July 1, 1867.
The Constitution of the North German Confederation officially came into effect.
The significance of this constitution was that Prussia had legally taken command of North Germany's affairs and its military and political power. It preserved Prussia's ruling position within the Confederation and the Prussian king's power to stand above all else in the government, while also draping it in the cloak of democracy.
In legal form, North Germany became Prussia's private preserve. Riding this favorable wind,
Ernst established the Hamburg Ocean Commercial Trade Fleet. This fleet numbered eleven vessels. Before German unification, the registered German merchant marine had contained only 4,350 sailing ships and 175 steamships in total. Even across North Germany, its scale was not small.
Together with the Hechingen Ocean Fleet based in Trieste on the Mediterranean Sea, the merchant vessels under Ernst's name now numbered more than fifty.
Many of these ships ran the Far East and East Africa routes, gradually replacing the hired Dutch merchant ships.
The newly established Hamburg Ocean Commercial Trade Fleet's main mission was to handle oceanic trade for the German territories while also helping Ernst carry machinery and equipment bound for East Africa.
After all, unlike the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the common people in the German territories were better educated and harder to fool, so immigration would not be its primary task.
The vessels under Ernst's name were all fairly large. After all, when traveling by sea, the bigger the ship, the better.
Even the ships built for its own use by the family shipyard in Venice numbered only in the single digits. Most had still been purchased from countries across Europe.
As new steamships spread, especially with the emergence of ironclads, the prices of traditional sailing ships had continued to fall. Thus, Ernst acquired a batch of high-quality ocean-going