Chapter 290: Long-Staple Cotton
This time, Nairobi's plan was to bring in a population of 80,000 people. Adding in the 20,000 or so who already lived there, the city's population could break the 100,000 mark, making it the first city in East Africa to exceed that number.
The industry planned to support so many people in Nairobi is textiles, with nearby agricultural zones mainly growing cotton as a cash crop. Meanwhile, to diversify its products, East Africa plans to bring in Egyptian cotton for planting in the upper river regions of Somalia. Egyptian cotton, also called Egyptian long-staple cotton, has long been famous worldwide, known as "white gold."
Egyptian cotton originated on the South Asian subcontinent. It likes high heat and plentiful rain, suiting tropical savannas and temperate or tropical monsoon areas. Globally, as irrigation technology advances, cotton growing increasingly concentrates in arid zones that have irrigation systems in place.
The highest-quality output comes from Egypt's modified long-staple cotton. In East Africa's view, they aim to import seeds of these Egyptian varieties. The Nile Delta and the banks of the Nile ensure no water shortage for cotton cultivation there; the soil constantly holds moisture at about 60% humidity, while temperatures remain steadily hot, and sunlight and rainfall are ideal—basically a perfect irrigation system granted by nature.
When looking for such environments elsewhere in the world, Somalia fits best. Although it doesn't have the Nile (the world's longest river) at hand, the Shabelle and Juba Rivers in Somalia are major rivers in Africa. The Shabelle, in particular, is quite similar in environment to the Nile, flowing from tropical savanna climates toward desert, creating an irrigated area downstream.
Today, Egypt is the world's biggest long-staple cotton producer. Back under Ali's reforms, he invested heavily in water projects—dredging old canals, digging 20 new ones, building nearly 30 dams, improving waterwheels, experimenting with steam-driven pumping, and importing new crops and varieties. The famous Egyptian long-staple cotton was promoted during that time. Cotton exports rose from 944 bales in 1821 to over 250,000 bales in 1849. Cotton cultivation boosted Egypt's textile industry, which then gave Ali's government considerable revenue to set up more modern factories.
Of course, now Britain has effectively destroyed Egypt's economic system—especially in textiles. Britain, being the world's biggest industrial producer, centered heavily on textiles. So India and Egypt, both major colonies, had their local textile industries crushed, forced to serve as cheap suppliers of raw materials. Essentially, Egypt nowadays grows cotton for Britain, and the textile sector that Ali once built no longer exists.
East Africa's own plan for long-staple cotton, aside from its high economic returns, relies on markets in Austria-Hungary and the German states. They aren't suited to long-staple cotton farming, so East Africa has a natural advantage and won't compete with local European textile industries, given that long-staple cotton targets upscale consumers. Hence, Ernst plans to establish several long-staple cotton plantations in northern and Juba provinces of Somalia. The cotton will then go to Nairobi for processing and be sent on to the Middle East and Europe.
Venice's textile industry has a long history—once the most important in medieval Europe—so these workers settling in Nairobi pose no technical difficulties. Meanwhile, Nairobi itself lies near East Africa's northern ranching areas, with plans to raise many sheep on the Kenyan grasslands. Nairobi, then, should become East Africa's center of cotton textiles and eventually wool textiles, as well. Ernst even wants to import silk-making from the Far East and establish a silk industry in Kisumu, near the Great Lakes, forming a trio with Nairobi and Mombasa as East Africa's core of light industry.
Currently, Austria-Hungary's war with Italy has delayed the plan that Franz and the Hechingen royal family had for developing Kenya, so East Africa alone is pressing on with Kenyan development. Austria-Hungary isn't entirely absent, though. The huge number of Venetian peasants being removed from the region under blockade are riding migration ships, landing at Mtwara Port, sailing upstream along the Ruvuma River, then traveling overland to Lake Malawi, boarding another boat across to the lake's west side, and thus entering Zambia.
Meanwhile, Venice's city dwellers, stuck behind Austrian lines, are being sent to various cities in East Africa, mostly to boost handcraft sectors—glassmaking, textiles, metalwork, and so forth. These Venetians are mostly workers with certain technical skills. Different cities in East Africa share them out. Though culturally they're still Italian, Nairobi shows it the most. However, once a city grows to a certain size, it tends to dip into negative population growth, while out in East Africa's countryside, only German-cultural inhabitants remain. So that area's city is bound to get Germanized in time.
Through the Italo-Austrian War, East Africa's Italian immigrant population might match the Slavic immigrant count this year. Slavic immigrants, aside from a few from the Balkans, mostly come from the Russian Empire. People labeled as Slavs from Austria-Hungary are counted in East Africa's stats as "Germans" – mainly Slovenians and Croatians – because they were already under heavy Germanic cultural influence, living much like Austrians, differing only in language and religion. East Africa has long promoted the German language and intentionally downplayed religion.
Nairobi already has over 20,000 German speakers, so assimilation shouldn't be a huge problem. Later, once Far Easterners and Italians start living side by side, they'll face linguistic issues—Italian and Far Eastern languages aren't mutually intelligible, so German automatically becomes everyone's bridge.
In short, Nairobi, originally a small, unassuming city, will become a key industrial hub through siphoning off Venice. Ernst's only real wait is for Austria to breach the walls of Venice, so he can "pick clean" all of Venice's machinery to haul over to East Africa—a kind of bandit-style industry transfer.
Hechingen's consortium staff has already made arrangements with the Austrian army: the Hechingen Bank helps liquidate the soldiers' war spoils—"little knickknacks"—then loads them onto ships. The cost is minimal, since soldiers can't exactly use those machines as personal loot; East Africa effectively pays only hauling fees.
As for Venice's business owners and landlords, most have been declared capital offenders by Austria-Hungary, labeled as having resisted Austrian rule and colluded with the Kingdom of Sardinia. They either fled or got exiled, and their lands and assets have been confiscated by the monarchy. Beyond paying Austrian soldiers, that wealth also houses many Austrian settlers.
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