Chapter 284: Chain Schemes

"Why not send the other members of this batch of students to East Africa? Now that the war in East Africa is over, we can reorganize the army." Ernst thought after seeing off Heinrich and Leopold.

It is just the right time to retire some of the older German mercenary officers.

…

The East African War was over, but the war in Europe was not over yet. Prussia made rapid progress in France, and one of France's most elite armies surrendered without a fight on October 27, 1870, after being besieged in Metz for 72 days.

On the Austro-Hungarian side, Lieutenant General Karl led his troops to roam around northern Italy, and even caused a lot of trouble in Lombardy, forcing the Lombardy front-line defenders to divide their troops to prevent them from attacking from behind.

As a result, Archduke Albrecht seized the opportunity to cut off the connection between the Lombard army and the Venetian army. Venice was surrounded by the Austro-Hungarian army. The imperial army commanded by Archduke Albrecht consumed the energy of the Venetian defenders bit by bit. The whole of Venice slowly fell into the brink of collapse due to the blockade, especially the people in the city, who were in great distress.

"Fulton, our family is running out of food. This may be our last dinner!" Lisa said to her husband with a sad face.

Fulton looked at the pot of porridge made from batter on the table and didn't know what to say.

Lisa went on to say, "From the beginning of the war until now, the price of food has increased thirteen times, and the demand is still far from meeting the supply. Now everyone is out of food. The Ailei family sold their house a week ago. If they can't scrape together enough money, I'm afraid they will all starve to death."

"Oh, damn war!" Fulton sighed. "I'll try to see if I can get Mr. Martin an advance on his salary."

Martin is Fulton's boss and runs a textile factory. He is the same Martin who sold his shipyard to the Hexingen Consortium.

At the beginning, Martin used the cash paid by the Hexingen Consortium to invest in the textile industry. He caught the opportunity when Venice was incorporated into Italy and made a fortune by importing textiles from southern Italy with the help of the unified market.

As a result, at the end of 1869, the Suez Canal was opened and the shipbuilding industry in Venice showed signs of revival. Martin felt a little regretful and sold his own shipyard. As a result, the war broke out a few months later and the shipbuilding industry came to a standstill. Instead, the textile factory made a lot of money because of military orders. Martin had to sigh that he was really lucky.

“Boom boom boom…”

There was a knock on the Fulton door.

"It's so late! Who is it?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, this is Murray."

"It's Murray? What's the matter?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, I'm here to say goodbye." Murray said with a wry smile.

"Goodbye? You're leaving Venice!"

"Yes, our family is going to East Africa."

"This is impossible!" Fulton was surprised. "Isn't it martial law now? How could you leave Venice?"

Molay smiled bitterly and said, "Haha! You overestimate the integrity of the Venetian bureaucrats. As long as you spend more money, they can meet all your needs."

"Of course I know that, but even if you can spend money to move around freely, how are you going to get out of Venice? There are Austro-Hungarian troops outside, and the sea is also blocked by the Austro-Hungarian Navy."

"I also got the news from Mr. Winston. Mr. Winston, you know he was my former boss. His company went bankrupt, and he planned to leave Venice for Paraguay, and then move to the United States. He told me that there are still ships that can travel on the sea, but only the ships of the Hechingen Ocean Trading Company can enter and leave Venice at will. It is said that they are backed by Prussian capital, so the Austro-Hungarian Navy allowed them to pass."

"Is it the Hexingen Ocean Trading Company that was recruiting people in Venice before the war?"

"Yes."

“I thought they were out of service!”

"Haha, I thought so too, but because of the previous martial law, the news was actually blocked. If it weren't for Mr. Winston, I would still be kept in the dark."

"Which dock are they at?"

Murray said: "It was in the Hechingen Shipyard. It was their factory area, so it was relatively closed. If I had known that things would turn out like this, I should have taken my family and left with those country people."

"If your family goes to East Africa, how can you be sure you can find a job? Besides, the boat fare must be quite a lot!"

"Don't worry about that. I asked yesterday. You don't have to pay to go to East Africa and Paraguay, but where to go is not up to us."

“Is there any difference between East Africa and Paraguay?”

"There shouldn't be much difference! Mr. Winston said Paraguay might have more choices, but for poor people like us, it doesn't matter where we go."

As to why the Hexingen Consortium helped Paraguay transport its population, we have to start with the Paraguayan War that ended at the beginning of the year.

On February 27, 1870, Lopez was surrounded, but he refused to surrender and ordered the execution of his mother and sister. On March 1, he was captured by the Brazilian army. After Lopez shouted, "I live and die with my country!", the Brazilian soldiers hacked him to death with machetes and then buried him in the jungle. This marked the end of the Paraguayan War.

After taking over the power, the new Paraguayan government faced a devastated Paraguay. The first and biggest problem was the lack of population. In addition to the large lack of adult males caused by the war, East Africa also absorbed a large number of Paraguayan population during the war.

After the final population count, there were only 130,000 people left in Paraguay, which was a disaster for Paraguay.

This was not the end. East Africa did not stop and was approached by the new Paraguayan government. Faced with the Paraguayan government's complaints, the international impact of this incident was not good after all, so Ernst agreed to help Paraguay restore its population.

As for where the new population will come from, East Africa naturally cannot send people back, so they can only continue to draw from Venice.

Originally, it was impossible for East Africa to absorb all the immigrants from Venice, so the immigrants who did not meet the East African standards were simply sent to Paraguay.

Of course, the Austro-Hungarian Empire should also be involved in this good thing. Aren’t they afraid that the Italian population in Venice will be too large? Now everyone is sending Italians to South America.

This is also the reason why Archduke Albrecht made slow progress. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was organizing a large number of agricultural population in the occupied areas and sending them to South America, not only Paraguay but also Argentina and Brazil.

According to Paraguay's current population structure, Paraguay alone can absorb 100,000 single Italian men. Of course, the number cannot be limited to this. The Austro-Hungarian Empire has been eager to transport a large number of people from the Venice area to South America. Paraguay may be able to restore its pre-war level.

It is very difficult for the Austro-Hungarian Empire to transport hundreds of thousands of people, but East Africa can help. The prerequisite is that all East African immigration ships are stopped and only serve the Venice area. Therefore, the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to pay East Africa, and at this time it needs imperial financial appropriations.

Of course, Paraguay did not achieve this without a price. East Africa was not doing charity. Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it divided up Paraguay's economic interests, including the right to develop a large amount of land and mineral resources.

However, these could not be converted into cash, so it was still a loss-making business. The Austro-Hungarian Empire still benefited the most. After all, the population in the Venice region was still the largest in rural areas. However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was willing to be the scapegoat. In order to gain Hungary's support, through this huge financial allocation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire promised to cede part of the land of Lombardy in western Venice to Hungary. However, there was a prerequisite, that is, there could be no Italians on the land.

This was another vicious plot. If Hungary wanted to take over the land of Lombardy, it would have to send Hungarians there. However, compared with Lombardy's developed economy, the Hungarian nobles were still willing to do so. As for the life and death of the Italians, they did not care, and they had no psychological burden to expel them. They just drove them all to the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia.

As for the Kingdom of Sardinia, in order to avoid the war, some people had already begun to go to France and America on their own initiative. At the suggestion of Count Medina, the French Republican government organized these Italians who had fled from Italy and sent them to the front line to serve as cannon fodder to hinder the speed of Prussia's offensive.

(End of this chapter)