First Town (Mlandizi)

About 58 kilometers west of Dar es Salaam, a brand-new village can be seen. This is the first stronghold established by the Hechingen colonial team in East Africa.

To commemorate this important place, Yalman, the leader of the colonial team, named it First Town (later known as Mlandizi Town in Tanzania), symbolizing it as the first step in colonial development.

First Town is located in the buffer zone between the East African coastal plain and the plateau. There are no mountains nearby, only some hills distributed in the southwest direction, making the terrain relatively flat and open.

First Town is situated in the coastal plain not far from the Indian Ocean, bordering the Sultanate of Zanzibar. Influenced by the warm, humid air currents near the equator, First Town receives over 1300mm of rainfall annually, with lush vegetation all around.

Due to the uneven distribution of rainfall in Africa, large amounts of precipitation from upstream during the rainy season can converge downstream, potentially causing floods. Therefore, First Town was chosen to be built on higher ground to avoid the impact of sudden flood disasters during the rainy season.

A large river passes through the north of First Town, originating from the Uluguru Mountains. Commander Yalman named it the Little Rhine River (Luvugo River). This river extends all the way to Bagamoyo in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, where it enters the Zanzibar Channel.

First Town lies within the Luvugo River basin. The entire region is abundant in rainfall, and being near the equator, it enjoys ample sunlight and heat, making it suitable for growing crops like rice, flax, and corn.

Currently, this area is still a wilderness, with only wild beasts and occasional slave-hunting parties from the Sultanate of Zanzibar passing through.

Due to the perennial slave-hunting operations of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, there are virtually no large indigenous tribes nearby. The slave hunters have to venture deep inland to find captives, so they only make brief stops here.

The Hechingen colonial team dug trenches and built low fences around First Town to prevent wild animals from attacking. This was a considerable amount of work, so the village is not large.

There are currently over 800 residents in First Town, including members of the colonial team stationed here, newly arrived Chinese immigrants, and over 500 indigenous people temporarily held here.

In February, the first batch of 700 East Asian immigrants arrived via the Dutch fleet. Most of them were lured here under the guise of recruitment, but in reality, they might spend the rest of their lives in East Africa without ever returning home.

The employment contract with Hechingen was for twenty years. It's obvious they would be working for the House of Hohenzollern for life. Since they were all adults, and considering the short average lifespan of the era, twenty years meant a significant portion of their lives would be spent here.

However, with the future development of East Africa, even if Ernst were to send people to ask them to leave East Africa, they might be unwilling to return to their distant and disaster-prone homeland.

After docking at Dar es Salaam port, the immigrants were disembarked by staff. The pre-arranged personnel at the port carried out disinfection procedures for these immigrants.

In the temporarily erected sheds, they were grouped into fifties. Stripped naked, they were cleaned with soap and water from wooden buckets. In the hot weather, there was no worry of catching a cold.

After changing into uniform German attire (mostly second-hand Prussian military uniforms procured by Ernst), they had their hair cut and beards shaved.

The cutting of queues caused a small-scale panic, as after nearly a century of suppression, fear still lingered in their hearts. But once they arrived here, they had no say in the matter; even if unwilling, they had to accept it obediently.

After the cleaning, these people were sent to First Town to begin land reclamation work. The colonial team took a month to clear the surrounding wild beasts, establishing a safe zone of five to six kilometers around the settlement.

Due to its proximity to Zanzibar, there were almost no indigenous tribes in the vicinity. Only a few small villages existed, most of which were driven away under the physical threat and intimidation of the colonial team. Those who refused to comply were captured and used as free labor.

As for why they weren't all captured, it was due to a lack of manpower. Every member of the colonial team was a valuable asset at the time. Dealing forcefully with these tribes was not cost-effective. However, those indigenous people unwilling to leave their land were made examples of.

Currently, in the prisoner-of-war camp at First Town, they are digging canals and building roads. The village trenches were built by them just a few days ago. More than 500 people are currently constructing the first gravel road from First Town to Dar es Salaam port.

In the early stages, these indigenous people were substitutes for livestock and machinery, serving as the power source for the colony. First Town and the surrounding dozens of miles of land awaited them to provide animal power.

The land in Tanzania is flat and open. The immigrants did not feel uncomfortable upon arrival because the first batch of immigrants was primarily from northern Qing China, which is also a vast plain.

Although the weather was a bit hot, it was better than being cold. As for Africa's strong ultraviolet rays, they were nothing to these farmers who had always worked with their faces to the loess and their backs to the sky.

What was the first problem the new immigrants encountered? Even Ernst hadn't expected it, or perhaps forgot to mention it: the climate near the coast of East Africa is humid and hot, which is more suitable for growing rice.

However, most of these immigrants were from the north and had no experience in rice cultivation. Ernst had also not prepared rice seeds.

It's not that wheat couldn't be grown. Tropical regions can indeed grow wheat, but the yield is not high. Tropical wheat is best grown in plateau regions, but First Town is located on the coastal plain of East Africa.

Just like in India, the Deccan Plateau is primarily for wheat cultivation, while the Ganges Plain is for rice. India's annual wheat production is not less than that of rice.

Therefore, for the time being, wheat would be used as a substitute for rice cultivation, but without pursuing high yields, just enough for sustenance. Other areas would be converted to growing cash crops.

Sisal was a key crop for the Hechingen colonial team's development. In later generations, Tanzania, located in the tropics, became a world-renowned producer of sisal. Sisal fiber is tough, resistant to seawater erosion, and is a superior raw material for making ropes, sacks, and carpets.

The current era was still the age of wooden ships. The excellent properties of sisal, coupled with a vast market, meant that the economic value of this crop was on the rise. Compared to food grains, Ernst could truthfully say that whatever was planted would be harvested.

After all, the development of the grain market is a long process. The majority of the world's population consists of farmers, and agriculture is the largest industry. Every country has its own grain industry, and the market competition is intense. Moreover, all staple grains are low-profit, high-volume products that cannot generate quick profits. This is also why America has so many plantations.

However, a scarce commodity like sisal is different. It can only be widely cultivated in tropical regions, and it requires high rainfall, as not all tropical areas are abundant in rain; there are also tropical deserts.

Tropical rainforests are also not suitable for sisal cultivation. It's not that the climatic conditions in tropical rainforests are inadequate, but rather the difficulty of development. In terms of land alone, tropical rainforests have too many trees, making deforestation difficult, and the economic returns from small-scale cultivation are not significant.

Tanzania, on the other hand, is different. Besides its excellent climate, it has vast land resources, especially arable land.

Later statistics show that Tanzania's arable land area might reach 600 million mu, accounting for over 40% of its land area, enough to support 400 million people.

Ernst didn't know where the data came from, but his own past experiences told him that East Africa was indeed suitable for agriculture.

East Africa has a vast plateau. Although it's called a plateau, Ernst, who grew up in the North China Plain, felt that East Africa was very similar to North China. The only difference was that East Africa's altitude was a bit higher. Otherwise, in Ernst's eyes, there was no other difference from the plains.

The most unique aspect of the East African plateau is that it did not form a shield like Brazil along the coast. The coastal plain transitions slowly to the plateau, providing excellent economic hinterland conditions.

Therefore, the population distribution in Tanzania in later generations was very uniform, unlike Brazil's population, which is concentrated in the southeastern corner of the Brazilian Plateau.

The main body of Tanzania is on the East African Plateau. The terrain within the country is stable and undulating, essentially on the same plane. Mountains are distributed in the East African Rift Valley along the borders, such as Kilimanjaro, where towering mountains suddenly appear on the plains, which is quite spectacular.

This is also a puzzle that Ernst couldn't figure out, because Kilimanjaro is clearly distinct from the African savanna, unlike other regions where there is a buffer between mountains and plains.

Regardless, Ernst believed that the natural conditions in East Africa were excellent. The only factor limiting land development was water resources. The agricultural predicament of Tanzania in his past life was precisely this.

Lack of water conservancy facilities and reservoirs. Large amounts of rainfall during the rainy season flowed into the Indian Ocean through rivers without being effectively utilized.

Therefore, by solving the problems of water diversion and storage in the East African colony in the future, the biggest limiting factor for agricultural development in East Africa could be resolved.