Chapter 157 Windmill
The capital of the Northern Plateau District, Karatu.
A tall windmill started working. As the breeze blew, the huge windmill blades began to rotate slowly, and the wooden blades and drive shaft made a squeaking sound.
The debugger walked down the spiral staircase. The huge wooden gear was fixed in mid-air inside the windmill. As the external windmill blades rotated, the gears and other parts inside the windmill also began to rotate. The running trajectory of the huge wooden gear was clearly visible.
"Okay, starting from today, this windmill can start operating!" The technician said to the residents of Karatu after the windmill had been running for a period of time.
This windmill is a microcosm of the Dutch windmills that were originally introduced. Currently, there are many new windmills in East Africa, but most of them are used for water diversion for irrigation. This is the first of its kind to be used to provide power for mills.
"Seeing this windmill, I feel that the East African colonies are almost the same as my hometown in Bavaria!" said a Bavarian immigrant.
In his hometown, there was also a windmill built at the entrance of the village. People in the village went there to grind noodles, so he was very impressed.
However, his comparison of the rural areas of Bavaria with the capital of the East African region is really laughable, fully demonstrating the fact that East Africa is a large rural area.
The East African colonies currently only have a few port cities and first towns in the coastal areas that can be compared with some small cities in Europe.
"Add wheat first and see how it works?" the technician said.
Two men poured half a sack of wheat into a bucket above the millstone. A technician manipulated the rope that controlled the windmill millstone, and the mill began to operate.
The millstone began to rotate with the crankshaft, grinding the wheat particles. The wheat gathered towards the center of the millstone, and gradually the wheat was swallowed up by the millstone.
As the stone mill grinds the wheat, the original granular wheat begins to turn into powder, and the bran becomes yellowed coarse flour.
"It works normally. This windmill can basically solve the local flour processing work." said the technician.
"It's that simple, turned into flour?" asked a Chinese immigrant.
"Of course, the flour we have there is made in this way, but in recent years, steam engines have been used in the city, and the flour mills built are quite large and can be processed in large quantities, and the quality is much better than this. So most people in the city buy flour produced by factories, but in our rural areas we still use windmills more often," said an immigrant from Bavaria.
Most Chinese immigrants used stone mills, which were driven by manpower and animal power, so they were more curious about windmills.
"Before I was at the river, I thought this thing was powerful enough for lifting water, but I didn't expect it could be so useful," said the Chinese immigrant.
Due to the increase in the German population in East Africa and the advancement of adult education, many Chinese in East Africa are now able to communicate with European immigrants in simple German.
"I have only seen windmills. In fact, it is rare to see windmills used for irrigation in Germany." said the Bavarian immigrant.
The technician interrupted at this time: "If you really look at the purpose of windmills, then our Netherlands is definitely world-class. In the Netherlands, windmills were the most important source of power before.
We use windmills to divert water, make paper, process food, drive machinery...
Even much of our land was snatched from the sea using windmills.
That is to say, now that steam engines are widely used, the status of windmills is not as good as before. "
“Using windmills to snatch land from the sea?”
"Yes, the Netherlands is a low-lying country, connected to the sea. In the past, much of our land was covered by the sea and swamps. We built dikes and then used windmills to drain the water in the dikes. This left a lot of land for Farming and living." Dutch technicians proudly introduced the story of their windmills and the Netherlands.
This is hard to imagine for the Chinese and Bavarian immigrants living in the interior. The only time they saw the sea was when they took an immigrant ship to East Africa. Even before arriving in East Africa, they had never left their villages.
"I have only seen the sea once in my life, and it was during the days when I was wandering on the sea. But the sea is so big, and you Dutch people can still grab land from the sea. It's amazing!" said the Bavarian immigrant with sincere admiration.
The technicians from the Netherlands were very happy to hear this. After all, it is a matter of pride to hear others praise one's own country.
In fact, the cultural level of Dutch technicians was not high, and they were hired by the East African colonies only because of their skills in building windmills.
But when compared with Chinese and German bumpkins who have never seen the world, a sense of superiority immediately arises.
East Africa actually has its own flour mill, located in Bagamoyo, but the flour produced by that factory is mainly exported to Europe and is not designed to meet the milling needs of East African immigrants.
Therefore, every village and town in the East African colonies still had to process wheat and other rations on their own.
In the past, it had always relied on manpower, and even in the early days there were not even enough stone mills. Later, some stone processing workshops in the Zanzibar Sultanate were annexed and the people were reorganized to produce stone mills to solve the problem.
As for animal power, East Africa does not have the conditions to do it. After all, it takes time to popularize animal power, and animal power also needs to breed and grow. There are countless animal power in East Africa, and many of them are used to pull carts or for use by the army.
Therefore, in various parts of East Africa, the indigenous people can only be used as animal laborers and the indigenous people can be used as grinders.
But the indigenous people are also an important labor force after all. They are used in building bridges and roads, digging trenches and canals. In addition, East Africa intends to control the scale of the indigenous people, so the indigenous labor force is not as wealthy as imagined.
Now that the East African colonies are building windmills, they can at least free up more indigenous people to invest in other projects.
Moreover, after the windmill is built, it can be used for a long time. As long as the parts are replaced and maintained, it will not be a problem for more than ten years.
Don't even think about more advanced steam engines. The price of those things is too high and it is difficult to popularize them. East Africa can make and provide the materials for windmills by itself.
For example, the unsalable sisal cloth from East Africa can be used for the canvas on windmills, and there is an unlimited supply of stone and wood.
And windmills are not backward. Europe and the United States are still using windmills in large quantities. After all, where is the cost of steam engines?
Among them, the current western development of the United States has built many windmills in order to solve the water problem for humans and animals, which are the famous farm windmills in the United States in the previous life.
The windmills in the United States are different from the windmills in the East African colonies. The windmills in the wealthy and wealthy United States use many metal parts and even metal blades. After all, the United States has high steel production, but it is not possible in East Africa now.