Chapter 1020 Reverse Immigration
April 11, 1904.
Port of Pontianak.
Russia’s Second Pacific Fleet has not yet set off. At this time, the Pontianak Port ushered in a fleet, and this fleet was the East African immigrant fleet.
As the fleet sailed along the river towards Pontianak Port, the immigrants on the ship began to become familiar with this strange land for the first time.
“Pontianak looks pretty good. The river is wide and the water is fast. But the environment is a bit unsuitable. The forests on both sides of the river are dense and leafy, which is very different from the mainland.”
Although East Africa also has a tropical rainforest climate, the main population is still distributed in savanna or sub-rainforest areas. Therefore, after immigrating to Pontianak, East Africans saw typical tropical rainforest climate types and vegetation for the first time.
“The equator passes through Pontianak City, and Pontianak is located on the coastal plain of Kalimantan Island, so the tropical rainforest climate here is very typical. This also makes the development of Pontianak City more difficult. Fortunately, the history of foreign civilization here is slightly smaller than that in Africa. It has a long history, so you don’t have to start from scratch.”
In fact, it is more difficult to define civilization. Just like the African indigenous people, you can say that they are not civilized. They also have their own language. At the same time, they have developed tribes and slave kingdoms, but the level of civilization is too low, resulting in the entire southern Africa being almost undeveloped. No different.
So East Africa was able to build up domestic development, in a sense, truly starting from scratch, and achieved amazing results.
There is no doubt that the fundamental reason why East Africa has achieved astonishing results is that the East African colonists brought advanced agricultural civilization, and now it is slowly transitioning to industrial civilization.
Although Lanfang Overseas Province is also relatively backward, after more than ten generations of development by Chinese immigrants, its civilization has reached the level of farming civilization.
However, under the governance of East Africa, Lanfang Overseas Province has experienced a stage of substantial decline in population and economy, and cities and villages have also declined significantly. Until now, the population of Lanfang Overseas Province has not returned to the stage before East African rule.
After all, the nationalization of land was too advanced for the people of Lan Fong Overseas Province at that time. East Africa encountered fierce resistance in Lan Fong Overseas Province, and finally through physical suppression, it also led to a large outflow of people from Lan Fong Overseas Province to surrounding areas. Dutch and British colonies, or within the island's indigenous areas of influence.
Pontianak City is an exception in Lanfang Overseas Province. Although it also experienced population loss in the early days, in the 1990s, Pontianak City entered a stage of rapid development and provided the basis for East Africa to be incorporated into the colony of Mindanao.
Because it is the political, economic, cultural and foreign exchange center of Lanfang Overseas Province, its special status led to Pontianak City being the only continuously developing area in the early days of East African rule in Lanfang Overseas Province.
To put it bluntly, Pontianak currently ranks first among the many towns in Kalimantan, surpassing some of the colonial towns on the island that were painstakingly run by the British or the Dutch.
In the 20th century, due to economic development reasons, Pontianak City has begun to attract lower-class Chinese from the Nanyang region or the southern coast of the Far Eastern Empire to immigrate here. The East African government calls this phenomenon "population return".
Moreover, Lanfang Overseas Province is far away from the mainland of East Africa, and there are not enough white immigrants to hedge, dilute, and reconcile. In this way, Lanfang Overseas Province has a great potential for independence. Now under the strong rule of the East African government and the rapid economic development At this stage, contradictions cannot be revealed, but the future is uncertain.
So, in order to deal with the “unreasonable” population structure of overseas territories such as Lanfang Overseas Province, the East African government has put forward the political slogan of “accelerating the construction of overseas territories” since 1900. Including the immigration policy of importing a large number of native populations to Lanfang Overseas Province, Southern Ryukyu Islands, Northern Hawaiian Kingdom, Alaska Royal Territory, and Mindanao Colony.
At that time, the population of East Africa was no longer as scarce as before, exceeding 80 million, making it one of the most populous countries in the world. This also provided basic conditions for East Africa to transport its population to overseas territories.
In the past, due to lack of population, East Africa was like a brave man who could only eat and not eat. Now East Africa is suffering from the rapid growth of population, and this distress is caused by industrialization. If industrialization cannot keep up with the population growth, , then East Africa may become a clown like Tsarist Russia in the future.
Sending immigrants overseas can not only reduce the pressure on local population growth, but also stabilize East Africa's rule in overseas territories.
Fortunately, the territories in East Africa are vast and sparsely populated. Among them, the royal territory of Alaska, the overseas province of Lanfang, the colony of Mindanao and the island of Madagascar can absorb a large number of people.
According to the final plan of the East African government, in order to effectively develop these colonies, East Africa will transport at least one million people to these areas starting in 1904.
This immigration to Pontianak City is the first demonstration site of this policy. As the most developed region in East Africa overseas, Pontianak has some significant advantages.
Firstly, it has convenient sea transportation, and secondly, it has the most developed economic foundation in the overseas territories of East Africa. In the future, East Africa will use Pontianak City and other coastal cities in Lanfang Overseas Province as bases to gradually transport immigrants to the inland and establish a number of farms and plantations. At the same time, certain industries will be developed in Pontianak City to make it a model of governance for East African overseas territories.
As the ship docked at Pontianak Port, the first large-scale non-military immigrants from East Africa officially arrived in Pontianak. Many of these immigrants were young people.
“Warmly welcome you to Lan Fang Province!” Lan Fang Overseas Province and Pontianak City Government have shown a very enthusiastic attitude towards local immigrants.
“You are all talents of the empire. Although our Lanfang Overseas Province is a remote part of the empire, we will definitely provide you with the best conditions to build our homeland together!” Chris Sean, a senior official of Lanfang Overseas Province, said excitedly.
It is really not easy for officials of Lanfang Overseas Province such as Chris Sean. Although it is an important overseas territory of the empire and is included in the empire's provinces, among the many overseas territories in East Africa, the treatment of Lanfang Overseas Province is good. Say it's the only one.
However, no matter how resounding the name is, it cannot change the reality of poverty and backwardness in Lanfang Overseas Province. Even in terms of economic development, it is slightly better than Alaska, which has even worse climate conditions.
As for Lan Fang Overseas Province, everything is lacking now, especially population. Only now has the population of Lan Fong Overseas Province recovered to 200,000, a large part of which is still concentrated in Pontianak City, while Lan Fong Overseas Province has The area is more than 120,000 square kilometers, so the importance of population to Lan Fang Overseas Province is self-evident.
"Senior Officer Chris Sean, this time our fleet brought a total of more than 2,300 people. The importance of these young volunteers is self-evident. Many of them come to the places where the motherland needs it with passion to help. You are building, so you must take it seriously, and according to the instructions of the central government, in the next ten years, at least 100,000 local immigrants will be imported to Lanfang Overseas Province. You must do a good job in the preliminary work, and you cannot use the colonial approach. methods to manage these immigrants, but to follow the local model.”
Regarding the words of the Immigration Department official, Chris Sean solemnly promised: "Don't worry! Even if I, Chris Sean, have a bite to eat, I will not let these domestic volunteers go hungry. For our province, these immigrants are The most precious wealth, the province’s resources will be given priority to them.”
“Very well, the importance of Lanfang Overseas Province in the empire’s overseas territories is self-evident. The central government and the royal family are committed to building this place into the future economic center of the Nanyang region. I believe that under the leadership of Mr. Senior Official, Lanfang Overseas Province will We can go further in the future,” the immigration official said politely.
(End of this chapter)