Chapter 136 Road
Taking advantage of the truce, the East African colonies reinforced the roads within their territory.
Being poor and backward is not just a joke. If other countries want to industrialize, they must at least have the accumulated assets from the agricultural era, or have the support of a big country.
Roads, bridges, agricultural irrigation systems, even canals... these things took other countries and their developed colonies at least a hundred years to accumulate.
Before the colonists arrived in East Africa, there was really nothing. Even the dirt roads were developed by the East African colonies themselves.
The road traffic conditions in East Africa can be imagined. After a rain, the road becomes muddy. Fortunately, the terrain of the East African grassland is flat and open, so road construction is not difficult.
Those who fought on the front line of the road construction in East Africa were the indigenous captives, while the East African colonial government was responsible for supervision.
More than 100,000 people are working on the road construction at the same time. Although the tools are simple, the advantage in numbers is leading to the rapid improvement of East Africa's roads at a speed visible to the naked eye.
The food in the East African colonies was not bad for the natives. It was high in salt and oil, ensuring they had plenty of energy every day.
The food quantity was naturally not much, but it was more stable than living by hunting, and the wild animals in the East African colonies provided a snack for the natives from time to time.
The natives who work intensively every day are not exhausted, but appear to be stronger than before.
In this era, regardless of whether it was a colony or not, people were worked to death, especially outside of Europe.
Projects like the development of the Suez Canal and the construction of the Transoceanic Railway in the United States were all built on a pile of bones. Not only were these projects labor-intensive, but in order to save costs, most workers received extremely poor food, which tasted bad, was spoiled, and was often deducted from their wages.
As for why the natives in East Africa are kept fat, which is very different from other places, it is not because the East African colonial government has a change of heart.
In order to sell these retired indigenous laborers from East Africa for a good price later, these slaves would be sent to slave traders in Zanzibar after a period of time.
It just so happens that East Africa can first reap the value of the labor force of these indigenous people. In places like East Africa where the terrain is rugged, or the engineering is difficult and dangerous, a large number of indigenous people will be used to complete the work.
There were a few deaths due to accidents at every construction site in East Africa, but the East African colonial government did not feel sorry at all.
The East African colonial government had to ensure that the natives had enough food. In addition, at night, the whole of East Africa was in darkness, so it was impossible to let these natives work day and night.
The food was not bad, and they had enough sleep, so the natives lived even more comfortably than when they were hunting on the grasslands. The only drawback was that they had lost their freedom and were inferior to others.
As we all know, strength is acquired through training. In the past, these natives were quite strong, but their endurance for heavy work was very poor. Years of hunting gave them better explosive power and made them good at running, but working still required waist and arm strength, as well as patience.
Now, after being trained in the East African colonies and working on the construction sites every day, the natives' obedience and physical endurance have been greatly enhanced.
So much so that when the East African colonies sold these retired natives to slave traders from the Sultanate of Zanzibar, they received unanimous praise.
The reason is that after using these trained natives, the Ottoman Empire's customers were pleasantly surprised to find that they were more useful and obedient than previous slaves, and they were also healthier and had a lower loss rate.
Of course, to ensure the quality of East African roads, or at least to ensure that they are not too bad, it is not enough to rely solely on indigenous labor.
As mentioned before, the natives have less patience and cannot do delicate work, so they still have to rely on immigrants for some sections of the road that require some skills.
Especially for bridges and other sections that need to be reinforced and must be durable and have technical content, ordinary immigrants are not enough and we must find immigrants with relevant experience.
Through the combination of indigenous people and immigrants, the East African colonies achieved the goal of connecting various towns within the colonies by roads.
One of the functions of this mud road is to prevent immigrants from getting lost. It is easy to get lost in the vast prairie and uninhabited. Immigrants need to be continuously transported inland, so the colonial outposts need to be connected by roads. In case they get lost in the wild, they can always find a settlement and be rescued by following the road.
If the current roads in East Africa are used for transportation, there will be both advantages and disadvantages.
It's fine when the weather is fine, as the road is indeed more comfortable than grass. But when it rains, the road with grass on both sides is naturally easier to walk on. Even so, there are not many people who travel on rainy days, so the road still needs to be repaired.
Moreover, the conditions of these roads are poor now. Can they be upgraded in the future? Not to mention far away, the road from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam is already undergoing gravel transformation.
The coal mines in Mbeya need to be transported by vehicles to provide energy to the few factories in East Africa, so the roadbed must be stronger than ordinary roads.
In addition, the Upper Binhai District and the Central District, which were developed earlier, are also upgrading their roads. As for other areas, the issue of whether or not they have roads must be resolved first.
During the truce, the main roads reinforced in the East African colonies were the road from the coast to Mwanza, and a simple dirt road was repaired from the Great Lakes region to the newly occupied areas.
During the war, long supply lines and poor road conditions caused great suffering to the East African colonies.
The war is only halfway through, and there are four more powerful northern countries behind us, so we must be fully prepared to avoid setbacks.
Although Ernst looked down on the natives, they could sometimes still unleash considerable power. There were many cases in history where backward forces defeated advanced forces.
Therefore, every battle should be prepared carefully. If this war were fought by the British and Portuguese, they would definitely not be as cautious as Ernst.
More than 10,000 East African colonial troops (including militia) equipped with modern military weapons are enough to fight a small-scale war on the European battlefield.
And it is enough to pose a serious threat to some small countries, such as Greece and other Balkan countries, which have a population of only millions and some armies of only tens of thousands, not to mention some weaker countries, such as the many small states in Germany.
Therefore, East Africa has treated these indigenous countries with absolute dedication. Even the Sultanate of Zanzibar did not enjoy such treatment.
The Sultanate of Zanzibar has only tens of thousands of people. If East Africa places its invading troops from the northwest in front of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, it will be very deterrent.
The East African colony can, in a short period of time, gather a team of 70,000 to 80,000 people who are temporarily unemployed in the entire East Africa. In the whole of Africa, currently only Egypt can do this.
That is why Ernst dared to say that he would base himself in Africa. As for why it did not attract the attention of other forces.
That was because the colonists from other countries did not go deep into the interior, so they did not understand the details of East Africa. In addition, East Africa was the only way for Europe to reach India and the Far East. A large number of merchant ships docked in Dar es Salaam and Mombasa every day.
It is normal for people to come and go, so it is not surprising that immigrants land in East Africa. Besides, apart from the East African colonies themselves, who would have the time to count how many immigrants there are from East Africa?
After all, everyone recruited people to their own colonies, and the East African colonies just recruited a little more. Moreover, the East African colonies were under completely closed management, and Zanzibar merchants could only do business in the market in Dar es Salaam. At present, no other forces had penetrated into the interior of East Africa to investigate the situation, and at most they could make simple judgments through several ports in East Africa.
But from the coastal point of view, East Africa and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique are similar, so there is naturally no need to worry.
The Portuguese who actually bordered East Africa had only seen a few villages in East Africa. The forces bordering East Africa in the west were its subordinate indigenous forces, and the two colonies were mostly separated by the Ruvuma River, so the Portuguese had no idea of the strength of their East African colonies.
As for the Arabs, the Sultanate of Zanzibar is the most familiar to them in East Africa, and now the Sultanate of Zanzibar is trapped on an island.
Egypt's Sudan (South Sudan) is very close to Omorat in East Africa, but there are many indigenous nomadic forces separating them, and Egypt's control over South Sudan is too weak (South Sudan is full of black people).
Of course, East Africa's geographical location is quite good, especially Dar es Salaam is an important port on the Indian Ocean coast.
But Britain and France knew that the Suez Canal was about to be completed, and Britain had Cape Town and France had Madagascar. Both countries had their own footholds in the Indian Ocean, so Dar es Salaam was not that important.
What's more, ports such as Dar es Salaam are now armed with artillery and have become iron-clad turtles. Therefore, considering many factors, East Africa can remain unscathed.
If East Africa really wants to be targeted by other countries, there is certainly a way, that is to develop East Africa's mineral resources on a large scale and cash them in. This is obviously impossible, so Ernst will naturally keep it secret as long as he can.
(End of this chapter)
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