African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 163: Chapter 152: Delivering ”Goods

”Alright, you can take the people with you now!” Mikhail waved his hand and said to Giovanni.

”Okay, brother, make sure to contact me first next time you have goods.” Giovanni shouted to Mikhail from the carriage.

The goods Giovanni was hauling were the peasants after the collapse of Tsarist Russia, although the reform by Alexandria II granted freedom to the peasant slaves.

However, the local aristocrats would not engage in losing business; they used various means to exploit the newly freed peasants as much as possible.

For example, land—part of the compromise with feudal conservative forces—naturally required guaranteeing the ownership of land by landlords and aristocrats and even providing compensation.

The land assigned to freed peasants (for which they needed to pay a redemption fee) was determined by region in terms of area. The aristocratic landlords ”kept the best and discarded the rest,” retaining fertile land, as well as vast forests and grasslands, while assigning the most barren lands to peasants.

Even so, given the vast expanses of Tsarist Russia, the area of land obtained by peasants was still considerable, but much of it had no value.

For instance, the northern part of Tsarist Russia is a vast expanse of icy snow where crops struggle to grow, while the sandy grasslands of the southern Central Asia and other wastelands were also assigned to peasants. Ultimately, the lands peasants redeemed at three times the market price were all deserts, highlands, saline-alkali soil, etc., lands of no value.

Apart from being small in size (compared to landlord land) and poor in quality, during the land distribution, landlords and aristocrats deliberately scattered the peasant’s land, causing their fields to be divided and distant, many lacking development value.

At the same time, the freed peasants lost the right to use necessary production tools, such as oxen, horses, and farming equipment, which landlords reclaimed.

Thus, although many peasants received land after emancipation, the land was difficult to develop, and they were burdened with heavy debts.

However, the government needed to ensure financial continuity and continued to levy heavy taxes on the emancipated peasants, making life harder for many after emancipation than before.

Of course, the reforms were not entirely without effect; at least, they cultivated a group of wealthy farmers. But more peasants went bankrupt, their lands re-consolidated. Combined with the current good birth rates in Tsarist Russia, many had to venture out, forcing many peasants to move to the city for work or return to local landlords and aristocrats to work the land.

With so many surplus populations, the Heixinggen Consortium was naturally salivating. Now that immigration in places like Germany had entered a stable phase, these surplus labor forces from Tsarist Russia were just right to fill the gaps.

Moreover, what satisfied Ernst the most was that the price of female labor in Tsarist Russia was much lower than that of men, naturally accommodating the population structure in East Africa by encouraging intermarriage among different immigrants.

East Africa has always been committed to increasing the proportion of mixed-race families, and it seems to be working well. Apart from marrying Chinese immigrants to the purchased white women, white men also married women from Southeast Asia.

Of course, this targeted population was acquired by East Africa through abnormal means, after all, brought back with real money or slaves.

As for whether both parties were willing, well, in arranged marriages, neither had a choice, only the East African government had the deciding power.

As for the Tsarist Russian immigrants, they were classified as low human rights immigrants, purchased by East Africa, so their status in East Africa was just above that of Southeast Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants.

The Heixinggen Consortium engaged in monetary transactions, liaising with local aristocratic forces in Tsarist Russia to import labor at the price of 25 rubles per male and 17 rubles per female.

Tsarist Russia was not just Russia; beneath it lay Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic states, Belarus, Central Asia, the Caucasus region, Finland...

So there were many channels to obtain population from Tsarist Russia, so long as the money was in place, there would be no problem.

Of course, the Heixinggen Consortium didn’t massively introduce Slavs to East Africa but kept it within a certain range.

Impatience is the biggest taboo when buying things, as it easily allows the seller to rip you off, so the Heixinggen Consortium planned a small-scale purchase of immigrants, allowing them more control over prices and cost savings.

Meanwhile, the Heixinggen Consortium staff in Tsarist Russia could spend more effort selecting high-quality immigrants.

Ideally, those whose ancestors were three generations of upright old Tsarist Russian peasant slave families, with certainly no culture, just sheer strength, otherwise nothing; easy to assimilate.

...

Saint Petersburg.

This was the transit port for Tsarist Russian immigrants heading to East Africa from all over Russia.

In Eastern Europe, other regions mainly used other ports; for example, Poland under Russian rule had its own ports.

Giovanni, with the purchased laborers, arrived in Saint Petersburg for shipment.

”Giovanni, this time you brought the most people. Come on, share your secrets with your brothers!” Maxim asked.

Giovanni said nothing, just stretched out three fingers. Maxim instantly understood; this was their rule, but he still showed a troubled look and said, ”Brother, three meals are too much, at most two meals.”

”This is my dining experience, three meals are cheap enough! If it’s not okay, you can find someone else,” Giovanni said.

”Alright! But you better not trick me!”

Unable to find any better solution, Maxim could only agree to Giovanni’s terms.

Giovanni, not being stingy, started sharing his experience: ”If you want to find ’sources,’ you need to go out into the countryside more often, don’t just stay in the office all the time, and engage with local aristocrats and landlords. Once you build a good relationship with them, you’ll naturally have no worries about not getting people.

As for finding people, you shouldn’t just look in the city; many unemployed peasants are currently trying to find work in the city. If they’ve already moved there, they’ll certainly have their own channels, mostly through relatives or friends, and the ones who move to the city on their initiative are usually more cunning and not easy to deceive.

Therefore, trying to fool people in town is definitely unreliable, but it’s different in the countryside. There’s a chance that the aristocrats and landlords there may talk circles around those villagers more smoothly than we can.

Moreover, many villagers are in debt, their fate in the hands of the local aristocrats and landlords. Also, rural people tend to have many children, and with several sons, when they can’t put food on the table, they need to seek opportunities elsewhere.

At such times, when we go to the countryside, you can almost always bring back a good number of people. Of course, there are drawbacks too; dealing with the aristocrats and landlords certainly requires spending more money, but it’s convenient...”

Giovanni was not worried about Maxim learning from these experiences because they were responsible for different areas, posing no competition.

Giovanni was in charge of the business near Moscow, while Maxim operated near Saint Petersburg, in addition to others responsible for Poland, Ukraine, the Caucasus...