African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 947: Black Population in the Continent
There are also data saying that under the rule of Leopold II, the Democratic Republic of the Congo lost more than 10 million people, which is enough to show how wealthy the Democratic Republic of the Congo was in its previous life. In fact, the area of ​​Congo in its previous life was much larger than that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, especially in the east and south, where the population was most concentrated.

However, these areas have fallen into the hands of East Africa. Ernst optimistically estimates that the total black population in East Africa should be around 15 million, but this is just an optimistic estimate.

Because since the South African War, East Africa’s rule over native black people has entered its most "brutal" stage, in order to ease the pressure of population growth in East Africa.

East Africa already has a large population and a high growth rate. With a population of more than 1900 million and a relatively high growth rate, Ernst himself is not sure to what extent the population of East Africa has expanded. But it is certain that by , the non-black population of East Africa will surely rank third in the world, surpassing the United States and only behind Tsarist Russia.

In addition to population pressure, what follows closely behind is the large-scale infrastructure in East Africa. The East African Canal project alone is enough to make Ernst and Emperor Yang of Sui on par with each other, and there are also roads, railways and urban construction.

In this case, East Africa does not even need to export blacks. The local blacks will perish due to heavy labor tasks and unbalanced population structure. Therefore, the genocide in Belgium is child's play compared to that in East Africa.

So when Ernst read the Nares Diary again, he felt no emotion at all and had no sympathy for the plight of the Chinese in Belgium.

After all, the situation of the Chinese under Belgian rule today is much better than in the past. In his previous life, Leopold also introduced Chinese immigrants from the Far East Empire to the then Zaire Colony (the old name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) to fill the gap in black labor. As a result, the overwhelmed Chinese immigrants were finally forced to cross the rainforest of the Zaire Colony to flee to colonies of other countries.

One can imagine how brutally the Belgians ruled the Chinese in their previous lives. After all, the Chinese in the 19th century were definitely models of hard work and perseverance.

Under the influence of East Africa, the Belgian colonies are now very restrained. At least the East African border has never received any cases of Chinese people in Belgium fleeing to East Africa.

Of course, this is not a question that Ernst, a mature and cold-blooded politician, would think about. He is more concerned about the impact of East Africa on the African population.

Now under Belgian rule, Chinese have become the mainstream population there, not to mention the two major Chinese immigrant countries, the Royal Territory of Sigmaringen and East Africa.

Of course, the Royal Lands of Sigmaringen and East Africa are countries where German-Chinese intermarriage is prevalent, so the situation is very different from Belgium, and in the future it is simply not possible for a mainstream Chinese ethnicity to exist in either country, there will only be different proportions and degrees of mixed-race people.

Ernst doesn't care about the current number of Chinese in Africa. He wants to know more about how many pure black people are left in Africa.

Ernst thought that if the number of black people in East Africa was calculated to be 15 million, and all of them were men, they would basically destroy themselves when the time came.

In other words, in the future African blacks will only exist in West Africa. According to African population data in previous lives, at the end of the 19th century, the total population of Africa was more than million.

Now East Africa accounts for 43% of Africa’s land, and it was also the main gathering place of black people in the past. Therefore, if the native black people in East Africa are excluded, the total population of Africa will be reduced by at least 40%.

That is about 45 million, and the remaining 45 million must be subtracted from the Arab cultural area in North Africa. Egypt, Algeria, Libya and other countries also had a population of 20 million. If the black and white mixed-race people such as Abyssinia are included, the estimated number is 30 million. With this calculation, the population left for West Africa is probably less than 15 million!

Of course, this number is probably not very reliable, because it is definitely not reasonable to reduce it by half because of East Africa. After all, before East Africa, West Africa has always been more developed than the indigenous civilization in East Africa.

In addition, a large number of people have been imported from East Africa to West Africa, so the total black population in West Africa should now be more than 20 million and less than 30 million.

If this is the case, then the number of black people in Africa today is estimated to be equal to that of the United States in the 21st century, or even less than that of the United States. The number of black people in the United States in the 21st century was 47 million, and the number of black people in East Africa and West Africa today is probably about the same.

And we must further consider that the future of black people in Sigmaringen and Congo is basically bleak, and the number of black people in West Africa will only be smaller.

The total black population in West Africa is less than 30 million, which is a very interesting number. After all, colonial development requires a large population, and now the total population of West Africa is only equivalent to the total population of France. This shows the extent to which West Africa is vast and sparsely populated.

Of course, there are gains and losses, and the total population of Africa will not change much due to the precipitous decline in the black population.

The total population of East Africa alone is now close to or even equal to the population size of the entire African continent in the 19th century, except that most of them are now Europeans and Far Easterners.

Thinking that the year 1900 was approaching, Ernst felt that a new round of census of East African population and other data should be conducted.

At the same time, East Africa should also pay attention to the population in West Africa and other regions to facilitate its future layout across Africa.

……

The census is a complicated matter, especially as the population size of East Africa increases further, the difficulty and computational workload increase further.

Therefore, compared with the census, attention to other areas is more urgent and convenient, and investment in education has begun to show results.

Following the trend of establishing schools in East Africa, the number of universities in East Africa increased further in 1898, almost doubling in less than a year, and the number of college students also increased to more than . If para-higher education is included, the number directly exceeded . It has become the country with the largest number of higher education institutions and college students in the world, surpassing the United States, Germany and other European and American countries. And this is only the initial stage of the expansion of enrollment in East African universities.

"By 1900, when universities in all provinces are completed, the number of university students in East Africa is expected to exceed , further widening the gap with other countries in the world."

"The current increase in the number of college students can be attributed to two main reasons: one is that existing universities have increased their enrollment, and the other is that newly built universities have begun to enroll students."

The average number of students in universities in East Africa is actually only about 600 to 700, which is far from comparable to the universities in the previous life. It is frankly speaking that one university in the previous life could accommodate all the current number of college students in East Africa. The number of faculty and staff in universities in East Africa is less than 8,000, of which there are only more than 3,000 teachers, and the teacher-student ratio is about 1 to 17.

Therefore, even though East Africa's higher education is at a middle level in the world, it can still be called elite education. After all, East Africa cannot be compared only with European and American countries. There is also higher education in other regions and countries. There is a gap between East Africa and Europe and the United States, and there is also a gap between other regions and countries and East Africa.

However, one good thing is that the University of East Africa has adopted the tactic of human wave from the very beginning. As an agricultural country that has not yet successfully transformed, East Africa's higher education and basic education coverage rates are already among the highest in the world.

This is also one of the important reasons why East Africa exploited black slaves to death after the South African War. In terms of the proportion of education expenditure alone, East Africa ranks first among all countries in the world, surpassing Germany.

(End of this chapter)