African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1508 Huge Aid
The massive flood disaster that hit the Far Eastern Empire at the turn of spring and summer in 1931 eventually fermented over time and attracted widespread attention from the international community. Even the League of Nations, which was in name only, called on countries around the world to rescue the Far Eastern Empire.

However, apart from international organizations such as the Red Cross, only a few industrial countries had the ability to provide assistance to the Far Eastern Empire. The Soviet Union delivered medicines and supplies to the disaster area through the International Workers' Relief Organization, the US government provided funds and food, the British government mainly provided funds, and other countries such as Germany, France, and the Netherlands also took related actions.

In the early 20th century, it was obvious that only industrial countries had the conditions and ability to provide international aid. As for other countries and regions, let alone providing aid to other countries, they themselves needed aid and were struggling below the poverty line.

East Africa is currently the world's largest industrial country and the world's largest grain producer. It is also the country least affected by the economic crisis among the current major industrial countries, and it has deep ties with the Far Eastern Empire.

Therefore, East Africa is one of the countries that pays the most attention to this natural disaster thousands of miles away.

It is not difficult to understand that China is the world's largest industrial country. As for the world's largest grain producer, it has actually been East Africa since the 20th century. After all, East Africa's own population is close to million, and the demand for grain is even greater.

Therefore, compared with the United States, East African food tends to meet the needs of its own people, and the export proportion is relatively small, but this does not affect East Africa's status as the world's largest food producer.

Of course, another situation needs to be considered separately. For example, if Britain and its colonies were counted as one country, then Britain would be the world's largest grain producer.

Generally speaking, when statistics are compiled in East Africa, British colonies and the British mainland are not counted as one country.

Especially since the 20th century, countries like Canada and Australia have actually been de facto independent, and Britain's control over other colonies has been continuously weakened, such as New Zealand, South Africa, etc., and finally India and Egypt, which have third-class human rights status.

Canada and Australia are the main forces that Britain uses to manipulate the world food market. As for India, its food production is not low but its population is also large, and it even faces famine problems in some years.

Apart from Britain and its colonies, the only major grain exporting countries in the world are the United States, East Africa and Argentina.

Although East Africa has the largest grain production, its export volume is smaller than that of the United States. Of course, East Africa does not have an advantage in grain exports, but when it comes to cash crop exports, East Africa is the world's number one country.

Therefore, in general, East Africa is indeed the world's largest agricultural country. Even further, East Africa can also be called the world's first agricultural power.

After all, East African agriculture also ranks among the best in the world in terms of mechanization, agricultural technology level, agricultural innovation and other fields. Coupled with East Africa's colonial agriculture and the agriculture of other countries controlled by East African capital, it can be said that East Africa has almost no shortcomings.

Mogadishu Port.

A large commercial cargo ship fully loaded with cargo is undergoing final inspection in the Mogadishu port area, preparing to set sail for Jiaozhou Port.

The cargo loaded on this ocean-going freighter is also very special. In addition to the relief supplies prepared by the Northern Provincial Government, there are also many "donated items", which are items donated spontaneously by enterprises and the public in the Northern Province, such as various miscellaneous foods, old clothes, mattresses, medicines, etc.

The Northern Province of East Africa is not a major grain producing area, and a large amount of grain has to be transported from other provinces every year. Therefore, grain does not account for a high proportion of this aid material. However, even so, the Northern Province has still gathered a large amount of grain.

At the dock, Mogadishu Mayor Lahore said to Zhou Tongshu, president of the Mogadishu Chinese Chamber of Commerce, who was about to return home, "East Africa deeply sympathizes with the disaster that happened in the Far East Empire. My grandfather was also a Chinese. Therefore, East Africa and the Far East Empire are not only friends, but also have blood ties. I hope this ship of supplies can play a certain role in alleviating the disaster in your country."

Lahore's grandfather was one of the early graduates of the Hechingen Military Academy, and his grandmother was a Slavic woman, of course, his grandmother was a Slav from the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

This situation is very common in East Africa. After all, the East African ancestors who first colonized Africa were mostly men. In order to solve their marriage problems, the East African government has tried every means possible.

In addition to black women, women from Hungary, Italy, Slavia, North Africa, the Middle East, the Far East, Southeast Asia, and even South Asia were all "abducted" here, which made East Africa almost the largest country for female population trading from the late 19th century to the beginning of this century.

Like Lahore's grandmother, this Slavic woman from the Austro-Hungarian Empire who didn't even speak German was of "orthodox German descent". In East Africa at that time, no matter where the immigrants came from, the East African government gave them the identity of Germans. In short, it was a mess.

It is quite funny to say that the problem of national integration, which was difficult to promote due to the clear boundaries between ethnic groups in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was solved in East Africa. Croats, Serbs, Poles, Slovaks, and Hungarians all became Germans when they came to East Africa.

As for now, through several generations of intermarriage and integration, these problems basically no longer exist, after all, everyone is the same.

Chairman Zhou Tongshu expressed his gratitude to the Mayor of Mogadishu, Lahore, and said: "Mr. Lahore, we in the Far East Empire will never forget the kindness of the people of Mogadishu and the Northern Province."

The mayor of Lahore patted him on the shoulder and said, "When President Zhou returns, if you encounter any problems, you can ask our government for help. We also hope that this batch of materials can be put to good use instead of being misappropriated by officials of the Jinling government."

Zhou Tongshu assured, "Please rest assured about this. My family also has some influence in the Far East Empire. If someone does something shameful, I will definitely not stand idly by."

As the president of the Mogadishu Chinese Chamber of Commerce, it is obvious that Zhou Tongshu has considerable power behind him, because in East Africa, Chinese businessmen are also a relatively influential group, and there are many Chinese doing business or investing in real estate in East Africa.

In this flood in the Far East Empire, the Chinese in East Africa also made relatively large contributions. Their donations were second only to those from the East African government and the public. In addition to the Chinese in East Africa, the money and materials donated by the Chinese in the East African and Southeast Asian colonies alone were considerable, more than any other country except East Africa.

The conversation between the two also reflects Lahore's distrust of the current government of the Far Eastern Empire. However, this is also human nature. The Nanjing government is just as disappointing as he showed, so don't blame Lahore for being wary of them.

Even Zhou Tongshu, a native of the Far Eastern Empire, did not deny this point, which shows the credibility of the Nanjing government.

Not to mention the "small" mayor of Mogadishu in Lahore, in fact, the East African central government does not believe in the ability and conscience of the Jinling government.

This time, in order to ensure the implementation of East African aid to the Far East Empire, the Rhine Empire Central Government even sent a professional investigation team. They will go to the Far East Empire with East African aid materials and supervise the implementation of disaster relief materials at the grassroots level. At the same time, East African government agencies, diplomatic embassies, chambers of commerce, and other non-governmental organizations in the Far East Empire will also take action to prevent East African aid materials from being "taken away". There are many East African agencies in the Far East Empire. In terms of diplomatic departments alone, in addition to the East African Embassy in Nanjing, there are more than 20 consulates in other regions, including seven or eight East African consulates in the disaster area. Therefore, it is also a political force that cannot be ignored.

Having said that, it is necessary for East Africa to do so. As the saying goes, benefits move people. This time, the first batch of aid from East Africa to the Far Eastern Empire alone amounted to 700 million Rhine guilders in materials, in addition to 700,000 tons of food.

The food aid alone is an astronomical figure. In the past, the amount of food consumed by the 1.4 billion people in the Far Eastern Empire was almost this much per day. And 700,000 tons of food is enough for a small country of 4 million people to eat for a year. If handled properly, it is not impossible to save the lives of tens of millions of people.

Seven hundred million Rhine guilders are roughly equivalent to 40 million taels of silver. It is worth mentioning that the Far Eastern Empire has not yet issued its own banknotes, so the currency circulating on the market is silver dollars, commonly known as ocean dollars, whose value is about seven cents and two cents of silver.

Of course, the 700 million Rhine guilders aided by the East African government not only include real money, but also a large amount of relief supplies, as well as personnel expenses, such as medicines, and personnel expenses for the medical team going to the Far East Empire.

All in all, the scale of East Africa's aid to China this time is unprecedented, including a large amount of food, medicine, daily necessities and personnel.

If so much effort is put to good use, the people of East Africa will feel at ease. However, if the matter is settled privately by corrupt officials of the Far East Empire, it will not be acceptable to the entire East African country. Based on the understanding of the Jinling government, East Africa must send its own people to keep an eye on it.

In fact, the relationship between East Africa and the Jinling government has always been rather twisted, because the supporters behind the Jinling government are the chaebols in the Jiangnan region, and the chaebols in the Jiangnan region are backed by British and American capital, which has further exacerbated East Africa's distrust of the Jinling government.

East Africa looked down on the Nanjing government, and conversely, the Nanjing government dared not speak out against East Africa, which involved the issue of political struggle within the Far East Empire.

Although the East African government had no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of the Far East Empire, it did support a new capital force to compete with the Jiangnan financial group behind the Nanjing government, which can also be called the Huaihai financial group.

There is no essential difference between the two, except that the national forces supporting them are different. The Huaihai financial group naturally tends to East Africa, while the Jiangnan financial group tends to Britain and the United States.

However, the strength of the Huaihai Financial Group is far inferior to the latter, because East Africa itself has not invested much in the Huaihai region, and the Jiangnan region has always been one of the richest regions in the Far East Empire. The only advantage of the Huaihai Financial Group may be that they are more independent and autonomous, because East Africa has not interfered and controlled them too much.

Therefore, in a sense, the Huaihai chaebol is more national than the latter. After all, their relationship with East Africa is more of a cooperative one, while the Jiangnan chaebol and Britain and the United States tend to be a master-servant relationship.

The family of Zhou Tongshu, president of the Mogadishu Chinese Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Huaihai chaebol. This chaebol is centered in Jiaozhou and has a strong influence in Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Anhui, but it does not have its own powerful armed forces.

For example, the Jiangnan chaebols supported the current Jinling government and then controlled the Far East Empire's central government troops, ensuring the security of their rights, status and wealth, but the Huaihai chaebols did not have this.

Of course, in a sense, the Huaihai financial group can be traced back to the former Huizhou merchants and Shanxi merchants, or it can be said that part of these two merged with local forces to form this new capital group.

Because during the monarchy era of the Far Eastern Empire, East Africa cooperated with these two companies, which to a certain extent left them a way out.

Take the Huizhou merchants for example. According to the original history, they had basically disappeared by the 20th century. The Huizhou merchant leaders represented by Hu Xueyan tried to transform them, but ultimately failed.

In this time and space, because East Africa entered the Huaihai region, this gave them a chance to breathe and eventually integrate into the new Huaihai chaebol.

Shanxi merchants also recovered to a certain extent, and even in the Far Eastern Empire War in 1930, they were important supporters behind the Northwest Army.

……

In addition to Mogadishu, similar scenes are taking place in many ports in East Africa. Of course, the most prominent of them should be the South China Sea colonies in East Africa.

Although East Africa has many colonies in Southeast Asia, to be honest, even if all these colonies are added together, they are far from comparable to the mainland of East Africa, and their economy is even not as good as some provinces in East Africa.

However, in supporting the Far Eastern Empire in its disaster relief efforts, these East African colonies unleashed tremendous energy, especially the Chinese businessmen and ordinary overseas Chinese who had taken root in the East African and South Seas colonies. Those who had money donated money, and those who had strength contributed their manpower.

From the westernmost territory of the Isthmus of Kra, to the Lan Fang Overseas Province in East Africa, to East Kalimantan and Mindanao, and finally to East New Guinea and the Asia-Pacific Islands, fundraising activities can be seen almost everywhere.

And this was only the situation in the East African colonies. Chinese people in other countries such as Vietnam, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, and the East Indies all contributed their efforts, and many even donated all their savings.

According to later calculations, the total amount of donations from the Nanyang region may have reached hundreds of millions of Rhine guilders, which greatly alleviated the follow-up problems caused by the severe flood in the Far Eastern Empire.

It can be said that the joint efforts of Chinese people across East Africa and Southeast Asia reduced the losses of the Far Eastern Empire to a minimum, which also laid a more solid foundation for the subsequent economic recovery, relatively rapid industrial development, and resistance to foreign invasions of the Far Eastern Empire.

Because it must be noted that although the Far Eastern Empire still suffered many disasters during these two years, the period from 1927 to 1937 was also the so-called "Golden Decade" in the history of the Far Eastern Empire in its previous life.

Although the achievements of the golden decade were not outstanding compared with those of other countries during the same period, it must be admitted that this period was probably the only achievement that the Jinling government could boast of.

A faster recovery of economic production would mean a faster recovery of industry and the accumulation of more capital for future confrontations with Japan.

(End of this chapter)