African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 596: Chapter 274 369 etc

At Qivite Palace, Ernst was also planning how to improve the transportation issues in Hessen Province. This wasn’t something Ernst thought of himself, but rather was mentioned during a conversation with Prince Karl.

Sigmaringen, with the help of East Africa, has now established a foothold in Africa. So at the end of the year, Ernst came to ask Prince Karl about the construction situation in Sigmaringen’s African colonies.

Due to the relationship between the two families, Ernst and Prince Karl interacted harmoniously, even discussing colonial affairs in a casual, family-like manner.

Ernst: ”Uncle Karl, how are your colonies doing now?”

”Currently, the progress is very smooth. Thanks to your help, we have migrated more than forty thousand people to Chad, which was unimaginable for me before!” Prince Karl exclaimed.

Ernst smiled without saying anything. During the peak migration period from East Africa, between 1874 and 1875, nearly four million people migrated in two years. In normal years, migration could also reach around a million people, and now even with a precipice drop, it doesn’t fall below three hundred thousand per year. Therefore, Sigmaringen’s migration numbers are just a drop in the bucket compared to East Africa.

After taking a sip of tea, Ernst asked, ”How about the territory we planned for you, are you able to control it now?”

Prince Karl excitedly responded, ”Naturally, a full two million square kilometers of land! Who wouldn’t be tempted? Anyway, we’ve already controlled many important areas, and other forces should be unable to get in!”

Ernst quite understood the joy of madly grabbing land in Africa. He said, ”Once you have stabilized your footing in Chad, you can continue to expand westward, as after all, the sea outlet is in the west. At that time it will be the next India. Of course, India’s area is only about three million square kilometers.”

Of course, Ernst was referring only to the area. India’s conditions are so good, there’s almost no wasteland, even the dry land like Pakistan can support over a billion people relying on the Indus River in the future.

But when you think that in the past, even a place like Somali could feed over ten million people, it seems understandable.

The advantage of India compared to East Africa is the tropical monsoon climate’s rainfall is almost twice that of East Africa. The annual rainfall of the tropical monsoon climate is 1500 to 2000mm; the tropical savannah climate’s annual rainfall is only 750 to 1000mm. This difference is very significant; however, Ernst believes that the tropical sparse woodland’s rainfall is at a just-right threshold.

Countries with similar climate distributions to East Africa are mainly Brazil, Mexico, and Australia. In the past, apart from Mexico’s focus on drug cultivation, the other two agricultural developments were quite good.

Needless to say, Brazil’s urbanization rate is close to ninety percent, with only ten percent living in rural areas, fewer than in rural Europe and America. This indirectly shows the degree of Brazil’s agricultural development, and Brazil’s hunger problem is entirely a matter of distribution.

Australia’s agricultural conditions are not very favorable; it can be said to be the worst among the regions. That’s because desert and semi-desert areas in Australia account for nearly forty percent of the country’s area, with more than seventy percent of the land on the continent in arid or semi-arid zones.

Australia’s most important wheat-growing region, the Murray-Darling Basin, is a subtropical grassland climate with less rainfall. Most areas have an annual rainfall of only two to five hundred millimeters, which is worse than most regions in East Africa. East Africa claims a lack of rainfall in the Matebel province (Zimbabwe), but most areas can reach more than seven hundred millimeters, and even the driest west can reach four hundred millimeters.

East Africa’s desert areas, the Kalahari Desert and the Namib Desert, sometimes receive rainfall of two to three hundred millimeters or more.

Of course, there are significant differences between East Africa’s tropical savannah climate and Australia’s. East Africa’s tropical savannah climate is due to the highland topography, while in Australia it is distributed in plains.

The main reason for the low rainfall in Australia’s tropical savannah climate is the obstruction of eastern water vapor by the Great Dividing Range mountains in the east and the influence of subtropical high pressure.

Most of East Africa’s national land lies between the Tropics of Capricorn, while half of Australia’s tropical savannah climate is south of the Tropic of Capricorn. As for Australia’s northern tropical savannah climate, it’s mostly used for raising cattle and sheep.

Of course, Ernst believes the reason for Australia’s dry climate is its entire continent’s neither-north-nor-south position, heavily affected by subtropical high pressure.

Subtropical high pressure is a descending airflow belt that isn’t conducive to rain formation, generally distributed around thirty degrees latitude, active between twenty to forty degrees north latitude, just covering most of Australia.

East Africa’s South African territory is similarly located in this region, such as Botswana and Namibia, which are extremely dry areas. Africa’s terrain is comparatively narrow in north-south distribution; otherwise, a massive desert would certainly form in the south. Even so, southwest Africa’s desert and semi-desert area has reached nearly one million square kilometers.

The reverse example is the Sahara Desert near thirty degrees north latitude, with Egypt at this latitude. Most of East Africa’s territory simply avoids the southern and northern subtropical high pressure belt.

Of course, saying so much is mainly to highlight the superiority of East Africa’s climate. Even tropical savannah climates are ranked and not necessarily the same just because they share the name. Brazil’s climate is good, but its most livable tropical highland climate is less than half of Africa’s, so East Africa’s climate conditions and land area are better than these countries.

Prince Karl: ”In this year’s migration, you from East Africa directly gave us more than thirty thousand, while we in Sigmaringen worked ourselves to the bone to recruit only three thousand from Europe.”

Ernst couldn’t help but smirk secretly, but he still advised, ”Uncle Karl, don’t consider immigrants from the German areas; instead, think more of Romania and Austria-Hungary. Germany’s industrial development has reached a new phase, and overflow population basically doesn’t exist. Now, rather, it’s people from other areas coming to Germany for work, so recruiting immigrants is more practical in the backward regions of Eastern and Central Europe.”

Of course, there’s another reason Ernst didn’t mention, and that’s because the most German immigration agencies are in East Africa. With East Africa around, it’s hard for anyone to compete with it.

Prince Karl: ”Alas, indeed. If it were a few years ago, we wouldn’t be so passive now, especially during the economic crisis when suddenly many people were unemployed.”

Ernst felt it might not be the case. Sigmaringen’s ability to migrate massively to Africa now is mainly due to East Africa’s support, while East Africa itself didn’t have enough population a few years ago, so sharing even a bit of soup was impossible.

Without East Africa’s assistance, Sigmaringen would die migrating only a few thousand people to Africa, which is the current status of most African colonies, except for East Africa and Italy, those two peculiarities.

East Africa is using a manpower strategy to develop Africa through migration, while Italy’s colonization of Africa was forced to relieve domestic population pressure. According to a National Defense Security Bureau investigation, Italy has already migrated over thirty thousand people to Ethiopia in recent years, completing what took Cape Town a century to achieve in just a few years.

Therefore, Italy’s African colonies now rank third in white population aside from North African Arabs (nations), with East Africa naturally first, Cape Town second. Other colonies are mostly inconsequential; some countries’ colonies might have only a few dozen or a few hundred whites, breaking ten thousand is considered a major nation.