Chapter 82 Flour Mill

June.

The port of Bagamoyo, on the banks of the Little Rhine.

Bagamoyo is the fourth port of East African colonies after Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, and Tanga, and it is also the focus of East African colonial development.

A factory building covering an area of ​​more than 1,000 square meters has risen from the ground in Bagamoyo Port. It is entirely made of masonry and concrete structures. The red walls look out of place with the surrounding white Arab buildings.

Its style completely copies the current European architectural style, which is in sharp contrast with the surrounding short Arab houses. Even the local Arab church in Bagamoyo looks a bit small in front of it.

The tall chimney protruded from the ceiling in the middle of the factory building, and the billowing black smoke lit up the blue sky of East Africa. The smell of industry was blowing in East Africa.

The Sultanate of Zanzibar also has some small-scale handicraft industries in East Africa, all of which are traditional small workshops, such as blacksmith shops, tailor shops... these traditional handicraft industries.

The Bagamoyo Flour Mill was the second recorded modern industry in East Africa to use large machines for production.

The first time was the Tanga sisal processing factory, which has been in business for a long time and is currently doing very well in the market.

However, sisal is East Africa’s dominant industry, and only Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia can compete with it.

Flour mills are a relatively common industrial industry today, especially in Europe and the United States. There are countless such factories, including of course small ones that may only have one or two machines.

The Bagamoyo Flour Mill uses steam power, that is, a boiler. Its boiler power source is coal developed from the interior of East Africa, which drives the steam wheel to provide uninterrupted and stable power to the equipment in the factory.

The machinery and equipment in the factory are all the latest models imported from the German region. They are shipped in the form of spare parts at German ports on the Baltic Sea and are finally unloaded at Bagamoyo Port.

After the guidance of professional and technical personnel, dozens of machines have been installed. These machines are large and all made of metal parts.

The entire workshop is simple and elegant, making it convenient for cleaning and disinfection.

The lighting system all adopts the Berlin Electric Power Company's own technology, which can maintain continuous operation even at night, and the generator is an imported Siemens product.

Closely connected to the production workshop is a huge modern warehouse. The climate in the coastal areas of East Africa is relatively humid, which is not conducive to the preservation of food, so the storage requirements for food are higher.

Therefore, the construction of the warehouse fully adopts the best technology and planning of the current era.

In order to prevent moisture and rats, the ground is entirely made of poured concrete structure. The drainage system is designed by professionals, fully considering the local climate environment. At the same time, the warehouse is equipped with various measuring instruments. Workers can check the indoor temperature and humidity at any time, and have a good understanding of the warehouse. adjust the environment inside.

The Bagamoyo Flour Mill is an extension of the agricultural industry. With the help of local port conditions, the processed East African colonial wheat can be directly exported in the form of flour.

Its staff, in addition to the professional and technical personnel hired by the Hechingen Company to maintain the operation of the machines, are mainly immigrants from the Austro-Hungarian Empire with a little education, supplemented by a small number of Chinese.

On the contrary, more Chinese are needed in the stages of transporting materials, packing and transporting finished products.

For these Austro-Hungarian and Chinese immigrants, simple training is still required. In addition to health and safety education, they must also be familiar with the operating principles of the machine.

The flour produced by Bagamoyo Flour Mill will be sold under the trademark of Hechingen Company in Europe.

The returning Hechingen ocean-going trading fleet brought it back to Trieste and sold it directly through commercial outlets established by companies in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

At the same time, it can also take this opportunity to recruit immigrants. After all, this batch of flour can prove that East Africa has its own products and is not a barren land.

Bagamoyo was once one of the largest slave trading markets in East Africa. With the defeat of the Zanzibar Sultanate, Bagamoyo was also captured by the East African colonial government.

The East African colonial government only opened one slave trading market to Arabs in the port of Dar es Salaam, while the slave trading markets in Mombasa, Bagamoyo and other places were closed.

As early as the 18th century, Bagamoyo was the most important port in East Africa. At its peak, more than 50,000 indigenous slaves boarded ships and sailed from here every year.

With the development of Dar es Salaam by the Zanzibar Sultanate, Bagamoyo gradually declined. Now the East African colonial government has taken Bagamoyo up again for development.

After all, there are still too few excellent ports along the entire East African coast. They may seem adequate now, but with the development of East Africa and the increase in population, port resources will inevitably become precious in the future.

At present, the factories that can be opened in East Africa can only be located in the coastal areas. Taking advantage of the port's maritime transportation, the machines arriving from Europe can be implemented.

As for the inland, don't even think about it for now. The cost of moving these stupid, bulky machines to the inland is too high.

Moreover, the machines of this era are relatively expensive. If they get caught in the rain, get stuck in the mud, or get bumped, it will be difficult to repair them according to the conditions in East Africa.

Wheat is currently the largest food crop in the East African colonies. The annual output is still considerable, and with the arrival of immigrants and land development, the potential will become greater and greater in the future.

As for rice, in fact, compared to wheat, rice is grown in the coastal plains of East Africa, which has a distance advantage.

However, because Europe mainly produces wheat crops, after industrialization, the development of agricultural machinery naturally favors wheat and other European native crops.

Even if Ernst wanted to import rice planting and processing machinery from Europe, it was impossible. Just like in his previous life, after the Japanese industry developed, it vigorously promoted the advancement of rice planting and processing technology in East Asia, and was the first to realize the mechanization of rice in the Far East. Production.

Therefore, developing wheat is an important step for Ernst to enter the grain processing market. It is simple and easy to operate, and East Africa has a large land area, a wide area of ​​arable land, and precipitation that is suitable for wheat cultivation.

Currently, the wheat planting area in the East African colonies has exceeded the rice planting area. This is based on the fact that the population in the eastern rice growing area is higher than the population in the western wheat growing area.

Wheat embodies its obvious advantages of being easy to care for and more drought-tolerant. It is very suitable for tropical grassland climate, especially East Africa, which has significant plateau characteristics. The temperature is lower than that of the same latitude, and the yield can reach above average levels. Coupled with the vast territory and large population Due to the advantage of sparse planting area, the yield is considerable.

Bagamoyo Flour Mill is a food processing enterprise built on this potential advantage, further extending the agricultural industry chain, improving the level of the agricultural industry in the East African colonies, and obtaining higher profits.