Chapter 523 Drought
According to this logic, East Africa can be regarded as a pseudo-power. It can be regarded as a power in front of ordinary countries, but not in front of the countries mentioned above.
This situation is similar to the Far Eastern Empire in the previous life. In fact, the Far Eastern Empire and the United States can be seen as two new superpowers confronting each other. It is a unique country, but some indicators of the Far Eastern Empire have not met the standards.
…
December 3, 1879.
"Your Highness, according to our archives, the total number of immigrants to East Africa is more than 14.6 million, and the number of registered black slaves is more than 13 million."
"These are just part of the records in the archives. They are counted and used as a reference for East African population data. Of course, they are very different from the actual East African population data. For example, the number of newborns and the number of people killed by disease and war are not included in the statistics."
"There are also a lot of discrepancies in the archives caused by loss and recording errors. After all, some archives are very old and have been damaged for various reasons, which makes our work more difficult."
In this way, Ernst had a general understanding of the population data of East Africa. The number of immigrants alone reached about 15 million. Without counting the blacks, the population of East Africa should have doubled or tripled, to about 30 to 40 million.
As for the number of blacks, it cannot be ignored. The number of blacks counted a few years ago was 22 million. East Africa has sent out nearly 3 million people in recent years. So the current number of blacks in East Africa should be close to 20 million but less than 20 million.
Among these less than 20 million blacks, there are 13 million registered black "laborers" in East Africa, which further illustrates the nature of the East African slave empire.
Ernst asked, "When will your statistics be completed?"
"We will have to wait until March of next year. After all, the project is quite large. We need the cooperation of governments at all levels, as well as a lot of calculations and reviews to get a result in the end," said von der Leyen.
Demographic statistics is not an easy job. The population data that von der Leyen provided to Ernst before is the easiest to obtain. After all, how many immigrants have come to East Africa and how many slaves have been recruited and sold in East Africa are all registered in East Africa.
This is the same principle as accounting. East Africa also has an account book and a rough calculation of its population. After all, the number of immigrants and slaves is fixed, so every time a number of immigrants enter East Africa, they will be added to the total in a timely manner.
However, this method can only count the number of immigrants who have come to East Africa. As for the number of immigrants after arriving in East Africa, it is not very clear. After all, immigration to East Africa is risky. After arriving in East Africa, there are many people who died accidentally due to various reasons such as acclimatization, disease, etc.
"Well, you don't have to rush your work, but it must be accurate, especially when counting the population. You must strictly prevent some people from being cunning and concealing the population." Ernst emphasized.
It is not impossible that there is a hidden population phenomenon in a country like East Africa. The hidden population is actually illegal residents. In fact, the majority of illegal residents are likely to be black people. East Africa is a slave country, enjoying the benefits brought by slavery. It is inevitable that some places increase the number of slaves secretly for the sake of local development, or for laziness. These slaves are "laborers" not officially recognized by East Africa, and are illegal.
"Well, we will pay attention to this matter, Your Highness."
Ernst took a sip of tea and said, "Don't worry about offending anyone. If they are black, then it's not a big problem. But for the sake of fairness, those black people in hiding will be redistributed by the government."
This is the difference between local governments and the central government. In order to complete their tasks and protect their own interests, local governments may take some extraordinary actions, while the central government must crack down on such phenomena.
However, Ernst was relatively tolerant of the local government's hiding of black slaves and was willing to let it go. This was because blacks had no human rights and could only blame themselves for their bad luck.
"How serious is the drought now?" Ernst asked.
"The current drought in the eastern coastal plains is within our control. The situation in the highland dryland agricultural production areas is not so good. However, because the crops grown are mainly drought-resistant, the situation is not too bad."
Von der Leyen went on to say: "In the coastal plain grain-producing areas, the reservoirs and irrigation systems we built in recent years have played a huge role in drought relief. Fortunately, we filled the reservoirs with water during the long rainy season, so now we can ensure agricultural irrigation in time."
"However, we also have water demand because the long rainy season is followed by the dry season. The dry season after the long rainy season is about four to five months. During this period, the reservoir has been in a state of releasing water, and the reservoir capacity has been reduced by about 20%."
"When the rainy season comes, the reservoir will only have 60 to 70 percent of its capacity due to water use and loss. After all, this drought is special, so it has brought some pressure to our work. But as long as we hold out until March next year, the situation should be greatly alleviated."
"As for the plateau grain-producing areas, the biggest problem is that water conservancy construction has caused some confusion in use, so the situation is worse than in the coastal plains."
The construction of water conservancy projects is bound to affect the original natural form and have a certain impact on wetland ecosystems such as rivers and lakes. This is also the reason why the problems in plateau grain-producing areas are greater than those in the eastern coastal plains.
However, when transforming the East African environment, we naturally cannot be too concerned about the gains and losses of some details. If it remains unchanged, then there is no need for human society to exist. It would be better for us to go back to the trees and become monkeys.
So Ernst said to his subordinates: "The water conservancy construction will definitely have a certain negative impact on us in the short term, but the overall benefits once completed are what I really care about, so the water conservancy construction must be steadily promoted. This may even affect the development of East African agriculture in the next hundred years."
Von der Leyen felt somewhat puzzled by Ernst's words. Water conservancy construction was naturally a good thing, but from what His Highness meant, it might be a disadvantage.
After all, they were not thinking in the same way as their time. Ernst's idea of considering environmental issues was naturally somewhat out of place in the 19th century. Humans in the 19th century were quite confident and had the belief that "man can conquer nature" firmly imprinted in their minds. This was a huge impact of the Industrial Revolution on human thinking.
In fact, in the 20th century, human beings began to think about how to live in harmony with nature, because conquering nature is a distant goal. It is useless to just believe that "man can conquer nature". The more science and technology develops, the more likely human beings will discover how insignificant they are in the face of nature.
But in the 21st century, the evil path of "environmentalism" emerged. Of course, Ernst was referring to extreme environmentalism. People used to believe in science, but in the 21st century many people began to question science.
Therefore, social thinking will adapt to the development of the times. The human mind is not as strong as imagined. If the society as a whole encounters a little setback, it will easily go to extremes.
The 19th century was an era of great development. At least in the Western world, people were psychologically satisfied, confident and optimistic. This made it easy for some problems and drawbacks in the future to be overlooked. Ernst wanted to find and fill in the gaps in East Africa of this era.
(End of this chapter)
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