Chapter 798 East African Meteorological Bureau
As Mozambique and Angola fell into the hands of East Africa, East Africa no longer concealed its ambitions for the two places, and various government departments and subordinate agencies of East Africa began to move into the two places under the leadership of the cabinet.
The government agencies taking the lead are the Meteorological Bureau, the Land and Resources Survey Bureau and other government agencies. For the two newly added places, there is very little limited data available in East Africa.
Although Portugal colonized for hundreds of years, the effective development of Angola and Mozambique has only occurred in recent years.
Wells, director of the East African National Meteorological Service, said: "At present, there are a large number of places in Angola and Mozambique that have not been in human activities for a long time, and there may even be various deserters during the war. Therefore, personnel working in the two places should be equipped with and carry weapons, and priority should be given to setting up observation stations in areas that have been developed by the Portuguese, and attention should be paid to personnel safety."
During the war, a large number of black soldiers of the Portuguese army took the opportunity to escape. These black soldiers were carrying modern weapons equipped by the Portuguese government, so they were very threatening.
In East Africa, the "cleansing" of the entire Angola had not yet begun, and the main force was fighting southward. At this time, except for a few cities and important agricultural areas, there was almost no excess population.
Portuguese captives were mainly concentrated in the eastern port area, ready to be handed over to the Portuguese government at any time. Of course, the prerequisite is that the Portuguese government offers the chips that East Africa wants.
The work of the East African Meteorological Bureau is to summarize the climate characteristics of Angola and Mozambique as a whole, complete the national climate map, and guide agricultural production in East Africa, which is very important for East Africa.
As an agricultural country, East Africa is the first country in the history of sub-Saharan Africa to have both agricultural and industrial civilizations.
Agriculture contributes more than 80 percent to the entire national economy of East Africa, and 70 percent of national fiscal revenue comes from agricultural income.
This important feature means that East Africa must compile its own agricultural calendar. As Africa is a long and narrow country extending from north to south, this feature is magnified in East Africa.
Countries that span more latitudes generally have more complex climatic conditions than countries that span more longitudes.
A typical example is the Eurasian continent, where the spread of civilization is mainly in areas of the same latitude, which is suitable for civilization exchanges. However, Africa is different. Before the industrial age, Africa was a region that was very unsuitable for agricultural production because the climate here is completely different from that of the Eurasian continent.
The rainy season in East Africa is mainly concentrated in the first half of the year. The Congo Basin is the center of the area with the most rainfall in the entire African continent. The rainy season moves to the north from March to July and moves to the south after August.
Among them, South Africa is a place where the influence of the rain belt is weakened. It rains all year round near the Great Lakes region, and the eastern plains (including Tanzania and Mozambique) also have abundant precipitation.
Seasonal changes are particularly pronounced in central China (Zambia, southern Congo Plateau), western Angola, and the Nile Basin (South Sudan), with precipitation similar to that of the Far Eastern Imperial Monsoon Climate Zone.
The rest of the regions have less precipitation, a typical example being Matabele Province (Zimbabwe), but this area is very suitable for agricultural development, comparable to the North China Plain.
Overall, the precipitation in East Africa is not as high as that in the Far East Empire, but it is more evenly distributed, showing a symmetrical distribution with more in the middle and less in the north and south.
In terms of temperature, East Africa is more balanced, mainly affected by the terrain. High-altitude areas are often wheat-growing areas, while low-altitude areas prefer rice planting. Of course, if precipitation is not sufficient, it is more suitable to grow drought-resistant crops such as millet.
In short, East Africa, as a country in the world with an area second only to Britain and Russia, is also one of the regions that is very suitable for agricultural development.
Under such favorable natural conditions, one of the important reasons why African civilization developed slowly is that African nomadic civilization and hunting and gathering civilization have natural advantages over agricultural civilization.
The "powerful" African countries that were destroyed in East Africa, such as the Ndebele Kingdom, the Zulu Kingdom, the Boer Republic, etc., are all typical nomadic civilizations.
Only the Great Lakes region has developed a relatively "developed" agricultural civilization, but the Great Lakes region, the north (South Sudan, Ethiopia) and the former East African coastal areas (including the Sultanate of Zanzibar and the Somali countries) have all been influenced by Arab civilization.
The early Arab civilization was also a typical nomadic civilization, but later turned to a "commercial" civilization. Therefore, even the "agricultural" civilization countries that were destroyed in East Africa were actually just pseudo-agricultural civilizations that were semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic.
If they did not implement this pseudo-agricultural civilization, they would not be able to cope with the attacks of nomadic civilization and primitive hunting and gathering civilization.
A byproduct of nomadic civilization and hunting-gathering civilization is that it is easy to produce "warriors", and agricultural civilization must develop to a certain level before it can achieve the "explosive troop" mode and thus confront nomadic civilization.
The African continent has vast grasslands, flat terrain, and abundant wildlife resources, making it particularly suitable for the development of nomadic and hunting models.
Agricultural civilization, however, could not develop for a long time and was easily conquered by nomadic and primitive hunting and gathering civilizations.
But the East African and European colonists were different. Under the threat of guns and cannons, they created important conditions for the development of African agriculture.
The first thing the kingdom did was to directly liquidate and encircle these African tribes in order to seize their land resources. The second thing it did was to use firearms to teach African wild animals a lesson.
Wild animals in Africa are one of the major obstacles to the difficult development of African agriculture. The large herds of animals are simply not something that the indigenous forces of the original small settlements can resist.
It is impossible for a large empire to emerge out of thin air without bypassing small settlements. So if a "genius" appears among the indigenous people today and cultivates local varieties of agricultural crops, he might be trampled to pieces by a herd of zebras the next day.
The firearms of the East Africans caused rivers of blood on the grasslands. This war was not only aimed at the indigenous people of the grasslands, but more importantly, it was aimed at eliminating the large groups of wild animals that had been entangled with the African indigenous peoples for hundreds of thousands of years.
Today, the wild animals in East Africa have been driven out of the "shadow" by East Africans, which also provides a safe space for the development of agriculture in East Africa.
To summarize the various factors that led to the failure of agricultural development in Africa and why this characteristic changed after the arrival of the colonists, we can actually refer to North America.
Before the North American civilization, agricultural civilization was not suitable for development. In fact, the most suitable civilization for the Indians to develop on the vast plains of the United States was nomadic civilization and primitive hunting and gathering civilization.
The changes in North America are due to the superiority of the Western world in terms of productivity levels, and the forced distribution of this technology throughout North America along with immigrant groups.
What East Africa is doing today is to replicate this model in Africa. Of course, Africa is a unique continent after all, so it is essential to adapt to local conditions, and East Africa has made many attempts in this regard.
The mission of the National Meteorological Bureau is to study the overall climate of East Africa in order to ensure agricultural production in various parts of East Africa. From this point of view, East Africa is in a relatively advanced position.
The world's first modern meteorological bureau was established in Britain in the 1850s. The East African Meteorological Bureau was established later than Britain and other countries, but its powers, funding, and status in the government are relatively high.
As a continent that has not yet been fully explored by humans, Africa has prominent shortcomings in various areas and has many lessons to learn. All of these require the guarantee of modern science and technology.
(End of this chapter)
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