At this time, Austrians on the Philippine islands were increasing rapidly at a rate of a thousand per year. In less than ten years, their numbers had already reached nearly ten thousand.
This had already surpassed the scale achieved by the Spaniards in four hundred years of colonial rule, but truly taking control of the entire Philippine archipelago remained a distant prospect.
Not to mention that the Philippines had nearly four million people; the more than seven thousand islands alone were enough to give anyone a headache.
Moreover, the Austrian Empire was unlikely to pour its precious manpower without limit into the Philippines, half a world away from the homeland.
In fact, the Americans of later history also relied on importing Chinese laborers to create a catfish effect among the locals. But once the Chinese laborers did too well, the Americans began joining forces with the Filipinos to enact the Chinese Exclusion Act.
Franz had no intention of placing either side too high, and such excessively laissez-faire economic policies did not belong to the Austrian Empire either.
In fact, Austria had first brought in the Shogunate's outcast peasants. But the Japanese laborers, who had always been so useful, developed a sense of superiority in the Philippines.
Though they would not wallow in the same mire as the natives, they had begun plotting to overthrow their superiors. The source was highly reliable, because the informants were the organizers themselves—and there was more than one.
Clearly, not all Japanese liked the idea of overthrowing their superiors. More of them preferred borrowing their compatriots' heads.
In Japanese eyes, these people might have been traitors to their nation, but in Austria, the suzerain state, they were loyal subjects who had to be rewarded.
As the saying went: their bandits were our heroes. That was