Habsburg Royal Family is preparing to run away. Naturally, this news cannot be made public, but must be carried out secretly. The East African royal family will also cooperate. At the same time, Emperor Rudolf's vision is indeed very accurate. For the Habsburg Royal Family at the moment, East Africa is the best refuge.
He has realized that if House of Habsburg stays in Europe, he may be affected by the war. The war here does not refer to the Austro-Hungarian Empire civil war, or a regional war, but a huge war that involves the entire Europe like World War I.
Therefore, it will be difficult to find a pure land in Europe in the future. At this time, if Habsburg Royal Family, which has lost the foundation of its rule, stays in Europe, it will be like a rootless duckweed, swaying in the wind and rain.
East Kalimantan colony.
Samarinda city.
As East Africa becomes increasingly open to East Kalimantan, Samarinda city's status in East Kalimantan is also increasing. Compared with Tanjong city in the north and Banjarmasin city in the south, the resources around Samarinda are more abundant and diverse.
This allowed Samarinda to absorb a large number of immigrants arriving at East Kalimantan colony. Today, another European immigrant ship arrived at Samarinda port.
"Everyone, this is Samarinda, the second largest city in Kalimantan. In the entire island of Kalimantan, the largest city is Pontianak in the west, followed by Samarinda. After all, Pontianak is one of the earliest areas developed by the empire. It is also the capital of the Lanfang Overseas Province of the empire, and its political status is different from Samarinda."
"However, this does not mean that the future of Samarinda will be worse than that of Pontianak. In the past ten years, Samarinda has been the fastest-growing city in Borneo."
"I can say with certainty that even if this city were placed in the Austro-Hungarian Empire or Europe, its level of development would be at the mid- to upper-middle level."
The captain of the Welfare introduced the situation of Samarinda to the immigrants.
To be honest, even the colonies in East Africa, Samarinda and the entire East Kalimantan, are developing much better than the colonies of other surrounding countries.
The so-called colonial activities in East Africa are more similar to local investments. After all, in the entire East Kalimantan, there are no so-called "aboriginals" or "indigenous people", and naturally there is no so-called "colonial economic existence".
The most typical example is that there are no "slums" in East Kalimantan. To the north, there are the British colonies in Borneo, Sarawak, Sabah and Brunei.
In these areas, the gap between the rich and the poor can be seen at a glance. The gap between the area where British lives, the area where the upper class local indigenous people live, and the residences of ordinary people is very obvious.
The so-called residence of the latter is even a simple shabby shack built on the edge of the city without any planning, where mosquitoes breed and dirty water flows.
Although there are also rich areas and civilian areas in Samarinda, the environmental standards in the civilian areas are high. Not only do they have paved roads and running water, but some areas even have electricity.
The captain of the Welfare said, "Samarinda has its own industry, clean drinking water, food, street lights, the best public security in Southeast Asia, etc."
"So, living here may be completely different from some of your previous imaginations. Except that the environment is very different from Europe, there are almost no major shortcomings..."
Two immigrants from Croatia, Borut and his partner Pahor, did not listen carefully to the captain of the Welfare's long speech. They lay on the side of the ship with relish and looked at the scenery of Samarinda city.
Samarinda city is built on the bank of the river Mahakam River. The surface of this river is very broad, at least it is the broadest river Borut has ever seen.
Ships of all sizes on the river are constantly gathering towards Samarinda. Most of them are transport ships transporting wood, crops and coal from inland to Samarinda.
Although it is not as prosperous and spectacular as Trieste Port, it also shows that the city's economy is not bad and full of vitality.
Borut worked at Trieste before. Of course, he was not from Trieste, but from the village of Croatia. Later, Trieste was affected by the economic crisis, and Borut became unemployed.
That's why Borut boarded the welfare number through the immigration company and arrived at Samarinda.
"Pahor, I don't know if it's an illusion, but I actually feel that Samarinda is more prosperous than Trieste." Borut said, leaning on the railing.
"The city here doesn't look smaller than Trieste, but how is that possible? Trieste is one of the largest cities in Europe."
Pahor also thinks so. "You are right, Trieste and Austro-Hungarian Empire are all big cities in the forefront, and the so-called Samarinda is just a colonial city in East Africa."
"Samarinda should not be as big as Trieste, but its size is still beyond my expectation. This is a good thing for us. I was worried that this would be a place where birds don't poop!"
In fact, in terms of city size, Samarinda and Trieste are about the same. Both have a population size of about 300,000. Of course, Trieste's actual population should be more. As Austro-Hungarian Empire's largest port city, Trieste has very frequent personnel exchanges.
The population of Samarinda is almost all here, so to be more precise, the permanent population of the two cities is equivalent, but Trieste has more than just the permanent population.
Even so, Samarinda's urban population size is, as Pahor said, a bit exaggerated.
As for the reason for this situation, it is the particularity of East African colony. The urban development path of East Kalimantan is more similar to the South American model, with the population mainly concentrated in towns.
This is a kind of advanced urbanization. On Eurasian continent, the process of urbanization develops gradually. The original population was concentrated in the countryside. After entering the industrialization era, it began to gradually flow into the cities and towns.
When East Kalimantan became a colony, immigrants were concentrated in coastal towns, and then gradually spread to the inland and rural areas, which was the opposite of Eurasian continent.
East African mainland The situation is different. At that time, East Africa was the first to develop agriculture, so most of the immigrants were forcibly distributed to various parts of East Africa through administrative means. It was not until the 20th century that urban development began to accelerate.
After such twists and turns, East African mainland is similar to Eurasian continent, and has given birth to a unique local culture. Until now, nearly half of the population in East Africa still lives in rural areas.
United States has also gone through such a process, but it was not as thorough as East African mainland's original implementation.
South America is a negative case of United States and East Africa. In the past period, most immigrants in South America lived in cities, and the level of urbanization was even higher than that of East Africa and United States. However, this kind of urbanization obviously lacks support, and the economic value of cities other than the capital is very low.
For example, Argentina, except for Buenos Aires, the size and industry of other cities are not enough.
The situation of Samarinda is similar to that of South American cities, but there are some differences, that is, East Africa will divert the population through administrative means. For example, in East Kalimantan, there is not only Samarinda, but also Tanjong and Banyan. Although Tanjong and Banyan are worse than Samarinda, they will not fall too far behind.
Borut said, "You are right, but from a superficial perspective, Samarinda should be the city I have seen second only to Trieste."
"I originally thought that the living conditions here were very difficult and there were a lot of plantations. However, after seeing Samarinda, I felt that Croatia might not be as developed as Samarinda except for the capital."
Although Croatia is part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it is one of the areas with the worst economy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Basically, it can only rely on agriculture to survive. Compared with East Kalimantan, it is really possible that it cannot be compared to East Kalimantan economically.
After all, the population of East Kalimantan is now more than three million, and the population of Kingdom of Croatia is about the same level.
However, East Kalimantan has a larger land area and more abundant resources than Croatia. At the same time, the port and transportation here are more developed than Croatia.
In terms of ports, East Kalimantan's three major cities, Samarinda, Tanjong and Banyan are all port cities, while Croatia only Rijeka has a fairly good scale.
The Croatia of this era is significantly different from the Croatia of the previous life. Because of the existence of Kingdom of Dalmatia, a large number of coastlines and ports of Croatia of the previous life belong to Dalmatia, such as Zadar, Split, etc.
At the same time, East Kalimantan is not only convenient for sea transportation, but also has advantages in inland shipping that Croatia cannot match. Samarinda is built on the bank of the Mahakam River, while Croatia has no such river connecting the coast to the inland.
Moreover, despite the fact that East Kalimantan is a colony in East Africa and seems to be inferior, Croatia is within the Austro-Hungarian Empire and may not even be as good as the colonies in East Africa. In the past, Croatia has long been a de facto "colony" of Hungary. This should be similar to areas other than Tsarist era and Russia.
Therefore, the economy of East Kalimantan is actually much stronger than that of Croatia. If Samarinda is placed in Croatia, it can directly land on the throne of the largest city.
Pahor also has a certain yearning for the future days in Samarinda.
"Maybe we can do as well here as we did at Croatia. The only bad thing is that we are not very adaptable to the environment here."
The muggy heat is the only drawback of Samarinda, after all, it is in the tropics.
During the conversation between the two, the captain of the Welfare finally ended his introduction to Samarinda. He said to everyone, "After coming here, everyone can start a new life and say goodbye to the past."
"East Kalimantan is definitely a livable place. The environment seems a bit harsh, but as long as you stay there for a while, you can slowly adapt."
"Moreover, it is much more stable than Europe. There are no wars or conflicts."
The immigrants on the Welfare Number are basically from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Some of them came here to escape the turbulent situation and the economic crisis.
Of course, what they don't know is that East Kalimantan is not a safe place. Especially in the future, this place may become one of the main battlefields in East Africa and a certain country. However, at least in the past few years, East Kalimantan will be safe.
As the economic crisis spread and developed in Europe, the number of immigrants from East African overseas colonies was on the rise in 1933.
Among them, East Kalimantan and other Nanyang colonies have the fastest population growth. As East African colony has the largest population, East Kalimantan's population is expected to exceed five million or even more in the next ten years.
This wave of immigration, coupled with the high birth rate in the colonies, will greatly alleviate the problem of population or labor shortage in East Africa's future colonies.
And this is not the end of overseas colonial immigration. Once there is large-scale turmoil in Europe, the speed will be even faster. At present, although the internal situation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is quite tense, the overall situation is relatively stable. However, the collapse of this stability will most likely occur in the near future.
Once Austro-Hungarian Empire collapses, it will trigger a chain reaction, and the entire area, including Balkan Peninsula, Italian Peninsula, and West Ukraine, may participate.
However, this is a good thing for East Africa to some extent. Although East Africa does not want to see Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrate, everyone now knows that Austro-Hungarian Empire will be difficult to maintain.
East Africa must consider finding new political allies, or proxies, in Europe to maintain its own interests, while also accelerating the decoupling process between East Africa and Europe.
After all, no political ally or agent can be more beneficial to East Africa than the continued existence of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. For example, Germany is too strong in diplomacy and cooperation with East Africa, and the expansion of countries like the Soviet Union in Europe is obviously not in line with the interests of East Africa. Other countries are too small.
Looking at Europe, only Italy seems to be able to cooperate with East Africa and replace Austro-Hungarian Empire. However, Italy is indeed more complementary to East Africa and its strength is not bad, but its leader Benito is uncertain.
Therefore, if Austro-Hungarian Empire disintegrates, it will be difficult for East Africa to find such a stable and high-quality partner that can maintain East Africa's interests in Central and Eastern Europe. Therefore, East Africa will inevitably be in a period of temporary strategic contraction in the direction of Europe in the future.
If you want to support another pro-East African force similar to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, you may have to wait until World War II breaks out.
During this period, East Africa can only strengthen its expansion and control of other markets to make up for East Africa's losses in Europe, and the focus of this is the "Twin Wings Market" planned by East Africa.
The so-called Twin Wings Market are respectively "Nanyang Market" in the east and "South American market" in the west. These two markets are on the left and right of East Africa, like wings, so they are named.
East Africa's market in South America has begun to take shape. Although the intervention time is late, the results are quick. After all, South America has been developed for hundreds of years, and the original owners of the market, Spain, Portugal and the United Kingdom, have all declined.
Their decline has just made the latecomers East Africa and United States cheaper, and East Africa has an advantage in the competition due to its geographical location. Therefore, South America has now become one of the engines of East African economy's growth, with less investment and quick results.
On the contrary, Nanyang Market has invested a lot in East Africa, but Nanyang Market lacks a population and needs time to grow.
Of course, the main reason is that the mature lands developed in Nanyang Market are not in the hands of East Africa, but are controlled by the United Kingdom and France. Therefore, East Africa hopes that a certain East Asian country will break the balance of Nanyang region and serve as an introduction to the re-division of the regional market in East Africa.