Walvis Bay Port is now an important port city in the southwestern part of Africa under the Chinese Empire. Since the landing of Chinese colonists in 1858, Walvis Bay has become an important city in Southern Africa after Cape Town.

1869, November 3, light rain. The wharves of Walvis Bay are still busy, and merchant ships traveling between South America and Europe are constantly loading ores, timber and agricultural products from the port, unloading industrial products and machinery from Europe. In the past two days, the industrial zone of the port has been in full swing, and various factories have been put into operation one after another.

At the beginning, because there were not many merchant ships coming, and all of them came to the shore to replenish supplies, after the paper workshop, cement kiln, and lime kiln were put into operation, it can be said that the clouds were gloomy. Papermaking workshops aside, these two earthen kilns are strictly speaking, in modern times, they are all obsolete enterprises with low production capacity, high energy consumption and heavy pollution, but now the colonial conditions are limited, and this kind of soil project can only be launched, and the country also needs technology and machinery, so the colony can only be used for this.

Both kilns are vertical cylinder kilns, which work in the way of top feeding and bottom discharge. Batching, grinding, feeding, and discharging are all done manually. The design capacity of the cement kiln is 10 tons per day, and the design capacity of the lime kiln is 20 tons per day. Of course, this is a theoretical value that can only be achieved with a sufficient supply of raw materials for continuous production. The biggest problem of the colony at present is the shortage of science and technology, especially the mining of limestone, there is no machinery only by ** and manual mining, the efficiency is outrageously low, when you are lucky, you can mine two or three tons a day, and when you are unlucky, you can not have a ton.

In this case, cement kilns and lime kilns can only stop production, and the consumption of tons of coal is amazing, and the coal on the merchant ship is not enough to toss for too long. In desperation, Zeng Guofan decided to temporarily shut down the two earthen kilns after producing some cement and lime to solve the urgent need. After the limestone reaches a certain reserve, it will be re-ignited for production.

Today is a monthly plenary meeting of the Executive Committee (Executive Committee on Colonial Affairs), and the general discussion is on important matters.

"After the brick kiln, cement kiln and lime kiln were put into operation one after another, we have now established a large number of factories and workshops, which has given everyone a lot of encouragement. At present, the output value of the southwest is nearly 100 million Chinese yuan, which is close to the output value of Myanmar Province in China, which is a great achievement, of course, this is the result of everyone's efforts. Zeng Guofan, chairman of the Executive Committee, made a generous statement at the meeting, "In the coming period, we should make persistent efforts to strive for greater breakthroughs on all fronts." Now, let's talk about the next work arrangement. ”

"I'll do it first. Some of the seeds of the vegetables planted last month have emerged and are growing well, and they will be ready to be transplanted in a little while, and perhaps in the near future, we will have many more delicious leafy greens on our tables. "But that's not the point, I want to tell Chairman Zeng and all the members that it's now November, and it's officially the soybean planting season in South Africa." However, due to various reasons, the manpower of the Agricultural Bureau (a subordinate agency directly under the Agricultural Committee) has not been very sufficient (the black aborigines basically do not understand, and the Indian Vietnamese are okay but are arranged in factories and workshops), resulting in the progress of farmland reclamation is very unsatisfactory. As of yesterday, only 4,000 acres of farmland have been reclaimed. At present, we have 2,000 bags of soybeans and potatoes with a total of 50,000 kilograms, 79,000 kilograms of potatoes and nearly 100,000 kilograms of other agricultural products, and the preliminary estimate is that the reclamation and sowing area is 10,000 acres. However, in view of our needs and the larger planting space in the hinterland, I hope that the Executive Committee will carefully consider the situation of the Agricultural Bureau with a scientific attitude, coordinate the relationship between various departments, and implement the reclamation plan of the Agricultural Bureau as soon as possible. ”

As soon as Jin Ke said this, the committee members who were eager to try suddenly died down. Indeed, this matter cannot be delayed any longer. As more and more immigrants (mainly Indians and Vietnamese) move from within the country to the country, the population pressure increases, and food exports to the country, so the focus of work in the coming period will definitely turn to agriculture.

The rest of the committee members hastily submitted their plans. For example, the trial production of refractory bricks proposed by the industrial commissioner vest; the construction of roads in the harbour wharf, residential and industrial areas proposed by Transport Commissioner Siu Pak Lang; the construction of the red brick and cement city wall of the new Shanghai proposed by Guan Ruzhong, a member of the army committee; The construction of a formal colonial bank proposed by Shao Shude, a member of the material committee, and so on.

Zeng Guofan then coordinated with everyone, and soon, a temporarily mobilized army of 1,000 people was placed under the command of the Agricultural Bureau. At the same time, irrigation canals were also required to be built at the same time as supporting projects in soybean growing areas.

As the saying goes, there is great strength in the number of people, and after the personnel mobilized by the Executive Committee were in place, although most of them were new hands (mainly blacks), it only took half a month, and on November 13, 10,000 acres of land were reclaimed, and nearly 6,000 acres of usable agricultural land were reclaimed in the inland areas during this time.

Soybeans contain 20% fat, 40% protein, 10% sugar, and are rich in vitamins. It is also extremely versatile, in addition to oil extraction, it can also be used to make soy milk, tofu, soy sauce, bean sprouts, soybean meal, paint, glycerin and so on.

As the largest and most economically valuable crop planted in the colony, the cultivation of soybeans has attracted a lot of attention. Many women, elderly people and even children who had migrated came to help, and by December 17, nearly 51,000 acres of soybeans had been successfully planted, one day earlier than scheduled.

In addition to Walvis Bay as a major port for foreign trade exchanges, a large number of plantations and livestock areas have been established in the inland areas of the Southwest African Territory, mainly exporting coffee, beef and timber with trade value. Of course, because of the limited number of anti-malarial drugs, the large number of indigenous immigrants from India and Southeast Asia in the interior is almost non-existent, but they are still valuable and have made a great contribution to the development of the Southwest Territory of the Empire (as for whether anyone knows, who cares?). ）――

It is worth noting that with the great success of China's colonization of black Africa, coupled with the mass production of cinchona bark quinine and other medicines, European colonists also appeared more and more in various parts of Africa, such as the original Belgian King Leopold II in 1876 to establish the International African Association, and now it is also established in advance, Leopold II sent explorer Henry Morton Stanley into the Congo region in advance to carry out exploration activities. At this time, the French naval officer Pierre Savognão de Brazza arrived on the west bank of the Congo Basin and established a French colony in Brazzaville (the capital of the present-day Republic of the Congo). The British were not slow to invade Zulu from 1869 to 1870 (where the Chinese had several strongholds, and Zulu was northeast and east of British South Africa), and in West Africa, the British further penetrated into Guinea and Côte d'Ivoire, but the French were one step ahead of them, signing protection agreements with local tribal leaders and chiefs. However, the British completely annexed Ghana in the Gulf of Guinea, and the British controlled the coastal area of Ghana in 1844, and obtained this former "Gold Coast" It can be said that the British earned it, you must know that Ghana is an important area rich in gold, if it weren't for the fact that the empire really had no excuse to intervene