Chapter 137 Patch
East Africa is isolated overseas, far away from Germany.
It is obvious that for the Hechingen royal family, the current core interests are still in Germany, and the East African colony can only be regarded as a major investment project of the Hechingen royal family.
Although Ernst strategically chose East Africa as the future of the royal family of Hechingen, there is no need to go to East Africa right now.
Because the East African colony is still a long-term project in the eyes of any colonial country, and now this project has not even completed the first phase.
The East African colony relied heavily on the Hexingen consortium for blood, and its development immediately came to a standstill without the Hexingen royal family.
For example, the weapons, technology, and population of Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Without the royal family of Hexingen as the central regulator, a colony in East Africa should not be imagined at all.
Although the Ernst people are not in East Africa, the power in East Africa is in the hands of Ernst, and the rules and regulations limit the power of all officials in East Africa to a very small range.
Because East Africa adopts the employment system, that is, the company system, and the current main development project is agriculture, so it is not an exaggeration to say that the East African colony is an agricultural development company under Hexingen.
The officials in East Africa are also employees of Hexingen, especially the earliest Germans in the army. They all signed contracts with Hexingen.
In other words, these people have weaknesses in the hands of the Hexingen royal family. You can rest assured to use your power to mess around in East Africa, but your family members are all recorded in the files of the Hexingen Consortium. It is not easy to take advantage of the Hohenzollern family on this three-acre land.
And these German mercenaries living in various ruling levels of the colonies are all veterans retired from the Prussian army.
To put it bluntly, they are all elderly people who were driven out by the army when they were old. They went to East Africa to work for Ernst in order to make a living.
When they have enough money, they will definitely not want to stay in East Africa. After all, they also want to enjoy their old age, and East Africa is obviously not a place for retirement.
Even if the medical conditions in East Africa are poor, there is no fun place, and the most important thing is that they don’t have their families.
Unlike those low-level immigrants, the immigrants from the Far East, Austria-Hungary, and South Germany... are there to make a living. The moment they leave their hometown, they are mentally prepared to die in a foreign country. It is not ruled out that some people have the idea of returning to their hometown, but Most people still go for their lives.
The purpose of German mercenaries from the very beginning is to participate in colonial activities to make money, no matter when they are Germans (here Germany refers to the current German states.) Not East Africans.
So after earning enough money, it is natural to return to Germany to enjoy life, so the power is only in their hands temporarily, let alone the power locked in a cage.
Hexingen Consortium is a resident director in East Africa, which is specially used for checking accounts. It strictly controls the deployment and expenditure of various resources in Guandong Africa, and is also responsible for supervising the implementation of Ernst's orders by East African officials.
Although the number of directors sent by the Hexingen Consortium to East Africa is small, their high-level status is not low. Among them, von der Leyen is the representative. Troika.
In Ernst’s favorite East African army, the staff is the second force. They are all students from the Hechingen Military Academy. In the early days, they were mainly Chinese students, and now they have begun to supplement German students.
Hexingen Military Academy is actually the place where Ernst raised his private army. All the students have received brainwashing education, and the Hechingen royal family is their belief. Therefore, Ernst dared to reuse them and play a supervisory role on various forces in East Africa.
Basically every official in East Africa must be assigned a student from the Hechingen Military Academy as his deputy. This set of configurations extends from the central to the rural areas.
Any action in East Africa requires a joint meeting of the above three groups, and then report to Ernst, and Ernst will make a decision.
The administrative efficiency in East Africa is of course not high, but it is very safe, because the tripartite interest groups cannot urinate in one pot.
Occasionally fight against an indigenous tribe, the colonial village can make decisions by itself, and only the indigenous countries, Arab forces and other colonists need to report to their superiors.
However, the forces around East Africa have already been investigated by East Africa. Those people cannot be messed with. The East African colonies have a clear mind. Except for the Portuguese and the British, there is no deterrent force.
Even so, the East African colonies are still quite low-key, such as the United Kingdom. The reason why East Africa is polite to the Sultanate of Zanzibar is that apart from dealing with the needs of the indigenous people, it is afraid of British interference, so the core of the Sultanate of Zanzibar can continue to exist.
On the border between East Africa and Mozambique, the East African colonies have also maintained restraint and will not take the initiative to cause trouble.
Not to mention Britain and Portugal, but those indigenous peoples, the East African colonies are all handled with care.
For example, in Zambia in the southwest, East Africa has long been able to staking land. Even if East African forces enter Zambia, other colonial forces will not get news.
But the East African colonies did not do this. They had to eat at one bite, and if the immigration was not in place, they were not in a hurry to expand.
Of course, it’s not that Ernst doesn’t want to go to East Africa to sit in command, but that he can’t get away now, and it’s not necessary.
Prince Constantine is getting old (67 years old), Ernst is not at ease leaving his old father in Europe alone (Prince Constantine died on September 3, 1869 in history).
At the same time, the greatest wealth in the hands of the royal family of Hexingen is the Hexingen Consortium, whose main business is all located in Europe.
Ernst did not dare to easily hand over the affairs of Hexingen in Europe to others. If he lost the Hexingen Consortium, Ernst would not be able to develop the East African colonies even if he had great ability.
From the establishment of the East African colony to the present, it can be said that the Hexingen Consortium has supported it little by little. The funds and ships needed by the immigrants, the early rations of the immigrants, the weapons and equipment of the colonies, and the salaries of East African officials... are all provided by the Hexingen Consortium of.
There is only one way to solve this problem, and that is to shift the focus of the Hexingen Consortium to East Africa.
However, the current conditions in the East African colonies, not to mention supporting the Hexingen Consortium, are a bit difficult to support themselves. Ernst is not demanding. At least he will not transfer the Hexingen Consortium to East Africa until East Africa has established a preliminary industrial foundation. .
For example, if the development of industry is to solve the problem of coal in the East African colonies, it is necessary to build railways. The coal in East Africa is mainly in the southwest, so it is necessary to pull them to the coastal areas. Of course, some people may say that it is not enough to build factories there?
The problem is that the machines in the factories of this era are all stupid and clumsy things, and railways are needed to transport them to the inland. In addition, the main business of the Hexingen Consortium is Europe. In the end, the goods and food in the inland still rely on railways. Ship out.
However, it is still quite difficult to build a railway leading to the inland under the current conditions in East Africa. It is not impossible to gather the power of the colonies and the support of the Hexingen Consortium, but the cost is too high.
Of course Ernst knew the role of railways, but now is not the time to build railways. Ernst knew a period of opportunity and planned to plan the construction of railways in East Africa at that time.
In addition to railways, ironworks, cement factories... all of these must be there! Otherwise, the Heixingen Consortium would be hard-pressed to make a living without rice, and it would be useless to move the machines here, and they couldn't rely on imports for everything.
Not to mention these, even the current scale of agriculture in East Africa is difficult to support industrial construction. For example, cotton is a light industrial raw material, and East Africa is only planted on a small scale. If it is really big, it may attract the attention of some countries. There are many textile industries. pillar industry in industrialized countries.
…
All in all, East Africa still has a long way to go. At present, the East African colonies are at most vassals of the Hechingen Consortium. Ernst can use the Hechingen Consortium to influence the politics of the German region and European public opinion, while controlling the industrial development of East Africa.
Although the East African colony is very important in Ernst's heart, the fact is that the East African colony is now inferior to the Hechingen Consortium.
In this way, if East Africa is lost, Ernst can find a place to start again through the Hechingen Consortium, but if the Hechingen Consortium is lost, Ernst can't do anything.
Of course, Ernst’s idea is to combine the Hechingen Consortium with the East African colony in the future, but it’s not the time yet, and the development of the East African colony is not enough to support Ernst to gamble all his wealth on it.
(end of this chapter)