In the East

On Christmas Day in 1845, German immigrants living in the Hungarian region of the Austrian Empire gathered at the Imperial Manor to celebrate this wonderful holiday together.

After six years of development, the manor had truly taken shape. The once-barren wasteland had been transformed into thousands of miles of fertile fields.

Agricultural towns had been established with the manor at their center. Although their outer perimeters consisted only of fences and low walls, no bandits dared to raid them anymore.

This was because the immigrants had spontaneously formed militia organizations. While they were far from being a match for a real army, they were more than enough to handle scattered groups of brigands.

In addition to the Germans, who felt like strangers in a strange land, the Imperial Manor also housed some unwelcome Hungarians. Some were serfs, some were impoverished nobles, and others were people whose views ran contrary to the mainstream.

They all shared one common trait: they were victims of the Kingdom of Hungary. Most of these Hungarians had been classified as refugees by the Hungarian government and were slated to be sold to the Americas—where the slave trade in both North and South America was highly developed—to serve as white slaves.

The German immigrants, meanwhile, had mostly suffered more direct blows, such as several bandit uprisings and massacres specifically targeting Germans.

Thus, at this moment, people of two different ethnicities appeared exceptionally harmonious in the same homeland.

By autumn, this black soil stretched out in endless fields of crops. Golden waves of wheat danced in the breeze, and the rice stalks in the paddies vied to grow toward the sun.

The immigrants worked diligently on this land, their sweat mingling with the black soil to create a picture of harmony.

The land in Hungary was simply too