Chapter 18 Ocean Trade
After the Hexingen Consortium's colonial team reached an agreement with the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the Hexingen colonial team was able to gain a foothold here.
The colonial team began to build carriages, tents and other means of transportation in Zanzibar in preparation for exploring the inland.
At the same time, the Dutch ships docked at the port of Dar es Salaam continued their journey to East Asia after replenishing fresh water and supplies.
…
Heixingen.
Turning our attention back to Europe, a new building is being built in Hechingen, not far from the city of Hechingen, and has become a large construction site.
"Ernst, are you planning to open a factory in Hechingen?" asked Prince Constantine.
After the war, Prince Constantine withdrew from the Prussian General Staff in Berlin and returned to Hechingen.
Unexpectedly, not long after his inspection in Venice, Ernst returned home and asked for a piece of land from himself.
Originally, Prince Constantine thought that Ernst wanted to take over his business and develop it in the agricultural field. Although he would not participate in the labor, the landlord also had to know how to do the accounting.
Prince Constantine thought that Ernst was using these lands to conduct crop experiments, because some time ago, Ernst mentioned that he wanted to build a large farm in East Africa.
Unexpectedly, after a few days of absence, his own field was pushed over! It was piled with bricks, earth, sand, and cement ordered by Ernst. Prince Constantine, who had miscalculated, had to ask in person.
"Father, I want to build a school here." Ernst looked at the building that had taken shape in front of him with satisfaction.
After hearing this, Prince Constantine was even more confused. Isn't it nonsense to build a school in Hechingen?
Prince Constantine was not imagining things. The last thing Hechingen lacked was schools. After all, Prussia had long since popularized compulsory education, and all the children in Hechingen could go to school. Ernst couldn't have created a source of students out of thin air! So Ernst couldn't have opened a primary school. But there was also a middle school in Hechingen, which was built during the time of Marquis Frederick.
There are very few students in Heixingen who can go to middle school every year. Most of them will go out into society after finishing elementary school. After all, the cost of going to middle school is very expensive. They either go back home to farm or ask someone to find an apprenticeship job in the city.
Only about a hundred people can go to middle school every year. In a good year, there can be two to three hundred people, and in a bad year, there are only more than eighty people.
So Constantine was unsure what kind of school Ernst was going to run, so he asked, "As far as I know, the education market in Hechingen is already saturated. You can't just waste your resources in vain!"
After spending several years together, Constantine discovered that his son was a profit-seeking person, and was becoming more and more like a businessman. Fortunately, Ernst was so successful at the moment, so Constantine did not object to Ernst developing according to his own ideas. However, Ernst would never do business at a loss.
"Father, I want to build a military academy in Hechingen to train talents for our family." Ernst explained to Constantine.
When Constantine heard the word "Military Academy", his eyelids jumped and he quickly asked Ernst.
"What do you want to do? Military academies must be registered with the government, right? You are not going to follow the military route, so setting up a military academy is redundant. As long as you let me know in advance, you can still get a position in the army."
Constantine said puzzledly, "Besides, even if you want to build a military academy, you should find a big city, right? How can anyone come to this rural place like Hechingen without military cooperation?"
Ernst knew that Prince Constantine had misunderstood, and began to describe his thoughts: "Father, you misunderstood. I do want to set up a military academy, but this military academy has nothing to do with Prussia. It is prepared for the development of East Africa. The so-called military academy is actually not what you think it is."
Constantine certainly understood. This was not a formal college. It was just training a colonial team. But Constantine was even more confused.
"Even if we want to develop East Africa, we don't need to train so-called talents in a single department. We can just form a colonial team or hire a group of mercenaries."
Colonial force is indispensable these days, but it is usually done by government armies, business teams and mercenary organizations. Constantine has never heard of setting up a separate school for colonial activities, let alone a military one.
"Father, this is related to my vision for East Africa. In the future, East Africa may be larger than the entire Germany, so it is essential to prepare military talents in advance. If we monopolize such a large area of land, there will definitely be people who covet it."
Bigger than Germany? Prince Constantine didn't dare to think about it. Was his son crazy? Such a wild idea.
Constantine naturally knew about Africa, but he had never specifically studied it, so Constantine took Ernst's hand and went home.
"Let's go back and study it."
Soon, a world map was spread out on the table in front of Constantine, and he pointed to Tanzania on the map, "Is it here?"
"Yes, father." Ernst began to draw on the map with a pen, and soon a circle formed on the map.
This circle included what later became Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda and southern Kenya.
"This is my initial idea. Now other European countries have not paid attention to this place. I plan to use the Hechingen Consortium to bring this place under the rule of our Hohenzollern family, just like the British East India Company did." This was the first time Ernst showed his ambition to others.
"Unlike India, which is an ancient country with a long history and civilization, there is only one civilization in the whole of East Africa, Aksum." As he said this, he used a pen to cross out the Ethiopian region on the map.
"Axum's sphere of influence is in the northern part of East Africa. I will not touch there. The only threats to us in the whole of East Africa are the colonial teams of various countries and the Sultanate of Zanzibar." As he said this, he circled Zanzibar and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique with small circles.
"These colonial teams are nothing to worry about. Most of them are small teams that hunt slaves and ivory. As long as we can use various means to clear them out before the European countries pay attention to them."
Ernst went on to say, "The Sultanate of Zanzibar has a population of over 100,000 people and is an Arab country, so it poses little threat. Our first group of colonists has already landed successfully."
"As for the Portuguese, they have been in decline, and their control over their colonies is not as strong as before. But Mozambique is a threat, and the local colonial government still has to be careful," Ernst said seriously.
"However, the Portuguese were not interested in other parts of East Africa and were mainly active along the coast, which gave me room to operate."
Ernst went on, "I plan to send people to establish many strongholds in the interior of East Africa, focusing on the area between Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi." As he spoke, he used a pen to depict the area between the three lakes.
"As long as we immigrate a few hundred thousand people, this place can be completely under the control of our Hohenzollern family."
Upon hearing this, Prince Constantine asked, "Where did you find so many people? This is more than the entire population of Hechingen."
Ernst replied: "Here!"
The pencil in his hand pointed to the Qing Dynasty in East Asia.
Prince Constantine frowned and asked, "If we want to achieve this goal through foreign races, why go far away? Can't we use local natives?"
"Father, this question is easy to answer. The Qing Empire is the most populous country in the world. They have a surplus of human resources, and the people live in poverty. Every year, many people go out to sea to make a living due to famine and war. To the natives of Africa, we are invaders. They will not willingly accept our rule. So we introduced the Qing people. When these Qing people first arrived in a strange place, they could only rely on us to survive."
"Then why not introduce population from the German region?" Constantine asked.
"I want to, too! Father, but the cost of bringing in people from Germany is too high. I hired the first batch of colonists with a large sum of money, and the Qing people will work for us as long as they have food to eat. This is a cost issue."
Ernst went on to say, "Secondly, now that the American Civil War is over, most Germans will choose to live and work in the developed and mature United States. If you tell Germans to go to Africa, they will probably get scared when they hear the word Africa."
Influenced by previous public opinion, Africa represented to Europe a land full of wild beasts and various tropical diseases, so that Europeans now only established colonial outposts on the coast of Africa and did not dare to go deep inland, which created an opportunity for Ernst.
"Then how do you control the Qing people? You must know that too many people will cause chaos," Constantine said.
"The current idea is to train our own talents, which is also the original intention of establishing the Hexingen Military Academy. Students will be recruited from the Qing Dynasty. We will instill ideas in them and make them obey management. Later, they will go to Africa to assist the Germans in dividing and managing Qing immigrants. After using Qing to develop the land in East Africa, we can stop introducing immigrants from Qing and instead attract population from Germany and Europe. Then, through the Hexingen Consortium, we will establish a preliminary industrial system for East Africa, and finally drive away the local indigenous people. In this way, we can establish a country similar to that between Brazil and the United States."
After listening to Ernst's idea, Prince Constantine's mind was restless for a long time. This is a big project, but there is indeed room for operation in theory.
If Ernst completed it, it would be equivalent to re-establishing a country overseas for the Hohenzollern family, a new country no less large than Germany and dominated by the Hohenzollern family. Such a map of the new territory made Prince Constantine excited.
"Well, since you have your own ideas, I support them. Apart from anything else, I still have connections and relationships in Germany, so just go for it!" Constantine said calmly, suppressing his inner excitement.
…
Jiaozhou Bay.
The German Commercial Liaison Office was a new liaison office flying the Prussian flag. There was another one in Zhuhai, but Ernst particularly emphasized establishing one in the north and directly selected Jiaozhou Bay.
In addition to being responsible for promoting the Hexingen Group's products in northern Qing Dynasty, the German Commercial Liaison Office in Jiaozhou Bay also had a special mission, which was to send people to select 500 healthy young people from the north, especially from the Ji River area, and bring them to Germany.
The criteria were that one must be healthy, have no education, and most importantly, must be from a poor peasant family.
These were the students selected by Ernst. In the Qing Dynasty, clans were most likely to form alliances, which was an unstable factor in the rule. This was especially true in the south where clan influence was prevalent, so Ernst did not recruit students from the south.
As for why it was the banks of the Jishui River, it was because that was Ernst's hometown in his previous life. There was no Mandarin in this era and dialects were everywhere. Ernst didn't want his subordinates to speak something he couldn't understand. If it was his hometown dialect, Ernst could still understand it roughly. After all, the language in the north was much more unified than that in the south.
Ernst was going to establish the Hechingen Military Academy and serve as its principal himself. He might also teach there. The language had to be unified, otherwise it would be awkward for these teenagers not to understand what Ernst was saying. He gave these people three years to learn German, and Ernst would no longer have to supervise and manage it personally.
The German Commercial Liaison Office in Jiaozhou Bay was also responsible for recruiting workers to East Africa and trading in bulk commodities. In addition to Ernst's own products, Ernst also gathered some businessmen in Berlin to reach a cooperation agreement, taking this opportunity to jointly open up markets for Germany in the Far East.
Key products such as cigarettes and kerosene lighters have begun to be welcomed by the dignitaries in the Far East market, and the Hechingen Consortium has borrowed Dutch ships to transport cheap raw materials from the Far East and the population needed in East Africa back.
The Dutch themselves also added a lot of Far Eastern specialties, silk, porcelain, and tea being the main item.
Through this long-distance trade voyage, Ernst initially established a trade route with three centers in Europe, East Africa and the Far East. Although he relied on the power of the Dutch, he also cultivated the experience of the Germans on the ship.
After the Suez Canal is opened in the future, Venice's fleet will be almost complete, and then a commercial route completely dominated by Germans can be established.
The main process of this commercial route is that Europe exports industrial products, sells them in the Far East, recruits people from the Far East to develop East Africa, and then the crops and minerals developed in East Africa are shipped back to Europe.
Of course, in the early days, the Hexingen Consortium still operated this route at a loss, because East Africa was still a wasteland, and only after the population was in place could there be production. At the same time, the Far East market had not been fully opened, and the business of the two commercial liaison offices was still limited to the coastal areas. Advertising investment and employee salaries required money, so Ernst could only look to profitable industries in Europe to cover his colonial activities.
However, this process may take several years. The good news is that Berlin Energy and Power Company has made a major breakthrough, and Ernst's egg-laying hens will increase again. Coupled with the increasing popularity of the Hechingen Development Bank in Germany, Ernst has more funds in his hands than before. It turns out that the banking industry is the real wealth fighter and industry incubator.
(End of this chapter)
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