Chapter 119 Busy Farming
As soon as Christmas is over, East African immigrants start their busy life again. Unlike Africa, it is really winter in Europe now, and farmers can take a break.
In many places in East Africa, it is the light rainy season of the year (usually November to December). While growing food, immigrants have to dredge rivers and ditches to drain and divert water.
The climatic conditions of the East African colonies are not only unique, but also above the world average. As long as sufficient water sources are ensured, for example, rice can be grown 2.5 seasons a year (5 crops every two years).
The land currently being developed in East Africa is near rivers and lakes with abundant water sources, or in places with abundant rain. If the water problem is solved, planting will not be a problem, so the immigrants are busy.
That is to say, during the growth of crops, there was slack time. During the slack time, the East African colonies would recruit immigrants to conquer other regions.
This is the expansion model of East Africa. It serves the people during farming and serves as soldiers during war. Even if there is no war, militia training will be organized. Anyway, there is rarely any free time.
Neither production nor fighting was delayed, which was the basis for the orderly expansion of the East African colonies. In addition to the militia, East Africa already had a standing army.
Under normal circumstances, the militia is enough to deal with the indigenous people. It is the regular army's turn to take action when the situation cannot be won.
However, this situation will only occur when East Africa is expanding. In the future, if East Africa stops expanding or the population is sufficient, there will be no need for militias to participate in the battle.
The main thing is that if we want to clean up the indigenous people, it will definitely not be possible if we don't have enough manpower. They are still familiar with the terrain and burrow into the mountains and forests.
With the strength of the regular army, it is impossible to play hide-and-seek with the indigenous people, so militia forces must be mobilized to conduct large-scale inspections of the land in the conquered areas.
Even if there are a few fish that slip through the net, you are not afraid. For example, with many invasive species, even if two or three individuals break in, they will not be able to find a mating partner and the population will not be able to reproduce.
This is the current situation in the East African colonies. There must be fish that slip through the net in East Africa, but they are separated from society. Even primitive societies like indigenous tribes will find it difficult to survive in the wild.
After all, all the good places are occupied by East African immigrants. They can only keep company with wild animals. Even if they rely on their skills to escape the beasts and the investigation of the East African colonies, they will only die alone in the end. .
For example, most of the wild animals in Africa live in groups and rarely move alone. The animals' adaptability to the East African environment is much better than that of humans.
They still need to huddle together for warmth, let alone humans. One important reason why East Africa is not as densely populated as West Africa is that there are fewer people.
The indigenous tribes in East Africa are at best 50/50 similar to the animals on the East African savannah. The reason why the East African colonial immigrants are different is because of the dimensionality reduction attack of thermal weapons.
No matter how powerful a wild animal is, it can be knocked down with one shot, and the indigenous people need to unite and cooperate. It takes at least four or five people to deal with a wild animal, and large animals like elephants and hippopotamuses require the cooperation of the entire village to capture them.
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On Christmas, taking time out to celebrate is a sign of respect for the traditional holiday by the East African government.
The rainy season every year is the busiest time in East Africa. East Africa is poorly developed and has poor infrastructure.
The concentration of precipitation is also a challenge for East Africa. In the past, throughout East Africa, during the rainy season, rainwater could only collect along the terrain, so that low-lying areas were easily flooded.
This is also the reason why the indigenous people do not live close to rivers. They usually only need to go to the river to fetch water, and they make a living by hunting anyway.
Therefore, in documentaries, you can often see Africans carrying kettles on their heads to fetch water from very far away rivers. Of course, there are more wild animals near some water sources and are more dangerous, which is why Africans do not live near water sources.
This is not the case in the East African colonies. Agriculture is the most important industry in the East African colonies, and the closer agricultural planting is to water sources, the better. As for wild animals, they have long been eliminated by the East African government, so most East African immigrants live near rivers, lakes and other water sources. .
In order to draw river water to irrigate the fields, canals must be dug and water trucks and other water diversion facilities must be built.
During the rainy season in East Africa, some river sections are prone to flooding. Therefore, in order to avoid flooding from threatening residential areas and farmland.
Dredging rivers and building embankments during the rainy season became necessary. These major projects required everyone in the colony to act together.
Of course, the main thing is prevention. The chance of real flood disaster is not high. It will only happen in extreme years when there is too much rain.
As long as precautions are taken in advance, the East African colonies can withstand losses even if they suffer losses.
After all, the land developed by the East African colonies was relatively large, with only a small part along the river, and water was mainly diverted for irrigation through ditches.
The current conditions are relatively poor. When conditions improve in the future, important tools such as water pumps will definitely be introduced. Then there will be no need to rely on manpower to drive the water-drawing device.
You don’t even need to wait that long, primitive power machines like windmills can be introduced in advance, and Ernst plans to send people to the Netherlands to learn from the experience.
In fact, the windmills in the Netherlands were first introduced from the German region, but the Dutch used windmills in various new ways.
In addition to absorbing water and draining water, windmills are also used by the Dutch as an important source of power for grinding grain, tobacco leaves, pressing oil, felt, and making paper...
With the advent of the steam age, Dutch windmills gradually declined, but they still had great potential in wild places like East Africa.
Anyway, there is no shortage of materials in East Africa. The main timber and masonry pipes are enough, and other materials can also be imported from Europe.
The current conditions of the East African colonies are not yet able to enter the industrial era, but they can use all the advanced tools and experience from the agricultural era.
The main reason is to save costs. The threshold for industry is too high and cannot be achieved overnight. However, traditional agricultural tools can be made by the East African colonies themselves.
Coupled with those advanced experiences from the agricultural era that have been summarized for thousands of years, the production efficiency of East Africa can at least be improved to the extreme of the agricultural era.
The agricultural era was just a transitional stage in the East African colonies and would not last forever. Ernst also knew that industrialization was the future, but to build a house, you must first lay the foundation. Industry without the support of agriculture is just rootless duckweed.
Of course, it is not impossible to carry out small-scale industrialization. The problem is this. Ernst might as well just enclose the land in the small place of Hechingen. The talent in East Africa is so good that it cannot be wasted, and large industry is inseparable. Develop independent agriculture.
The East African colonies improved East Africa's original primitive social and economic system to the agricultural era. It was a progress in itself, not to mention that it took only a few decades to complete the agricultural civilization that other countries took hundreds or thousands of years to complete.