African Entrepreneurship Record

During the new round of vigorous construction across East Africa, the development pace of the newly planned city, Rhine City, has not fallen behind.

”The Imperial People’s Mansion of the East African Empire, known as the Imperial Mansion, covers an area of 130,000 square meters, referencing the architectural characteristics of parliamentary buildings in Germany, Austria, and other countries, drawing on the strengths of many.”

The Imperial Mansion, also known as the East African National Assembly Building, is one of the key projects in Rhine City, although currently East Africa does not have a parliament, as there is no current need for it.

Even William II was eager for this, of course, with the development of East African countries, a parliament will undoubtedly become an essential key power institution.

Originally, William II had a positive attitude towards the concept of parliament, but after fully coming to power in 1892, the parliament became the power-restricting institution he despised greatly.

This point is clearly reflected in his correspondence with Ernst, for which Ernst can only express that William II was straightforward and never cunning; otherwise, he wouldn’t consistently offend people in the international community.

Ernst maintained a much calmer attitude; monarchal autocracy is certainly not a permanent solution, leading to the construction of the Imperial Mansion in East Africa.

Therefore, in the planning and construction of Rhine City, the Imperial Mansion of East Africa became one of the city’s key landmark buildings, with architectural characteristics closely resembling those of Germany and Austria.

However, in terms of specific details, it leans more towards the German parliamentary building style, primarily embodying solemn and dignified characteristics, reflecting East Africa’s great power style. On this point, Ernst considers the British Parliament more prominent, but its overly solemn architecture gives Ernst a sinister feeling, which is very unpleasant.

Of course, in terms of architectural aesthetics, the Winter Palace of Tsarist Russia is indeed better, but its excessive magnificence was not to Ernst’s liking.

Of course, the Winter Palace is not a parliament; being monarchal autocracy states, both Tsarist Russia and East Africa currently have no parliaments.

Historically, pressured Tsars began Russia’s first parliament, known as the Russian ”Duma,” in 1906.

In front of the Imperial Mansion is a vast lawn, a choice following the German plan because the most conspicuous feature in front of the Vienna parliament is sculptures and fountains.

To conclude, the Imperial Mansion in East Africa can be viewed as an upgraded version of Germany’s National Assembly Building, as East Africa, being a large country in population and land area, must build its parliament more grand than typical countries.

As early as the 1890 census in East Africa, the population already surpassed Germany, and future growth rate and scale of East Africa’s population are certainly beyond Germany’s.

The administrative district of Rhine City was chosen in the city’s northeast rather than the city center; firstly, considering environmental and scenery aspects, the northeastern part of the city is near the Renshaw Fowa River, which flows from north to south, so the administrative district must be selected upstream to ensure abundant water sources and pure water quality.

Secondly, once the reservoir construction on the Renshaw Fowa River is completed, the eastern part will inevitably form large artificial lakes, and future city development is bound to expand towards the lake area.

Modern cities prefer building artificial lakes, one important reason being the mitigation of local urban heat island effects; water’s high heat capacity means when temperatures are high, lake water evaporates and absorbs heat, consuming part of the heat in the air to regulate the climate.

Moreover, most artificial lakes share the common characteristic of diversified surrounding functions, commercial, business, hotel, residential, administrative, medical, tourism, transportation... many areas around artificial lakes reach diverse functions, making the green space surrounding lakes blend these functions seamlessly.

With numerous advantages, it’s natural for the administrative district of Rhine City to prioritize occupying the city’s optimal land resources.

”As a city, Rhine City has its own administrative system, but being the national administrative center, it means Rhine City has two administrative systems with different focuses, so in the future, Rhine City’s government and institutions will emphasize the southwestern part of the national administrative district.”

Although the capital city’s positioning is unique, it can’t change the fact that Berlin’s city government is not Germany’s central government, and the same applies to East Africa—the city government and its associated urban governance institutions primarily serve the city.

While the national administrative center serves the whole country, the distinction between the two is quite significant, hence Rhine City’s government institutions will be closer to the city center, facilitating urban governance and serving surrounding citizens.

”Aside from administrative functions, the capital emphasizes education, science, culture, and health, while also focusing more on transportation and the economy compared to First Town City, based on the crown prince’s requirements.”

Of course, Ernst didn’t mention one more aspect: the capital’s tourism function; being a national capital naturally possesses a cultural and tourism attribute. Only in the current era, tourism is underappreciated, so Rhine City needs to prepare for future layouts.

However, this is challenging for East Africa because it lacks historical depth.

Take Far East Empire’s capital, even if not the national political center, sites like the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and other historical sites attract visitors.

Even in Europe, cities like London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, have their unique features. In contrast, cities like Washington in America and Brasilia in Brazil weren’t quite remarkable in past lives.

This way, for Rhine City in East Africa to become a tourism hotspot, it can only achieve this through ”marvels” eventually.

Brasilia is a typical example, known for its airplane-shaped contour globally, yet this can only be seen from a high perspective, and even when visiting it, this contour isn’t quite visible. Brasilia’s distinctive city design has apparent shortcomings—especially unreasonable mandatory functional zoning, causing inconvenience in living.

As for Washington, truthfully, its slight prominence purely stems from America’s powerful national strength in past lives. If America were an obscure island nation like Saint Vincent and the Grenadines in the Caribbean, who would care where Washington is!

With America and Brazil in such positions, even more so for East Africa, a nation just over thirty years old. Of course, the history of Africa’s indigenous civilization is long, but Native Americans in American civilization were more backward, and African indigenous civilization was even further behind, though American countries can still play the Native American civilization card, East Africa doesn’t even have the Black People card to play.

Surely it can’t compare mud-and-stick huts barely considered shelters against Native Americans’ ”pyramids,” and much of the Arab architecture and relics remaining in East Africa have been destroyed, except for some remnants on Zanzibar Island.

Besides that, the oldest buildings in East Africa are those left by the Portuguese, which aren’t necessary to demolish, as they are indeed East Africa’s war trophies.

Therefore, one important aspect of the Imperial People’s Mansion is its ability to add a marvel to Rhine City, embodying the monarchial nature of East Africa, with ”People” being a term added by Ernst.

It signifies East Africa’s ambition and future direction towards democratization—currently a kingdom, a level Ernst is certainly dissatisfied with, and given the current national strength, the foundational conditions to upgrade the kingdom into an empire are already met. An empire suits East Africa’s status as a great power.

Otherwise, as with Japan or Vietnam’s royal families, their so-called ”proclaiming emperor” instead has a monkey wearing a crown kind of connotation, while Ernst only considers ”proclaiming emperor” after fully transforming East Africa into a world power. Countries like Japan and Vietnam, which aren’t even regional powers, appear quite laughable.

However, recently Japan barely squeezed into regional powers through victory in the Far East War, yet in Ernst’s view, it’s equally lowering the word ”emperor’s” gold content.