African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 112: Chapter 107 History Lesson

December 7, 1867.

East African Colony, Mlandizi Cultural School.

Today, First Town (Mlandizi) Cultural School welcomed two special ”students,” Maximiliano I and his wife, Queen Carlota.

A month ago, Queen Carlota arrived in East Africa, and for the safety of her future mother-in-law, Ernst personally arranged for a family ship, made space on a ship, and traveled to East Africa with the fleet.

Seeing Maximiliano I safe and sound in Tanga, Queen Carlota and Maximiliano I embraced each other and cried.

As the person who encouraged Maximiliano I, after he was arrested and imprisoned by Mexico, Queen Carlota washed her face with tears daily in Europe, enduring great pain.

The disaster in Mexico made Queen Carlota abandon the fantasy of becoming a queen; now she just wants to spend her remaining life with her beloved.

After a passionate reunion in Tanga with Maximiliano I, Queen Carlota expressed her willingness to stay with Maximiliano I in East Africa for some time.

...

For the first time, Maximiliano I visited First Town (Mlandizi), the seat of the East African Central Government.

As the earliest developed city (town, some European cities are very small, actually just towns) in East Africa, its scale is slightly smaller compared to Dar es Salaam, but its planning and facilities are obviously more complete, and its architecture and culture exhibit the style of German regions everywhere.

The difference from Europe lies in the local natural scenery, environmental climate, and some city support facilities planned by Ernst himself in East Africa.

For example, roadside trees and green belts are rarely seen in European cities at present. Of course, the green belts in the East African colony are very simple, consisting of soil lands left in the middle or sides of the road, allowing wild grass to grow on its own.

East Africa has no shortage of land, so the city planning is very bold, pursuing ”big is good” everywhere. Although the current scale and grade of roads do not meet the standards, the spaces have been reserved for future upgrades to urban roads.

Therefore, alongside the roads paved with bricks and stones, apart from green belts, there are still large open spaces, while houses and buildings on both sides are isolated far away by roads, making the already sparse population of First Town (Mlandizi) appear even more barren.

The houses on both sides are mainly single-story, currently many are still in earth-and-wood structures, but with gardens and open spaces between houses amounting to about a hundred square meters, making it convenient for subsequent renovation and upgrade.

Drainage channels are mainly behind houses, currently open-air. East Africa’s peculiar laws stipulate that residents shall not discharge wastewater into public drainage channels behind houses, primarily used to handle rainwater during the rainy season.

This is done to prevent drainage channels from becoming odoriferous, given that East Africa’s environment, especially in coastal plains like First Town, maintains high temperatures throughout the year. When wastewater ferments, it can be swiftly washed away by rainwater during the rainy season. However, during the dry season, the weather is dry, and the wastewater can only remain in the channels, breeding various bacteria and attracting flies.

Of course, once development progresses, covering open channels with cement pipes will naturally not matter. However, East Africa in this era must prioritize hygiene, as tropical disease hotbeds are not a joke.

When Maximiliano I and his wife first arrived at First Town, they saw the First Town Cultural School, which was built later and situated on the outskirts of the town.

The couple was intrigued by the educational content of the East African colony, curious to know how such a backward (compared to Europe) place taught its subjects differently from Europe.

In Mexico, Maximiliano I hardly had the chance to realize his ambitions; the entire country was in chaos, leaving no energy to focus on education.

Despite East Africa’s relatively poor conditions, it still managed to provide compulsory education, naturally piquing the couple’s interest, leading Maximiliano I to propose experiencing an East African school firsthand.

The East African colonial government arranged for the two to visit First Town Cultural School.

In the classroom of first grade class one in First Town Cultural School, it was filled with students, while Maximiliano I and his wife were arranged to sit in temporary seats at the back.

The class had about thirty to forty students, including children of Chinese immigrants and children of Austria-Hungary immigrants (Paraguayan immigrants required separate Spanish teachers), and the teacher was a graduate of the Heixinggen Military Academy.

As the seat of the East African Central Government, First Town Cultural School’s faculty was unrivaled in East Africa.

One should know that Heixinggen Military Academy and other schools founded by the Heixinggen family were actually accelerated courses, so the students’ abilities varied greatly.

Many students, upon graduation, at most could converse in German and grasp some German vocabulary.

But East Africa was severely short of people, so even those with poor grades would be sent to teach in the East African colony.

Those with smart minds and learned more were assigned to teach higher grades, while the less intelligent and poor learners were assigned to teach lower grades.

Fortunately, the textbooks in East African colonial schools contained relatively basic content, allowing most to simply follow the script and read the textbooks.

This session was a history class, with Maximiliano I enthusiastically reading through the East African colonial textbooks and quietly whispering his critiques to Queen Carlota.

The teaching graduate from Heixinggen automatically ignored the small actions of Maximiliano I and his wife, knowing full well the two were esteemed guests invited by the government.

Due to the current diversity of immigrants in the East African colony, teachers in first grade had to conduct bilingual teaching, eventually fully transitioning to German from the second grade onwards, meaning Chinese children had to overcome language barriers to excel.

Chapter one, unsurprisingly, was an accolade for the Hohenzollern family, emphasizing the ruling status of the Heixinggen family over East African lands, and the long history of the Heixinggen family with the Hohenzollern family.

These young children naturally listened without feeling awkward, treating it like a story. The history textbook was essentially extracurricular reading, even not followed by exams.

This was a small trick by Ernst; when a course required exams, a batch of people would inevitably find it tiresome (disliked learning).

Reading extracurricular books (actually books without exams), the younger the age, the easier to get hooked, like novels, the more you read, the more addictive they become. But classify novels as exam content, and it greatly discourages readers’ enthusiasm.

Maximiliano I and Queen Carlota tried hard to suppress their laughter reading the final content of Chapter one.

After all, when it comes to history and heritage, many European families are more illustrious than the Hohenzollern family, especially in comparison to the Habsburg family, where the Hohenzollern family appears less endowed.

Of course, every European noble family touts the grandeur and long history of their family, so this wasn’t the reason for Maximiliano I’s break. Had it been bragging about the Habsburg family, he would have been even more exaggerated than what’s written in this book.

What amused Maximiliano I and his wife was the final depiction of the Heixinggen family, almost akin to a savior.

This didn’t wrong Ernst, as the final content employed religious narrative techniques to mythologize the status of the Heixinggen family.

However, Ernst was relatively discreet, not explicitly mentioning any deity or gods, like the so-called descendants of Amaterasu in the Japanese royal family, Pharaohs of Egypt calling themselves sons of the Sun God, imperial family in the Far East conducting Mount Tai sacrifices....

Instead, he adopted rhetoric (indeed, like the Blue Sky project), making the Heixinggen family appear solemn and dignified, to avoid religion.

The present immigrants in East Africa have a variety of beliefs, yet there are no churches or priests. Residents, regardless if Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, can only rely on ancestral experiences for some spontaneous prayers and other activities.

Ernst aimed for secularization, forcing these adults to give up faith was difficult, though changing the minds of these children was still easy.

It didn’t need to be too extreme, as long as education and sports didn’t, unlike current Europe, embed religious themes (many religious schools in Europe).

If not learned and repeated, human memory would gradually fade, relying on East African people to spontaneously pass down those religious traditions could never compare to the explanation and dissemination by a professional organization (referring to the church).