African Entrepreneurship Record

The population reservoir must not be built within the country itself; generally speaking, population reservoirs are cities and villages.

Take for instance cities continuously absorbing young and middle-aged labor from villages, thereby obtaining a steady stream of population for low-end industries, driving continuous urban development and prosperity, because in general, the natural growth rate of a city’s own population is low, and once development reaches a certain stage, there is a high probability of negative growth without introducing external population.

Aging population and degradation of low-end industries are lethal to urban development, as they are to the country. Of course, low-end industries are dynamically developing, after all, technology advances over time, making original industries become low-end industries.

Of course, the solution is also quite straightforward, which is to introduce foreign population, or truly realize the replacement of human labor with machines. However, Ernst, a person from the 21st century, knows that it is impossible to achieve machine replacement of human labor even after another century. If the machine replacement of human labor were truly realized, then world harmony might also be achieved, but this utopian society is pessimistically estimated to be unlikely to happen even after several hundred years, or maybe humanity will never achieve it.

Therefore, when Ernst formulates the East Africa national policy, he often refers to the social issues of 21st-century humanity, trying his best to delay similar problems from occurring in future East Africa.

Take, for example, the population issue. If East Africa can become a developed country in the future, it’s natural to face labor shortages, at which point East Africa will most likely introduce foreign population, or it might tough it out like Russia, leading to continuous population decline and stagnated economic development.

Or like Europe, introduce refugees, but refugees are a double-edged sword, having a tremendous impact on European culture, social order, and the lives of the lower classes.

And in terms of European immigration, Eastern Europe is clearly a quality source of population. On one hand, Eastern Europeans naturally admire Western European civilization, with high qualities that allow them to perfectly integrate into Western European society, whereas Arabs, who culturally clash with Christianity, obviously find it hard to integrate into European society, at least on a cultural level. In this respect, even Black people are slightly better than Arabs, but everyone has a spiritual purity complex, and white people naturally look down on other people of color.

Ernst, as a common person, is no exception. His experiences in two lifetimes made him biased against people other than Germans and Chinese.

Therefore, the countries bordering future East Africa must be non-Arab white or Asian countries, to build a secure population Great Wall for the future East African countries.

The Abyssinia Empire barely passes, being barely acceptable in terms of skin color, while culturally it is a branch of Christianity. Otherwise, from a personal emotional standpoint, Ernst would never allow such a country to exist.

Of course, if East Africa fails to advance to developed country status, the future population growth will probably not be very high either, because East Africa’s achievements in popularizing basic education are rather outstanding, and over time, a group of citizens will ”awaken” and live not according to the ruling class’s ideology.

These are unavoidable issues, so Ernst’s solution is a compromise. Since the future East African population issues cannot be avoided, then ideal immigrant groups who fit East Africa’s ”values” must be introduced.

This is an important reason for the construction of colonial support territories such as Sigmaringen in East Africa. These places would become future ”reservoirs” for East Africa’s population.

If these ”reservoirs” are not built, future East African rulers simply won’t be able to stop population infiltration from North and West Africa.

Of course, what Ernst can do is limited to these. If later rulers in East Africa still can’t solve the problem, then there’s nothing he can do about it anyway, as by then he would be long gone.

As for believing in the wisdom of future generations, Ernst doesn’t believe it for a second. Problems are easiest to solve in their early stages, but as time progresses they only get more severe, becoming unsolvable without a fundamental system overhaul. If the system overhaul fails, then there’s nothing left to do.

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Of course, these thoughts are all kept inside Ernst and won’t be expressed, as his ideas may not be politically correct after all.

”Uncle Karl, in the future, if East Africa, the Sigmaringen royal territory, and German Cameroon can form a continuous territory, the issue of an outlet to the sea for the Sigmaringen royal territory would naturally be solved.”

At this time, Bismarck has already been ousted from the German political scene by William II, so German Cameroon, as a German overseas colony, is bound to see ”great” development.

Therefore, Ernst is also considering whether the future Cameroon colony can be included in the African ”German” circle.

Because Ernst doubts whether Germany can hold onto Cameroon, if a European war breaks out, Cameroon could very likely be handed over to the Sigmaringen royal territory, or placed under East African trusteeship.

Even if Germany doesn’t give up Cameroon, it would most likely become independent in the future, after all, Cameroon is almost the size of Germany now.

Clearly, the Europeans of the 19th century couldn’t understand this, even after World War II, England and France thought they could continue to run rampant in their colonial countries until they were double-crossed by the US and Soviet Union.

Prince Karl said, ”Of course, Leopold has long communicated on my behalf with William II, and William II is supportive of our shared outlet to the sea.”

Currently, within Germany, Prince Karl’s eldest son, Prince Leopold, is a key figure, still holding an important position in the German army, making him the liaison for direct dialogues between Sigmaringen and William II.

”But aren’t you interested in Cameroon?” Prince Karl asked.

In fact, the northwest of East Africa is not far from German Cameroon colony, and if East Africa is interested, it can directly create a route to the Atlantic Ocean through German Cameroon.

Of course, the main reason Prince Karl asked was to hope that East Africa could take the lead in building a railway or road to the coast of Cameroon.

Because in Africa, besides some countries in North Africa and Cape Town, only East Africa is capable of large-scale infrastructure projects.

Currently, neither the German Cameroon colony nor the Sigmaringen royal territory have this ability or sufficient population to complete such projects.

Ernst shook his head and said, ”Right now, our main efforts in East Africa are concentrated in the south, and we divert our attention to other things, not even having enough population. The newly occupied areas are not small, and almost nothing has been effectively developed during the Portuguese and Boer periods.”

”Take the Boer Republic for example, their construction is not even as good as the current Sigmaringen royal territory, with only Bloemfontein barely counting as a city. Kimberley was actually managed and invested in by the British, while other areas are indistinguishable from large pastures.”

Hearing Ernst’s troubles, even though Prince Karl was older, he felt a bit ”envious,” this is the kind of trouble he wants to have!

He knows the population of East Africa, which is over seventy million (including Black people), only behind the Far East Empire, Tsarist Russia, and India.

Yet Ernst still feels the population is too small. Once East Africa’s southern construction is completed, what population would that bring, and perhaps before the end of the century, East Africa’s population might directly surpass a hundred million, Prince Karl thought.

Of course, in Ernst’s view, this is still challenging. He is not as optimistic as Prince Karl; after all, East Africa still intends to phase out Black people, removing nearly twenty million from the population, and a decade is not enough for population iteration, so for East Africa to reach a hundred million this century is still quite difficult.