What was bound to come had come. Though he had long been prepared, Ferdinand still could not feel at ease. This financial crisis had arrived at the worst possible time; Bulgaria was in the midst of a massive immigration campaign.
And now they had to deal with an economic crisis as well. The pressure on the government was simply overwhelming.
To ensure that the immigration work proceeded smoothly, Ferdinand had not even unveiled the long-prepared "Third Five-Year Plan," all so the government could focus its efforts on handling the immigrants properly.
After the Balkan Wars, Bulgaria's population had theoretically surpassed ten million, reaching 11.43 million.
In reality, aside from the original population of over 4.3 million, there were also more than 1.8 million Bulgarians scattered throughout the Balkans who could be counted as their own people.
They had always regarded Bulgaria as their sole motherland and were the most loyal. The other ethnic minorities still needed time to be assimilated.
Of the remaining five million-plus people, over 1.2 million had been deeply influenced by Bulgarian culture and could be easily assimilated. They were mainly distributed across Macedonia and East Thrace. The former was the harvest of generations of hard work by successive Bulgarian governments, while the latter was the fruit of Ferdinand's efforts after taking the throne.
Because these 1.2 million people had already been Bulgarianized in substance culturally, assimilation was not particularly difficult. They identified strongly with Bulgaria as well, and all had switched to Bulgarian ethnic identity cards. For the most part, they had already been absorbed.
Aside from them, there were also some who had thrown in their lot with Bulgaria during the Balkan Wars out of hatred for the Ottoman Empire. They were a union bound by interests, joining the great Bulgarian family.
These people were