African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 166: Chapter 155: Windmill

Capital of the northern plateau region, Karatuu.

A tall windmill began its work, slowly turning its large blades as the breeze blew, producing creaking sounds from the wooden blades and the drive shaft.

The tuning staff descended from the spiral staircase, the massive wooden gears fixed in mid-air inside the windmill, turning as the external windmill blades rotated, the trajectory of the huge wooden gears clearly visible.

”Alright, from today, this windmill workshop can start operations!” The technician said to the residents of Karatuu after the windmill had been running for a while.

This windmill workshop is precisely a replica of the Dutch windmill proposed for introduction at that time. Currently, a number of windmills have been newly constructed in East Africa, but most are used for irrigation, and this one to provide power for the workshop is the first.

”Seeing this windmill, it feels like the East African colony is much like my old home in Bavaria!” said a Bavarian immigrant.

In his hometown, there was also a windmill workshop, located at the entrance of the village, where the villagers would go to mill their flour, thus making a deep impression.

However, his comparison of Bavaria’s rural areas with the capital city of East Africa made everyone chuckle, fully illustrating the fact that East Africa is akin to a large rural area.

Currently, only the port cities along the coast and First Town in the East African colony can be compared to some of Europe’s small cities.

”Should we put in the wheat first and see how it works?” asked the technician.

Two people poured half a burlap sack of wheat into the hopper above the millstone, and the technician operated the windmill’s control ropes, starting the operation of the workshop.

The millstone began to turn with the crankshaft, grinding the wheat grains as they converged towards the center of the millstone, gradually being engulfed by it.

With the grinding of the stone mill, the initially grainy wheat began to turn into powder, turning along with the bran into coarse, yellow flour.

”Operationally normal, this windmill workshop can basically solve the local flour processing tasks,” the technician said.

”It’s that simple, and it turns into flour?” a Chinese immigrant asked.

”Of course, that’s how our flour is produced. However, in recent years, steam engines have been used in the city, constructing large flour factories capable of processing vast quantities, and the quality is much superior to this, so city dwellers mostly buy factory-produced flour. However, in rural areas, windmills are still more commonly used,” explained the immigrant from Bavaria.

Most Chinese immigrants use stone mills, driven by human and animal power, so they were curious about windmill workshops.

”Earlier, by the river, I thought this thing would be impressive enough if it could pump water. I had no idea it could be used like this,” said the Chinese immigrant.

Due to the increase in the German-speaking population in East Africa and the advancement of adult education, many Chinese immigrants in East Africa can now communicate with European immigrants using simple German.

”I’ve only seen windmill workshops, it’s rare to see windmills used for irrigation in Germany,” said the Bavarian immigrant.

The technician interjected, ”If you really want to see the uses of windmills, then we Dutch are absolutely world-class. Windmills were once the most important power source in the Netherlands.

We use windmills for drainage, paper milling, processing food, driving machinery...

Many of our lands were reclaimed from the sea using windmills.

Only now, with the widespread use of steam engines, the status of windmills is not what it once was.”

”Reclaiming land from the sea using windmills?”

”That’s correct. The Netherlands is a lowland country connected to the sea. Many of our lands used to be covered by the sea and marshes. We erected dykes, and then used windmills to pump the water out from the dykes, thus gaining more land for farming and habitation,” the Dutch technician proudly explained his windmills and the story of the Netherlands.

For Chinese and Bavarian immigrants living inland, it’s hard to imagine. Their only encounter with the sea was when they took immigrant ships to East Africa. Before arriving in East Africa, they hadn’t even left their villages.

”I’ve only ever seen the sea once in my life, and that was during the days of drifting on the sea. Still, the sea is so vast, and you Dutch people can reclaim land from the sea, that’s impressive!” admired the Bavarian immigrant.

The Dutch technician appreciated the compliment, feeling proud to hear praise for his country.

Actually, the educational level of Dutch technicians isn’t very high, but due to their skill in building windmills, they’ve been hired by the East African colony.

However, when compared to the inexperienced Chinese and German bumpkins, a sense of superiority arose immediately.

East Africa actually has its own flour factory, located in Bajamojo, but that factory mainly produces flour for export to Europe rather than solving the flour milling needs of East African immigrants.

Thus, each village and town in East Africa must solve the processing of staple grains like wheat on their own.

People relied on manual labor before, and initially, there weren’t even enough stone mills available. Later, when some stone processing workshops in the Sultanate of Zanzibar were annexed, personnel were reorganized to produce stone mills to solve the problem.

As for beast-driven mills, East Africa couldn’t manage it due to the time required to popularize beast labor, as beasts must breed and grow, and the few beasts in East Africa are often used for transport or military purposes.

Thus, East African regions could only use natives as beast laborers, using them to pull the mills.

Still, natives are a valuable source of manpower, essential for bridge-building, road paving, ditch digging, channel repairing, and East Africa deliberately controls the native population size, so native labor isn’t as abundant as imagined.

Now, with the extensive construction of windmills in East Africa, at least more natives can be spared for other projects.

Moreover, once the windmills are built, they can last a long time, as long as the parts are replaced and maintained, they can last for a decade without needing major repairs.

More advanced steam engines are out of the question because their price is too high, and spreading them widely is difficult, whereas the materials for windmills can all be produced and supplied within East Africa.

For example, the canvas on the windmills can make use of East Africa’s unsold sisal fabric, and stones and wood are in unlimited supply.

Furthermore, windmills aren’t considered outdated. Europe and America are still using windmills extensively because of the steam engine’s costs.

America, currently undergoing western development to solve water issues for people and animals, has built many windmills, known as the famous farm windmills of America.

American windmills are different from those in the East African colony. Being financially robust, American windmills use many metal parts, and even metal blades, as America’s steel production is high, which is something East Africa cannot achieve.