African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 73: Chapter 69: Heixinggen Royal Territory

Under Sergei’s efforts, the Russian government finally decided to sell the Alaska colony to the Heixinggen consortium.

After repeated negotiations between both sides, the final price was set at 7 million Rubles, which was indeed a bargain.

Of course, to appease the Russian government, some more habitable islands and territories were not reclaimed by Alaska, and the area of land actually traded was around 1.6 million square kilometers.

As a reward, Sergei himself directly benefited nearly a million Rubles in this transaction.

March 13, 1867.

In the presence of the Prussian government, the Heixinggen consortium and the Russian government signed the ”Agreement on the Transfer of Alaska Colony”, and the Alaska colony was placed under Prince Constantine’s name.

In other words, starting today, the main entity of the Alaska colony is an overseas territory of the Heixinggen royal family.

This transaction was revealed by some European media, but it did not cause much stir, after all, in the eyes of Europeans at that time, Alaska was just an unproductive land thousands of miles away; perhaps the polar bears were the most numerous residents in Alaska.

As for Ernst, although he paid for Alaska, he had no intention of developing it.

It was totally out of the mindset that there’s no harm in striking while the iron is hot, since it was really too cheap, and such a good deal of purchasing a large piece of land by spending a small amount of money would not happen again.

Benefiting from the bribery of Sergei and others this time, although an extra payment of a million Rubles was made, these Russian ministers were quite competent at performing their duties.

It should be known that during the previous era, the United States spent more than seven million US Dollars to purchase Alaska, while Ernst only paid in Rubles.

At this time, the exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Ruble was basically two to one, and due to the influence of the Crimean War, the Ruble still had room to depreciate further.

Therefore, even including the fund paid for bribing the Russian ministers, Ernst still saved nearly half of the money in acquiring the Alaska region.

That was a total of 1.6 million square kilometers of land, regardless of its current use or not, it would allow Ernst’s descendants to live prosperous lives.

As for the possibility of a waste of money, Ernst had taken it into account. Apart from inviting the Prussian royal family as guarantor.

He also did some work in other aspects, such as payment to the Russians, and Ernst adopted an installment plan.

After paying the first 2 million Rubles, the remaining 5 million Rubles would be settled within 10 years, so the Russians would have to be honest if they wanted to receive full payment.

And Ernst would have ways to drive the Russians out of the Alaska region within ten years, which was agreed upon in the previous agreement.

After all, the Russians still have the southernmost land of Alaska in their hands, which is a full 20,000 square kilometers, and the Russians also needed manpower to develop it.

Thus, the agreement between the Heixinggen consortium and the Russian government explicitly stated that under the territory of the Heixinggen royal family in Alaska (Greater Alaska), there is an obligation and right to send Russians within the territory to the Russian Southern Alaska (Little Alaska) to assist in development, and similarly, Russians are not allowed to remain in the Greater Alaska region.

In Greater Alaska, Ernst plans to adopt the most advanced ”closed-door policy”, expelling foreign merchants and monopolizing the local fur market.

At the same time, strictly prohibiting exploration teams and individuals from entering Greater Alaska to engage in any activities. If the resources in Alaska were discovered, Ernst’s money would indeed be wasted.

Now, Ernst is just buying Alaska and leaving it to gather dust; it’s best if no one discovers its true value there.

Along with the newly acquired land in Zanzibar, the territory size of the Heixinggen royal family has now reached an astonishing approximately 2.8 million square kilometers.

To facilitate external declaration, Ernst and Prince Constantine discussed combining the two locations under the name of Hohenzollern family, Heixinggen royal territory.

Such a vast area of land will naturally attract attention of the interested parties, but other countries have tacitly deemed it as Prussia’s overseas colony.

After all, the mainstay of Ernst’s industry is still based in North German, and naturally, the taxes are also paid to the Prussian government.

Currently, only the East Africa colony barely connects with Ernst’s industry, limited to grains and sisal and other tropical crops.

As part of the raw materials incorporated into Ernst’s industry, and Ernst’s industry is a part of Prussia’s industry, so it means that ultimately, East African colonies serve the industries of the German region.

Thus, it is no issue to say that the East African colony is Prussia’s overseas colony, but Ernst and the Heixinggen consortium are the intermediaries linking East African and German industries together.

At present, Prussia’s influence in North Germany is increasingly strong, and it is evident to the sensible people that as long as no other countries intervene, the merging of Prussia with North Germany is just a matter of time.

If Ernst wanted to get rich quickly, it would be very easy; just send someone to East Africa to look for mines, and they could definitely make a big fortune in a short time.

But this might attract the attention of the great powers to Africa prematurely; productivity determines the relationship of production, and the reason why the great powers focused on Africa in the late 19th century was the Second Industrial Revolution which changed their production models.

From exporting goods, they turned to exporting capital and needed to dominate worldwide markets for raw materials and consumption.

And the East African colony was currently at the eve of such a great trend, which is why Ernst developed relatively backward agriculture there, although it slowly accumulates wealth, it is steady, and meanwhile can gradually accumulate colonial population.

Only when the population under rule reaches a certain scale will future East African colonies have the ability to resist invasions from other colonists.

At the same time, strictly restraining the freedom of immigration in colonies and adopting a collective management model also aim to prevent the outflow of certain information.

For instance, although the development of the East African colony is already quite good among world colonies, due to the geographical reasons (Ottoman Empire and Arabs’ forces pervasive in North and East Africa), Europeans are still unaware of this place.

The lag in information gives Ernst operational space to properly utilize the decade or two before the great powers divide Africa, first ascertain the general scope of the East African colony and consolidate the immigration work to firmly establish a foothold in Africa.

Actually, most countries, as long as they don’t sabotage themselves, are quite hard for other countries to exploit when infiltrating them, so as long as Ernst honestly farms in Africa and stays away from some international hotspots, it’s quite comfortable.

Therefore, moving forward, apart from digesting the newly annexed Kenyan land, there aren’t many big events in the East African colony.

Whereas for the Alaska colony, in order to first send away the Russians and merchants from other countries, Ernst decided to deploy a military unit from the East African colony to the Alaska colonial region to assist the work of the new Alaska colonial government.