"Your Highness, we have integrated a total of 17 steel companies in German territories, including 3 large steel companies and the rest are small and medium-sized steel companies. According to the country category, there are 8 steel companies in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, 7 in Germany, and 2 in Luxembourg."
Since 1870, Luxembourg began to mine a large amount of domestic iron ore, and based on Thomas steelmaking process, it vigorously developed the steel industry and made great progress. The two large steel companies acquired in East Africa were Luxembourg companies, and another large steel company was Ruhr area company.
In 1873, Germany's industrial development reached an unprecedented peak. In just a few years, its steelmaking plants surged from 920 to 1,720, and pig iron production doubled to 2 million tons. Therefore, the steel companies poached by Ernst are just a drop in the bucket for Germany.
During the economic crisis, a large number of steel companies throughout German territories went bankrupt, generally small and medium-sized companies, while large companies have higher risk resistance capabilities. This is why two of the large steel companies acquired by Hohenzollern Conglomerate were Luxembourg companies.
"As of August, we have recruited a total of more than 34,000 steel workers from the Austro-Hungarian Empire area to immigrate to East Africa. According to your request, Czechs accounts for more than 13,000 people, and the rest are mostly Slovenia and Croats."
"Too little, still too little!" Ernst said with some dissatisfaction.
"Your Highness, the main reason is insufficient transportation capacity. This year, the number of merchant ships we have invested in the Americas accounts for almost 5%, and 25% of the transportation capacity has been invested in rail transportation. Our own merchant ships are not enough now. Even if we cooperate with the Netherlands, Kingdom of Naples still cannot meet so much demand."
Ernst thought for a moment, "Well, it seems that we can only use the last resort."
The so-called last resort is to hire British merchant ships, which is also impossible.
Hechingen Overseas Trading Company is currently the largest shipping company in the world, with more than a thousand large merchant ships. This is because Hechingen Overseas Trading Company is said to be a private enterprise and actually monopolizes the entire East African trade, and is also involved in trade in the Americas, Europe and the Far East.
Although Hechingen's merchant ships are not small in size, there is no way to compete with the United Kingdom. Early 19th century and British Royal Navy alone have about a thousand warships of various types. The number is less now because British Royal Navy is in the state of being refitted. Ironclad ships are launched every year. There is no need to pile up wooden warships, but to pay more attention to tonnage.
The British civilian shipping field is even more outstanding. In the 19th century, Britain was a veritable shipping empire, producing more than 80% of the world's ships and owning about half of the world's fleet.
Even if East Africa took out all its possessions, it would be too late. If it were not for the appearance of ironclad ships, navies around the world would not even have a chance to challenge British Navy.
Ernst then ordered, "However, when talking about business with British, don't talk with those big companies, but talk with those small companies or even self-employed people. At the same time, except the UK, Mediterranean coast will look for it. It doesn't matter which country, as long as the price is lower than British, you can negotiate."
Shipping prices are generally the lowest in the UK, but these are times of economic crisis and there will always be exceptions.
Hohenzollern Conglomerate's own fleet is a little worse in this regard. Some necessary positions cannot be replaced, but the cleaners, chefs and other occupations on the ship can be done by Chinese, mainly at a low price.
"How is the current steel order situation?" Ernst asked.
"We have negotiated a deal with the Austria government to provide 300,000 tons of steel per year. However, Austria's production is too low. The main reason for this is that Germany's production is relatively high. Ruhr area alone has reached an order of 400,000 tons per year. If we add our own company's production capacity, we should be able to import 1.1 million tons of steel to East Africa a year."
"In addition to Luxembourg and Ruhr area, our steel production capacity is mainly concentrated in the Czech region and Slovenia region."
The steel companies acquired by Ernst took advantage of the trend to expand after completing the capital injection, so their strength has been greatly supplemented.
Among them, Luxembourg and Ruhr area are key production areas. One is rich in iron ore and the other is rich in coal mines. The Czech Republic is a little worse. The Slovenia area is entirely due to Trieste, the closest excellent port to East Africa.
Of course, East Africa itself will also be responsible for part of the steel production, and a separate steel plant will be built in this regard. The good news is that Ernst now has no shortage of technicians and steel workers at all, so there is no technical problem in building steel plants in East Africa.
However, it is obviously impossible for East Africa to absorb so many steel workers. Some of them are mainly used to fill the population in East Africa, and there is no need for them to engage in steel production. The greatest possibility is to arrange to open up wasteland in the interior.
Cross-industry employment is not a big problem. European countries have only been industrialized in the past few years. Many workers are from rural areas. It is impossible to say that they do not know how to farm.
"With the help of this economic depression, we need to absorb the unemployed and agricultural population on a large scale in Austria and its surrounding areas within the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The focus is on those non-Germans. As for the Germans, we should keep them for the Austro-Hungarian Empire!" Ernst emphasized.
It's really not easy House of Habsburg, Slavs (Czech, Slovakia, Poland, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia...) population plus Latinos (Romania and Italy) account for more than half, Austria and Hungarians combined cannot make up half of it.
Changing the population structure of the Austro-Hungarian Empire cannot be done by Ernst, but it can be done by just changing Austria and the surrounding areas of Austria.
There are two places that Ernst believes have the greatest impact on Austria. One is the Czech region, and the other is Slovenia. Czech means industry, and Slovenia represents the port.
The main target of recruiting immigrants this time is non-Germans in these two places. As for where East Africa will absorb Germans this time, apart from Germany being the focus, the largest source country is the United States.
Ernst's immigration recruitment strategy in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the past, Ernst would definitely not have done this, but at that time, this time.
In the past, East Africa was in urgent need of German-speaking people, and in Austria, they were hungry and hungry. Now there is no shortage in East Africa. After nearly ten years of hard work, German has basically become the unified language of East Africa.
There are no statistics on the East Africans population in the past two years, but Ernst estimates that the current East Africans population should be around 8 million to 9 million, and the number of German-speaking people is at least 7 million.
As for new immigrants who cannot speak German, if they are placed in the big dye vat of East Africa, they can basically become Germans through the language environment within a year. If they are too stupid, there is nothing they can do.
After unifying the language, matters of cultural identity are basically trivial. Now East Africa can choose its own "high-quality" immigrants from all over the world.
However, there is no need to do this in an economic crisis. There are unemployed people all over Europe and the United States. United States alone has recorded more than three million unemployed people in history. This is only an estimate, and the real number is definitely more than that.
The unemployed population in Germany and Austro-Hungarian Empire are definitely indispensable. Ernst can be sure that the number of unemployed people in Germany is greater than United States, because the current population of Germany is above United States.
Even if there is no economic crisis, Germany has the largest outmigration population in the world. This also shows that Germany's unemployment rate is high in normal times and will definitely increase after the economic crisis breaks out. Judging from the two countries' territories alone, it is impossible for a place as big as Germany to have more means to deal with crises than United States.
Historically, the reversal of the Germans export outflow had to wait until the end of the 19th century, that is, after 1893, so Germany still has great potential.
At present, the focus of East Africa's absorption of immigrants from Germany has shifted from southwest Germany to Northeast region. In addition to the industrial development of the southwest (mainly Lorraine and Alsace driving the development of the steel and textile industries), which has digested a large number of people, there is also the fact that this area has been absorbed by East Africa for ten years. There is basically no overpopulation in the southwest. On the contrary, the East Prussia area has serious overpopulation due to its backward industrial development level and being dominated by agriculture.