African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 448: Chapter 126 Steel and Population

”Your Highness, we have integrated a total of 17 steel enterprises from the German region, among which there are 3 large steel enterprises, while the rest are medium and small steel enterprises. By national category, there are 8 steel enterprises from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 7 from Germany, and 2 from Luxembourg.”

Since 1870, Luxembourg began extensive mining of domestic iron ores and, based on the Thomas Steelmaking Method, vigorously developed its steel industry, achieving considerable progress. The two large steel companies acquired by East Africa are both from Luxembourg, while another large steel company comes from the Ruhr region.

In 1873, Germany’s industrial development reached an unprecedented peak. In just a few years, its steel mills skyrocketed from the original 920 to 1,720, and the production of pig iron doubled to 2 million tons. Hence, the steel enterprises taken by Ernst were just a drop in the bucket for Germany.

During the economic crisis, a large number of steel enterprises in the entire German region went bankrupt, usually medium and small enterprises, while the risk resistance of large enterprises was higher. This is also the reason why two of the large steel enterprises acquired by the Heixinggen consortium are from Luxembourg.

”As of August, we have recruited more than 34,000 steel workers from the Austria-Hungary region to migrate to East Africa, among which over 13,000 are Czechs, while the rest are mostly Slovenians and Croatians.”

”Too few, still too few!” Ernst expressed dissatisfaction.

”Your Highness, the main reason is the lack of transportation capacity. This year, almost 5% of our merchant fleet is deployed in the Americas, and another 25% in rail transport. Our own merchant ships are not enough to meet the demand, even with cooperation with the Netherlands and the Kingdom of Naples.”

Ernst pondered for a moment: ”Hmm, in this case, it seems we have to resort to the last option.”

The so-called last option is to hire British merchant ships, which is a necessary measure.

The Heixinggen Ocean Trade Company is currently the largest shipping company in the world, owning over a thousand large merchant ships. Although it’s said to be a private company, it actually monopolizes all trade in East Africa and also involves trade in America, Europe, and the Far East.

Although the Heixinggen merchant ships are large, they can’t compete with the British. Around the early 19th century, the British Royal Navy had about a thousand warships, although the number is now smaller because the British Royal Navy is undergoing an upgrade to ironclad ships and no longer relies on wooden ships.

Britain’s commercial shipping sector is unparalleled; the 19th century Britain was truly a maritime empire, producing more than 80% of the world’s ships and owning about half of the world’s fleet.

Even using all its resources, East Africa couldn’t match it. If not for the advent of ironclad ships, navies worldwide would not have even the chance to challenge the British Navy.

Ernst continued the instructions: ”However, when negotiating business with the British, do not deal with those big companies; instead, talk to small companies or even individual operators. Apart from the British, look around the Mediterranean coast, regardless of the country, as long as the price is lower than the British, negotiations can proceed.”

In general, shipping prices are definitely the lowest in Britain, but during an economic crisis, there are always exceptions.

The Heixinggen consortium’s own fleet falls a bit short in this aspect, with some necessary positions irreplaceable, but jobs like cleaners and cooks on the ships can be done by Chinese, marketed as cheap labor.

”How are our steel orders doing currently?” Ernst asked.

”We have negotiated a deal with the Austrian government for 300,000 tons of steel annually, but Austria’s production is too low. On this front, mainly Germany’s production is higher. Just the Ruhr region alone has reached an annual order of 400,000 tons, and combined with our own company’s capacity, we should be able to import 1.1 million tons of steel into East Africa annually.”

”Our steel production capacity, apart from Luxembourg and the Ruhr, is mainly concentrated in the Czech and Slovenian regions.”

The steel companies acquired by Ernst, after completing capital injection, were expanded accordingly, thus boosting their strength significantly.

Among them, Luxembourg and the Ruhr region are key production areas, one rich in iron ore, the other in coal. The Czech region is slightly lacking, and the Slovenian region entirely hinges on Trieste being the nearest excellent port to East Africa.

Of course, East Africa itself must also bear part of the steel production, thus necessitating the separate construction of steel factories. The good news is that Ernst is not short of technical personnel and steel workers, so there are no technical issues in building steel factories in East Africa.

However, East Africa clearly cannot absorb such a large number of steel workers. Some of them arriving in East Africa are primarily to fill the population, not requiring engagement in steel production. The most likely scenario is to assign them to the interior for land reclamation.

The issue of cross-industry employment is not significant. The industrialization of European countries occurred just within these few years, with many workers originally from rural areas, so it’s impossible to say they don’t know farming.

”Taking advantage of this economic depression, we must massively absorb the unemployed and agricultural populations in Austria and surrounding areas within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, focusing on non-German individuals. As for Germans, leave them to the Austro-Hungarian Empire!” Ernst emphasized.

In fact, the Habsburg family has a hard time, given that the Slavic (Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia...) populations combined with the Latin (Romania and Italy) ones account for more than half, while the Austrians and Hungarians together do not make up half.

Changing the population structure throughout the Austro-Hungarian Empire is beyond Ernst’s capability, but altering Austria and its surroundings is achievable.

There are two places Ernest believes to be most impactful for Austria: one is the Czech region, and the other is Slovenia, where the Czech signifies industry, and Slovenia represents the port.

This time, the main targets for recruiting immigrants are non-German individuals from these two locations. As for where East Africa’s German absorption comes from this time, apart from Germany being a focus, the largest source country is the United States.

In his previous immigration recruitment strategy within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ernst certainly wouldn’t have acted this way, but that was then, and this is now.

Previously, East Africa was in urgent need of German-speaking population, in Austria, any would do. Now, East Africa no longer lacks them. With nearly ten years of endeavor, German has essentially become the unified language in East Africa.

There hasn’t been a population count in East Africa over the past two years, but Ernst estimates that the current East African population should be between 8 to 9 million, with the German-speaking population at least 7 million.

As for new immigrants who don’t speak German, placed in the melting pot of East Africa, most could take on the appearance of Germans within a year due to the language environment. For those who can’t, there’s nothing that can be done.

Standardizing language means cultural identity issues are essentially minor details. Now, East Africa can select its preferred ’quality’ immigrants from around the world.

However, amid the economic crisis, there’s no need to do so. Europe and America are full of unemployed populations, with American historical records showing over 3 million unemployed, which is merely an estimated figure. The actual number is undoubtedly higher.

The unemployed populations in Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire are sure to be considerable, and Ernst is confident the number of unemployed in Germany exceeds that of America because Germany’s current population is larger than America’s.

Even without an economic crisis, Germany is the world’s highest in outward population migration, also indicating its normally high unemployment rate. The number would undoubtedly be greater after the economic crisis outbreak. On land, Germany’s size alone wouldn’t allow for more crisis management methods than America.

Historically, Germany’s outward population migration didn’t reverse until the late 19th century, around 1893 and later, so Germany still holds great potential.

Currently, East Africa’s focus for drawing immigrants from Germany has shifted from the southwest to the northeast. Apart from southwest industrial development (mainly driven by Alsace and Lorraine’s steel and textile industries) consuming much of the population, East Africa has absorbed people from the southwest for ten years, leaving essentially no overpopulation there, whereas East Prussia, focusing primarily on agriculture due to backward industrial development, suffers from severe overpopulation.