African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 34: Chapter 30 Dodoma

Dodoma is the destination of the first group of the East African expedition team. While other groups are still on their way, the first group has already begun construction work.

Dodoma, the administrative capital of Tanzania in later years, is over 1100 meters above sea level, with a cool climate, located near the upper source of the Wami River, featuring undulating low hills and diverse terrains.

This place is a stop for caravans traveling from the Swahili Coast to Lake Tanganyika, and in the past, it was an important railway hub for Tanzania; thus, its geographical position is quite significant.

Goods can be transshipped through Dodoma from Dar es Salaam Port to various points in the East African colonies, also providing convenience for subsequent immigrants.

Dodoma receives about six hundred millimeters of annual rainfall, and the temperature fluctuates between fifteen to thirty degrees throughout the year, making it highly suitable for human habitation.

This provides convenience for the first team of the East African expedition before the rainy season arrives, as the first team starts fires everywhere using kerosene lighters produced by the Heixinggen Company.

With the southeast wind, the fire spreads northwest, with many animals fleeing, and those unlucky enough not to escape provide the soldiers with a meal, paired with wild bananas picked and roasted on the fire, sizzling with oil.

After the fire, the ash conveniently neutralizes the soil’s acidic substances, and over five hundred immigrants accompanying the army begin to till the land.

Nearby Dodoma also hosts indigenous tribes; it is their trading place with Arab merchants. Seeing the new expedition group’s first team with firearms (which Arabs also possess), people naturally feel cautious of unfamiliar things.

Most significantly, East Asian faces are rarely seen here. Local natives are predominantly Bantu people who migrated from West Africa hundreds of years ago, with dark skin, having interacted with San people and white people in East Africa. The complexion of the expedition team’s first group falls between the two, and their clothing style is unfamiliar, making distinctions noticeable from afar.

For now, the first group does not intend to conflict with these indigenous tribes, after all, they are newcomers and prefer to first establish their camp.

Fortunately, East Africa is still sparsely populated; the combined population of East African savannas within Tanzania might not exceed that of the Mongolian grasslands.

After all, the Mongolians engage in horse and sheep herding, while these natives remain in the hunting and gathering stage, with low productivity supporting fewer people.

Additionally, Arabs often provoke tribal conflicts, inciting wars, and trading humans, leading to East Africa’s population not increasing but decreasing over the years.

Future Tanzania’s population reaching fifty million is thanks to the Germans and British, although both colonial powers had impure motives, they did indeed lead these savages into the agricultural era.

So after independence, African countries, freed from colonial constraints, with increased productivity, saw their populations double, for instance, Tanzania’s population slightly exceeded ten million in the 1960s, reaching nearly sixty million before Ernst’s time travel, with fertility rates still rising.

Currently, Ernst suspects the population may not even reach five million across Tanzania’s 940,000 square kilometers.

Because the former German East Africa had seven hundred thousand people after decades of development before World War I, which included densely populated areas like Rwanda and Burundi.

Therefore, Ernst dared to set eyes on East African colonies, for in the past Ernst saw several counties with populations nearing a million, and some even two million.

Consider relocating an entire country’s population — that would be dismissed as a fool’s dream, whereas relocating a county’s population might be possible.

After all, in the past, the homeland’s mobilizing capability was terrifying, examples like the South-North Water Transfer and Three Gorges Dam abound.

And these were completed within relatively short times for mass population resettlement, Ernst currently has ample time, and over the next thirty to fifty years, focusing on sending away indigenous people might resolve ethnic issues in East Africa.

As for Chinese and white people, that’s easier to solve — at least Ernst believes so. Ethnic integration is a tangible reality, such as in Brazil where poverty unites all, leaving no room for ethnic disputes, whereas highly developed Americans constantly use racial issues to divert conflicts.

Another example is Cuba; Ernst greatly respects the Cuban government, where all races coexist harmoniously under the same system — elsewhere in other capitalist microstates this would result in mutual hostility.

The opposite case is Yugoslavia, where Ernst thinks its disintegration was the leaders’ own misfortune for dying between compromise and freedom without understanding their stance, failing to exert their superiority. (Terrified, trembling.)

Digressing, Ernst believes he can solve this, having long lived in a country with three thousand years of authoritarianism and two thousand years of unity traditions with known methods.

Ernst thinks even the Western Zhou’s feudal system is more centralized than Western ones, as the feudal system of Western Zhou still had a core, and the Zhou Royal Family remained the nominal master of the world later on, while Europe ended up with everyone in Rome, and even after two world wars, they couldn’t form a proper European Union.

The only country in Europe with grassroots authoritarian ideology, Russia counts as half, hence Americans fear Russia since it truly has the ability to unify Europe.

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Dodoma, today’s temperature is twenty-three degrees, immigrants’ clothing is quite uniform, mostly Prussian military uniforms. In First Town, due to the hot and humid environment, it was stuffy and hot, but in Dodoma it’s just right.

Thus, the immigrants are in good condition, but the commander remains cautious; Africa was once seen by Europeans as a cursed continent because it is abundant in tropical diseases, leading most colonizers to operate along the coast, unwilling to venture inland.

Thus, Ernst pays particular attention to colonial hygiene issues, providing a feasible plan: for instance, boil water before drinking, avoid eating undercooked wild animal meat, foods with parasites like snake and frog species should not be touched, colonies must be regularly disinfected, prevent insect bites, and reasonably collect and use waste...

These are day-to-day tasks for colonial officials, especially to strictly manage immigrants’ diets, for citizens of a hunger-stricken country adept at turning mundane items into meals.

However, East African colony food is sufficient; if there’s no food, there are wild bananas and fruits to fill the stomach — no need to go for exotic animals, though even large herbivores roaming the African savannas can be hunted in teams, like zebras and wildebeests, wild to the core and moderately dangerous.

At night, Dodoma boasts excellent visibility, with stars filling the night sky, the temperature dropping slightly, and the immigrants, after a day’s labor, lie on their simple wooden beds, peacefully entering dreamland.