African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 169: Chapter 158: Innovation

Professor Anton Peruz’s ideas will be validated in East Africa over the next few years. However, while continuing his scientific research, he must also undertake the task of finding methods to increase agricultural yield and improve crops for East Africa.

This is the task that Ernst assigned to Anton Peruz’s team; otherwise, who knows to what extent these scientists’ research directions would diverge.

Engaging in scientific research is permissible, but contributions must also be made to the East African colonies. Ernst’s funding of the agricultural research institute is ultimately for his own colonies, not truly for the advancement of human science.

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November 7, 1868.

Europe, Prussia, Heixinggen.

As time progresses, the scale of Heixinggen Military Academy has also grown larger, with various facilities and faculty becoming increasingly complete.

The current school enrollment has reached the size of over three thousand seven hundred students, with major sources of students coming from Europe, the Far East, and South America.

The original intention of establishing Heixinggen Military Academy was Ernst’s desire to develop it into a professional military academy.

Unexpectedly, things developed contrary to the plan, as the development of the East African colonies required a large number of language translators and military technical personnel, causing Heixinggen Military Academy to transform into a rapid German language school.

However, as the East African colonies have developed to the present state, there is no longer a need to equip migrants with language translators to implement orders and policies.

With a significant increase in the number of European immigrants and initial successes in German education in East Africa, many non-German speaking immigrants have already learned to communicate in German, naturally encouraging the remaining to learn German as well.

Additionally, in the past two years, Heixinggen Cultural School has begun to replace Heixinggen Military Academy, providing professional low-education-level personnel for East Africa, with the East African regular army showing no desire for expansion, thus greatly reducing East Africa’s demand for Heixinggen Military Academy.

These collective factors make Ernst want to bring Heixinggen Military Academy back on track, letting it truly become a cradle for cultivating professional military talents for his family.

To restore the original appearance Heixinggen Military Academy should possess, Ernst plans to proceed from four aspects.

The first is the academic system, eliminating the rapid courses, restoring normal teaching order, and converting to a three-year system.

Currently, the military talent in East Africa is saturated, as the enemies being fought are all natives, there is no need for so many professional military talents.

Moreover, with the establishment of Heixinggen Cultural School providing German-speaking students for Heixinggen Military Academy, there is no longer a need to conduct language education for non-German speaking students at Heixinggen Military Academy.

If Heixinggen Cultural School is akin to elementary school, then Heixinggen Military Academy would be secondary school; in the past two years, students adopted by Heixinggen have all first been placed in Heixinggen Cultural School for preliminary training.

Graduates from Heixinggen Cultural School can be divided into three tiers. The first tier consists of those with particularly outstanding grades, who can apply or be appointed by Ernst to enter the German education system for further learning. Generally, only true geniuses receive such treatment.

The second tier consists of those with excellent grades, but only relatively outstanding within Heixinggen Cultural School, who enter Heixinggen Military Academy for study or intern at enterprises under the Heixinggen consortium.

The third tier consists of those with average or relatively poor grades, dispatched to East African colonies for educational and translation work.

Students from Heixinggen Cultural School provide relatively excellent sources for Heixinggen Military Academy.

The second aspect is the innovation of teaching materials, seeking professionals to revise Heixinggen Military Academy’s teaching materials, adding more professional knowledge and courses.

The first edition of Heixinggen Military Academy’s textbooks was personally involved in by Ernst; its professionalism is not strong, naturally, the parts used to indoctrinate students cannot be removed, but the professional content can be modified.

The third aspect is faculty strength, hiring a batch of retired professional non-commissioned officers from the Prussian army to teach at the school.

The current faculty strength at Heixinggen Military Academy is still too weak, with a need for a batch of truly talented senior teachers.

The fourth aspect is the construction of professional training facilities.

A military academy naturally requires plenty of training, whereas Heixinggen Military Academy is currently confined within the campus, lacking professional training venues.

Ernst prepares to coordinate in Heixinggen to establish a training ground in a relatively large and complex area to provide student training use.

The place is chosen in western Heixinggen, where human presence is relatively sparse, and there are interwoven knolls and plains, including vast jungles perfectly suitable.

Taking immediate action, Ernst, fresh from returning from France, began reforms at Heixinggen Military Academy.

First, reviewing the students at Heixinggen Military Academy, due to age reasons, some students at Heixinggen Military Academy are not promoted from Heixinggen Cultural School, thus the quality of students at Heixinggen Military Academy varies greatly.

Ernst considerately prepared an exam for them, allowing those with passing grades to remain, and dividing those without into two batches.

Those relatively younger are sent back to Heixinggen Cultural School for retraining, and those relatively older are directly dispatched to East Africa for employment.

This way, the remaining students generally have similar literacy levels and relatively healthy physiques, facilitating unified teaching that follows.

Regarding materials and teachers, Ernst intends to seek talents from various German states. Poaching from Prussia would be more challenging.

However, some talents from smaller states can still be unearthed, especially after Prussia integrated the military forces of northern countries.

Those having different ideologies from the Prussian army must have been excluded, although their military ideologies differ, their military skills are still decent, and Ernst plans to leverage his connections to hire them to teach at Heixinggen.

Different military ideologies are tolerable; Heixinggen Military Academy is a school, not an army, meant to cultivate core-type military talents by Ernst. As long as military ideologies do not interfere in the students’ ideological realm, Ernst can tolerate them.

Training grounds are the easiest to resolve; technically, all of Heixinggen is owned, so there is no need to be polite—asking his father to allocate land for him.

Then, outlining safety boundaries and equipping supplementary facilities will allow students to undergo live firearm drills.

No matter how much training is done in school, Ernst cannot arrange for ranges and other facilities within Heixinggen Military Academy for convenience of resources and construction.

Heixinggen Military Academy was chosen to be located on the outskirts of Heixinggen town, not too far from residential areas, so it is impossible to issue weapons for unrestrained training.

Moreover, the past focus was on rapid training without emphasizing students’ professional levels, thus there was little need for live-fire drills. Learning textbook knowledge adequately and being healthy enough allows students to directly seek military positions in East Africa.

Now, Ernst wants to transform Heixinggen Military Academy into a professional military academy, naturally requiring combat exercises.

Combat is always the only standard to test military fighting power; currently, students at Heixinggen Military Academy naturally cannot experience real war, thus can only resort to simulations, upgrading their military competency through simulated battlefield environments.