Chapter 318 Zhuba Town
March is the dry season in South Sudan. The hot weather bakes the earth of Juba Town (Juba, the former capital of South Sudan, to distinguish it from Juba Province in Somalia).
Zhuba Town is a small village on the west bank of the White Nile River. It is also the most "prosperous" area in South Sudan. It was once a stronghold used by the Ottoman Empire for missionary work and slave hunting. Later, the Ottoman Empire withdrew because of the traitor Egypt. Gradually, the area became the residence of the indigenous people. The good days of the indigenous people did not last for a few days before the East Africans came.
At this time, the mayor of Zhuba Town, Andre, was hiding under the shade of a tree, fanning himself desperately, trying to cool himself down.
Andre said to Levins, the military commander of Zhuba Town, "This place is not too far from the Northern Great Lakes Province. I didn't expect the weather to be so hot. It's almost fatal!"
Levins: "Don't worry, the rainy season here will arrive in more than a month, and it will be cooler then."
Although he said this, Levins knew in his heart that it was just a consolation. Even in the rainy season, the temperature in South Sudan would not improve much.
The climate of South Sudan is simply too good if compared with that of neighboring North Sudan. Although it is close to the Sahara Desert, more than 95% of South Sudan's land is humid and semi-humid. However, due to its low altitude, it is hotter than the East African plateau and much hotter than the East African coast. When it is hottest, the daytime temperature can often exceed 40 degrees, and it is sultry, which is in sharp contrast to the dry heat of the Sahara Desert.
Levins continued, "Now we are lying here, and there is no work every day. We just command the slaves to work. What else are you dissatisfied with? This is much better than being an ordinary villager in the Northern Great Lakes Province."
Andre: "I fought for this position of mayor myself. Besides, there is probably no mayor in East Africa who is more miserable than me. If we remove the hundreds of soldiers under your command, I'm afraid our town wouldn't even have enough people to fill a village in the east."
Levins: "Haha, don't be ungrateful. You probably saw an immigrant team passing by here a few days ago. They only had more than 40 people in total, which is less than ours. If nothing unexpected happens, they will have to accept your leadership in the end!"
The immigrants that Levins mentioned had their destination in an area about 40 kilometers west of Zhuba Town. Unlike Zhuba Town, which is a remnant of the Ottoman Empire, it is simply an indigenous village, so there is a high probability that a village will be built there.
Andre: "It's 40 to 50 kilometers away. It would take at least two or three days to pass the message. So they can only hope for the best."
While the two were chatting, the black natives had already cleared out a batch of vegetation under the guns of the East African soldiers. Basically, they were trees and weeds cut down with stone tools.
Under such inefficient productivity, the development of Zhuba Town was completed extremely slowly. So far, it is still in the stage of land consolidation, relying on more than 2,000 slaves captured from the local area to clear the vegetation on the land and pick up stones in the fields bit by bit.
Thanks to the day and night hard work of successive slaves, the scale of arable land in Zhuba Town is now more than six times larger than when East Africa first took over this place. The same indigenous people have been replaced several times before achieving today's results.
The slaves piled the stones aside, and as for the trees and weeds, they were cleared and piled together. Then, after two or three days of exposure to the sun, the East Africans set them on fire. After the thick smoke, a large amount of ash was left behind, which the East African immigrants then scattered into the fields.
While the indigenous people are developing the land, they can also drive away the animals living here, especially snakes, in advance, clear obstacles for the subsequent agricultural production of East African immigrants and ensure the safety of East Africans.
The land reclamation in South Sudan reveals a strong primitive style, which is a real "slash-and-burn agriculture". Due to the lack of sufficient iron tools, land reclamation in South Sudan can only rely on slaves. The local slaves are almost unlimited. Every once in a while, the East African Army will go out for a period of time and capture a batch of new slaves along the Nile River to make up for the losses.
Only East African immigrants can work with iron tools. The supply of iron tools is currently prioritized to Zambia and Zimbabwe in southern East Africa, so the Nigers in South Sudan can only suffer for now.
Andre: "We need to open up another 700 acres of land before the rainy season comes, otherwise it will be difficult to deal with when the rain comes, so we still have to work overtime in the next month to complete the project."
Just as Andre was planning the next work tasks in Zhuba Town, a black man who had been working for five consecutive hours under the scorching sun of over 30 degrees suddenly blacked out and fell in the field.
The East African soldiers went forward to check and found that the man was still breathing, so they thought he had heatstroke. Then they dragged him to a puddle on the side to cool him down. The East African soldiers were no stranger to such scenes.
Abundant rainfall and water from a large lake (Lake Victoria) have created large areas of wetland swamps and forests in the upper White Nile region.
It is obvious that South Sudan's climate environment and abundant water resources are most suitable for rice cultivation and meet all the conditions for rice cultivation.
Of course, the prerequisite is to develop the land, and this step is also the most difficult. If South Sudan was located in East Asia, it might have been developed long ago.
But this is Africa, and for thousands of years the local indigenous people have not developed an agricultural civilization. Instead, it was Sudan and Egypt in the neighboring Sahara Desert, and the Abyssinians on the plateau who pointed out the agricultural technology tree.
South Sudan's agricultural conditions are obviously the best among these places, but the locals only know how to live a nomadic life, wasting water, heat and land resources.
Especially in the past, South Sudan had to import fruits and vegetables, which was simply a shame among African countries. Not only was the efficiency of grain crop cultivation low, but the fact that both fruits and vegetables had to be imported was simply appalling.
There are now all kinds of wild fruits growing in the forests of South Sudan, which are so abundant that there is almost no way to eat them all. In the 21st century, they will have to be imported.
The inefficient agricultural development model doomed South Sudan to fail to develop in the past, or in other words, South Sudan's love of leisure and dislike of work led to a waste of its treasure trove. Various armed groups fought for the oil fields, and then they could sit back and collect money from foreigners.
However, this money was directly spent on buying food, weapons and luxury goods. There was no improvement in South Sudan's water, electricity, infrastructure and roads. South Sudan, as an oil-producing country, is one of the worst-performing poor countries in Africa. However, South Sudan is rich not only in oil, but also in other resources.
To be honest, before South Sudan separated from Sudan, it complained every day, saying that the oppression of the Arabs in the north prevented South Sudan from developing. As a result, after independence, it was busy fighting almost every day. It was more chaotic than neighboring Sudan, and the living standards of ordinary people were even worse than before independence.
The only country in Africa that can be compared with South Sudan is Somalia, where warlords are fighting each other. Now it is basically certain that these two countries, which were judged as failed countries by the international community in the past, will no longer exist. This can be regarded as a good thing for East Africa.
(End of this chapter)
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