Chapter Summaries

Ernst and his party concluded their European trip and sailed back to East Africa aboard the ironclad Archduke Ferdinand, while Ernst reassured Karina about the colony’s conditions. The chapter ended with the fleet heading toward the Red Sea and Ernst explaining how East Africa’s development had improved its environment.

• Ernst’s European trip secured 240 German enterprises, plans for forty-three factories, equipment purchases, and nearly one million tons of steel orders for East Africa’s railway.
• At Trieste, Archduke Ferdinand prepared to return to East Africa aboard the ironclad that now flew the East African national flag.
• Austro-Hungarian officers lamented their navy’s limited prospects as the East African fleet sailed away.
• British troops near the Suez Canal recognized the ironclad as an East African purchase and discussed the kingdom’s financial strength and plantation trade.
• Ernst answered Karina’s questions about cannibals and malaria, while Princess Charlotte confirmed that the coast was pleasant but the interior was different.
• Ernst compared East Africa’s transformation to Lingnan’s development as the fleet passed through the Suez Canal and headed for the Red Sea.

Portuguese observers in Mozambique saw the East African ironclad Archduke Ferdinand and feared East Africa’s growing military and industrial strength. They speculated that East Africa was using imported steel to build railways, while its gold remained hidden from international markets.

• Portuguese watchers in Dar es Salaam spotted the Archduke Ferdinand and worried that its ironclad power could threaten Mozambique.
• The Portuguese discussed how East Africa had surrounded Mozambique and Angola through its expansion into the Transvaal and Zulu territories.
• Portuguese observers noted that ships were bringing large quantities of steel to East Africa and guessed that the kingdom was building railways.
• The Portuguese debated whether East Africa could afford a railway linking its territory to South Africa and concluded that such a project would be prohibitively expensive without gold.
• East Africa kept its gold out of international markets and continued exporting mainly agricultural products.

Ernst, Archduke Ferdinand, and Karina arrived in Dar es Salaam and discussed East Africa’s industrial growth, its development strategy, and Austria’s and Mexico’s prospects. Ernst left the group focused on East Africa’s long-term potential and warned that the United States would dominate the Americas once European powers withdrew.

• Ernst and his party came ashore at Dar es Salaam’s New Port and took the busy First Railway to First Town.
• Ferdinand admired Dar es Salaam’s growth, and Ernst explained how the Central Railway and New Port supported East Africa’s industrial development.
• Ernst described the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone as East Africa’s heavy-industry center and explained why Zimbabwe’s development depended on railway access.
• Karina compared East African cities favorably with Austrian cities, and Ernst argued that Austria’s population and economic output still far exceeded East Africa’s.
• Ferdinand wondered whether Austria could have developed Africa, and Ernst said Austria lacked the investment, organization, and freedom to do so.
• Ferdinand reflected on his failed rule in Mexico, and Ernst warned that the United States would dominate the Americas after Britain and France withdrew.

Ernst and Karina returned to First Town, where they remarried in a public ceremony and gathered with their families at Sveti Royal Palace. Constantin welcomed Karina with a crown and encouraged her parents to move to First Town, while Ernst’s parents agreed to reunite with her there after he finished naval business.

• Ernst and Karina arrived in First Town and went through a second wedding ceremony there.
• Constantin presented Karina with a jeweled crown as a gift, and Ernst placed it on her head.
• Ernst became distracted by thoughts about East Africa’s development before Constantin called him back to the family gathering.
• Constantin asked Ferdinand and Charlotte to move to First Town so Karina would have her parents nearby.
• Ferdinand agreed that he and Charlotte would move to First Town after he had sorted out naval affairs.

After a locust plague broke out in the neighboring Wasangali Sultanate, Ernst ordered East Africa to prepare defenses and secure food supplies for Somalia. He also sought to exploit possible crop losses in the Middle East by expanding East Africa’s grain exports.

• Ernst received a telegram reporting a locust disaster in the Wasangali Sultanate and identified the insects as desert locusts.
• Ernst ordered the Ministry of Agriculture and northern Pest Control Centers to prepare defenses, especially in Eastern Province and Southern Prussian Province.
• Ernst assessed that East Africa could do little to stop the locusts in sparsely populated Somalia, but could mobilize forces in southern Kenya to monitor routes and disrupt egg-laying sites.
• Ernst noted that the highlands, trade winds, and cooler temperatures would limit the locusts’ spread into East Africa’s main agricultural regions.
• Ernst ordered food distribution preparations for Somalia and instructed his people to coordinate with Zanzibar merchants to seize grain markets if the plague spread to the Middle East.

Desert locusts from the Wasangali Sultanate threatened northern East Africa, prompting a coordinated campaign that largely protected the Northern Pastures. Ernst called for East Africa to expand its South African pastures to reduce the risk of future livestock losses.

• Locusts bred after rare rains in the Somali Desert and spread from the Wasangali Sultanate toward East Africa and across the Red Sea.
• The Northern Province Pest Control Center ordered inspections and organized efforts to destroy locusts and their egg-laying grounds.
• East African workers culled locusts along the Shebelle and Juba River basins, reducing their numbers before they reached the Northern Pastures.
• The locusts caused heavy banana losses but were mostly stopped at the southern Kenyan plateau, preserving East Africa's main livestock source.
• Ernst urged the government to open new pastures in the former Republic of the Transvaal and replenish South African ranches with livestock from the Northern Pastures.

Nairobi factory workers discussed the locust threat, their lives in East Africa, and their plans, while director Claisen considered increasing their workload. The chapter described Nairobi’s prospects and East Africa’s agricultural heartlands, emphasizing the railways needed to connect the Great Lakes Region to Mombasa.

• Nairobi residents learned the locust plague had been intercepted and discussed the damage elsewhere and their lives in East Africa.
• Stephen, Chris, and Odebiou Meng argued about their national origins, past hardships, and family lives before discussing a football match.
• Director Claisen watched the lively workers at Nairobi Cotton Textile Factory No. 1 and proposed giving them a heavier workload.
• The chapter compared Nairobi’s future with its development in Ernst’s previous life and noted that Mombasa and the Central Railway would limit its prospects.
• The chapter outlined the agricultural and mineral potential of the Great Lakes Region, Zambia, southern Congo, and Tanzania, and stressed the importance of railway connections to seaports.

East Africa reorganized its administrative divisions in 1874 to address population growth, inefficient provincial boundaries, and military-controlled districts. Ernst’s new map merged and renamed provinces across the kingdom, while the story left western boundaries open to future expansion.

• Officials reported that immigration and farming had grown rapidly in the Zambezi and southern Congo regions, while scattered inland populations strained administrative systems.
• The government identified overcrowded northern provincial divisions, chaotic military districts south of the Zambezi, and weak, unevenly developed eastern provinces.
• Ernst approved a reorganization that retained twenty-six provinces while merging or abolishing many existing units and creating new provinces across East Africa.
• The reorganization created new provinces in the Congo basin, Zambia, and southern territories, and designated nature reserves in the Serengeti and south of Pretoria.
• East Africa incorporated Pemba, Mafia, and Zanzibar into Central Province and elevated the Comoros to a municipal-level naval base.
• The government shaped provinces in South Africa to guard against Cape Colony and left western administration flexible because East Africa expected its borders to change.

Ernst planned East Africa’s provinces and railway around their mineral resources, while the economic crisis and competing powers’ colonial moves pushed his kingdom to consider further expansion. The chapter left East Africa poised to strengthen its position in Africa and explore opportunities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

• Ernst divided Zambia, the southern Congolese plateau, and Zimbabwe into provinces arranged around the Central Railway and their resources.
• Ernst deferred the Kariba Reservoir project until East Africa had the capability and conditions to build it, and prioritized developing coal in Southern Frontier Province.
• Italy expanded its control southeast of the Abyssinian Empire, while Leopold II secured sovereignty over territory west of the Ubangi River.
• East Africa recruited German-descendant workers and farmers from the United States, and more than two hundred thousand arrived in the first three months of 1874.
• Japan attacked Dawan Island but was repelled after Fujian intervened; the East African consulate guard company in the Zhuhai Trade Zone suffered casualties.
• Ernst planned to consolidate East Africa’s African gains and pursue opportunities in the Indian and Pacific Oceans as its navy developed.

Ernst addressed East Africa’s rapid population growth by tightening immigration screening and ending most childbirth subsidies from 1875. The chapter left the government preparing to notify households as East Africa shifted its focus from population quantity to quality.

• In 1874, East Africa raised immigration requirements and tightened health screenings, filtering out many prospective immigrants.
• Ernst concluded that rapid population growth and government support for newborns had become an unsustainable burden.
• At the population conference, officials debated limiting childbirth support and immigration, citing high fertility, incoming migrants, and concerns about national identity.
• Ernst ordered officials to inform every household that subsidies for newborns born from 1875 onward would end, while pregnancies already underway had to be registered.
• East Africa’s population policy changed, marking a shift from seeking population growth toward improving population quality.

The chapter explained how state-funded childbirth, rapid immigration, and high fertility were driving East Africa’s population toward at least thirty million by 1880. It left East Africa continuing to attract and screen immigrants while seeking to manage the costs and political effects of its population boom.

• East Africa’s first large-scale civilian immigrant wave arrived in 1865, and Ernst’s policies encouraged high fertility by having the state bear much of the cost of childbearing.
• East Africa received around 250,000 immigrants monthly, with the government’s immigration network recruiting people across Europe, East Asia, and South America.
• East Africa attracted immigrants by waiving ship fares and using returning settlers to demonstrate conditions, while its immigration office also spread reports about hardships in the United States.
• East Africa expanded schooling and provided school lunches, further reducing families’ child-rearing costs.
• East Africa screened immigrants, especially restricting German immigrants from the United States to limit liberal political influence, while continuing to welcome women from many regions.
• The chapter estimated East Africa’s population would reach at least thirty million by 1880 and might exceed forty million.

In 1875, East Africa’s major infrastructure projects neared completion, leaving the Central Railway as the last major undertaking. Ernst planned to use the railway network to move settlers inland and proposed new lines and a port to connect the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone with the coast and western provinces.

• The Dar es Salaam-to-Mbeya section of the Central Railway was completed, while the Northern Railway and Central Canal were finished and the Little Rhine River renovation neared completion.
• Ernst told Constantin to slow railway construction and use the existing lines to move immigrants and eastern residents into South Salzburg Province.
• Ernst proposed a Southern Railway from a new Soko Port to Songea to improve transport for New Württemberg Province and the Lake Malawi Industrial Zone.
• Ernst planned a branch line from Dodoma through Mbeya to Bujumbura, extending East Africa’s railway network across the region’s great lakes.

Zuo Jiga sought a loan from Hechingen Bank to fund a campaign against separatist forces in the Far East Empire’s northwest. Mayweather offered financing and military supplies in exchange for procurement contracts and collateral, leaving the loan’s final terms unsettled.

• Mayweather met Zuo Jiga in Kaifeng after Qiao Zhiyong and Hu Xueyan brought him to discuss raising military funds.
• Zuo Jiga asked whether Hechingen Bank could lend five million taels, and Mayweather said it could lend as much as twenty million taels in East African Rheinland Shields.
• Mayweather agreed to a proposed five-percent interest rate, then required Hechingen Bank to handle military-ration procurement and take a share of the arms business.
• Mayweather offered to arrange grain, weapons, and European military instructors, while Qiao Zhiyong said the merchants could transport supplies from Henan toward the northwest.
• Mayweather said the loan would require collateral, and Zuo Jiga asked whether the bank had any other conditions.

In June 1875, East Africa held a large military exercise in Mikumi, pitting the East African Guards Division against the Southern Military Region under deliberately unequal conditions. Ernst inspected the exercise and warned commanders that European powers would eventually target Africa, leaving East Africa to prepare for a global conflict.

• The Blue Army Third Combat Squad was ruled to have suffered forty percent casualties after a Red Army grenade attack, and its soldiers argued over the ruling and their tactical mistakes.
• A Red Army squad leader criticized his unit for failing to post sentries while advancing through the jungle.
• Leinard and Corioli argued in the exercise command center over the Red Army's superior equipment and the exercise's unequal conditions.
• Svit explained that the exercise was intended to expose weaknesses in East Africa's readiness to fight European powers, and Ernst arrived to review the situation.
• Ernst said the Red Army represented East Africa's actual military level and warned that European powers would bring conflict to Africa amid the economic crisis.

In July 1875, Ernst directed the East African Navy’s voyage to the Far East toward establishing influence in Nanyang, with the Lanfang Republic as its intended foothold. He left the navy preparing to press Lanfang for trade and investment rights, laying the groundwork for future control.

• Ernst returned by train after inspecting East Africa’s military exercise.
• Archduke Ferdinand announced that the fleet would sail through the Strait of Malacca to visit Far Eastern countries.
• Ernst told Archduke Ferdinand to make the Lanfang Republic a priority and have the navy request expanded East African influence there.
• Ernst explained that Lanfang’s independent status and Chinese-led population made it a valuable strategic foothold that could avoid immediate conflict with other European powers.
• Ernst outlined a plan to use economic penetration, then seek the right to station troops and promote German influence in Lanfang.

On July 23, 1875, Archduke Ferdinand led an East African fleet to the Lanfang Republic and forced its Chief Executive, Liu Asheng, to sign a trade agreement. East Africa planned to expand its influence through trade, recruitment, immigration, and investment before eventually absorbing the fractured republic.

• Archduke Ferdinand arrived at Sanyangkou with seven East African warships and learned that Lanfang was more developed than other parts of the Nanyang region.
• After a language barrier delayed talks, Ferdinand used interpreters to tell the local leader that East Africa wanted to negotiate with Lanfang’s ruler.
• Ferdinand sailed to Dongweng, where Liu Asheng’s government offered no resistance to the East African troops.
• Ferdinand presented East Africa’s demands, and Liu Asheng signed the trade agreement under armed threat.
• East Africa planned to build local allies and expand its economic and military presence before taking control of Lanfang.

Archduke Ferdinand’s fleet left men in the Lanfang Republic, claimed Balabac Island for East Africa, and continued north to the Far East Empire. He arrived at Zhuhai and reflected on the country’s potential and unfamiliar customs.

• The Hohenzollern Conglomerate left more than three hundred armed men in the Lanfang Republic, where they met the Zanzibar Chamber of Commerce in Pontianak.
• Archduke Ferdinand claimed Balabac Island for the Kingdom of East Africa by planting its flag and ordered a small fort built.
• Archduke Ferdinand left twenty to thirty soldiers and supplies on Balabac Island, warning them to conserve ammunition and explore the rainforest cautiously.
• After eight days, Archduke Ferdinand’s fleet reached Zhuhai in the Far East Empire.
• Archduke Ferdinand praised the Far East Empire’s agriculture and potential, while remarking on its unfamiliar hairstyles and the condition of its people.

After completing their diplomatic visit in East Asia, Archduke Ferdinand and the East African Fleet traveled to the Alaska Royal Territory, where he inspected its settlements, defenses, and economy. He recommended connecting Alaska to Far Eastern telegraph lines and integrating its navy more closely with East Africa, recognizing its strategic importance in the Pacific.

• The East African Navy completed its diplomatic mission in East Asia and sailed to Alaska at Archduke Ferdinand’s suggestion.
• Archduke Ferdinand revisited Alaska, where he had once been taken after being abducted, and inspected the territory’s population, farms, fishing industry, and defenses.
• The Alaska Royal Guard guarded the territory’s coastal waters and turned away foreign expeditions, while Alaska’s rugged interior and Russian-controlled southern strip made land invasion difficult.
• Archduke Ferdinand recommended building telegraph connections between Alaska’s settlements and the Far East to improve communication and military administration.
• Archduke Ferdinand proposed merging the Alaska Royal Territory’s navy with East Africa’s navy and regarded Alaska as a strategically valuable East Pacific territory.

At a government work conference, East African leaders planned to use agricultural cooperatives, railway expansion, and development projects to strengthen the interior and respond to rising foreign tariffs. Ernst set goals for recruiting labor, developing mines, and increasing steel production, leaving East Africa focused on rapid expansion.

• The Minister of Agriculture announced plans to build more than 1,500 agricultural cooperatives along the railway in the Zimbabwe region.
• Officials described how government-led cooperatives and the East African Agricultural Corporation would guide farming, manage supplies, and coordinate grain exports.
• A speaker recommended expanding tobacco fields to offset Germany’s new tobacco monopoly and preserve East African tobacco’s competitiveness in the German market.
• Ernst said East Africa would rely on mainland grain, recruit more inland slaves, build infrastructure, and develop mines along the Zimbabwe railway.
• Ernst called for exploiting interior iron ore and coal and expanding steel production to at least one million tons by 1880.

Ernst and Constantin responded to worsening German pressure on the Hohenzollern Conglomerate by shifting investments to other markets and preparing to move food processing to East Africa. Their withdrawal intensified Germany’s economic crisis, while the conglomerate strengthened ties with southern German states and reduced its dependence on Prussian Junker businesses.

• East African officials described how railway construction had boosted inland development and narrowed the gap between the kingdom’s eastern and western regions.
• A subordinate reported that the German government was targeting Hechingen enterprises and considering higher tariffs on East African agricultural goods.
• Ernst told Constantin that the Hohenzollern name could not protect their interests and recommended moving German investments to Austria-Hungary, the Far East, and Argentina.
• Hechingen Bank redirected funds abroad, and East Africa prepared to replace German steel purchases with steel from Austria-Hungary.
• The Hohenzollern Conglomerate’s capital flight contributed to renewed panic and rising unemployment in Germany, prompting Wilhelm I to question Bismarck about the economy.
• Ernst strengthened cooperation with Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria and prepared to relocate food-processing enterprises from Germany to East Africa.