June 17, 1870 (half a month ago).

"Bang, bang, bang......"

In the sweltering boiler room, workers began to add coal to the boiler shirtless, and as the temperature continued to rise, the wheels began to operate with huge crankshafts, emitting a screeching noise.

The needle of the pressure gauge rises rapidly, and finally stabilizes within a reasonable range, and the steam engine continuously transmits power to the entire plant.

With the crawlers and rotating shafts, more than 1,500 machines were driven by steam engines.

The Jiaozhou Textile Mill, the only textile factory of the Heixingen Commodity Company, is different from the Berlin Textile Mill in that it has a full set of textile machines imported from England.

The Berlin Textile Mill, namely the Heixingen Textile Factory, was rebuilt by a textile enterprise after the acquisition of Berlin, so it used Prussia's own manufacturing equipment, and the scale was not large, and the number of machines was only about 100 units.

During the colonial period in East Africa, the Prussian military uniform was not only a military uniform, but also a civilian uniform, men, women and children, unless they were European immigrants, basically only the Prussian army as clothing.

Now that the East African kingdom has been established, it is natural that it cannot continue like this, otherwise it will really become a kingdom of the "Prussian army".

Moreover, in preparation for the Franco-Prussian War, Ernst began to produce Prussian uniforms and stockpiled a batch of supplies for the Prussian army, so the Berlin textile mill simply abandoned its East African business and sold the finished products directly in Germany.

The Jiaozhou Textile Factory in the Far East began to replace its operation, and the Jiaozhou Textile Factory was reintegrated from the original three small factories, mainly to facilitate management, improve production efficiency, and at the same time to support related infrastructure, such as the private fire station and the family building of employees in Jiaozhou, the road from the factory to the wharf, the factory's power plant (mainly providing lighting and electricity), the factory's repair shop, etc.

Why use the textile machine with British equipment, the reason is also very simple, cost-effective, Britain is the world's first textile country, the accumulation of related technology is indeed much higher than Prussia, the machine failure rate is low, and the machine failure in Europe is good to say, maintenance personnel and parts replacement are convenient, in the Far East is indeed fatal, do not hoard a bunch of parts in advance, the machine dares to strike until the parts are shipped from Europe, and the technical staff are also high-paid professionals.

With more than 7,000 workers and a production of 700,000 pieces of cloth, the Jiaozhou textile mill sells mainly throughout East Asia except for East Africa.

The advantages of setting up a factory here are also obvious, in addition to the excellent port conditions, the abundance of labor is the main reason, as well as the low wage expenditure, the lack of raw materials, and the proximity to the market (Far East, Korea, Japan).

……

Jiaozhou Textile Factory is next door to Jiaozhou Garment Factory. Jiaozhou garment factory and textile factory are actually connected and share the infrastructure of the factory.

"What kind of clothes is this? It's weird! ”

"This is the dress worn by Westerners,"

"I've seen this, they call it a suit, generally only those big officials in the West can wear it, you look at our factory, only the factory director and technician wear it."

"But I really haven't seen this thing next to it, but it's a little similar to what the factory guards are wearing, but it looks better than theirs, and you see there's a strip on this hat...... What is this? "I wanted to talk about dogs, but I didn't look like it.

"I look a bit like a stone lion in front of a big family."

"No, it won't! It's not like it at all, this thing has something on its head, and this thing is standing, I've seen that stone lion, it's good-looking, and it's squatting, this thing has two front legs pulled in front, and the color doesn't look festive at all. ”

"Whatever he is! Anyway, it's not what we wear. ”

In front of him, the finished product is the Type 70 military uniform (1870) independently designed by East Africa, with a strong European style, as for the animal discussed on the hat, it is actually the cockade, the lion on the royal coat of arms of Heixingen, the head is naturally a crown, this lion is too common in Europe, many noble families and kingdoms have this element and the same as the double-headed eagle.

Type 70 military uniforms, there are two types, grassland and desert type, the only difference is that the color is different, grassland type, the color is light blue, and the desert type is brown yellow.

The biggest change in the hat, the German countries and Europe military hats are the same as the barrel or large brimmed hats, the East African military cap combines the characteristics of the two hats, and the large brimmed hat is different in that it is not so exaggerated to rise, but similar to the Austro-Hungarian cylindrical hat, but not so regular, but looser, and at the same time from top to bottom, the front view is close to a trapezoid.

The East African military cap has a shield-shaped cockade in the center, the same color as the national flag, black, red and yellow, made of brass.

In addition to saving fabric, this hat focuses on shading, which can better prevent sunlight from affecting the view.

The military jacket, which is not much different from Europe, has five pockets, in addition to the four large pockets on the outside, there is also an inner pocket on the inside. It is also accompanied by a belt, but it is produced in the native city of Tanga, East Africa, and the material is canvas, and this time the belt has many holes reserved for future pendants.

The shape of the military uniform pants is no different from that of Europe, and there is no need to change it.

The military uniforms designed in East Africa do not look much different from the previous Prussian military uniforms as a whole, which is not a copy of Prussia, but the whole of Germany is almost like this, such as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Bavaria, including the Heixingen of the previous independent era, the shape is similar.

Jiaozhou Garment Factory, in addition to the production of suits and military uniforms, also the production of work clothes and women's clothing, now East Africa is trying to change the original Prussian military uniform prevailing situation.

Of course, there are very few styles for mass production, and there are only four in total that can be chosen by ordinary people in East Africa, and vouchers from the Haxingen Bank can be purchased from specialty stores.

This time, East Africa wants to expand its army by 100,000, so a large number of military uniforms have been produced, all of which are Type 70 military uniforms, and in the next few years, East Africa will gradually replace the clothing of the troops that have been equipped with Prussian military uniforms with Type 70 military uniforms.

……

Heixingen.

"Cousin Leopold, these of mine will be handed over to you in the next few months, you can take good care of them for me." Ernst said to Leopold, who had returned to reorganize the Heshingen Military Academy.

"Don't worry, I won't assign them harsh tasks, how about letting them do logistics?" Leopold said blatantly.

"That's not necessary, the reason why I chose to hand over these students to you is so that they will not suffer unfair treatment, you also know that there are many people here from the Far East, if they are placed in the hands of other generals, I am afraid they will only be used as cannon fodder. These are all high-quality soldiers who have undergone a long period of formal military training, and most of them will be brought to East Africa by me in the future, and I also want to take advantage of this war to train them, so that you can treat them as ordinary troops under your command, as long as they are not treated differently from other troops. Ernst said.

"It turns out that what you said is so, but if you ask for this, I can't just agree, I want to see how their military level is, and then the future battlefield can arrange tasks according to their level." Leopold confessed.

"No problem, although they have never been on the battlefield, they have never pulled down military training and exercises, and they all have a good command of German, can communicate normally, and at the same time they have the ability to write, and they are also familiar with the military regulations and orders of the Prussian army." Ernst said confidently.

"There is no evidence, let them gather first, and I'll see how it is." Leopold said.

Soon the entire Heixingen Military Academy students were urgently summoned, a total of 2,247 people (third year), and they were assembled in the playground in a uniform formation.

"In terms of reaction speed and assembly speed, it's really good! It's better than the general kingdom army, and it can be compared with some elites, but I don't know how to achieve it? Leopold commented.

"This is easy to do, I have a military exercise ground in the west of Hexingen, and we can organize an exercise today for you to use as a reference."

"That's great? But you're too big, aren't you? Even a place for exercises? ”

……

In the evening, the exercise ended.

Leopold said with satisfaction: "Very good, this group of trainees have strong organizational skills and the use of firearms, and their physical fitness is also top-notch, just from the exercise process, there is no problem, I have a feeling that as long as they are baptized on the battlefield, they can definitely be compared with the elite troops of Prussia." ”

"So, you have to be a good steel envoy on the blade, and take them to make a good contribution, this is the hard work I have cultivated for many years."

"Don't worry, I thought that Ernst you appointed me to lead the team because you wanted to go through the back door and let me take care of them, but now it seems that I misunderstood you."

"It's not a misunderstanding, this would have been a back door, otherwise that unit would have been led by the future Prussian marshal as soon as it was established, hahaha!" Ernst teased.

"There will be a day." Leopold said that his father would not be too bad if he could achieve the position of commander-in-chief.

(End of chapter)