CHAPTER 174: CHAPTER 163 THE DEVELOPMENT OF RAS CANPOLI TRADE MARKET

In Somalia, the once small village of Ras Canpoli has thrived due to the prosperity brought about by the establishment of the Ras Canpoli trade market in the East African colony.

Ras Canpoli village does not belong to the East African colony; rather, it is located within Somalia. It’s just that when East Africa was being colonized, people were too cumbersome to name the market and simply took the local name directly.

Therefore, Ras Canpoli Market and Ras Canpoli Village are not the same concept; they belong, respectively, to the East African colony and the Gledi Sultanate in southern Somalia. The Gledi Sultanate was formerly the Aqulan Sultanate, which had been in a constant state of fragmentation until unified by its founder, Adel.

This era marks the end of the Gledi Sultanate’s strength. The former Sultan, Yusuf Mahmoud Ibrahim, had many military successes, defeating the Oman Empire of the time (including Zanzibar). However, according to historic records, in 1871, the Zanzibar Sultanate defeated the Gledi Sultanate and became its vassal until the arrival of Italian colonizers.

Thus, both the Gledi Sultanate and Zanzibar Sultanate have already declined, with their nation’s power merely appearing good on the surface, but ready to crumble with a mere poke.

Many Arab merchants gather at the Ras Canpoli trade market, purchasing goods and commodities from here, and promoting them to the inland regions of North Africa.

Moreover, Ras Canpoli Village under the rule of the Gledi Sultanate also benefits from the Ras Canpoli trade market. Merchants pay much attention to costs, so many small merchants choose to stay in Ras Canpoli Village to save some money.

Even so, some merchants still choose to stay directly in the hotel inside the Ras Canpoli trade market.

Because the architecture in the Ras Canpoli trade market is entirely European in style, the facilities are relatively complete, far beyond what a small village under the rule of the Gledi Sultanate can compare to; some merchants who pay attention to enjoyment or keep up appearances would still choose the hotels within the Ras Canpoli trade market.

After half a year of development, the Ras Canpoli trade market has become quite prosperous; only large cities like Mogadishu in the Gledi Sultanate can compare to it.

It has also become East Africa’s first significant area for tax revenue, with the Ras Canpoli trade market basically monopolizing trade throughout the East African colony and North Africa. Previously, the route for Arab merchants traveling south to conduct business was forcibly interrupted due to the expansion of the East African colony.

Additionally, the East African colony did not stop there; to prevent native people’s return flow and so-called explorers from entering the colony to probe the situation, they directly sealed the borders, hence blocking out Arab merchants and slave traders.

Cutting off people’s financial pathways is like killing one’s parents, so, alongside sealing the borders, East Africa has established the Ras Canpoli trade market as a place for trade with North African merchants.

Moreover, the East African colony has not increased prices on the original produce of East Africa, and frequent wars have led to the continuous decrease in the prices of slaves, thereby lowering costs for Arab merchants rather than raising them.

Logically speaking, the Ras Canpoli trade market in the East African colony should not be very lucrative because coastal cities like Mombasa and Dar es Salaam should be the prime commercial areas of East Africa.

However, the East African colonial government imposes little to no tax along the coast, merely symbolically collecting some service fees.

After all, maritime colonizers are not easy to provoke; creating the East African colony was no easy feat, and they have to continue acting humble.

As for sovereignty, in this era, it’s heard but not taken seriously. Even a unified Germany had no support from naval power, making overseas colonies nothing more than meat on England and France’s plate.

After World War I, they were completely divided by various countries, but of course, the German navy itself was not weak. Unfortunately, it was heavily beaten at their home front by the British.

A unified Germany was indeed a top-tier power with strong national strength, yet East Africa, as a "lonely island" in Africa, naturally lacks the strength to negotiate with those maritime powers.

In the Europeans’ eyes, even the declining Portugal and Netherlands are seen as maritime powers by East Africans, let alone the English and French.

Collecting taxes is simple; East Africa relies on coastal fortifications to resist temporarily, but the Heixinggen ships at sea are the foundation of the East African colony.

They maintain immigration and commercial routes between Europe and the Far East. Without immigrant populations, the East African colony can only slowly rely on the natural reproduction growth of the existing immigrant population, which takes at least twenty years for a generation to grow up, cooling down the momentum.

By relying on natural population growth, East Africa cannot develop. At best, it reaches the level of South Africa’s predecessor, even less than that, as South Africa has abundant resources.

Although East Africa has relatively rich resources, the most important coal, iron, and oil resources are quite scarce.

Moreover, the population is insufficient to meet the threat posed by Western powers in Africa; East Africa may have no ability to respond. East Africa is a German colony, and if international relations are handled badly, they may be beaten collectively.

Although the current immigrant population in East Africa far exceeds those colonizers in Africa, they nevertheless have native people who can be pulled over as cannon fodder.

All in all, collecting taxes in economically developed coastal cities like Dar es Salaam is impossible. In an era without the Suez Canal, so many merchant ships dock in East Africa; if a strong enemy is provoked, it’s not good.

Ernst naturally is not afraid of various colonizers but is unwise to have disputes with them, as East Africa would suffer too much, sacrificing development potential for nothing more than giving other colonizers discomfort.

The Ras Canpoli trade market is different, primarily targeting North African Arabs; East Africa fears those Western maritime colonial powers but never flinches in the face of North African Arabs.

After all, most of the North African trade routes are on land. East Africa may be weak at sea but is formidable on African soil.

Therefore, East African tariffs are concentrated in the Ras Canpoli trade market, and the North African market is not small, especially the tribes living in the Sahara Desert and oases, lacking everything.

Africa, before the establishment of the East African colony, had large-scale cultivation of cereal crops only in Egypt, Ethiopia, and parts of West Africa. The entire sub-Saharan Africa, although planting cereals, lacked high-quality seeds, such as wheat, rice, corn... These staple grains were brought over by later colonizers.

So the cultivation practices of African natives are difficult to summarize; take the recently annihilated eight northwestern countries of East Africa, for example.

They are still in a state of semi-agriculture, semi-pastoralism, semi-fishing, and hunting, with occasional technical innovations observed in their originally farmed lands.

For instance, terraces and hydrological facilities have appeared in some areas, but Africa’s backwardness has prevented the spread of these innovations.

These innovations discovered in the northwest countries are individual cases, for one simple reason: Africa is too leisurely, making cultivation far less convenient than directly waiting for various tropical fruits and vegetables to mature.

Moreover, lacking good seeds in Africa means crop yields might not surpass those of wild plants, coupled with the flood of animals in Africa. If Ernst were an African, he’d lack the motivation for agriculture.

Africa’s agricultural output has always been poor, compounded by North Africa’s culinary habits influenced by Arab culture being completely different from sub-Saharan Africa.

Therefore, North Africa primarily relies on the Mediterranean or Middle East regions for grain imports. Now the East African colony offers them one more channel, particularly enabling Somali Arab merchants to engage in competition alongside Mediterranean and Middle Eastern merchants.