African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 49: Chapter 45 Ron Roda

Ron Roda, a small stronghold in the current East African colony, is approximately 60 kilometers directly south, becoming the Portuguese Mozambique colony, and 30 kilometers east is the sphere of influence of the Zanzibar Sultanate.

September 13, 1866.

The geographical survey team of the East African colony conducted an inspection here and determined that this location was suitable for human habitation afterward.

On October 7, the first batch of immigrants arrived at Ron Roda, and so far, the total population of Ron Roda is over 600.

Ron Roda is planned by Ernst to be the capital of the Lower Marine District, covering almost 80,000 square kilometers.

On this land of 80,000 square kilometers, there are only over 600 Chinese immigrants in Ron Roda and a few Germans.

Ron Roda is nearly 400 kilometers away from First Town, with the Central Coastal Area in between; the Soron Lake District, the farthest administrative district from First Town, has its capital Kigoma about 1000 kilometers from First Town.

Thus, even including the natives, the entire East African colony appears vast and sparsely populated; the development of the East African colony remains challenging and demanding.

As the capital of the Lower Marine District, Ron Roda currently only holds its capital name in vain, its scale merely equivalent to a village in the Upper Marine District.

And the location of the more remote East Malawi Lake District is even more challenging to describe. The exploration work has just been completed, and the immigrants allocated from First Town are still on their way to Songea.

The situation in the Central Coastal Area is relatively better, as it is closer to the Upper Marine District; currently, immigrants have reached over 1000 people.

The highest administrative official of Ron Roda is a German named Thomas, formerly a member of the East African colony’s mercenary corps.

His assistant, Li Wenhua, is a graduate of the Heixinggen Military Academy, while basically all the Germans in the East African colony have military backgrounds. The second-tier status Chinese security officers are also selected from graduates of the Heixinggen Military Academy.

Therefore, one can say that the current East African colony is a military government, and all immigrants act according to military-style plans and instructions in both production and life.

Fortunately, the colonial governance method adopted is collective management, and the immigrants are relatively honest and obedient to orders, unlike the rebellious consciousness of European citizens.

If like other countries, these immigrants were given the right to live freely, these colonial officials from military backgrounds would definitely be at a loss, as they are not professional bureaucrats with administrative experience.

However, with collective management, they follow orders from their superiors as they would in the military. Until the East African colony is fully developed, it’s best to develop according to Ernst’s directives.

As a Heixinggen Military Academy graduate, Li Wenhua’s loyalty to Ernst is unquestionable; compared to the days in the Qing Country, studying at the Heixinggen Military Academy reshaped the worldview of students like Li Wenhua.

In subconscious brainwashing and cramming education, the trainees of the Heixinggen Military Academy understand they were rescued by Ernst from adversity, and the only way to repay the principal is to work diligently.

Li Wenhua came to the East African colony with this mindset, and in the colonial meeting on developing new district land topics, Li Wenhua was chosen as the second-in-command of the Lower Marine District.

Currently, the East African colony is mainly managed by two groups: Germans and Heixinggen Military Academy students.

Among them, the students from Heixinggen Military Academy act as a bridge, playing a crucial role in issuing colonial policies to immigrants.

They are responsible for explaining policies, educating the populace, and managing military affairs and other important tasks.

All official documents in the colony must be in German, so those colonial policies must be translated to immigrants by them.

At the same time, as the colony implements Germanification, it must re-educate these immigrants, but learning is very difficult for these aged illiterate farmers who have never been to school.

Thus, the colony can only provide them with simple German education, starting with learning 800 important German words, learning two or three per day.

To let immigrants thoroughly learn German, it must start from a young age, from the next generation, when the colony will introduce compulsory education into the colony.

But all this requires preparation time; Ernst is nurturing a batch of future colonial teachers at the Heixinggen Military Academy, and once they graduate, they will start the colony’s century-long education plan.

This batch of students mainly consists of orphans from German region, who learn together with Chinese trainees in classrooms; in the future, they will go to the East African colony alongside those Chinese trainees to establish the colony’s own schools.

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Ron Roda’s geographical location is rather favorable, and so there are three local tribes distributed a few miles to the west.

These indigenous tribes are quite large, necessitating the colonial security forces to deploy for clearance; among the immigrants sent to Ron Roda this time are two hundred security forces.

After being armed with guns and ammunition, Thomas and Li Wenhua began leading the team out. The first tribe to be cleansed by Ron Roda’s colonial security forces was called Qigugu.

With only a few hundred people, the horse-mounted security forces scattered these natives with a single charge; after burning the tribe’s houses built of thatch and branches, the colonial security forces headed for the next destination.

The second and third local tribes are located north of the Qigugu tribe, with the Muvina tribe being the most populous and the Lindi tribe having the most advantageous terrain.

The methods used in dealing with the Muvina tribe were similar to those for Qigugu, albeit taking some more time, but it was the Lindi tribe that was truly difficult to tackle.

The cavalry couldn’t perform effectively and could only use more ammunition to deplete the enemy; luckily, the gates and fences of the Lindi tribes were wooden.

The colonial security forces soaked rockets in vegetable oil, set the Lindi tribe’s walls alight, and finally the security forces charged over scorched earth and defeated the last local tribe near Ron Roda.

The remnants of the three tribal groups could only flee westwards, and so a relatively safe zone around Ron Roda was established.

After clearing the wild animals near Ron Roda’s colony area, the colonial security forces joined the immigrants to begin vigilance work in Ron Roda.

The preliminarily established Ron Roda is a civil-wood small village. As it is relatively close to the range of Portuguese and Arab influences, the construction includes enhanced defense capabilities.

Lookout towers, trenches, fences, and drawbridges with certain defensive power all give the arriving immigrants a sense of ease and security.

Ron Roda is also located in the African coastal plain area, so the main crop grown here is rice, but the choice for economically viable crop is tobacco.

Tobacco cultivation can provide raw materials for the Heixinggen Tobacco Company; previously, the Heixinggen Tobacco Company mainly imported from merchants of Britain, Portugal, and the Netherlands, for processing and sales.

Thus, the cost was still relatively high, but East Africa is quite suitable for tobacco growth, with large tracts of land; as long as it’s developed, it can sufficiently supply the needs of the entire Heixinggen Tobacco Company.

And Ron Roda is the starting point for experimental tobacco cultivation; if the cultivation goes well this time, it will be promoted across the Lower Marine District in the future.

The Central Marine District, like the Upper Marine District, continues to primarily grow agave due to high sales and considerable market demand for agave.

However, tobacco cultivation faces significant competition, especially as North and South America are major tobacco production areas, and most of the tobacco in the East African colony is self-consumed by the Heixinggen Tobacco Company, mainly aiming to reduce costs while also developing the colony.

Therefore, the colony currently does not intend to blindly expand crops theoretically suitable for East Africa; before stabilizing the market, it opts for small-scale planting, such as coffee and rubber.