Chapter 332 Rice Seed
The East African government was very dissatisfied with the Boers' secret support for the Ndebele people. Many people, including the hawks led by Constantine, wanted to immediately attack the Transvaal Republic.
However, Ernst stopped him.
Ernst: "We must severely punish the behavior of the Boers, but now is not the time for us to take action. Just imagine, if we force too much and cause the Boers to defect to the British, then we will not end well, so even if we have to If we attack the Boers, we must achieve success in one battle, and wipe out the Transvaal Republic with lightning speed, without giving them a chance to react."
Ernst's considerations are historical. Historically, the Boers were unable to cope with the pressure from the Zulu Kingdom, so they took the initiative to seek refuge with the British, although the Zulu people had British support behind them.
Later, everyone knew the result. A large number of diamonds and gold mines were found in the area where the Boers lived. The Boers, as the owners of this place, definitely wanted to monopolize them.
But the British just wanted to get it for free, and the Boers were naturally dissatisfied, saying, "Why are you so selfish!" So there was the Second Boer War, which was ultimately a dispute over interests.
Although the Boers resisted the British, they knew how to choose when they encountered threats. Although the British were not like human kings, the extreme feudal autocratic countries in East Africa posed a more deadly threat to the Transvaal Republic.
In the end, the decision of the East African Kingdom was to prepare for war first. After everything was ready, it would suddenly accuse the Transvaal Republic at the end of the year, and then directly attack the Transvaal Republic without giving it time to react. As for the human and material evidence in East Africa's hands , don’t take it out now, so as not to alert the snake. It will be enough to have this excuse to declare war. Essentially, it is still a question of whether East Africa wants to or not.
Therefore, under the calculation of the East African government, it first transferred its troops to the Matabele Plateau, and secondly, turned a blind eye to the Boer's support for the Ndebele people, and continued to increase trade with the Boer Republic, paralyzing the Boer ruling class. , and at the same time increase the penetration of the Boer Kingdom and intelligence collection through trade and contact with the Germans among the Boers.
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June is the rice harvest season near the Great Lakes region. The rice harvest time in the Great Lakes region is not uniform, but it is mainly concentrated in the second half of the year from June to December.
At present, the Great Lakes region is an important rice planting area in East Africa. Its rice planting scale has exceeded that of the eastern coastal plain and has become the largest rice planting base in East Africa.
Like the coast, the Great Lakes region has abundant precipitation and sufficient heat. Unlike the coastal plains of East Africa, the altitude here is relatively high. The temperature near the Great Lakes region is relatively cool. In Uganda, it may drop below 10 degrees Celsius at night.
So the variety of rice grown near the Great Lakes region is different from the indica rice grown on the coastal plains of East Africa, but the japonica rice grown in East Asia. Compared with indica rice, japonica rice has the advantage of being more cold-resistant and suitable for planting in mid-to-high latitudes.
The choice of rice planting location in the Great Lakes region in East Africa may be unexpected. After carefully selecting from many regions in the Far East, we found the Far Northeastern northern rice variety that is most similar to the Great Lakes region in East Africa.
The climate of the Great Lakes region is definitely different from that of the Far Northeast, but the summer temperatures in some areas of the Far Northeast are similar to those of the Great Lakes region. The difference is that the Great Lakes region has more abundant rain and the soil quality is also different.
However, rice is very sensitive to temperature, especially low temperatures. The temperature on the East African Plateau is almost ten degrees Celsius lower than the East African coast. Therefore, summer temperatures at latitudes in the Far East are more similar to those in the Great Lakes region.
In fact, Liaodong is also a good place, but there is no corresponding stronghold in East Africa in Liaodong. The Qing government also paid more attention to the Longxing land, so it chose to collect seeds in the north.
"Currently, it seems that the best-growing rice variety comes from a place called Shanxi in the Far East. It is adapted to the environment of the Great Lakes region. Especially the higher the altitude of farmland, the better its growth conditions. I was researching rice in the Western Great Lakes Province last year. When we looked at the planting situation, we found that the overall rice yield there was on the high side," Marcos, an East African rice researcher, told the officials of the Northern Great Lakes Provincial Government.
Brzeszin, a senior official of the North Great Lakes Province, asked: "Mr. Marcos, that is to say, next year we should take the initiative to promote this kind of rice cultivation on a large scale in the province?"
Marcos: "Yes, if you are pursuing higher yield and quality, but what I mean is! You still need to keep more experimental fields for other varieties. Maybe in the future, with the development of technology, we can make breakthroughs, especially Alternatives are readily available for pest and disease control.”
Brzeszin: “Then what do you think is the difference between the rice grown here and in the coastal plains of East Africa?”
Marcos: "Because of the temperature, the growing season of rice here is longer than that of the coastal plain. The sunlight is about the same, but the daily temperature difference here is larger. According to my previous observation experience in the Far East, the rice produced by such rice , the taste is fuller, but the long-grain rice grown along the coast of East Africa is Indian long-grain rice, which is very different from the rice in the Great Lakes region. The taste of Indian rice varieties is definitely not bad, but it all depends on personal eating habits and preferences."
Brzeszin asked: “Can you be more specific?”
Marcos: "For example, pilaf is popular in the Middle East and India, while steamed rice is popular in the Far East. The two sides have different pursuits in food."
Brzeszin: "Then can I understand that the rice from our Great Lakes region is more suitable for the Far East market, while the rice from the coastal provinces of East Africa is more suitable for the Middle East and Indian markets?"
Marcos: "It's probably like this. Think about the habit of Middle Easterners and Indians to grab food with their hands. Long-grain rice is more suitable because it is not easy to stick to the hands. Rice produced from rice seeds in East Asia is more suitable for cooking. It has more moisture at the end and has a soft and chewy texture, but it is very unfriendly to people who don’t use tableware, and it is more hot to the touch.”
As a rare rice agriculture expert in East Africa, Marcos can be said to be only a second-hand expert. After all, Germany does not have relevant talents in this area.
Before East Africa hired him as a rice researcher, he was just an intern at the East African Tropical Agriculture Research Institute, and his research direction was not rice. He was a half-way monk.
Therefore, his ability is very limited. He can only observe the growth conditions of each rice variety, summarize his experience, and finally record the data for reference by the East African government.
The East African kingdom is a borrowing system and has no talents capable of researching breeding and hybridization. Therefore, rice is imported from mature foreign varieties and then planted in East Africa. Finally, the rice is compared with the one with higher yield and better quality, and then it grows in the region. Large-scale promotion can also be regarded as adapting to local conditions.