Chapter 135: Rest
The fighting has temporarily ended, and the East African colony has returned to its normal operations.
During the war, the colony also had to transport immigrants to the front lines, a huge overload challenge for East Africa.
So even this war machine needs a breather. The entire East African colony is basically an agricultural colony, so its ability to support large-scale military endeavors is simply better than traditional agrarian states.
Fortunately, as a fledgling colony, East Africa possesses vast land, yielding a high per-capita acreage. Total grain output is high, so while supplying itself, it can also strongly support new immigrants and the army's activities.
The army needs rest, and the new immigrants who went westward must hurry to work and strive to get crops in the ground as soon as possible to create value. Other areas of East Africa also need to accelerate land reclamation.
Over the last two months, East Africa has received 170,000 immigrants (this figure is not exaggerated, referencing the slave trade and how British ships transported Africans, so East Africa is not short on transport capacity but on sources for immigrants, especially ethnic Germans). All of these have been taken in by the newly occupied northwest region, West Kenya District, and Omerate Town.
If these 170,000 immigrants were spread out among the established colonial strongholds, all regions of East Africa would have stepped up another level of development.
In the first half of 1868 alone, more than half a million immigrants arrived in East Africa. Just in the first six months, it nearly reached Ernst's year-end target—60,000 for a full year.
At present, the colony's population stands at 1.2 million, within an area of around 1.5 million square kilometers. Uganda as it existed in a past life is also regarded as a sure prize—adding another more than 200,000 square kilometers.
It's expected that by the end of the year, they'll definitely swallow that, and if immigration proceeds smoothly, population will at least hit 1.7 million.
Now that East Africa's population has surpassed one million, Ernst feels unhurried. A million isn't just a figure—it's a dose of reassurance. In this era, surpassing one million people makes it comparable to a real country.
In the 17th century, when the Netherlands rose to prominence, its population was at the million level. In the 19th century, when Britain flourished, it was at tens of millions. In the 20th century, when the United States emerged, its population reached hundreds of millions.
By surpassing a million, the East African colony can stand on its own in Africa. It ranks at least fourth in strength on the continent.
Number one is, of course, the nominal Ottoman territory of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali Dynasty. Anyone familiar with history knows that Muhammad Ali's reforms once led Egypt through a period of wealth and a strong army, even defeating the Ottoman Empire, its suzerain.
Only British and French intervention saved the ailing Ottoman Empire and left Egypt a semicolonial state again. Though the reforms ultimately failed, Egypt still half-stepped into industrialization, and its army completed modernization, so Egypt's overall power is undoubtedly first among local African forces right now.
Currently, Egyptian territory also covers Sudan (including South Sudan), effectively bordering the Omo River region on East Africa's northwest side. In military terms, the East African colony may not fear Egypt, but Egypt's capabilities are far more complete: it has industry, agriculture, a navy, and partial self-sufficiency in weapons.
Second is France; there's nothing much to say. With France's North African colony (Algeria) close to mainland France, calling France the number one force in Africa also wouldn't be wrong. At any rate, the French mainly expand in North and West Africa, far from East Africa. The nearest French colonies are the Comoros and French Madagascar, across the Indian Ocean from East Africa.
Third is Britain, same as France—its navy is too powerful for any but the other Great Powers to match.
Why not put Britain and France before Egypt? Because neither is purely an African power. Stripping away colonists, the top local states are: first Egypt, second the Empire of Abyssinia, and third is unknown even to Ernst himself.
Britain and France have the backing of national power. East Africa certainly avoids provoking them, but it has no fear of the Boers or the Portuguese. Should it offend Britain or France, East Africa would only get pummeled, with no means to strike back beyond the Indian Ocean. But with others, it's different. The Boers only number a few hundred thousand, and including merchants and settlers, the Portuguese in Mozambique might be just about ten thousand (maybe even just a few thousand).
East Africa is on par with them. As for Portugal sending reinforcements from the homeland, talk is cheap; unless they bring in several hundred thousand troops, Ernst won't take them seriously.
Fighting doesn't require Ernst to charge in person. As long as the colony's immigrant population is large, it can field a larger army, which is his basis for standing firm in East Africa.
Of course, right now the colony has no need to clash with those forces. There's still plenty of unclaimed land to develop before the Great Powers set their sights on Africa. So the colony is free to expand, and its only opponents are local native forces—no match for East Africa without foreign support.
It may look like East Africa's development is smooth sailing and its expansion lightning-fast, but that's built on Ernst living in constant anxiety. The colony exists by using the Hohenzollern family status to create the illusion that East Africa is merely a Prussian overseas experiment.
Compared to Prussia focusing on a colony, the other nations worry more about Prussia unifying Germany, so they've tacitly allowed East Africa's expansion. Meanwhile, Prussia itself has no energy to spare for overseas ventures—its high command is busy preparing for German unification. As long as the colony doesn't demand Prussian funds or manpower, and since the Hechingen royal family are "their own people," eventually everything would align with Prussia's interests.
Then there's Russia, with its interests in Eurasia. As for Austria-Hungary, it supports Ernst—it lacks energy for overseas expansion, and the Habsburgs are nearly family to him. Allowing Ernst to recruit immigrants in Austro-Hungarian lands benefits both Austria and Hungary, stabilizing their rule, so the empire favors his colonial enterprises.
All said, no country is truly reliable for the East African colony. Completely siding with anyone could prove disastrous. Only by relying on immigration and building an army can the colony safeguard itself.
And that immigration, of course, requires standards. Letting in any random riffraff would risk infiltration by foreign powers when imperialists come knocking—they'd definitely become fifth columnists.
Hence East Africa's immigration remains slow. If they accepted everyone, two to three million a year would be easy. Instead, the colony took two and a half years to reach 1.2 million, the result of Ernst raising the immigration threshold in reverse.
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