Chapter 26 – Those Who Came from Afar
East Africa Colony, Second Town.
Here stood the future site of Ruvu in what would one day be Tanzania. The "Little Rhine" of today was known as the Ruvu River in later times. Running southwest to northeast, it began in the Uluguru Mountains, turned east near Kisaki, then flowed northeast into the Zanzibar Channel of the Indian Ocean just north of Bagamoyo.
Second Town was established on the eastern bank of the Little Rhine, where over five hundred newly arrived Chinese immigrants were settled. Another fifty or so who had already lived in First Town for a while were transferred to guide these newcomers in daily work and life. Three Germans oversaw security and administration.
Ernst wasn't particularly worried about these Chinese immigrants rebelling. They had been carefully selected as illiterate peasants with little inclination to resist. Everyone knew that unless they were literally driven to the brink of survival, the Chinese were among the world's most tolerant—second only to Indians, who, according to Ernst, were prone to nonresistance.
Meanwhile, French soldiers might surrender on the battlefield, yet if you lowered their standard of living, the "Parisians" would storm the government building the next day. (A grim little joke, in Ernst's view, but fitting for this era.)
At the bottom rung of society, these Chinese had deeply internalized the adage "commoners can't fight the officials," and historical peasant revolts had always been led by more educated figures—like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's leader Hong Xiuquan, who'd studied for imperial exams, or Chen Sheng, who famously declared, "How can sparrows know the ambitions of swans?" Even if Chen himself hadn't read many books, he'd clearly picked up some broader ideas, likely through his role as a local headman, exposing him to minor Qin officials and gentry.
Thus, Ernst had been careful to select only peasants or drifters with no real schooling or worldly knowledge—perhaps familiar only with bits of opera or storytelling. As a former Chinese himself, Ernst knew their mentality all too well. It was also no surprise that Britain favored Indian soldiers in its colonies; they were obedient and instinctively took advantage of borrowed power to oppress others. That worked perfectly for British rule.
Hence the East African colony didn't expect any trouble from the Chinese. The real concern was the local Africans who'd been temporarily captured. There weren't enough of them yet to cause an uprising, but in the future they would bear watching. For the Chinese, things were better, at least in theory. They and the Germans were both considered employees under the Hexingen Consortium's labor contracts. Nominally, they were equals—just like "everyone is equal" in modern companies. In practice, Germans served as management while the Chinese were laborers. As for the local Africans, right from the start they weren't recognized as colonial citizens; they were seen as property, potentially to be sold.
The expansion of the East Africa colony led Zanzibar's sultanate to slash slave prices, hoping for quick sales. Seeing local Africans so harshly treated only made the Chinese immigrants more compliant. They realized the Germans were not to be trifled with and so worked diligently to avoid trouble.
In such an environment, Second Town took shape rapidly. With the experience gained from building First Town, all they had to do was follow the same routine, and Second Town emerged on East African soil. This time, they achieved a new milestone: planting rice. They had imported an indica variety from India, which—being in the tropics like Tanzania—adapted easily. The shorter distance to India also made shipping simpler. Ernst just needed to negotiate with British merchants passing through Dar es Salaam to bring the seeds on their return voyages.
Second Town lay by the Little Rhine, where water supply was even more assured than in First Town. Large tracts of land were sown with rice, and wetlands in other areas of the colony would likely follow a similar pattern. After all, rice yields surpassed wheat, and if you were already investing manpower in development, going for a higher yield made sense. Ernst planned eventually to grow corn as well. In later times, corn was planted widely across Africa.
…
In Second Town, newly arrived migrants worked at developing fresh rice fields. Using a waterwheel, they drew river water from the Little Rhine into ditches that flowed into the newly raised paddies. Li Tiezhu and other farm laborers dug a new irrigation channel. Li, thin and dark, handled his shovel with ease. He stepped on the Prussian-made tool, loosening the reddish soil, then flipped it onto the embankment.
"Hey, Uncle Jiaxiang," Li said while digging, "You've been here a few months already. What's your impression of those 'Geerman' people, as you call them? Do they keep their word?"
Li Tiezhu was fresh from North China and didn't really know the Germans in the East Africa colony yet. Up ahead, Zhang Jiaxiang was also shoveling. "Why do you ask so much? It's all about getting enough to eat, same as back home. You used to be a tenant farmer under those local landlords. Now you're one under the Geerman boss—what's to be afraid of?"
"But with our old landlords back in the Qing, we knew the rules. These Geerman lords we don't know—makes me nervous," Li Tiezhu admitted.
"You're nervous? You're young. Can they be scarier than Master Zhou at your place? If we had any other choice, do you think you'd be here in Africa working for the Geerman boss? Just don't overthink, boy. If they feed us, we should thank our lucky stars," Zhang Jiaxiang replied.
"True enough," Li Tiezhu said with a sigh. "It was that drought this year—no water in the river, and Master Zhou went off to the city. He still demanded the same rent, so we had no grain left. We were starving. Then the Geerman lord recruited us, so I signed on and boarded that ship." He recalled bitterly, "I'd never seen such a huge vessel in my life—bigger than Master Zhou's mansion. But that voyage was miserable. First few days, I couldn't stop vomiting. Couldn't keep the rations they gave me. Fed 'em all to the fishes…"
"Well, at least it's better here," Zhang Jiaxiang said. "I was the same at first, but now we get three square meals a day. Can you imagine that back in the Qing, boy? Sometimes they even dole out a couple ounces of meat at month's end if we do a good job. Feels like New Year all year!"
"What, if we work hard, we get meat? Are you serious, Uncle Jiaxiang?" Li Tiezhu's eyes lit up.
"Why would I lie? I've gotten it each of these past three months. As long as you don't rank last, your team gets some," Zhang Jiaxiang assured him.
Hearing that, Li Tiezhu said, "Then let's work even harder—I haven't tasted meat in years!" With that, he began shoveling with renewed fervor. Others nearby, overhearing their chat, grew hopeful too, speeding up the irrigation project.
Thanks to these new migrants, Second Town quickly took shape. Even the German overseers were surprised by how hard the Chinese worked. In terms of pure endurance and a willingness to endure hardship, the Chinese really were admirable.
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