In 1868, the year had come to an end once again.
East Africa's population had wound its way up to 1.75 million. Besides the new immigrants, East Africa was also experiencing its first baby boom.
The relatively stable environment of the past two years, coupled with East Africa's preferential policies for female immigrants and the gradual improvement of marriage prospects among immigrants, meant that newly formed families now made up the majority of East African households.
Once people had settled down and established themselves, they naturally had to carry on the family line. East Africa had been reaping the dividends of war all along; its territory had expanded, its cultivated land had increased, and all of this gave immigrants the impetus to have children.
In this era, the cost of raising children was extremely low. Combined with immigrants' traditional views on childbirth, they essentially let themselves have as many children as they could.
As long as these immigrants worked a little harder, they could support a few more mouths.
The immigrants in the East African colony possessed almost no sense of crisis. East Africa was simply too vast, and its natural conditions were too favorable; it lacked the environment of ruthless competition found on the Eurasian continent.
Aside from the immigrant population, native laborers were not included in East Africa's population statistics. This year, the native population was estimated at over 1.3 million.
The African continent truly did not lack natives. Even though the natives of the East African mainland had all been brought under control, they had to bear heavy labor and could also be sold off by the East African colony, so the losses remained considerable.
Yet whenever East Africa expanded westward, it would seize another batch to replenish its missing labor force. It was a typical slave