October 3, 1867.

Mbeya, Ininaya village.

Ayiguli Yahefu prepares breakfast for her husband and herself.

Ayigul Yahef was an Armenian who was bought by Arab slave traders from the Ottoman nobility and sold to the East African colonies.

She was awarded as a "prize" to Zhao Yizhan, a model pacesetter recognized by the colonial government.

Zhao Yizhan was a Chinese immigrant, and he was the first group of people to arrive in Mbeya, that is, the first group of Chinese immigrants to be organized in the colony.

At the beginning, Zhao Yizhan and his party were 100 people, and only 97 people reached Mbeya alive, and three of their comrades-in-arms fell on the bad march.

Later, Mbeya became the capital of the Upper Lake Malawi District, and the East African colonial government established villages and developed land throughout the East African colonial territory.

There is also Ininaya Village near Mbeya, and Zhao Yizhan was assigned to Ininaya Village as a veteran team member and became a member of the Ininaya Village Security Team.

Zhao Yizhan was originally from Shandong, not short, reaching 1.78 meters (at the beginning of the 20th century, the per capita height of many countries in Europe and the United States was less than 1.7 meters), because he could not eat in the Far East, he was a little skinny, so he looked like a large hemp straw

Although Zhao Yizhan was still malnourished when he first arrived in the East African colony, he was vigorous when he started working after eating and drinking.

The whole man was in excellent spirits, and was selected as one of the first Chinese soldiers in the first town, and finally embarked on a journey to conquer Mbeya.

In the year when Mbeya became a soldier, Zhao Yizhan's obedience and resilience were also favored by his superiors, and he was appointed as the backbone of the newly established Ininaya Village (after all, there are only a few people in the village security team, and there is only one German village chief and a Heixingen student who leads the team, so he is also a high authority in the village. ）

Later, in time for the "purge" movement, Mbeya was located on the indigenous transport artery to the southwest (Zimbabwe and Zambia).

The local government of Mbeya has to maintain the smooth passage and ensure that the indigenous tribes do not stay, and is also responsible for the task of expelling the local indigenous tribes, so Mbeya's responsibilities and workload are relatively heavy.

In this way, Mbeya can also make more achievements, and in the follow-up, he took advantage of the female quota when applying for the quota, and Zhao Yizhan also organized the militia (temporary expansion) in this purge campaign, which is more advantageous, and he performed well among many colleagues.

became the first batch of people assigned to his daughter-in-law, and it was at that time that Ayiguli Yahefu married Zhao Yizhan.

In the East African colony, the government of Mbeya personally issued a marriage certificate for the two.

As an Armenian woman, Ayigul Yahefu is not very good at handling East African ingredients.

The Armenian people, located in the Transcaucasian region of Western Asia, have historically been influenced by Greek and Persian cultures, so the food style is a mix of Greek, Persian, Turkish and Arabic cuisines.

Armenians, on the other hand, live in high mountain valleys and plateaus, not to mention the harsh environment and poor transportation.

Compared with West Asia, East Africa seems to have a bit of a "land of fish and rice".

East Africa is quite rich in products, a variety of tropical fruits and vegetables are suitable for growing here, fertile and flat land and large areas of land provide sufficient food production, and there are many rivers and lakes, flying in the sky, running on the ground, swimming in the water, all kinds of food are available.

Many of them were unseen by Ayigul Yahefu, but fortunately, Mbeya mainly grows wheat, and Ayigul Yahefu, as an Armenian woman, makes an Armenian version of baked bread as a staple food.

In East Africa, fish is currently being promoted as a substitute for wild animals as a supplement to meat, and Armenians are handling fish well.

But when faced with many ingredients from East Africa, Ayiguli Yahefu still has no experience in handling them.

And at this time, it reflects Zhao Yizhan's advantage, as this Far Easterner, Zhao Yizhan can of course cook, but he can only do it, but he can't make it delicious.

Even so, he taught Ayiguli Yahefu how to fry and fry, and how to make pancakes, noodles and other oriental cooking.

Although these may seem simple, they can handle most foods.

Although Zhao Yizhan's food is relatively frugal, it reflects the combination of Chinese and Western, anyway, it is good to be able to eat enough this year, and no one cares too much about the taste of the food.

As an agricultural planting area, East Africa has a considerable grain production capacity, and a person can get about a pound of rations a day.

As a model pacesetter and a member of the security team, Zhao Yizhan can be allocated one and a half catties of rations a day, and Ayiguli Yahefu, as a woman, can also get close to seven taels of food. The two of them add up to just over two pounds.

In addition, there is an irregular supply of meat, and self-grown vegetables, as well as wild vegetables, melons and fruits in the field.

In this era, the living conditions of Zhao Yizhan's family far exceeded the world average, that is, in terms of clothing, housing and transportation, the East African colonies were almost there, otherwise they were no different from Europe.

Today, Zhao Yizhan's breakfast is two pieces of toasted bread, a fish broth, and a stir-fried vegetables.

Ayiguli Yahefu was in charge of handling the ingredients, while Zhao Yizhan was in charge of lighting the fire.

In addition to an oriental stove, there is also a brickwork oven in the style of West Asia.

Most of the pots and pans of the former East African colonies were imported in bulk from the Far East and Europe.

Since taking over the mainland part of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the brick kilns and workshops on it have also been taken over by the East African colonies and expanded to provide the whole of East Africa with bricks and stones for stoves, clay pots, iron pots and other industrial products.

Of course, in addition to Zhao Yizhan's family, which cooks by himself, there are also a large number of canteens built in East Africa, after all, there are still a large number of bachelors in East Africa who have not started a family (you can't eat canteens after you get married. Their eating problems are solved by a big pot of rice.

However, with the resolution of more and more marriage matters and the increase in family immigration, the proportion of dine-in eaters has begun to gradually decrease.

It is likely that the village canteen will close down in a short time, and the family immigrants will be assigned priority to the village in the future.

Male single immigrants will be arranged to enter the city first, and the East African colonies are currently establishing a number of traditional handicraft workshops to provide simple daily necessities for the development of the East African colonies.

Moreover, cities can be more easily managed, and immigrants with families are naturally easier to rule than single immigrants, so at present, family immigrants are given priority to farms.

Single immigrants, on the other hand, are assigned to more strictly regulated cities, and the cities of East Africa are not the usual European cities, and the citizens enjoy full freedom.

In fact, the cities of East Africa are slightly larger towns, or giant farms, but administratively, they are called cities for the sake of ease of management and designation.

Its industry is still mainly agricultural, but these cities have advantages in terms of conditions and transportation, and even if the colonial governments of East Africa interfere with their development, they will become regional centers in the future with their own conditions.