When Roque and Owen hurt each other, Louis Botha had just gotten off the bus in the town of Phoenix, on the border between Rhodesia and Nyasaland.

"Phoenix Town, it's the name again, this is the first Phoenix Town along the way?" Louis Botha's dissatisfaction was accumulating, and the signs on the platform were only in Chinese and English, and the square characters seemed to be larger.

"The third, or the fourth, who knows, the phoenix in our Chinese culture does not refer to the phoenix flower, but a very magical creature, it will be reborn when it encounters fire, no one has ever seen this creature, but this creature is everywhere, in Nyasaland, the name Phoenix Town is used as frequently as Victoria, implying nirvana rebirth." Luis Botha's secretary, Carlos, had just graduated from the University of Nyasaland, and although he had a very Westernized name, he was Chinese.

"Nirvana rebirth - very good description." Luis Botha was glad that he insisted on keeping Carlos by his side.

This is also no way, the situation of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Education in the past is similar, many of the staff in the ministry are former members of the Boer coalition army, let them charge into battle are all good hands, let them draft a document and catch all of them, many people don't even know how to write their own names, one by one is all indiscriminate.

After the graduates of the University of Nyasaland began to enter the federal government, Louis Botha chose Carlos as his secretary, and compared to those retired military officers, at least Carlos was able to do his job well, and the Ministry of Agriculture gradually became regular.

Louis Botha has long wanted to establish a federally led national farm to increase the voice of the Ministry of Agriculture.

However, in the case of southern Africa, the vast majority of farms are privately owned, and there is no possibility of establishing a national farm, and only in Nyasaland can there be a large-scale national farm in southern Africa, so Louis Botha came to Nyasaland to study.

"Do you need to notify the officials here?" Louis Botha's head of security, Swift, took the initiative to ask for instructions.

"No, we'll go out with them—" Louis Botha didn't want to bother too many people, and went out with the other passengers who got off the train, he wanted to see the real situation.

In Nyasaland, there is no so-called VIP access at the railway station, only one exit.

The town of Phoenix is not large, with a sparse number of 100 households, most of which are employees of the Nyasaland Agricultural Company, and there are many such towns in Nyasaland, which are not at all conspicuous.

Although the town is not big, the construction of the railway station is meticulous, the ground has been all hardened, and the use of square bricks unique to Nyasaland, which are artificially fired, and the service life may be worse than that of stone slabs, but the advantage is low cost, simple processing, easy to replace, if the use of stone slabs to harden the ground, then the cost may soar more than ten times.

"I used to pass by here when I was a student at the University of Nyasaland, and the ticket hall and waiting hall were originally made of wood, but then slowly transformed into the current brick structure, and after a while it may have to be torn down and rebuilt, and the new ticket hall and waiting hall are said to be reinforced concrete buildings, designed by Professor Ross of the University of Nyasaland's School of Architecture." Carlos was excited, and back in Nyasaland, Carlos felt like home.

"With such a small train station, can you afford to ask Professor Ross to design it himself?" Louis Botha was surprised that Professor Ross, the Associate Dean for Teaching and Learning at the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Nyasaland and a well-known designer in southern Africa, was indeed overkill in designing such a small train station.

Moreover, a small railway station can afford to be designed by Professor Ross, and the wealth of Nyasaland is indeed worthy of its reputation.

"Not only Phoenix Town, but other train stations of similar size will adopt Professor Ross's design." Carlos explained in detail, and it dawned on Luis Botha.

"Then in the future, that means that the railway stations in Nyasaland will be the same, and it is sad that so many railway stations have no personality of their own." Swift couldn't help but say that during the Boer War, Swift was Louis Botha's attendant and was very resistant to everything related to the British and the Chinese.

"It's the same, but it makes passengers feel at home and won't be overwhelmed by the fact that they're in an unfamiliar place." Carlos is not angry, there are so many people like Swift that if they weren't all working next to Louis Botha, Carlos wouldn't have bothered with Swift at all.

When leaving the station, the ticket check-in staff was meticulous, and although the tickets of Louis Botha and his party were fine, the staff still asked to check Louis Botha's documents.

"Fuck off, don't delay our time!" Swift finally broke out, and for Carlos, Swift can still keep his senses, and for the grassroots staff, Swift obviously doesn't have much patience.

"Don't affect my work, take the initiative to show your ID and come one by one." The staff was not in a hurry, wearing pistols on the belt around their waists, and a shiny copper whistle hanging around their necks, ready to call for support.

"F***, get your heads out, you're in trouble!" Swift was on his toes and almost poked his fingers into the staff's nose.

"Didn't your mother teach you to be polite to people—" The staff was not polite, these outsiders are just annoying, and they always have to suffer a little to learn the rules of Nyasaland.

"Alright, alright, sir, we are federal government Department of Agriculture staff, not here to make trouble." Carlos offered to show his ID, and if it weren't for the presence of Louis Botha, Carlos would have wanted Swift to continue the trouble.

"Ministry of Agriculture - Carlos - are you Chinese?" The staff, who were also Chinese, immediately looked pleasant when they saw Carlos's documents.

"Just graduated from the University of Nyasaland last year." Carlos is still proud to mention this.

"Wow, you're amazing!" The praise of the staff is really from the heart, and the fact that you can enter the Ministry of Agriculture after graduation fully shows the gold content of the University of Nyasaland.

"Thanks, can we go? Sorry, this colleague of mine is in a bad mood today. Carlos seemed to be holding his forehead and smiling bitterly, but he actually pointed his finger at his head, because of the angle, Swift didn't see it.

Swift didn't care about Carlos either, and Louis Botha gave Swift a bland look, and Swift immediately died down.

"It's understandable, but he's going to have to suffer in Nyasaland like this." The staff returned the documents to Carlos, opened the turnstile casually, and looked at Swift with a still bad look.

Outside the train station, the street is asphalted, lined with neat street trees, a grocery store, and a hotel that includes a restaurant make up the entire business district of Phoenix.

This made Swift very dissatisfied, the whole town didn't even have a bar, and the spiritual world of the people here was indeed barren.

"Chinese people are not against drinking, but they only drink when necessary, and the average Chinese family is almost self-sufficient, even if there is no store, it will not affect the life of the Chinese." Carlos is Chinese and knows the state of Chinese families very well.

"That's really good, there are too many bars in Pretoria-" Louis Botha is pertinent, many white people are really addicted to alcohol, and some people are not drunk at all, and the Chinese people's habits in drinking are very much in line with Louis Botha's impression of the Chinese, moderate.

"There is not even a tailor shop, and the Chinese don't wear clothes?" Swift was clearly unconvinced.

Carlos didn't respond to this dualistic thinking at all, and the occasional pedestrian passing by on the street, although not in a suit and leather shoes, was also clean and tidy, just normal cargo pants and a button-down shirt, and not disheveled.

However, it is really common to eat minced meat, and Luis Botha is also looking at Carlos and is clearly interested in this issue.

"Most of the Chinese housewives can do it by hand, we Chinese call this female red, this female red does not simply refer to flower arrangement and dressing, but includes all aspects of life, such as tailoring, we Chinese do not need a tailor shop at all, from weaving to printing and dyeing, to cutting and sewing, and even sewing and mending after breaking, you can do it yourself-" Carlos is very proud, in fact, many white families, women will also do these manual work, but for Louis Botha and Swift, it is normal for them not to know about these.

After all, Louis Botha and Swift's clothes were made to order at the tailor's shop.

"Independently?" Louis Botha was surprised, for Luis Botha it was a complicated job.

"Yes, do it independently, weave cotton into cloth, and then make clothes, wait for the clothes to be worn, and then make clothes into shoes, now it may be simplified, there are fabrics for sale in grocery stores, and you can also buy ready-to-wear clothes, but it is not suitable for everyone, especially shoes, which are the kind of mille-feuille soles I wear, and only the feet know whether the shoes fit or not—" Carlos is also a new immigrant from southern Africa, and he spent his childhood in the Qing country, and knows how hard the Chinese in the Qing country are.

According to Carlos's income level, now Carlos can go to the tailor shop to customize by hand, and Carlos does this, after all, working in the Ministry of Agriculture, he still has to take care of the overall image.

However, Carlos will take off the customized cowhide boots after returning home from work, and still prefer to wear mille-feuille soles, compared with mille-feuille bottoms, cowhide boots are indeed good-looking, but cowhide boots are too hard, not breathable, stuffy, and expensive, once deformed, they are also ugly, and there is only one benefit.

"Carlos, get me a pair of your mille-feuille bottoms, and I'll try them too." Louis Botha had to try out how good it was to go down a mille-feuille, and some things really had to be tried for himself to know what was going on.