Chapter 479: The Cattle and Horses Empire

Early 1878.

Kidatu Village Agricultural Cooperative, Central Province.

Luo Weisi, the head of Kidatu Village, announced the new policy to the villagers: "Okay, be quiet now. I have good news for you. The new government policy has been passed down. According to the instructions of the kingdom, our country will solve the slave problem within the next 30 years. In order to adapt to the changes in the international community, we should promote the use of large livestock such as cattle and horses to replace slaves. According to the documents of the township government, our Kidatu Village is allocated 236 cattle for arable land to replace farming slaves."

Lemi: "Village Chief, this is not good news. Isn't it just exchanging slaves for livestock? Besides farming, slaves can also do rough work, which is much better than livestock!"

"Lemi, what do you know? No matter how useful these slaves are, they won't last long. Our East African national conditions are special, so we have to use slaves as a tool to improve East African productivity for the time being. However, slaves are not allowed by the international community and will inevitably be eliminated. Moreover, no matter how capable the slaves are, they are not as efficient as large livestock, and there is also the possibility of riots."

Lemmy muttered, "I think black people are very useful. Besides, can't we suppress the little black people?"

"Haha, the United States thought so at the beginning. The problem now is that the black slaves in the United States have been liberated. In the future, blacks will definitely have a very important impact on American society. It is unknown whether it is good or bad, but we cannot let the situation in the United States happen in East Africa. The Mamluks in Egypt were slaves who turned the tables. I don't want the kingdom to encounter such a historical situation in the future. So don't always think about exploiting others and being lazy. In the final analysis, true happiness is created by yourself. It will not last long if it relies on exploitation."

It is obvious that Rovis is very different from ordinary people in East Africa for saying such things. In fact, he is one of those people who received early Hexingen education and has a high basic cultural literacy. Otherwise, how could he be the village chief!

The replacement of slaves did have a certain impact on production in East Africa. After all, compared to livestock, humans are currently the highest form of productivity. They can complete difficult tasks that many animals cannot understand in their lifetime.

"Village head, these oxen seem to correspond to the labor force of our village. Are we allocating one to each person?"

"What are you thinking? Do you know how to raise cattle? In other words, have you ever been in contact with oxen for farming? What if they die?"

Rovis's words are very objective. Not many ordinary people in East Africa have ever come into contact with oxen, and this is true for immigrants from both the East and the West.

The Far Eastern immigrants who were able to reach East Africa were truly from the impoverished class. If they really had a cow, they would not have run to East Africa to make a living. Not to mention a plowing ox, it was even a problem whether they could get a piece of farm tool. European immigrants did not have a clear understanding of the role of cows, because ox plowing was not popular in Europe before. The United States was the only white country that really used plowing oxen on a large scale. The main task of cows in Europe was transportation and providing dairy products and beef.

Besides, raising cattle is a technical job, and the cost of raising cattle is currently not affordable for ordinary people in East Africa with their salaries.

Rovis: "The oxen will be raised by the cooperative and trained by specialized personnel. Like the slaves before, they can only be used if they apply. According to the regulations of the kingdom, they will be allocated separate pastures and fields."

The tropical savannah climate is a natural large pasture, but East Africa did not follow the path of Argentina, so a lot of land is used as arable land. In fact, the cost of animal husbandry is lower. After all, there is no need for farming, soil transformation, or even the construction of large-scale intensive water conservancy facilities.

East African agriculture calls itself smallholder agriculture, but in fact it is completely different from smallholder agriculture. It has a strong division of labor and cooperation and has the nature of capitalist agriculture. In fact, it is more similar to the Soviet Union, but there is no such country as the Soviet Union now, and there is no such communist country template in the world, so there is no reference for the East African agricultural model. Therefore, the model most similar to East Africa is the European serfdom, in which the means of production are concentrated in the hands of the serf owners. The difference in East Africa is that there is only one serf owner, and Ernst does not expect East African agriculture to create huge economic value, and farmers are relatively free. However, there are also real serfs in East Africa, that is, black farming slaves.

"It is an inevitable trend for livestock to replace slaves. This trend is not only in our village, but will be implemented throughout East Africa in the next few years. Central Province is now the pilot area." Rowes said to the villagers.

Of course, the current promotion of sending livestock to the countryside in East Africa is not to be popularized immediately, but only promoted in agricultural areas. Cash crop plantations, etc. will still retain a certain number of slaves.

The main driving force for East Africa to promote the transfer of livestock to rural areas is that after more than ten years of development, the two major ranches in East Africa have cultivated considerable livestock, especially in the northern pastoral areas and the plateau pastoral areas. Now the scale of livestock in these two areas has reached tens of millions, which provides a basis for East Africa to transform the backward productivity in rural areas.

Tens of millions of heads is actually not a large number for East Africa, because the US state of Texas alone has more than 50 million cattle, and this is just the number of cattle in one state in the western United States, while East Africa counts both cattle and horses, so East Africa still has a long way to go compared with those livestock powerhouses.

"Village leader, since livestock are replacing slaves, what are these slaves used for? Are they sold?"

Rovis said: "Who knows about this matter! Anyway, the kingdom will naturally find a way to deal with it, so we don't have to worry about it!"

It is impossible to sell them. At present, there is no slave market large enough to swallow so many slaves at once. For example, the Ottoman Empire's previous purchase volume has decreased. After all, it is busy fighting with Tsarist Russia and its funds are not very abundant.

For this purpose, East Africa specifically lowered prices for promotional activities and subsidized Arab ship merchants in Zanzibar. They would give a subsidy for sending a shipload of slaves, but East Africa did not care where the slaves were sent. In this way, the Ottoman Empire had a large number of black livestock in a short period of time to compete with the gray livestock of Tsarist Russia. Black livestock also needed to eat, so the sales of grain in East Africa were revitalized. After all, the Ottoman Empire had stopped purchasing grain from Tsarist Russia, so this market was vacated.

So in the tenth Russo-Turkish War, the Ottomans fought very badly in the Balkans, but the losses in Asia were not as great as in history, with the Caucasus region being the most prominent. The Ottomans even formed a black legion to fight against Tsarist Russia.

This is also related to the population trade between the Ottoman Empire and East Africa. East Africa bought a lot of white people in the Caucasus, especially women. The forced migration of these people to East Africa was naturally not smooth sailing, and the locals would resist, which was exactly what the Ottoman Empire wanted, so it struck hard at other local ethnic groups, and the vacant land naturally fell into the hands of the Ottoman nobles. The Ottoman nobles needed people to develop these lands, and black slaves became high-quality labor. In addition, the Ottoman Empire had the means to control black slaves, so it was not afraid of black slaves taking over the nest.

Therefore, within a dozen years in the Caucasus region, the number of black people in the Caucasus region increased to more than 300,000, working for the Ottoman nobles. As soon as the war broke out, the Ottoman masters incorporated these black slaves into the army and used human wave tactics against Tsarist Russia. Therefore, the tenth Russo-Turkish War would probably not end as easily as in history. As long as the blacks did not die out, the Ottoman Empire would have the ability to continue fighting. Of course, the speed of filling the black population could not be so fast, which also put forward requirements for the logistics of the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire would have had the desire to continue fighting without the intervention of Britain and other countries. As for the deteriorating situation in the Balkans, there was nothing that could be done. The Balkans were full of rebels, and it was impossible for the Ottoman Empire to exert its influence there. For example, Romania controlled by Sigmaringen could actually have been regarded as an independent country long ago, but it was still under the name of the Ottoman Empire, just like the current Egypt. With the help of the tenth Russo-Turkish War, it became completely independent from the Ottoman Empire.

(End of this chapter)