African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1294: Chapter 303: Tavern

After a half day’s handover work, the crew of the Freedom were finally able to relax and rushed to a tavern in Davao City under Vilkenitz’s leadership.

As for receiving immigrants, that was handled by the staff at the Davao City Immigration Office and the East African Military. Davao City is a typical dual-use port; from here, you can continue eastward to Palau Island and New Guinea, among other East African colonies further east in the Pacific Ocean. Therefore, Davao City is considered an important strategic node.

”Edtar, how has business been recently?” said Vilkenitz, with a weathered expression, as he walked into the tavern and asked a middle-aged man who was wiping a glass.

”Vilkenitz, it’s actually you, my friend, it’s not easy to see you?” The tavern owner, Edtar, put down his work and said.

Vilkenitz said, ”This time I’ve brought you a big deal again.”

He then introduced Captain Hilda and others to Edtar, who greeted them warmly one by one.

”In Davao City, it’s not easy to see fellow-countrymen. Apart from the government and military, most people here are immigrants from unknown places around the world.”

”Only the sailors on the domestic and Davao route come here often to spend, so the first drink will be on the house; consider it my treat. Of course, I can only treat you with local drinks since drinks from the mainland are still quite expensive here.”

Edtar enthusiastically poured a large glass of drink for each of the crew members of the Freedom.

”Is this the new drink you developed?” Vilkenitz said to his old friend.

Edtar replied, ”Yes, this is banana wine brewed from local bananas. I learned the brewing method from a sailor from North Lake Province, who told me about the banana wine from his hometown. So far, it tastes pretty good.”

The banana wine from North Lake Province is a relatively famous drink in East Africa. East Africans learned the banana wine brewing method from indigenous people and later improved the formula and production method for industrial production, making it a distinctive product of the country.

Of course, in North Lake Province, there are also farmers who brew banana wine the traditional way, which is how Edtar obtained this banana wine brewing method.

Edtar said, ”Among the agricultural products of Davao City, bananas and coffee are quite good, so I used local resources to create this drink. The taste is slightly inferior to the mainland banana wine, but the alcohol content is a bit higher, ensuring you can drink to your heart’s content.”

In the South Sea colonies, East Africa promotes typical plantation agriculture. Of course, there is basically no other agricultural model that can be developed here.

In terms of East Africa itself, it can not only develop plantations and plantation agriculture but also animal husbandry. However, the climate in the South Sea colonies is more singular than that of East Africa, except for the newly acquired Kra Strait Territory, which is in a tropical monsoon climate; other East African colonies in the South Sea are in tropical rainforest climate areas.

Nevertheless, the agricultural conditions of Davao City are considered good among East African colonies in the South Sea region. Rice can be grown here, and more importantly, the yield is not low. Because Mindanao Island has many volcanoes, a fertile volcanic ash soil like that of Java Island has formed in some areas.

And there are many volcanoes distributed around Davao, such as Mount Apo, the highest peak in the Philippines in my past life, which is only forty kilometers from Davao City, with a height close to three thousand meters.

However, this volcano has not yet recorded an eruption, as the level of civilization here is too low, and East Africa has only been here for about twenty years.

”By the way, what did you bring on your ship to Davao City this time?” Edtar asked curiously.

Vilkenitz replied, ”This time, our ship is an old-style sailing ship organized by the government, carrying no cargo but immigrants from the Persian Gulf, who are mostly Russians.”

”Russians? No wonder. In recent years, Davao City has accepted a lot of Slavs, most of whom should be from Russia, after all, apart from Russia, there aren’t many places where people are willing to leave their homes to develop in the colonies,” Edtar said unceremoniously.

Compared to East Africa, Russia is indeed relatively backward, but East Africa only really left Russia behind in the last twenty years or so.

In the 1980s, the difference between East Africa and Russia wasn’t that big, and their economies, industries, and agriculturals were pretty much on par.

Of course, this is mainly when counting black slaves as part of the East African population. In reality, the quality of life for East African citizens has long been higher than in Russia, albeit somewhat lower in the early colonial period.

This ’somewhat lower’ mainly refers to the living environment, as early colonial Africa was truly a wild land with conditions not even comparable to Siberia.

After the 1980s, East Africa advanced rapidly, stepping into a phase of high-speed development, particularly when East Africa’s infrastructure development began to take off. Before this, East Africa invested heavily in infrastructure, building water conservancy, highways, and railways.

These infrastructure developments invigorated the East African economy, enabling the development of mines and the national coordination of resources, thus boosting East African industrial development.

By the 1990s, East Africa was already not inferior to Russia in various fields, after all, a backward country could not possibly defeat the United Kingdom at that time.

Into the 20th century, Russia was even less of a match for East Africa. By then, East Africa was benchmarking itself against countries like France and the United Kingdom, and setting its sights on Germany and the United States, the two most industrialized nations.

By the time of World War I, the scale of East African industry was already on par with the United States, and in the years following the war, it even surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest industrial country.

This, of course, was built on the foundation of East Africa’s population being larger than that of the United States, and now, the goal of East African industrial development is to continue expansion while beginning to focus on the development of industrial quality.

Vilkenitz said, ”These Russians mainly come from Ukraine; they’re from the occupated zones of Russia. The unfavorable war situation in Russia means that it can’t even protect its citizens’ safety. Of course, reaching Mindanao Island might be considered an opportunity for them.”

Edtar shook his head, saying, ”Developing on Mindanao Island won’t be easy, as most of them are unlikely to be settled in developed areas like Davao City.”

”Most likely, they’ll be settled on the undeveloped northern islands of Mindanao Island. They will have to work for years before they can enjoy the happiness of a new life.”

”The government settles them in Davao so they can adapt to the South Sea climate in advance and overcome water and soil acclimatization. This period is likely to be the toughest for them.”

Vilkenitz said, ”Didn’t our nation develop this way? East Africa itself wasn’t that much better initially, all starting from scratch, and it took several generations’ efforts to have the East Africa of today.”

Though East Africa has only half a century of history, this time is enough for many families to update and iterate, and the earliest immigrants to East Africa might even have great-grandchildren by now.

And history changes so inadvertently, as more than fifty years have passed, the rest of Africa is still that Africa, but East Africa has become a civilized nation, with a population density ranked fifth in the world, only after India, the Far East, Europe, and the United States, and industrial power ranked third in the world, after Europe and America.

The reason we don’t compare entirely by countries is mainly that various data for East Africa are somewhat exceptional, just as Russia can be regarded as a continent, East Africa is not far behind, after all, the smallest continent, Oceania, covers just over eight million square kilometers. Of course, size isn’t the main factor, as Erin Canada and Australia, and Brazil are also large in size. The difference is that both Russia and East Africa have populations exceeding one hundred million, more than all of South America.