African Entrepreneurship Record

Early 1878.

Central Province, Kidatu Village Agricultural Cooperative.

Kidatu Village Chief Luo Weisi announced the new policy to the villagers: "Okay, calm down now. I have brought you good news. The government's new policy has been conveyed. According to the instructions of the Kingdom, our country will To solve the slave problem in the next thirty years, in order to adapt to the changes in the international society, we should promote the replacement of slaves with large livestock such as cattle and horses. According to the township government documents, our Kidatu Village allocates 236 cattle for cultivated land to replace Farm slaves.”

Lemmy: "Village Chief, what good news is this? Isn't it just that slaves are replaced by animals? And slaves can also do some rough work besides plowing the fields, which is much better than animals!"

"Lemy, what do you know? No matter how useful this slave is, it will not last long. Our East African country has special conditions, so we have to use slaves as a tool to improve East Africa's productivity for the time being. However, slaves are not allowed by the international community and will inevitably be Eliminate them, and no matter how capable the slave is, he can't be as efficient as large livestock, and there is still the possibility of riots."

Lemmy muttered: "I think black people are very useful. Besides, can't we suppress the little black people?"

"Haha, the United States thought so too at the beginning. The problem now is that the black slaves in the United States have been liberated. In the future, black people will definitely have a very important impact on American society. It is unknown whether it will be good or bad, but we cannot let the situation in the United States happen in East Africa. , the Mamluks of Egypt were slaves who turned over and made decisions. I don’t want the future kingdom to encounter this kind of historical situation, so don’t always think about exploiting others and being indolent. In the final analysis, real happiness is created by yourself, and relying on exploitation will not last long.”

Lowes' ability to say such things is obviously very different from ordinary people in East Africa. In fact, he is one of the people who received early Hechingen education. His basic cultural literacy is very high. Otherwise, he is a villager. It’s long!

The replacement of slaves did have a certain impact on production in East Africa. After all, compared to livestock, humans are currently the highest form of productivity. They can complete many difficult tasks that animals cannot understand in their lifetimes.

"Village chief, these cattle seem to correspond to the labor force of our village. Is one allocated to each person?"

"What good things are you thinking about? Do you know how to raise cattle? In other words, have you ever had contact with cattle before? What if you raise them to death?"

What Rowes said is very objective. Not many ordinary people in East Africa have ever come into contact with cattle. This is true for immigrants from both the East and the West.

Far Eastern immigrants who can go to East Africa are the real poor class. If they really have a cow, they will not come to East Africa to make a living. Let alone a cattle, whether they can get a farm tool in their hands is a problem. However, European immigrants The understanding of the role of cattle is also unclear, because cattle farming was not popular in Europe before. The real large-scale use of cattle in white countries is the United States. The main tasks of cattle in Europe are transportation and providing dairy products and beef.

Furthermore, raising cattle is a technical job, and the cost of raising cattle is currently beyond what ordinary people in East Africa can afford with their modest wages.

Rowes: "Farming cattle are uniformly raised by cooperatives and bred by specialized personnel. Like slaves before, they can only be used upon application. According to the regulations of the kingdom, separate pastures and fields will be divided."

The savanna climate is a natural pasture, but East Africa does not follow the path of Argentina, so a lot of land is used as cultivated land. In fact, the cost of animal husbandry is smaller. After all, there is no need to cultivate or modify the soil. It is not even necessary to build large-scale and intensive water conservancy facilities.

East African agriculture calls itself smallholder agriculture. In fact, it is completely different from smallholder agriculture. It has a strong division of labor and cooperation and has the nature of capitalist agriculture. It is actually more similar to the Soviet Union. However, there is no Soviet Union now, and there is no such template for a communist country in the world. , there is no reference for the East African agricultural model, so the model most similar to East Africa is European serfdom. The means of production are concentrated in the hands of serf owners. The difference in East Africa is that there is only one serf owner. Ernst does not expect East African agriculture to create Huge economic value, farmers are relatively free, but there are also real serfs in East Africa, that is, black farming slaves.

"It is a general trend to replace slaves with livestock. This trend is not only in our village, but will be implemented throughout East Africa in the next few years. Central Province is now a pilot area." Rowes said to the villagers.

Of course, the current push to send livestock to the countryside in East Africa is not intended to be widespread immediately. It is only being promoted to planting areas, and a certain number of slaves will still be retained in cash crop plantations.

The main driving force for the implementation of bringing livestock to the countryside in East Africa is after more than ten years of development. The two major pastures in East Africa have cultivated a considerable number of livestock, especially the northern pastoral areas and the plateau pastoral areas. The number of livestock in these two areas has now reached tens of millions. , which provides a foundation for East Africa to transform backward productivity in rural areas.

The number of tens of millions of cattle is actually not large for East Africa, because Texas alone in the United States has more than 50 million cattle. This is only the number of cattle in one state in the western United States, while East Africa combines cattle and horses. All counted, so East Africa still has a long way to go compared with those livestock powerhouses.

"Village chief, since livestock will replace slaves, what will these slaves be used for? Are they sold?"

Rowes said: "Who knows about this! Anyway, the kingdom will naturally find a way to deal with it, so we don't have to worry!"

Selling it is impossible. Currently, there is not such a large slave market that can swallow so many slaves at one go. For example, the Ottoman Empire's previous purchases have dropped. After all, they are busy fighting the war with Tsarist Russia and do not have sufficient funds.

For this reason, East Africa specifically lowered prices to carry out promotional activities. By subsidizing the Zanzibar Arab shipping merchants, a subsidy was given for sending a ship of slaves. East Africa did not care where they were sent. In this way, the Ottoman Empire had a large number of slaves in a short time. The black animals competed with the gray animals of Tsarist Russia, and the black animals also had to eat. The grain market in East Africa suddenly revitalized. After all, the Ottomans had stopped purchasing grain from Tsarist Russia, and the market was vacated.

Therefore, in the Tenth Russo-Turkish War, the Ottomans fought badly in the Balkans, but the losses in Asia were not as great as in history. Among them, the Caucasus was the most prominent. The Ottomans even formed a black army to fight against Tsarist Russia.

This is also related to the human trafficking between the Ottoman Empire and East Africa. East Africa bought a lot of white people from the Caucasus, especially women. The forced migration of these people to East Africa was not smooth sailing, and the local people would resist. This played into the Ottoman Empire's intentions, so it struck hard at other local ethnic groups. The vacant land naturally fell into the hands of the Ottoman nobles, and the Ottoman Empire If the nobles wanted to develop these lands, they also needed people. Black slaves became high-quality labor. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire had the means to control black slaves and was not afraid of black slaves occupying dove nests.

Therefore, in the Caucasus region for more than ten years, the number of black people in the Caucasus region increased to more than 300,000, working for the Ottoman nobles. Once the war broke out, the Ottoman nobles incorporated these black slaves into the army and started playing tricks with Tsarist Russia. Naval tactics, so the Tenth Russo-Turkish War may not end as easily as in history. As long as the black people do not die, the Ottomans will be able to continue fighting. Of course, the filling speed of the black people cannot be so fast. This is also a big blow to the Ottoman Empire. logistics requirements.

Without the intervention of Britain and other countries, the Ottoman Empire still has the desire to fight. As for the situation in the Balkans, there is no way. The Balkans are full of rebels, and it is impossible for the Ottomans to exert force there. For example, Sige Romania controlled by Mullingen could actually be considered an independent country long ago, but it was still under the name of the Ottoman Empire. It was the same as Egypt currently. With the help of the Tenth Russo-Turkish War, it became completely independent from the Ottoman Empire.