Chapter 172 Expansion and Immigration Issues
At present, it seems that East Africa is developing very rapidly. Although it is the era of industrialization, the development of East Africa in terms of industrialization is almost blank.
However, the conditions in East Africa itself are not very good, especially before the development of the East African colonies, most of the localities are still in the primitive hunting civilization.
The huge land has not been developed and utilized. The only modern country, the Sultanate of Zanzibar, also relies mainly on the slave trade in the mainland.
The East African colony brought the locals into the agricultural society is already quite a remarkable achievement.
Agriculture is the foundation of East Africa. Even in the previous life, East Africa was a rare agricultural area in Africa, which can basically reach the level of self-sufficiency. Tanzania and the countries near the Great Lakes are important agricultural countries in Africa.
Of course, compared to being an agricultural country, countries in East Africa are definitely more willing to be a resource country. However, from the development of East Africa in previous generations, East Africa is an economically backward region in the whole of Africa.
Because the resource endowment of East Africa itself is not outstanding in Africa as a whole, of course, there are some advantages in this way. Compared with other regions in Africa in the past, East Africa had fewer conflicts and wars, and the society as a whole was relatively stable.
Of course, not being outstanding does not mean that resources are scarce, but that East Africa lacks the main mineral resources in industrialization, such as coal, iron, oil, etc. These mineral resources, which are in great demand and widely used, are the foundation of industrialization.
For example, in the previous life, Africa was the most famous diamond resource in the world and had the highest output. This kind of hyped luxury basically did not help Africa's industrialization, and its profits were still taken away by European and American capital.
As for coal and iron resources, as far as the continent as a whole is concerned, Africa as a whole has relatively few reserves compared to other continents. Oil resources are good, but they are mainly distributed along the coasts of North Africa and West Africa.
The reason why the African continent is rich in resources in the eyes of the world is that the fundamental reason is that Africa has a low level of development and a low utilization rate of resources. The mining industry is a pillar industry in many countries.
And with the development of science and technology, especially after the 21st century, non-ferrous metals, including heavy metals (such as copper, lead, zinc), light metals (such as aluminum, magnesium), precious metals (such as gold, silver, platinum) and rare metals (such as tungsten) , molybdenum, germanium, lithium, lanthanum, uranium), especially for research and development of rare metals, which are relatively abundant in Africa.
But in terms of importance, the status of oil, coal, iron, copper, aluminum, and gold cannot be shaken.
Especially in energy, so many wars are energy wars, and many countries have fought for energy.
Don’t think about oil resources in East Africa. After searching around, South Sudan has considerable reserves, but now Ernst does not intend to conflict with Egypt, but any country with some strength deserves to be respected.
Coal can work hard. There are few coal reserves in East Africa, but there are many coal resources in southern Africa, especially in Zambia and Zimbabwe.
And Ernst has long been interested in Zambia, and has always been obsessed with the Katanga Plateau Copper Belt (Central African Copper-Cobalt Belt).
This is the most accessible world-class important metal ore belt in East Africa, which can directly affect the pricing power of world copper mines.
This time East Africa will maintain the previous expansion strategy as a whole, try to avoid conflicts of interest with regional powers and other colonists, and bypass its core interest areas, namely Egypt, Britain, Portugal and other forces.
At present, there is a wide buffer zone between East Africa and the above countries or their colonies to avoid direct contact between the two forces.
To the south is the Portuguese colony of Mozambique, and to the north are the colonies of Egypt and British Somaliland. East Africa and these forces are separated by terrain or indigenous people.
This also means that the next expansion of East Africa can only go west, and the due west is the Congo. There is not much interest in the tropical rainforest Ernst, and there is nothing in the northwest that attracts East Africa to expand.
So only the southwest region is left, the first is to win the Katanga Plateau, and the second is to prepare for the expansion of energy reserves (coal) in the future.
The above is the current resource situation of the East African colonies, the surrounding situation and the expansion plan in 1869.
In 1869, the East African immigration goal was to have a population exceeding 2 million. Yes, Ernst’s requirements are so low now. The current East African population has reached more than 1.75 million. Breaking through 2 million can be said to be easy. Maybe it can be done.
Two million is a threshold. After crossing this threshold, Ernst no longer has to worry about security issues in East Africa as he used to.
Next, the East African immigration work will continue as usual, and there may not be too many ups and downs in the future. In the future, the new ships and capacity of the Hexingen Consortium will no longer be invested in immigration, but will be used for industrial transfer and commodities. Transport up.
This change also means that the screening standards for immigrants in East Africa have not dropped but increased. In the past, immigrants were urgently needed, and the standards at work would inevitably be lowered. Now the requirements for immigrants will increase instead.
Of course, the growth rate of East African immigrants should not change much. Since the second half of 1868, East Africa has entered a stage of slow immigration.
The Far East and Germany are politically stable and peaceful, and the willingness of civilians to go to sea has dropped significantly. In addition, East Africa has used too much force before, and the immigration potential of the two regions has been squeezed out, and it will take time to recover.
So the current immigration capacity in East Africa is somewhat surplus. Fortunately, the newly introduced Slavs have filled some of them, but the overall immigration speed has entered a slowdown stage.
Of course, East Africa still welcomes immigrants from the German region, but there is really no drop. With the reduction of German immigrants, Ernst deliberately suppressed other immigrants from entering East Africa.
German immigrants need to account for at least 30%, other European immigrants should be at 20%, while the Far East is about 40%, and other regions (such as the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and the Americas) account for 10%. twenty.
In this way, although there are many Chinese immigrants, there are more European and other immigrants, and the Europeans are mainly Germans. In addition, the immigrants from various regions in the East African colonies are intermarried. That's it.
This is also an important factor why Ernst no longer pursues the number of immigrants. Every batch of immigrants must be neutralized by certain German immigrants. Now that the number of German immigrants is decreasing, it is necessary to reduce the number of other immigrants or introduce new sources of immigrants. Prevent the immigrant family from any region from being dominant except for the German immigrants.
As a German in his life, Ernst must ensure the dominance of German culture and thought in East Africa, especially in the pre-colonial period.
Moreover, Ernst now needs to prepare for the Franco-Prussian War. The Franco-Prussian War is an important opportunity. Ernst must seize the opportunity to bring the Hechingen Consortium to a higher level. East Africa has had a profound impact. Ernst will definitely make some adjustments to the East African colonies, and the immigration issue will no longer be so important this year.
(end of this chapter)