African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 435 Steel and Population

"Your Highness, we have integrated a total of 17 steel companies in Germany, including 3 large steel companies and the rest are small and medium-sized steel companies. According to the country category, there are 8 steel companies in Austria-Hungary, 7 in Germany, and Luxembourg. 2 homes.”

Since 1870, Luxembourg has begun to exploit domestic iron ore in large quantities, and vigorously developed the steel industry based on the Thomas Steelmaking Method, making great progress. The two large steel companies acquired in East Africa are Luxembourg companies, and there is another Large steel companies are from the Ruhr area.

 In 1873, Germany's industrial development reached an unprecedented peak. In just a few years, its steelmaking plants surged from 920 to 1,720, and its pig iron production doubled to 2 million tons. Therefore, the steel companies that Ernst poached were just a drop in the bucket for Germany. .

During the economic crisis, a large number of steel companies across the German region went bankrupt, generally small and medium-sized companies, while large companies have a higher ability to resist risks. This is why two of the large steel companies acquired by the Hechingen Consortium are Luxembourg companies. .

"As of August, we have recruited a total of more than 34,000 steel workers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire to immigrate to East Africa. According to your request, the Czechs accounted for more than 13,000, and the rest were mostly Slovenians and Croats. .”

 “Too little, still too little!” Ernst said with some dissatisfaction.

"Your Highness, the main reason is insufficient transportation capacity. This year, we have invested almost 5% of the merchant ships in the Americas, and 25% of the transportation capacity has been invested in rail transportation. Our own merchant ships are not enough now. , even if we cooperate with the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Naples, we still cannot meet so many needs."

Ernst thought for a moment: "Well, it seems that we can only use the last resort."

The so-called last resort, which is to hire British merchant ships, is also a no-brainer.

Hechingen Ocean Trading Company is currently the largest shipping company in the world, with more than 1,000 large merchant ships. This is because Hechingen Ocean Trading Company is said to be a private enterprise and actually monopolizes the entire East African trade, and also sets foot in the Americas and Europe. and trade with the Far East.

Although Hechingen's merchant ships are not small in size, there is no way to compete with Britain. In the early 19th century alone, the British Royal Navy had about a thousand warships of various types. Now the number is less, because the British Royal Navy is in the midst of a crisis. In the changing state, ironclad ships are launched every year. There is no need to pile up wooden warships, but more attention is paid to tonnage.

The British civilian shipping field is even more outstanding. In the 19th century, Britain was a veritable shipping empire, producing more than 80% of the world's ships and owning about half of the world's fleet.

East Africa couldn’t catch up with all its possessions. If it weren’t for the emergence of ironclad ships, navies from all over the world wouldn’t even have a chance to challenge the British navy.

Ernst then ordered: "However, when talking about business with the British, don't talk with those big companies, but talk with those small companies or even self-employed people. At the same time, except the UK, look around the Mediterranean coast. No matter which country, as long as The price is lower than the British, so we can negotiate.”

 Shipment prices are generally the lowest in the UK, but this is a period of economic crisis and there will always be exceptions.

The Hechingen Consortium’s own fleet is not nearly as good in this regard. Some necessary positions cannot be replaced, but the cleaners, cooks and other occupations on the ship can be done by Chinese, mainly at a low cost.

 “What’s going on with the steel orders now?” Ernst asked.

"We have negotiated a deal with the Austrian government for 300,000 tons of steel per year. However, Austria's production is too low. The main reason for this is that Germany's production is relatively high. The Ruhr area alone has reached an order of 400,000 tons per year. If we increase the production capacity of our own enterprises, we should be able to import 1.1 million tons of steel to East Africa a year."

“Except for Luxembourg and the Ruhr area, our steel production capacity is mainly concentrated in the Czech Republic and Slovenia.”

 The steel companies acquired by Ernst have expanded following the capital injection, so their strength has been greatly supplemented.

 Among them, Luxembourg and the Ruhr region are the key production areas, one is rich in iron ore, the other is rich in coal mines, the Czech Republic is not so good, and the Slovenia region is entirely because of Trieste, the closest excellent port to East Africa. Of course, East Africa itself has to bear part of the steel production, and a separate steel plant needs to be built in this regard. The good news is that there is no shortage of technicians and steel workers in Ernst, so there is no technical problem in building steel plants in East Africa.

However, it is obviously impossible for East Africa to absorb so many steel workers. Some of them are mainly used to fill the population in East Africa, and there is no need for them to engage in steel production. The greatest possibility is to arrange to open up wasteland in the interior.

The problem of cross-industry employment is not big. European countries have only been industrialized in the past few years. Many workers are from rural areas. It is impossible to say that they do not know how to farm.

"With the help of this economic depression, we need to absorb the unemployed and agricultural population on a large scale in Austria and its surrounding areas within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The focus is on those non-Germans. As for the Germans, let the Austro-Hungarian Empire keep them!" Ste emphasized.

It is really not easy for the Habsburg family. The Slavic (Czech, Slovak, Polish, Slovenian, Croatian, Serbian...) population plus Latinos (Romanian and Italian) account for more than half of the population. Austrians and Hungarians combined Not even half of it.

Ernst could not change the population structure of the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire. He could still change just Austria and its surrounding areas.

There are two places that Ernst believes have the greatest impact on Austria, one is the Czech region, and the other is Slovenia. Czech means industry, while Slovenia represents the port.

The main targets for recruiting immigrants this time are non-Germans in these two places. As for where East Africa will absorb Germans from this time, apart from Germany being the focus, the largest source country is the United States.

Ernst’s immigration recruitment strategy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire was something Ernst would never have done in the past, but it was different at that time.

 In the past, there was an urgent shortage of German-speaking people in East Africa, and people in Austria were hungry and hungry. Now there is no shortage in East Africa. After nearly ten years of efforts, German has basically become the unified language of East Africa.

There are no statistics on the population of East Africa in the past two years, but Ernst estimates that the current population of East Africa should be around 8 million to 9 million, and the German-speaking population should be at least 7 million.

As for the new immigrants who cannot speak German, if they are placed in the big dye vat of East Africa, they can basically become Germans through the language environment within a year. If they are too stupid, there is nothing they can do.

With the unified language, matters of cultural identity are basically trivial. Now East Africa can choose its own "high-quality" immigrants from all over the world.

However, there is no need to do this in an economic crisis. There are unemployed people all over Europe and the United States. The number of unemployed people recorded in the history of the United States alone exceeds 3 million. This is only an estimate, and the real number is definitely more than that.

 Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire must have a lot of unemployed people. Ernst can be sure that the number of unemployed people in Germany is greater than that in the United States, because Germany's current population is higher than that of the United States.

Even if there is no economic crisis, Germany has the largest outmigration population in the world. This also shows that Germany’s unemployment rate is high in normal times and will definitely increase after the economic crisis breaks out. Judging from the two countries' territories alone, Germany cannot have more means to deal with crises than the United States in a place as small as the palm of a hand.

Historically, the reversal of Germany’s population outflow had to wait until the end of the 19th century, that is, after 1893, so Germany still has great potential.

Currently, the center of gravity for absorbing immigrants from Germany in East Africa has shifted from southwestern Germany to northeastern Germany. In addition to industrial development in the southwest (mainly Lorraine and Alsace, which drove the development of the steel and textile industries), absorbing a large number of people, there are also This area has been sucked into East Africa for ten years. There is basically no overpopulation in the southwest. On the contrary, East Prussia has a serious overpopulation due to its backward industrial development and being mainly agricultural.

 (End of this chapter)