African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 531: Chapter 209 Gradual Progress

After introducing the situation of the farm, looking at the energetic young people in front of him, Kade thought rather unkindly to himself: ”Young people are always so spirited, but they’re about to suffer.”

Since it was the first day, the third state-run farm mainly arranged accommodation for these students, but starting tomorrow, they would really have to work the fields.

The second day.

”Today, your task is weeding. Everyone can see that this plot of land is not small, but according to past arrangements, you won’t be given other farming tools today. Do you see the hoe in my hand? You can only use hoes to work the ground.”

However, the young people in East Africa are not completely unfamiliar with farming; some help with farm work at home, so they are quite handy with using hoes.

But the plot of land at the third state-run farm is no small affair; it’s quite large, so for them, it’s a considerable amount of work.

Soon, everyone started enthusiastically swinging their hoes. Mbeya’s altitude is quite high, so the weather isn’t too hot, which means there wasn’t much pressure from the heat, just that the sun was a bit scorching.

As time passed, the practical lessons for the students of the second middle school, which started off with excitement, now seemed a bit tedious. However, collective labor made it easier to get through such monotonous work. When noon arrived, the meal time left the students with headaches.

”Ah! Why is it all flatbread and salted vegetables?”

It’s not that the East African students are picky, as the latitude of East Africa ensures that temperatures are not too low throughout the year, and with sufficient water supply, plants can grow all year round, despite only having rainy and dry seasons.

This leads to East Africa having a variety and quantity of vegetables that can’t be too low; even delicate plants like flowers thrive well in East Africa.

So, East Africans may not compare to some countries in terms of meat consumption levels, but vegetables are definitely plentiful, and the immigrant Chinese community in East Africa brought the wok, making stir-frying quite popular.

Speaking of which, Ernst felt that Europeans ate simply due to their cooking methods which were quite basic: frying, grilling, roasting, or directly stewing everything together in a pot. Apart from frying being slightly more advanced, other methods seemed innate to civilized humanity worldwide.

Moreover, stir-frying, as a cooking method, is very suitable for handling vegetables; take India for example, their mainstream eating habit is to make vegetables and other ingredients into a paste, or like the Western vegetable salads that lack the stir-frying method as a compromise.

As if hearing the students’ complaints, Kade said: ”The purpose of this course is to make you understand the hardships of labor and the difficulty of life, just like the land you worked on today. The output for the whole year is wheat, which eventually turns into the flatbread in your hands.”

”Uncle Kade, but we don’t lack food in East Africa?”

”Of course, we know that East Africa is an exception. There are many countries in the world where people can only dream of eating enough. You can ask your parents when you get home; many of them immigrated to East Africa not just to escape war, but because they couldn’t get enough to eat. So, we can’t just sit back and relax because East Africa has good days now.”

Only through comparison can the quality of life in East Africa be more directly reflected. However, neighboring countries do not possess the same conditions as East Africa; those black people are still in the hunting and gathering stage.

So Kade continued: ”Don’t look at it as merely flatbread and salted vegetables. Actually, being able to have these is not simple for common people in some countries. You are fortunate to have caught a good time without suffering much. Take me for instance; I used to only eat cornmeal porridge and often didn’t have enough to eat, while some Far East immigrants experienced even worse, eating tree bark and roots.”

Kade’s words made the second middle school students thoughtful. In reality, most of the second generation in East Africa had parents who came from hard times, so they would tell them about the past.

Of course, life wasn’t necessarily easy at first upon arriving in East Africa. It was just enough to maintain basic sustenance while facing threats from diseases, which is why Ernst didn’t personally go to East Africa early on. Only after East Africa was developed did he migrate the Heixinggen royal family there. And so, after more than a decade of development, East Africa’s productivity exploded, significantly improving the average quality of life for East Africans.

Seeing the thoughtful students, Kade felt quite gratified. In reality, East Africans, at least ordinary folks, have quite a simple-hearted mindset.

As the saying goes, poverty breeds wickedness, and wealth breeds conscience. Whether in Europe, America, or the Far East, poor people must carefully plan their days, while in East Africa, ordinary citizens aren’t too rich nor too poor, so competition isn’t fierce, reducing the need for elaborate calculations in daily life, making society more harmonious.

Of course, East Africa’s development requires moving towards competition and involution; otherwise, it cannot compete with other countries in the future. As for now, conditions are not mature enough.

The main force of East Africa’s population is the first generation of immigrants in their prime; although they have good physical strength, their cultural quality is quite low, even the East African bureaucratic groups are similar.

Thus, the national policy and direction in East Africa are almost completely controlled by the Heixinggen royal family, who alone possess the experience in state governance.

But the Heixinggen royal family was previously just a small royal family in German, lacking experience in governing such a super-large country as East Africa.

Therefore, East African governance requires long-term exploration. In other words, the state is extremely immature; to quickly enable this country to possess self-renewal and optimization capabilities, the controls must be relaxed to allow intense internal competition in East Africa.

Ernst wouldn’t implement this, as if East Africa were in ancient times, it wouldn’t matter. But now is the era of imperialism, with external threats greater than internal ones, so Ernst doesn’t want East Africa to mess with itself, causing self-consumption and providing opportunities for potential enemies like the British.

Thus, from the beginning, the military was tightly held, and the country was constructed through the military. After all, the military is relatively easy to manage. However, unlike Prussia’s dependence on the military, whenever the East African military breaks its limits, Ernst begins to consolidate military power again.

But all of this is gradual, and Ernst always manages to keep the military numbers at a rather reasonable level.

In East Africa’s early days, governance was through the military; at that time, East Africa practically functioned as a military camp, forming the highly centralized power later synonymous with East Africa.

This ensures that the major policies in East Africa are top-down, unlike democratic countries like the UK, France, and the US, which are bottom-up.

However, referring to countries like the UK, France, and the US, saying they are democracies is not quite accurate. Ernst understands ”the people” as the lowest echelon, whereas the people in Europe more resemble Roman citizens during the ancient Roman era.

This is evident from the election system in Europe and America; during this era, none of the countries had evolved to the point where everyone had voting rights.

Taking historical Britain as an example, after 1866, it took two rounds of parliamentary reforms until 1885 to basically achieve universal suffrage for adult men. And this male suffrage in Britain was a result of repeated worker struggles.

Currently, East Africa doesn’t need any so-called elections; the worker population is not large, and the educational level of the populace is temporarily low, leading to a lack of political desires among the people.

Ernst naturally wouldn’t push for such things, as he himself is a nobleman, and only when circumstances are right will he follow; for now, East Africans only need to obey the arrangements of the royal family.

Of course, Ernst also understands the principle of not going against the greater trend. If reborn in ancient times, he would be too lazy to engage in reforms. Thus, future developments in East Africa should be carefully controlled, aligning with the tendency of the era.