African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1288: Chapter 297: The New Triangular Trade

This distorted form of trade is essentially a new type of triangular trade. With the progression of World War I, among the two camps, the Allies fared better. After all, England and France are large, established nations with colonies to support them. The Allies’ wallets, however, were being drained at a visibly fast rate by numerous ”Neutral Countries”.

As the largest economic cooperation ”partner” of the Allies, East Africa carefully formulated a series of plans for the Allies to alleviate their financial pressure.

In summary, the current trade between East Africa and the Allies is that ”anything can be exchanged.”

Gold naturally ranks first. According to the East African government’s assessment, a large amount of gold from the Allies flows into East Africa, and a significant portion of Russia’s gold reserves in the Allied camp also end up in East Africa.

On the other hand, the United States poses competition for England and France. With the expansion of domestic production capacity in the United States, trade between the United States and England and France surpassed East Africa after August 1916.

Of course, this also involves East Africa shifting its trade focus to southern countries. Although trade with Europe is more profitable in the short run, trading with the southern countries offers only short-term benefits.

Ultimately, regardless of who the victor on the European battlefield might be, the eventual winner will regain control of the European market and push out overseas countries like East Africa and the United States.

However, even in the face of fierce competition from the United States in the North Atlantic, Ernst is quite satisfied. With prior preparation, from 1914 to 1916, East Africa has already completely recouped its costs. Not only have they paid back pre-war loans, but they’ve also garnered a significant amount of actual gold and silver from the two camps.

Furthermore, East Africa currently holds a significant portion of the market share in trade with the Allies, primarily England and France, which is slightly inferior to the United States but still substantial. These market shares will continue to play a role, bringing more profits to East Africa until the war ends.

At present, though trade between East Africa and the Allies has significantly declined due to the barriers of the Suez Canal and North Atlantic routes, the Baghdad railway still brings substantial benefits to East Africa.

Nonetheless, even so, the Allies also face intense financial pressure, struggling to sustain the trade through the Baghdad railway.

Therefore, East African government demands from the Allies have shifted from debt and gold to talents, technology, labor force, materials, and any wealth that can be monetized.

Among these, monetizing the labor force is reflected in the population trade between East Africa and the Allies. To develop the Nanyang colony and cultivate ”Rhine people” in the area, East Africa needs white immigrants to balance, preferring female white immigrants.

This forms a triangular trade involving East Africa’s mainland, the Persian Gulf, and the Nanyang region.

East African mainland ships industrial products, food, and strategic materials to Basra, then transport European war refugees from Basra to the Nanyang colonies, and on the return trip bring back goods from the Nanyang region, forming a closed loop.

Of course, the scale of the new triangular trade is certainly incomparable to the black slaves’ triangular trade, with different purposes, but in form, there’s not much difference.

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Karl led the convoy loaded with Ukrainians towards the small town of Fa’ao, southeast of Basra, stirring up dust along the way.

Much of the coastline of the Persian Gulf is basically desert, so the area between Basra and Fa’ao is no exception, with no roads between these places.

Cars can only travel on the sand, and the refugees inside the cars are crammed into the back compartments as if they were livestock.

The raised sand and dust fell on them, burrowing into their mouths, nostrils, and eyes. Unlike the fully armed East Africans, wearing headscarves and sunglasses, they could only endure the suffering.

The speed of the vehicles was fast, as the distance from Basra to Fa’ao was long, with a straight-line distance of nearly two hundred li.

The reason Karl’s convoy was heading to Fa’ao relates to the current situation of Basra port, where congestion has reached its limit.

So the East African government arranged for the immigrant ships to avoid Basra and dock at other areas, and the complexity of the road conditions led Karl and his party to only arrive in Fa’ao town at night.

The continuous hours of the journey left everyone feeling thirsty and tired. Jumping out of the vehicle, Karl said: ”Overall, it went smoothly; we didn’t encounter any breakdowns or other issues, so at least we didn’t have to spend the night in the desert.”

At this moment, the East African personnel in Fa’ao town had already come out to greet them.

A capable East African officer at the front said to Karl: ”Section Chief Karl, your speed this time is really fast; we weren’t prepared for dinner, as I thought you would return in the middle of the night!”

Karl said to the officer: ”Lieutenant Fa Xi, this time we mainly didn’t encounter any problems, and the road was smooth, so we arrived earlier than usual.”

”Since dinner isn’t ready, let’s first give these Ukrainians a piece of biscuit to fill their stomachs; they haven’t eaten anything for most of the day.”

This, of course, isn’t out of the East Africans’ kindness but because food can soothe people’s emotions. These war refugees from Ukraine are not a stable factor; after all, they are in a foreign land, are war refugees, and have been sold to East Africa by the Allies like goods, where a mishandling could cause significant issues.

Lieutenant Fa Xi said: ”Of course, let them get off the vehicle first!”

Subsequently, under the arrangement of East African soldiers, the Ukrainian people in the cars were divided into two groups, male and female. East African soldiers, carrying wooden barrels filled with compressed biscuits, began distributing ”snacks” before the meal to these bewildered Ukrainian refugees.

Thereafter, Lieutenant Fa Xi spoke in clear, standard Russian: ”Don’t worry, everyone, we are East Africans. You have now been transferred from the Ukrainian government to our government.”

”I know you are very uneasy right now, but please calm down. East Africa is a benevolent country, and seeing your country’s war harming you, we decided to help you out of the tumult...”

Currently, a puppet regime supported by the Allies is in place in Ukraine, which is the Ukrainian government Lieutenant Fa Xi referred to.

Simultaneously, Lieutenant Fa Xi also began the process of brainwashing these refugees.

”Tomorrow, you will board the Freedom, heading to the Nanyang region. Of course, you might not know where Nanyang is. I can tell you, it is also East African land, with no war or smoke but plenty of undeveloped land.”

”In the future, you will build new homes there. You should know that East Africa is a world power, no less than Russia, so there is no need to worry about your future. Even if conditions were truly bad, I guarantee your future quality of life won’t be worse than in Russia.”

”Of course, leaving one’s homeland is indeed saddening, but you must understand that leaving Russia isn’t necessarily a bad thing for you.”

”Moreover, in the Nanyang region, and within East Africa, there are already many Slavs. They, too, emigrated to East Africa like you, and as long as you follow our government’s arrangements and ensure loyalty to East Africa, in the future you too can become honorable ’Rhine people’ just like your predecessors.”

The Ukrainian refugees were, of course, aware that Lieutenant Fa Xi was trying to deceive them. However, his words did bring them some peace.

At the very least, the biscuits in each person’s hand now indicated that East Africa needed them. After all, they had never eaten this kind of military ration before.

Although military biscuits aren’t popular with soldiers on the battlefield, they were novel to these civilians encountering them for the first time.

After all, in Ukraine, at most, they could only eat black bread, whereas East African biscuits, although hard to swallow, were a rare treat made by mixing wheat flour, sugar, and oil.

This expensive item being offered to them by East Africa at least proved that the East Africans would assure their basic security.