African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 1606 Immigration Progress
Not to mention the whole of Togoland, the town of Dapang is more developed than most inland settlements in West Africa. It has clean drinking water, electricity and various modern facilities, the first two of which are relatively rare in West Africa.

Even so, developing Dapang Town will be extremely difficult. Archduke Ferdinand sighed, "Now we can only take it one step at a time!"

Archduke Ferdinand believed that as the capital of the new Kingdom of Austria, it should at least be a city, regardless of its size. However, the town of Dapon before him was not even as large as a medieval manor.

……

1935 12 Month 3 Day.

Xuzhou, Far Eastern Empire.

In order to provide immigrants for the Habsburg Monarchy and the New Austrian Kingdom, the East African government, at the end of the year, instructed the local consulate to carry out immigrant recruitment.

Consul General Orwell of the Xuzhou Consulate General held a conversation with some local East African offices, immigration officials, and other personnel.

"This immigration quota, the quota allocated to the mainland is 50,000. That is to say, from now until the end of 1936, the mainland requires us to recruit 50,000 immigrants locally. These immigrants are to promote the development of the empire's strategy in West Africa. The importance of West Africa to the empire is self-evident, so a large number of people are needed for deployment. The best way is to relocate immigrants and cultivate a force that we can trust."

"At the same time, the local authorities have identified several key areas, which are the areas circled on this map as key areas for immigration."

On the map behind Orwell, several densely populated areas were marked in red. Pointing to these red areas, he said, "This time, we should recruit immigrants from these red areas as much as possible."

In fact, Orwell himself did not know why the mainland specifically chose these few places to absorb immigrants, since recruiting immigrants from the local areas seemed like a pointless endeavor to him.

Of course, if he knew about later history, he could probably guess Ernst's intentions. The so-called red area was actually the approximate area of ​​the "Yellow River flood zone".

Ernst obviously couldn't reveal this to anyone else.

According to Ernst's instructions to East African officials, the aforementioned region was densely populated and relatively poor, making immigration easier to carry out. Furthermore, the Far Eastern Empire was likely to engage in a major war in the coming years. Therefore, in order to minimize interference with its military operations and deployments, it was best not to take any rash actions in Xuzhou and the surrounding areas.

Xuzhou has been a strategically important location since ancient times, and its status became particularly special in 1935. After the January 28 Incident, Japan continued to encroach on the northern part of the Far Eastern Empire, which elevated Xuzhou's military importance.

To put it more bluntly, Xuzhou used to be the rear area, but now it has become a core hub connecting the front lines and a strategic barrier for Nanjing. After all, Xuzhou is an important link in the entire Jianghuai military defense system and is also at the forefront.

Losing this place would make it easier for the Japanese invaders to advance south, and at the same time, they could accelerate their invasion of the Far Eastern empire by taking advantage of Xuzhou's role as a railway hub.

Even if the Nanjing government was incompetent, it knew the principle that to defend the Yangtze River, one must also defend the Huai River, especially since they were located in Nanjing, a riverside city.

Therefore, in 1935, a large number of central and local troops were stationed and trained in Xuzhou and its surrounding areas, and the city became increasingly militarized. The movement of troops and supplies on the Longhai Railway and Jinpu Railway was extremely frequent.

At this time, the large influx of people into East Africa from Xuzhou and its surrounding areas would indeed affect the Far Eastern Empire's recruitment efforts in the region. Therefore, it was understandable to recruit immigrants from even more distant places than Xuzhou.

Of course, this so-called "further" is very limited. He is not referring to Xuzhou and its suburbs, but to other parts of the Ninth Administrative Inspectorate outside of Xuzhou, which are key areas for recruiting East African immigrants.

The headquarters of this Ninth Administrative Inspectorate District was located in Xuzhou.

Orwell continued, "After all the immigrants were gathered in Xuzhou, they were transported to West Africa via Jiaozhou Port."

"Just last month, the Empire planned to support two pro-East African countries in West Africa, namely the New Austrian Kingdom and the Habsburg Monarchy, thus creating a significant population shortage."

"For this immigration recruitment, the threshold doesn't need to be too high. The most important requirement is that you are in good health. Ideally, you shouldn't be too old or too young; anyone between ten and fifty years old is fine. Family immigration will be given priority."

East Africa helped the Habsburgs recruit immigrants, so naturally there was no need for very strict standards; in fact, the standards were even lower than those for immigrants in the East African colonies.

After all, even if problems arise with immigration, the Habsburg family would be held responsible. Of course, while East Africa doesn't prioritize the quality of immigrants, it still has some requirements.

Take health, for example. Without a strong physique, let alone living in West Africa, even getting there by boat would be extremely difficult, and one might die at sea.

Orwell continued, “The liaison offices of each administrative inspectorate can use this as a standard to develop immigration guidelines.”

"However, I believe this job is not difficult for you. Fifty thousand people may seem like a lot, but when broken down into your areas, each district only needs to recruit a few thousand people to complete the task easily."

In the 19th century, recruiting immigrants from East Africa to the Far Eastern Empire was quite difficult, mainly because the people of the Far Eastern Empire at that time had a high degree of distrust towards East Africa.

Coupled with the misdeeds of other powers or countries in the Far Eastern Empire, the Far Eastern Empire generally harbored a sense of wariness towards foreigners. Therefore, unless they could not survive, no one was willing to risk immigrating to the unfamiliar country of East Africa.

For example, in the late 19th century, many people from Far Eastern empires were turned into so-called "coolies" by various American countries through human trafficking, and then transported to their home countries to do jobs that were almost always dangerous, such as building railways, mining, or plantations.

This was clearly detrimental to the development of East African immigration work in the Far Eastern Empire during the 19th century. In addition, East Africa was not well-known at the time, and many people regarded the East African Immigration Bureau personnel as "fraudsters".

In the 20th century, with the rise of East Africa, the spread of its prestige in the Far Eastern empires, and the return of some "model workers" in glory, East African immigration quotas became highly sought after.

Unfortunately, as the 20th century progressed, the barriers to immigrating to East Africa became increasingly stringent. It wasn't until before World War I, when East Africa began large-scale overseas colonization, that the barriers were lowered again.

However, this lowering of the threshold only applied to the East African colonies at the time; conversely, the requirements for immigrants in the mainland decreased rather than increased. Even so, the Far Eastern empire's enthusiasm for immigrating to East Africa only increased, as going to the East African colonies was better than staying there.

Now that East Africa is offering 50,000 immigration slots, a large number of locals will definitely flock to it. Even if they don't know anything about the new Austrian Kingdom and the Habsburg Monarchy, they will still compete for this opportunity because of their trust in East Africa's "reputation".

This is why Orwell was confident in saying that the job was not difficult to complete, and the regional managers were also eager to improve their performance.

For example, Kamai'er, the head of the office of the Seventh Administrative Inspectorate District of Eastern Henan, was very confident about this mission.

He said to Morris, the head of the First Administrative Inspectorate District of Eastern Henan, "Borlette, if we weren't short-handed, we could easily manage thousands, let alone tens of thousands of people. However, the cost of immigration will definitely be high. I don't know how the government could afford such a large investment this time."

The area covered by the Seventh Administrative Inspectorate District of Eastern Henan was Huaiyang County, and its administrative area roughly encompassed most of Zhoukou. In contrast, the First Administrative Inspectorate District covered roughly Kaifeng and other areas.

Originally, East Africa also had a consulate in Kaifeng. However, as East Africa has been shrinking its influence in the Huaihai region, only two consulates remain in Xuzhou and Jiaozhou. The area originally under the jurisdiction of the Kaifeng consulate has been incorporated into the jurisdiction of the Xuzhou consulate, which has more convenient transportation.

Of course, a portion of the original Xuzhou consulate was also moved to Guanzhong, becoming East Africa's first consulate in the northwest, strengthening exchanges between East Africa and the northwest of the Far Eastern Empire.

In other words, East Africa originally had multiple consulates in Huaihai Province, but now only two remain, overseeing all East African civil servants and institutions in the entire Huaihai region.

Borret responded to Camer, "This is indeed not difficult for our local offices, especially our Kaifeng liaison office, which should be able to complete the work within Kaifeng city."

As the provincial capital, Kaifeng had a population of over 200,000 in the urban area alone in 1935, making it a large city. Therefore, the Kaifeng Liaison Office had the easiest task among the various local liaison offices in terms of completing the immigrant recruitment work, as it could easily meet its targets without even leaving Kaifeng.

Camer was very envious of this. He said, "Although Huaiyang has a large population, most of them are distributed in rural areas. Our workload is definitely much greater than yours. We can't accomplish this by relying solely on the county town. We also need to recruit from the grassroots level."

Bolette said with a hint of smugness, "There's nothing we can do about it. After all, the provincial capital is Kaifeng! But to be honest, our Kaifeng liaison office is actually at a disadvantage. After all, the Kaifeng consulate used to be on the same level as the Xuzhou consulate, but now I have to go to Xuzhou to accept the mission."

Camer said dismissively, "Heh, if the Kaifeng consulate hadn't been downgraded, you wouldn't be in your current position as director. Besides, your office is in the original consulate area, and the conditions are much better than ours. You should be happy about it."

Bolette said, "Actually, I still prefer to work in Xuzhou or Guanzhong. After all, these two places are now more valued by the locals and offer more opportunities. Of course, there are also opportunities in Kaifeng in the future."

"At present, the relationship between the Far Eastern Empire and Japan is becoming increasingly tense. The future situation of the Far Eastern Empire may lead to changes in the Empire's diplomatic relations with the Far Eastern Empire at any time, affecting the adjustment of the Empire's institutions in the Far East. In any case, Kaifeng may be regained importance."

Borrett's point is not without merit. East Africa's current strategic direction in the Far East is contraction, which means that personnel and institutions will be reduced and consolidated, and opportunities will decrease.

However, as a major world power, the Far Eastern Empire cannot truly abandon such a large market in East Africa. In the future, East Africa's various activities in the Far Eastern Empire will certainly become active again.

Currently, Kaifeng is still the provincial capital. If East Africa increases its attention to the Far Eastern Empire, then Kaifeng's opportunities will definitely be greater than most smaller places. It's not the best, but it's not the worst either.

……

As Orwell predicted, with the release of information about East African immigration recruitment, a large number of people flocked to various East African recruitment points to apply for immigration.

In just one week, the Xuzhou consulate completed more than 2,000 immigration applications. At this rate, 50,000 applications could be processed by the beginning of next year.

This speed also shocked the Habsburg royal family in Rhine City.

Emperor Rudolf said, "This is too exaggerated. If this pace continues, East Africa could easily recruit 100,000 immigrants from the Far East every year. No wonder East Africa has such a large population now."

Ernst was not surprised by this. He said, "The Far Eastern Empire has a large population and a very high birth rate. It's just that the Far Eastern Empire is currently unable to support such a large population due to war, disasters and political turmoil."

"In fact, this situation also occurred in the German region in the 19th century. Not to mention East Africa, there are estimated to be at least five million Germans in the United States alone."

The figure Ernst mentioned is a rather conservative one. After all, many descendants of German immigrants in the United States now identify as American citizens rather than as Germans. Otherwise, there might be 20 to 30 million Germans in the United States.

Emperor Rudolf said, "However, at this rate, the immigration recruitment work must be slowed down. The Habsburg Monarchy and the New Austrian Kingdom simply cannot support that many people now. Even with our support, 50,000 people is already the limit for both countries."

This round of immigration naturally required the Habsburg royal family to pay for it, including ship tickets, food, accommodation, and so on. The expenses were enormous, so even though the Habsburg royal family was wealthy, they had to be careful with their spending.

Of course, once the first stage of immigration is over, the Habsburg royal family can start to recoup its costs. After all, once these immigrants arrive in the Habsburg Monarchy and the new Austrian Kingdom and settle down, they can generate a steady stream of revenue for the Habsburg royal family.

Ernst also agreed with Rudolf's idea: "You are really not suited to accept too many immigrants now. East Africa could do that back then because East Africa had a lot of room to expand and plenty of land to accommodate immigrants. The Habsburg Monarchy and the new Austrian Kingdom did not have such conditions."

When East Africa was expanding on the African continent, it had few concerns. After all, the African continent, especially the inland areas, had a lot of "no man's land" where it could freely exercise its power.

The division of power among the Habsburg Monarchy and the new Austrian Kingdom has long been clearly defined. If they want to expand their territory, they must directly confront the two world powers, Britain and France.

However, now is not the time for the Habsburg family to wage war against the two countries. The Habsburg royal family can only take action after they have been bogged down in Europe.

Previously, the Habsburg Monarchy and the New Austrian Kingdom could only manage their respective territories. Given the current situation of both countries, absorbing 50,000 immigrants would be somewhat excessive.

(End of this chapter)