Chapter 383: Introduction
While Ernst led the fight at the front, Constantinoo stayed behind to play his role as a tool, working on diversifying East Africa's industries. Agriculture is East Africa's key advantage and remains top priority. Currently, East Africa has only a few large-scale, export-oriented agricultural products: sisal, cloves, and pyrethrum are among the mainstays. Sisal consistently leads the kingdom's tropical cash-crop exports.
Even so, those crops are somewhat niche. Pyrethrum's popularity, for example, is linked to the Hechingen Household Goods Company promoting mosquito-repellent products. East Africa also aggressively plants pyrethrum at home to reduce diseases transmitted by mosquitoes—no small contribution.
Meanwhile, more familiar cash crops with broad markets haven't yet hit large-scale distribution. East Africa's first coffee planting began in 1867 and is just starting to yield small harvests, so it's not yet profitable. Rubber was introduced in 1868. Other non-native cash crops were mostly brought in after 1865.
Because many of these newly introduced crops have long growth cycles, they're still in the pure-investment stage and not generating profit.
Tea is one exception that has reached the production stage. East Africa is trying to promote domestically produced black tea in Central and Eastern Europe, but has encountered a serious problem.
"Your Majesty, these are tea seeds we brought from the Far East. We've selected 23 fine varieties in total, mainly green tea, but some black tea as well. We've also brought in a number of 'professional' tea processors who can greatly contribute to East Africa's tea industry." Minister of Agriculture Wiggins presented their achievements to Constantinoo.
The East African Ministry of Agriculture occupies an awkward spot. Wiggins, a native Austrian noble fallen on hard times, had felt utterly lost about agriculture in tropical Africa. Before arriving in East Africa, he'd never seen a rice paddy. Thankfully, the "brilliant and valiant" Prince Ernst had guided him to learn from the Far East. Through Wiggins's leadership, East Africa introduced Far Eastern rice strains.
Wiggins once asked Ernst why they didn't learn from India, as India's agriculture is also impressive—an ancient land well-known for tropical crop cultivation. Ernst's answer was that it's precisely because India is so developed that we must not rely on them. As a British colony, India's achievements in rice production came mainly from European technology. The British built a lot of new irrigation systems there and introduced other new methods—things East Africa can directly import from Europe. Meanwhile, the main economic crops Britain promoted in India—cotton, opium, tea—aren't highly technical to grow. Cotton meets Britain's own industrial needs, but the best growers were once the American plantation owners. Opium is immoral and outlawed in East Africa. And Indian tea was originally stolen from the Far East.
Additionally, at the lower levels, many Hindus are quite casual in their work habits and slipshod in execution. Under British rule, those tendencies only got worse—similar to how, if local African laborers under East Africa's rule can slack off, they absolutely will. If they are forced to work with whips, they just lose motivation. From such people, there's little you could truly learn.
That's not to say Ernst is belittling Indians or African natives. Rather, it's a common phenomenon in the tropics. In hot weather, even eating can feel like a chore; people naturally want to laze around.
That's where East Africa's climate has the upper hand. Although East African natives also aren't super industrious, in Ernst's experience they were the most down-to-earth and hardworking among Africans he'd seen. Ethiopia (now largely destroyed by Ernst) also gave him that same impression, especially compared to places like Nigeria. Admittedly, he didn't see much of the rest of West Africa.
It's also related to economic and educational conditions. Southern Africa started well at first, but then began a downward slide. Once Black rulers came to power, they wholeheartedly copied America, "zero-dollar purchases" included—a social climate of wanting something for nothing, which Ernst despises. Don't go talking about the oppression of colonialism—Tanzania's economy was far weaker than South Africa's and ranks even lower in Africa, but Ernst met Tanzanian farmers who sometimes couldn't eat enough, and you never saw them acting like those in South Africa. Bear in mind that South Africa remains an agricultural giant, with mechanization levels even higher than in China.
As for what might be learned in the Far East, it's mostly traditional cultivation methods and agricultural processing techniques. In that regard, Far Eastern farmers are indeed the best. Ernst isn't just boasting. Even putting aside his previous life as a Far Easterner, he believes this honestly. The hallmark of Far Eastern agriculture is careful, intensive cultivation—maximizing a field's potential and adopting all sorts of ways to maintain and renew soil fertility.
This has already shown up in East African farming. While crop rotation or leaving land fallow is common in Europe and America, East Africa hardly ever does so, because it has so many immigrants from the Far East who are used to a more labor-intensive approach. Also, the farmland East Africa develops tends to have good conditions in terms of climate, irrigation, and soil. Many areas suitable for farming remain unused. For example, in Tanzania, Ernst no longer plans to increase farmland acreage, turning instead to developing new tracts further inland.
Moreover, Far Eastern farmers excel at gathering and recording farming knowledge. Though the landowning class seldom farmed themselves, they wrote down their observations thoroughly, and the Far Eastern government historically placed heavy emphasis on agriculture, with countless official programs encouraging people to farm or raise silkworms. After thousands of years, their traditional agriculture is very advanced.
Ernst deliberately uses the word "advanced," focusing on its traditional dimension. The point is not for Wiggins to blindly copy the Far Eastern model, but to take references from it. Even if East Africa could adopt just ten percent of those solid methods, it would benefit immensely.
Hence this time, Wiggins personally traveled to several major tea-producing areas in the Far East to pick and bring back a variety of tea seeds.
He explained to Constantinoo, "The Far East has a vast range of teas. In Anhui province alone, there are over a hundred varieties. But I was short on time, so I only selected certain key tea-producing provinces to visit. Since Anhui and Jiangsu's tea-growing regions border our so-called 'Huaihai Economic Zone,' I focused on them. Later I heard Fujian's Wuyi Mountain region produces wonderful black tea, so on my way back, I stopped in Fujian. The varieties I've brought come primarily from these three provinces."
Originally, Wiggins was also interested in Zhejiang's tea, especially West Lake Longjing (Dragon Well). But he learned the authentic West Lake Longjing involved only a handful of tea trees reserved for the imperial family, closely monitored by the Far Eastern authorities. Even the surrounding tea fields were treated like precious assets. So that was that. Besides, Wiggins cared about both quality and yield, and he simply didn't have time to go deeper inland to visit Hunan or Hubei.
East Africa's black-tea exports had run into trouble largely because their varieties came from India, making them unable to compete with British tea merchants. The flavor was identical—perhaps even inferior. And with India's huge plantations, high yields, and low labor costs, that market is entirely under British control. East Africa can only succeed by "losing money" in the short term.
Indeed, East Africa has been selling tea to Germany at near-break-even prices. Fortunately, East African labor is essentially free, letting them squeeze out a bit of profit in German marks, talers, or Austrian Rhine guilders.
So Wiggins's reason for bringing back these Far Eastern tea varieties is to break into the European market, first by introducing green tea and avoiding direct competition with the black tea that's so popular in Europe. Historically, Europe favored black tea partly because early shipments of Far Eastern green tea lost flavor after the long journey. But black tea kept better. East Africa, however, doesn't have that worry. They're far closer to Europe, and the use of steam-powered ships makes the trip much faster than the centuries-old Portuguese clippers that once carried tea.
Plus, the Hechingen Consortium's favorite tactic is to launch smear campaigns against competitors. In Europe, they can stir up a debate about which tea is more "authentic," boosting green tea's notoriety. Visually, green tea is more appealing in a teacup than black tea. Pair that with a few Far Eastern anecdotes to elevate the brand's cachet, then sell it to European royal courts. This is how they can break into the high-end market, and the Hechingen Consortium is well-versed in those moves.
Of course, East Africa won't abandon black tea either. Wiggins brought back several varieties of Far Eastern black tea, planning to cultivate them in Africa and diversify Europe's black-tea options. Tastes vary—some consumers might dislike Indian tea and find the East African variant more appealing.
Though people do develop tea-drinking habits…
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