when we arrived in Dodoma, it was just right.
Therefore, the immigrants are in good condition, but the commander is still very cautious. Africa was a cursed continent in the eyes of Europeans in the past. It is because there are many tropical diseases in Africa, and the colonists mostly move along the coast and are unwilling to go deep into the interior.
Therefore, Ernst attached great importance to the hygiene issues in the colony and also gave a set of feasible solutions. For example, boil water for drinking, avoid eating half-cooked wild animal meat, and avoid contact with food containing parasites such as snakes and frogs. , the colony must be disinfected regularly, attention must be paid to preventing mosquito bites, and excrement must be collected and used rationally...
These are the daily tasks of colonial officials, especially the need to strictly control the dietary issues of immigrants. After all, the people of the big foodie country, who have suffered from famine all year round, can eat things in various ways.
However, there was still plenty of food in the East African colonies. If there was really nothing to eat, wouldn’t there be wild bananas and fruits to fill our stomachs? There is no need to get some weird animals to eat. Even groups of large herbivores on the African grasslands can be hunted as a team. Zebras and wildebeests are wild and dangerous.
At night, the Dodoma area has an excellent view, the night sky is filled with stars, and the temperature has dropped a bit. The immigrants, who had worked for a day, lay on simple wooden beds and fell asleep peacefully.