Roenroda

Roenroda lay roughly 60 kilometers south in a straight line from a small outpost in the East African colony. Thirty kilometers to the east lay the sphere of influence of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, while to the south was the Portuguese Mozambique colony.

September 13, 1866.

The East African colony's geographical survey team investigated the area and confirmed that it was suitable for human habitation.

On October 7, the first batch of immigrants arrived in Roenroda. At present, the entire population of Roenroda numbered more than six hundred.

Roenroda was the capital of the Lower Coastal Region as planned by Ernst. The entire Lower Coastal Region covered nearly 80,000 square kilometers.

Across those 80,000 square kilometers of land, there were only the more than six hundred Chinese immigrants in Roenroda and a small number of Germans.

Roenroda was nearly 400 kilometers from First Town, with the Middle Coastal Region lying between them. Even Kigoma, the capital of the Lake Tanganyika Region—the administrative district farthest from First Town—was roughly 1,000 kilometers away from First Town.

Thus, even with the natives included, the entire East African colony still seemed vast and sparsely populated. The development of the East African colony remained a long and arduous task.

As the capital of the Lower Coastal Region, Roenroda currently possessed only the name of a capital. In scale, it was merely comparable to a village in the Upper Coastal Region.

The situation in the even more remote East Lake Malawi Region was more difficult to put into words. Survey work had only just been completed, and the immigrants assigned by First Town were still on the road to Songea.

The Middle Coastal Region was relatively better off, as it was closer to the Upper Coastal Region. Its immigrant population had now exceeded one thousand.

Roenroda's highest administrative official was a German named Thomas, formerly a member of the East African colony's mercenary corps.

His deputy was Li Wenhua, a graduate of Hechingen Military Academy. Nearly all Germans in the East African colony had served in the military, while the Chinese security officers of the second rank were also selected from graduates of Hechingen Military Academy.

Therefore, it could be said that the entire East African colony was currently a military government. All immigrants acted, produced, and lived according to military-style plans and orders.

Fortunately, the colony adopted collective management, and the immigrants were generally honest and obedient. They did not possess the rebellious spirit of European commoners.

If these immigrants had truly been granted the right to live freely as they were in other countries, these colony officials with military backgrounds would surely have been left scrambling like blind men feeling for an elephant. After all, they were not professional bureaucrats with administrative experience.

Collective management, on the other hand, was just like life in the military: they only needed to carry out their superiors' orders step by step. Before the East African colony was fully developed, nothing could have been better than following Ernst's directives.

As a graduate of Hechingen Military Academy, Li Wenhua's loyalty to Ernst was beyond question. Compared with his days in Qing China, studying at Hechingen Military Academy had reshaped the worldview of students like Li Wenhua.

Through indoctrination and cramming education, the Hechingen Military Academy cadets subconsciously understood that Ernst had pulled them out of a sea of misery and flames. The only way to repay the headmaster was to work diligently.

Li Wenhua had arrived in the East African colony with precisely such feelings. During a colonial meeting on the development of new regional lands, he was chosen as the second-in-command of the Lower Coastal Region.

At present, the East African colony was basically governed by two groups: Germans and students of Hechingen Military Academy.

Among them, the students of Hechingen Military Academy served as a bridge, an essential link in conveying colonial policies to the immigrants.

They were responsible for explaining policies, educating the populace, managing military affairs, and other important duties.

All official documents in the colony had to be written in German, so those colonial policies had to be translated for the immigrants by them.

At the same time, since the East African colony was promoting Germanization, these immigrants had to be re-educated. Yet for old farmers who had remained illiterate all their lives and had never attended school, learning was extremely difficult.

Therefore, the colony could only provide them with basic German education. They would first learn eight hundred essential German words, at a rate of two or three each day.

For immigrants to truly master German, however, they could only start with the children, beginning with the next generation. At that time, the East African colony would bring compulsory education into the colony.

All of this required time to prepare. Ernst was training a group of future colonial teachers at Hechingen Military Academy. Once they completed their studies, they would begin this Centennial Plan of education in the colony.

This group of students was mainly composed of orphans from the German territories. They studied in class alongside Chinese cadets, and in the future, they would travel with those Chinese cadets to the East African colony to establish the colony's own schools.

Roenroda's geographical location was quite favorable, and three native tribes were scattered less than a few miles to its west.

These native tribes were fairly large, so the colonial security forces had to be deployed to clear them out. Among the immigrants sent to Roenroda this time were two hundred security troops.

After being issued guns and ammunition, Thomas and Li Wenhua led the troops out. The first tribe purged by the Roenroda colonial security forces was called Chigugu.

There were only a few hundred people. The mounted security forces scattered the natives with a single charge. After setting fire to the tribal houses built of thatch and branches, the colonial security forces departed for their next destination.

The second and third native tribes lay north of the Chigugu tribe. Of them, the Muvina tribe had the largest population, while the Lindi tribe occupied the most strategically difficult terrain.

The method used to deal with the Muvina tribe was much the same as with Chigugu, merely taking a little more time. The Lindi tribe was the one that proved truly difficult to attack.

The cavalry could not exert its strength, so they could only expend more ammunition to wear down the enemy. Fortunately, the Lindi tribe's gates and palisades were made of wood.

The colonial security forces soaked rockets in vegetable oil and fat, then set fire to the Lindi tribe's walls. Finally, amid the scorched earth, the security soldiers launched a charge and crushed the last native tribe near Roenroda.

The remnants of the three native tribes could only flee westward, leaving a relatively safe area around Roenroda.

After clearing the wild animals around the Roenroda colony, the colonial security forces joined up with the immigrants and began guarding Roenroda.

The newly established Roenroda was a small village of earth-and-timber structures. Because it was close to the spheres of influence of the Portuguese and Arabs, defensive features had been added to its construction.

Watchtowers, trenches, fences with a certain defensive capability, and drawbridges all gave the immigrants arriving here a sense of solidity and security.

Roenroda also lay on Africa's coastal plains, so rice was the main crop planted here. However, tobacco was chosen as the cash crop.

Tobacco cultivation could provide raw materials for the Hohenzollern Tobacco Company. Previously, the Hohenzollern Tobacco Company had mainly imported tobacco from merchants of Britain, Portugal, and the Netherlands before processing and selling it.

Its costs were therefore quite high. East Africa was well suited to growing tobacco and possessed vast tracts of land; once developed, it could fully supply the needs of the entire Hohenzollern Tobacco Company.

Roenroda was thus the first step in experimenting with tobacco cultivation. If this planting proved successful, it would later be promoted throughout the Lower Coastal Region.

The Middle Coastal Region, like the Upper Coastal Region, still focused on growing sisal, because sisal truly sold well and was in great demand on the market.

Tobacco, however, faced many competitors. North and South America in particular were important tobacco-producing regions. Most of the East African colony's tobacco would still be used by the Hohenzollern Tobacco Company itself, with the main purpose being to lower costs while also advancing colonial development.

Therefore, the colony did not currently intend to blindly expand crops that were theoretically suited to East Africa. Before a stable market existed, it would first cultivate them on a small scale, such as coffee and rubber.