Chapter 220：

Chapter 220

"Your Excellency Archduke Ferdinand!"

A row of young Austrian naval officers stood straight in front of Ferdinand, and Ferdinand looked at the "young talent" in front of him with satisfaction.

"Your Excellency, this is the East African Advisory Group formed by the Imperial Navy, and they will serve under your command in the future!" Blair introduced to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand nodded and said affirmatively: "Okay, you can do things with peace of mind when you arrive in East Africa, and you don't have any dissatisfaction when you come to East Africa. The current conditions in East Africa are a bit worse, but there is me, the former commander-in-chief of the Imperial Navy. , it doesn’t count as burying your talents, just treat East Africa as your own home in the future.”

Ferdinand and Blair defined the nature of these people in a few words. Of course, Ferdinand knew that these people in front of him might be some thorns, or their backgrounds were not very good. After all, the system of the Austro-Hungarian Empire made it difficult for ordinary people to stand out.

But the more this is the case, the more it shows that these guys have real skills. Anyway, East Africa is short of talents, and Ferdinand can use them.

With this group of people in hand, the eight hundred sailors in East Africa will have a real leader, and Ferdinand can't do everything himself.

There are not many people, but they can share the knowledge they have learned and some experience of the Austro-Hungarian Navy with those sailors from the Neihu Army. This is the most precious wealth.

…

January 7, 1870.

Central District, First Town, Qiweit Palace.

"Your Majesty, Mozambique sent a mission to cooperate with us! Now their people have arrived at the port of Dar es Salaam."

Von der Leyen took a telegram from Dar es Salaam and came to the Witt Palace to report to Prince Constantine.

"Cooperation! What does Portugal want to do?"

"Our people learned that they probably want to carve up the Malawi Kingdom with us after insinuating."

"Oh, this is really rare, I thought they were here to protest our actions in Kazenbe Kingdom?"

Prince Constantine took the telegram and began to read it with great interest.

"Your Majesty, why did the colony of Mozambique want to talk to us about this matter? With their strength, they should be able to deal with those indigenous people alone!" Von der Leyen asked.

"It's very simple, they are not enough to swallow the entire Kingdom of Malawi, so they need an extraterritorial country to help them share the pressure." Constantine said after putting down the telegram in his hand.

"It is estimated that they have been interested in the Kingdom of Malawi for a long time, but the resistance of the local people is too fierce, so they have not succeeded for a long time. Before I came, the Kingdom of Malawi was almost disintegrated by the Portuguese. Governments exist in name only, but the tribes below don't see them swallowing."

"Your Majesty, what should we do, let them come to the first town to talk?"

"Let the municipal government of Dar es Salaam negotiate with them. There is no need to let them go inland, which may expose some intelligence. We should promise them the cooperation first. We just take this opportunity to occupy more In places with difficult terrain, consolidate the land of the Kingdom of Malawi that we have eroded over the years."

"But I feel that this is a bit too cheap for the Portuguese, Your Majesty. In this way, we didn't actually win much land, but it was equivalent to handing over the southern part of the Kingdom of Malawi to the Portuguese."

"Now we are launching a war against the Geredi Sultanate. At the same time, we are also using troops in the southwest, involving a large number of troops. We don't have the energy to open another front. Let the Portuguese touch the Kingdom of Malawi. As for Whether they can master it depends on their own good fortune. However, for so many years, the Portuguese have nothing to do with the Kingdom of Malawi, so it is still unknown whether the Kingdom of Portugal can succeed, so regardless of how they play, we will first Do your own thing."

"Your Majesty, I understand, but in my opinion, we will have a battle with the Portuguese sooner or later. There are still many blank areas in Africa, so there is no need for the two sides to compete fiercely. But after the interests of this area are divided, we can say Not sure."

"Of course I know this. It's better to try to stabilize the Portuguese as much as possible now. As long as we maintain the current speed of development, it will not be a problem to face the entire Kingdom of Portugal in the future."

At this time, the native population of the Kingdom of Portugal was only over 4 million, but Portugal is a traditional naval power, and its power in the Indian Ocean is not weak.

The current population of East Africa is actually comparable to that of Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, and Greece.

But still the same sentence, the history of East Africa is too short, and the accumulation is not enough, so it is much better than Greece, a country that relies on debt to survive.

"Your Majesty, there is one more thing that I must explain to you. If it is not resolved, it may hinder the development of East Africa."

"What's up?"

“When we made the statistics last year, the lower-level government and us reflected that East Africa may usher in a wave of baby boom this year, which is a huge challenge for us.”

"Baby boomer? Last year's 200,000 births was not enough? Can it break through this year?"

"Your Majesty, I was also shocked when I heard this, but it is true when I think about it carefully. When immigrants arrive in East Africa, in addition to those who have already married, those single immigrants have also married one after another in recent years. Through our efforts in recent years, The number of families formed in East Africa has exceeded one million, and East Africa is becoming more and more stable, people's desire to have children is very strong, and some families have even started to have a second or third child, so the birth rate this year may be alarming."

Prince Constantine fell into deep thought, then looked at von der Leyen and asked, "Will they still have four, five..."

Von der Leyen nodded and said: "It is conservatively estimated that there will be at least five children. If there is no accident, it may not be uncommon to have more than ten families!"

The majority of East African immigrants are farmers from various countries, and the population structure is very young. Coupled with the special land and distribution system in East Africa, the fertility rate is indeed terrifying.

At the same time, East Africans do not go out at night, and there is no nightlife, so they can only make little people at home with cats. Naturally, the fertility rate in East Africa is not low.

The current population of 2.5 million may become more than 10 million or even more in 20 years. When Prince Constantine thought of this, he instantly felt that Ernst's immigration policy was still too radical.

It's not that East Africa can't afford to support so many people, but that there are too many newborns, and the outbreak in such a short period of time will definitely cause shortage of manpower and food pressure. After all, taking care of young children is also very energy-consuming, and they are born together. It is equivalent to adding hundreds of thousands of mouths at once, and according to the traditional adult age in East Africa, it will take at least 14 years for them to support themselves.

"For this matter, you should first clarify the situation in various places and report the various data. I will discuss this issue with Ernst."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Von der Leyen replied.

(end of this chapter)