African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 284

"The other members of this group of students should be sent to East Africa? Now that the war in East Africa is over, the army can be reorganized." After sending Heinrich and Leopold away, Ernst thought.

It just happened to be able to retire some of the older German mercenary officers.

……

The war in East Africa was over, but the war in Europe was not over yet. Prussia advanced by leaps and bounds in France. One of the most elite French army surrendered without a fight on October 72, 1870 after being besieged in Metz for 10 days.

On the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Lieutenant General Karl led the army to move around in northern Italy, and even made a mess in the Lombardy area, forcing the Lombardy frontline defenders to divide their troops to prevent them from attacking from behind.

As a result, Grand Duke Albrecht seized the opportunity to cut off the connection between the Lombard army and the Venetian army. Venice was surrounded by the Austro-Hungarian army, and the imperial army commanded by Albrecht consumed the energy of the Venetian defenders. The whole Venice was slowly falling to the brink of collapse due to the blockade, especially the people in the city.

"Fulton, the family is about to run out of food, and this may be our last dinner!" Lisa said to her husband with a sad face.

Fulton looked at the pot of porridge made of batter on the table, and didn't know what to say.

Lisa went on to say: "Since the war to now, the price of food has increased thirteen times, and the supply is still in short supply. Now everyone has no food at home. The Ailaiyi family sold their house a week ago. If the five members of their family can't raise money, they will starve to death."

"Oh, damned war!" sighed Fulton. "I will try to find a way to see if I can get Mr. Martin to advance his wages in advance."

Martin is Fulton's boss and runs a textile factory. It is the same Martin who sold his shipyard to the Hechingen consortium.

At the beginning, Martin invested the cash paid by the Hexingen consortium in the textile industry. He caught up with the great opportunity when Venice was merged into Italy, and made a fortune by importing textiles to southern Italy with the help of the unified market.

As a result, at the end of 1869, the Suez Canal was opened, and the Venetian shipbuilding industry had a tendency to revive. Martin felt a little regretful and sold his own shipyard. As a result, the war broke out a few months later, and the shipbuilding industry came to a standstill. Instead, the textile factory made a lot of money because of orders from the army. Martin had to lament his luck.

"Dong dong dong..."

There was a knock on the door of the Fulton house.

"It's so late! Who is it?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, this is Murray."

"So it's Murray? Are you okay?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, I'm here to say goodbye." Murray said with a wry smile.

"Farewell? You are leaving Venice!"

"Yes, our family is going to East Africa."

"It's impossible!" Fulton said in surprise, "Isn't it the period of martial law? How could you leave Venice?"

Melai smiled wryly and said, "Hehe! You think too highly of the integrity of the Venetian bureaucrats. As long as you spend more money, they can meet all your needs."

"Of course I know this, but even if you can spend money to move freely, how do you go out from the city of Venice? The outside is surrounded by the Austro-Hungarian army, and the sea is also blocked by the Austro-Hungarian navy."

"I also got the news from Mr. Winston. Mr. Winston, you know it was my boss before. His company went bankrupt. He was going to leave Venice for Paraguay, and then transferred to the United States for development. He told me that there are still ships on the sea that can travel, but only the ships of the Hechingen Ocean Trading Company can enter and leave Venice at will. It is said that they are backed by Prussian capital, so the Austro-Hungarian Navy let them go."

"Is it the Hexingen Ocean Trading Company that recruited people in Venice before the war?"

"Yes."

"I thought they were out of service!"

"Hehe, I think so too, but because of the previous martial law, the news was actually blocked. If it weren't for Mr. Winston, I would still be kept in the dark."

"Which pier are they at?"

Merley said: "It's in the Hechingen Shipyard, which is their factory area, so it's relatively closed. If I knew that things would turn out like this, I should have taken my family and those country people together."

"Then if your family goes to East Africa, how can you be sure that you can find a job, and the boat fare will be quite a lot!"

"Don't worry about this. I already asked yesterday. You don't need to pay to go to East Africa and Paraguay, but it's not up to us to decide where to go."

"Is there any difference between East Africa and Paraguay?"

"There should be no difference! But Mr. Winston said that there may be more choices in Paraguay, but it's the same for us poor people."

Regarding why the Hechingen Consortium will help Paraguay transport the population, we have to start with the Paraguay War that ended at the beginning of the year.

Lopez was surrounded on February 1870, 2, but he refused to surrender and ordered his mother and sisters to be executed. On March 27 he was captured by Brazilian troops.After Lopez shouted: "I will live and die with my motherland!", the Brazilian soldiers hacked him to death with machetes, and then the Brazilian soldiers buried him in the jungle.

After taking over the regime, the new government of Paraguay faced devastated Paraguay. The biggest problem was the lack of population. In addition to the large number of adult males lost due to the war, there was also the fact that the sixth child in East Africa sucked a large number of Paraguay’s population during the war.

Finally, the population was counted, and the population of Paraguay was only 13 people, which was a disaster for Paraguay.

This is not over yet. At that time, East Africa did not stop, but was approached by the new Paraguayan government. Facing the crying complaints of the Paraguayan government, the international impact of this incident was not very good after all, so Ernst also agreed to help Paraguay restore its population.

As for where the new population comes from, it is naturally impossible for East Africa to return people back, so they can only continue to draw from Venice.

Originally, it was impossible for East Africa to completely digest the immigrants from Venice, and simply sent the immigrants who were screened out by East Africa and did not meet the East African standards to Paraguay.

Of course, this good thing must also be done with the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Isn't it afraid that the Italian population in the Venice area is too large?Now everyone is sending Italians to South America together.

This is also the reason for the slow progress of Grand Duke Albrecht. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is organizing a large number of agricultural populations in the occupied area and sending them to South America, not only Paraguay but also Argentina and Brazil.

According to Paraguay's current population structure, Paraguay alone can absorb [-] Italian single boys. Of course, the number cannot be so small. The Austro-Hungarian Empire can't wait to send a large number of people from the Venice area to South America. Paraguay may be able to restore the pre-war level.

It is very difficult for the current Austria-Hungarian Empire to transport several 10 people. However, East Africa can help. The premise is that all East African immigration ships are suspended and only serve the Venice area. Therefore, the Austria-Hungary Empire has to pay for East Africa. At this time, the imperial financial appropriation is needed.

Of course, Paraguay is not without costs, and East Africa is not doing charity. Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it has divided Paraguay's economic interests, including a large amount of land and mineral resource development rights.

However, none of these can be realized, so it is still a loss-making business. The bulk is still the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After all, the Venetian area still has the largest population in rural areas, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire is willing to take advantage of this. In order to obtain the support of Hungary, through this huge financial allocation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire promised to allocate part of the land in Lombardy west of Venice to Hungary, but there is a prerequisite, that is, there must be no Italians on the land.

This is another poisonous plan. If Hungary wants to take over the land of Lombardy, it must send Hungarians there. However, compared to the developed economy of Lombardy, the Hungarian nobles are still willing to do this. As for the life and death of the Italians, they don’t care about it. There is no psychological burden to expel them.

As for the Kingdom of Sardinia, in fact, because of avoiding the war, some people have already started to go to France and America on their own initiative. The French Republican government, on the advice of the Earl of Medina, organized these Italians who fled from Italy and sent them to the front line as cannon fodder to hinder the speed of Prussia's attack.

(End of this chapter)