Chapter 404: Get Rich

September 3, 1872.

11 Wall Street, USA.

The New York Stock Exchange, which just moved to a new address on Wall Street last year, has the newest, largest and most luxurious trading building in the world.

In recent years, after the Civil War, the United States has experienced unprecedented prosperity, along with the railway economy, the development of the West, and the great industrial development of the East.

Capital from all over the world poured into this hot land crazily. Foreign capital invested in railways in the United States alone accounted for half of the total. From 1865 to 1871, more than 6,000 miles of railways were built, more than 100 times that of East Africa during the same period. Moreover, the planned mileage of railways built by various railway companies in 1872 was more than 9 times that of 1865. The enthusiasm for railway investment was unprecedented, and a large amount of funds was injected into railway investment through the New York Stock Exchange.

Railway construction in turn boosted the demand for steel, coal, and oil. A large number of factories were built, even blindly and madly. The demand in the entire market was like a black hole, greedy and endless.

"Boss, someone sold 12% of the shares of Oral Railroad Company. This stock has been rising in the past few months. Should we follow suit and buy it?" Jack asked his boss Smith.

Smith: "Sure, Jack, buy it all for me."

Jack: "Boss, the problem is that if we buy all of them, our funds will probably be drained out!"

Smith: "Jack, railroad stocks are hard to come by right now. If we buy them, we can just sit back and wait. We don't have to do anything, and dollars will flow into our pockets continuously. So don't be afraid. A timid person can't make a fortune. Hurry up and don't let others get there first. Time is money!"

Jack: “Yes, boss.”

Although Smith pushed very hard, he was still a step slow and only grabbed 20% of the shares, which made Smith a little annoyed.

With red eyes, he roared, "Jack, listen to me. From now on, keep an eye on the stock market. As long as someone sells railroad stocks, buy them without asking me for permission. Do this until all our funds are used up. If you can get them, you will get a big bonus this month. If you can't, I will deduct your salary!"

"Yes, boss!"

Soon Smith got what he wanted. Some "idiot" sold a batch of railroad stocks again, and Jack quickly seized the opportunity and bought all of them.

In the following days, railway company stocks were sold one after another, but the amounts were not large and did not attract attention. Fierce bidding was heard in the exchange, and all the railway stocks in the hands of the Heixinggen Consortium were sold.

"The value of our investment assets in North America nearly doubled tenfold a year ago, but now it seems that this is far from the limit in North America. The prices of these assets are still rising, which is such a pity!" discussed the staff of the North American branch of Hechingen Bank.

In order to have a hot meal, Ernst invested a total of 40 million pounds in North America, which was almost 80% of the profits made by the Hechingen Consortium in the Franco-Prussian War. After a round in the U.S. stock market, it has now become 380 million pounds, or 11.4 billion East African Rhine Guilders. Because the current silver price has not depreciated, this amount of money is equivalent to about 1.1 billion taels of silver, which is about eight times the indemnity of the Treaty of Shimonoseki (considering the factor that silver had depreciated when the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed). Therefore, the United States was indeed rich at that time as the world's second largest economy after Britain.

In addition to the profits in North America, Ernst also sold a large number of assets in Europe, which totaled about 80 million pounds, which is completely incomparable with North America.

However, this is related to the fact that the main body of the Hei Xingen Group is in Europe. Most of the European companies under the Hei Xingen Group are high-quality assets, which are completely different from the "high-quality industries" hyped up in North America. For example, when the American Aurore Railway Company was established only last year, it had only more than 30 employees in total. Then, through a large amount of capital injection from the Hei Xingen Group, it recruited troops and won the Philadelphia to New York railway project. The company's market value soared a hundred times. Subsequently, the Hei Xingen Bank gradually looked for buyers to take over in the stock market. When the Hei Xingen Bank had completely sold all its stocks at a high price, the railway had only completed the construction of one station.

Although Ernst made a lot of money in the financial market, it was not all of his wealth. The huge Hexingen Group was the real big boss. The several large companies under the Hexingen Group were among the top 500 companies in the world in later generations, and the Hexingen Bank was among the top few.

At present, the Hechingen royal family is one of the strong contenders for the world's richest man, because no one knows the heritage of those ancient families, such as the famous Rothschild family. A group of royal families and nobles in Europe should not be underestimated. Now the richest man in the open is Rockefeller from the United States, with a net worth of more than 10 billion US dollars, but Rockefeller can no longer be on the same level as Ernst.

Ernst also had the East African Kingdom, a political entity under his control, whose value was completely inestimable. In 1871, the fiscal revenue of the East African Kingdom government was more than 7 million East African Rhine guilders, or about 800,000 taels of silver.

The amount of money is not much, but it does not mean anything. For example, most factories in East Africa do not pay taxes. The only exceptions are Mombasa and Dar es Salaam, which are the two main sources of tax revenue for the East African government. This is related to its foreign trade.

However, the fiscal revenue of 800,000 taels of silver was about 16% of the fiscal revenue of the Japanese government during the same period, which was not a small amount, because the population of East Africa was close to 7 million, while Japan's population was more than 38 million, and the population of East Africa was 18% of Japan's.

The Japanese government has invested in a large number of industries, and coupled with the wealth accumulated over thousands of years, it is normal that its fiscal revenue is higher than that of East Africa per capita.

Of course, the East African Kingdom still has more than 23 million indigenous people (plus South Africa), but most of them are currently in a free-range state, mainly concentrated in the western part of the kingdom and South Africa. Only more than 9 million indigenous people are used as production tools by the East African Kingdom.

The wealth they created cannot be specifically expressed in terms of money. For example, they used it to replace livestock such as cattle and horses to plow the land, to work together, to pave roads, to build water conservancy facilities, etc.

These are all pure human resources input. Their contributions to the East African Kingdom will be distributed to the citizens of East Africa. For example, the land in East Africa is developed according to the total number of citizens. The food produced per acre of land in East Africa requires more human resources than other countries, especially labor-intensive industries such as plantations and rice. East Africa needs more than one person's labor force to create the value created by one person in other similar agricultural countries, but East Africa is still calculated and counted based on one person.

The overall productivity level in East Africa can be said to be relatively backward, even somewhat low, but the East African kingdom faces much more difficulties than other countries. Take land for example. Land development in East Africa is a process from scratch, which requires a lot of investment and is unlikely to produce results in the short term. Other agricultural countries, on the other hand, have long developed mature land with long operating periods and stable output.

The number of livestock in East Africa is far less than that of agricultural countries of the same period. It is impossible to evolve immediately from a human empire to a mule and horse empire. It takes several years or even decades to cultivate livestock to meet the needs of the East African Kingdom. This is a shortcoming of Africa as a whole. There are no domesticated local livestock for the use of the East African Kingdom, and a large number of imports and introductions are needed.

There are also deficiencies in agricultural tools. A large number of basic agricultural tools need to be imported, such as hoes, shovels, and plows, which need to be imported in large quantities from Germany. It is not that East Africa cannot produce them by itself, but that the production capacity is limited and the quality is unreliable.

There are still many problems in East Africa, but the colonial period in East Africa only lasted seven years, so we cannot be too demanding.

(End of this chapter)