African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 77: Chapter 73 Digestion

East African colony, currently covering an area of about 1.2 million square kilometers, includes the whole of Tanzania and most of Kenya (the north is under the influence of Arabs and indigenous forces).

The area has already exceeded that of the former German East Africa colony, because many indigenous countries in the western Great Lakes region have relatively dense populations and have not been annexed by the East African colony for the time being.

In this vast area, the number of immigrants is around 200,000, including nearly 50,000 immigrants absorbed from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in recent months, and the rest are Chinese.

The East African colony benefited from the current turmoil within the Austrian Empire as it transitioned into Austria-Hungary, absorbing about 30,000 immigrants in the first month. Although it has slowed down, it is currently at around 3,000 per month, while Chinese immigrants, due to manpower shortages in the Alaska colony, are diverted. Now, the number arriving in East Africa is roughly stable at 10,000 per month.

However, Alaska does not need too many people. Once it reaches 30,000, Ernst will no longer support its population’s migration. At that time, the number of Chinese immigrants to East Africa is estimated to stabilize at about 15,000 per month.

Moreover, most of the current immigrants to the East African colony are farmers, their reproductive ability ranks among the top in contemporary times, doubling every year. As more are born, more can be supported, and the colony pays significant attention to sanitation issues, resulting in a low infant mortality rate.

Not to mention the old immigrants who have lived in East Africa for some time, even new immigrants from the Austrian Empire have joined the reproduction army.

However, this population is still negligible compared to the 2-3 million indigenous people in the East African colony.

The prairie is too vast, wildlife overflows, and the climate is so favorable that they can fill their stomachs with wild fruits. Even after losing a large amount of high-quality land to the East African colony, the indigenous still have a viable living space.

In Ernst’s view, these are all hidden dangers. Only by clearing all the current indigenous people in the East African colony can Ernst feel half at ease.

However, after a year of exhausting slave hunting operations, slavers in Zanzibar have digested only 200,000 indigenous peoples, a mere drop in the bucket.

This is despite capturing a large portion of the Middle Eastern slave market, and even the Ottoman Empire, under the influence of this wave of cheap slave trade, experienced a minor development spurt, significantly alleviating the labor shortage caused by ethnic contradictions, and cracking down more harshly on other ethnicities within its borders.

The current East African colony faces three issues: one is gender imbalance. Unlike Austrian immigrants who bring their families, early Chinese immigrants included many single men, which is an unstable factor for future East African governance.

The second is ethnic imbalance. The Chinese proportion is too high; Austrian Empire immigrants can only alleviate this. To truly solve this problem, Ernst believes at least a ratio of 20% Chinese to 80% Austrians must be achieved, as seen from the fact that African Americans in future America, making up just over 10% of the population, dared to launch civil rights movements. Ethnic proportions in the East African colony must at least surpass that baseline.

After the Austrian Empire completely fell to Austria-Hungary and passed through the chaos, the number of immigrants from Austria-Hungary may not maintain current levels.

Now, the East African colony, having supplemented a large number of Austrian immigrants, has forced some Chinese immigrants to learn German in daily life.

The ratio of yellow to white is roughly a healthy three to one, but more than half of these Austrian Empire immigrants do not speak German. So this figure is quite inflated for the colonial government, which aims to implement German language education in East Africa. Some immigrants from Austria-Hungary, who only know a few simple German phrases, are also counted as German speakers.

The third issue is the massive number of indigenous Black people. The land completely controlled by the East African colony accounts for only 20% of the entire East African colony area. These lands are fertile and have convenient transportation.

The remaining 80% is evenly occupied by Black tribes.

Therefore, the current East African colony must face the population issue of how to solve the above three problems.

To address these three issues, Ernst has roughly formulated three strategies.

First, fund the establishment of a wedding company to purchase slaves from the Zanzibar Sultanate under the guise of international marriage. This mainly targets the Middle East, especially the Ottoman Empire, aiming at Armenian women. Of course, if the Zanzibar Sultanate is capable, it’s also good to acquire women from other Arab regions. Ernst is willing to pay for this, and even exchange them for black slaves at a ratio of five to one, or even twenty to one.

Ernst believes that with the Ottoman Empire’s ethics, they are very likely to agree. After all, it’s a win-win; eliminating populations of dissenters without mass killing while making money is something they would gladly do. At that time, not only Armenians but Kurds, Greeks, Christian populations... the shameless Ottomans would probably send them all.

After all, this is not a slave trade; it’s a marriage introduction, and Western countries would find it hard to criticize as long as it’s all unified under the banner of ”free love.”

Of course, this policy will not only unfold in the Middle East. Ernst also seeks help from his old friend, the Dutch, who have extensive colonies in the Far East. After all, money-making should not forget friends.

Secondly, there is currently no good solution. Europe is moving towards a brief period of peace again, making it hard to operate. The only option is to intensify persuasion and try to gather some oddments from the immigrants destined for the Americas.

Thirdly, and most importantly for the East African colony in the coming year, is to collect all the indigenous Black people in the colony and exile them to the regions west of the Great Lakes, including Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda.

Since the Zanzibar Sultanate cannot digest so many slaves, Ernst can only send them west of the Great Lakes to consume the power of indigenous countries there.

After all, their land is limited, and with so many people, when East Africa drives large numbers of indigenous people over, two groups of people with different cultures and systems will definitely fight fiercely.

Taking the opportunity, Ernst can at least eliminate one-third of the indigenous people. As for those who flee further west, they’ll face the Congo Rainforest. Even in modern times, rainforests are human no-go zones, and it’s uncertain whether they would survive entering.

This third plan essentially has the idea of driving the wolf to eat the tiger, but conversely, it’s like sending sheep into the tiger’s den—dead or alive, they are doomed.

After all, the indigenous nations living in the Great Lakes are not easy to deal with. Compared to many indigenous still stuck in the primitive society of the East African colony, their slave states are quite developed.

Slave states, when facing population surplus, typically use physical means to balance the population size, as seen in the Far East Shang Dynasty. Furthermore, to the slave states west of the Great Lakes, the East African colony’s indigenous people are similar to how ancient Rome viewed Germanic barbarians.

Overall, the East African colonial government’s current focus is no longer continued expansion, but ensuring that the land it has is secured.

While driving out the indigenous, stabilize the population structure of the colony, filling East Africa’s vast lands with immigrants.