Chapter 284： chain meter

Chapter 284 Chain Meter

"The other members of this group of students should be sent to East Africa? Now that the war in East Africa is over, the army can be reorganized." After sending Heinrich and Leopold away, Ernst thought.

Just enough to retire some of the older German mercenary officers.

…

The war in East Africa is over, but the war in Europe is not over yet. Prussia advances by leaps and bounds in France. One of the most elite French army surrendered without a fight on October 27, 1870 after being besieged in Metz for 72 days.

On the side of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Lieutenant General Karl led the army to move around in northern Italy, and even made a mess in the Lombardy area, forcing the Lombardy frontline defenders to divide their troops to prevent them from sneaking from behind.

As a result, Grand Duke Albrecht seized the opportunity to cut off the connection between the Lombard army and the Venetian army. Venice was surrounded by the Austro-Hungarian army. The imperial army commanded by Grand Duke Albrecht consumed the energy of the Venetian defenders little by little. The entire Venice was slowly falling to the brink of collapse due to the blockade, especially the people in the city.

"Fulton, the family is about to run out of food, and this may be our last dinner!" Lisa said to her husband with a sad face.

Fulton looked at the pot of porridge made of batter on the table, and didn't know what to say.

Lisa went on to say: "Since the war to now, the price of food has increased thirteen times, and the supply is still in short supply. Now everyone has no food at home. The Ailaiyi family sold their house a week ago. If the five members of their family can't raise money, they will starve to death."

"Oh, damned war!" Fulton sighed, "I will think of a way to see if I can get Mr. Martin to advance his wages in advance."

Martin is Fulton's boss and runs a textile factory. It is the same Martin who sold his shipyard to the Hechingen consortium.

At the beginning, Martin invested in the textile industry with the cash paid by the Hexingen consortium. He caught up with the great opportunity when Venice was merged into Italy, and made a fortune by importing textiles to southern Italy through the unified market.

As a result, at the end of 1869, the Suez Canal was opened, and the shipbuilding industry in Venice showed a trend of revival. Martin felt a little regretful and sold his own shipyard. As a result, the war broke out a few months later, and the shipbuilding industry came to a standstill. Instead, the textile factory made a lot of money because of the army's orders. Martin had to lament his luck.

"Boom boom boom..."

There was a knock on the door of Fulton's house.

"It's so late! Who is it?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, this is Murray."

"So it's Murray? Are you okay?" Fulton asked.

"Mr. Fulton, I'm here to say goodbye." Murray said with a wry smile.

"Farewell? You are leaving Venice!"

"Yes, our family is going to East Africa."

"It's impossible!" Fulton said in surprise, "Isn't this the period of martial law? How could you leave Venice?"

Melai smiled bitterly: "Hehe! You think too highly of the integrity of the Venetian bureaucrats. As long as you spend more money, they can meet all your needs."

"Of course I know this, but even if you can spend money to move freely, how do you go out from Venice? The outside is surrounded by the Austro-Hungarian army, and the sea is also blocked by the Austro-Hungarian navy."

"I also got the news from Mr. Winston. Mr. Winston, you know it was my former boss. His company went bankrupt. He was going to leave Venice for Paraguay, and then transferred to the United States for development. He told me that there are still ships on the sea that can travel, but only the ships of the Hechingen Ocean Trading Company can enter and leave Venice at will. It is said that they are backed by Prussian capital, so the Austro-Hungarian Navy let them go."

"Is it the Hexingen Ocean Trading Company that recruited people in Venice before the war?"

"Yes."

"I thought they were out of service!"

"Hehe, I think so too, but because of the previous martial law, the news was actually blocked. If it weren't for Mr. Winston, I would still be kept in the dark."

"Which dock are they at?"

Merley said: "It's in the Hechingen shipyard, which is their factory area, so it's relatively closed. If I knew that things would turn out like this, I should have taken my family and those country people together."

"Then if your family goes to East Africa, how can you be sure that you can find a job, and the boat fare is quite a lot!"

"Don't worry about this. I already asked yesterday. You don't need to pay to go to East Africa and Paraguay, but it's not up to us to decide where to go."

"Is there any difference between East Africa and Paraguay?"

"There should be no difference! But Mr. Winston said that Paraguay may have more choices, but it is the same for us poor people."

As for why the Hechingen Consortium will help Paraguay transport the population, we have to start with the Paraguay War that ended at the beginning of the year.

On February 27, 1870, Lopez was surrounded, but he refused to surrender and ordered his mother and sisters to be executed. On March 1 he was captured by Brazilian troops. After Lopez shouted: "I will live and die with my motherland!", the Brazilian soldiers hacked him to death with machetes, and then the Brazilian soldiers buried him in the jungle.

After the new Paraguayan government took over the regime, facing the devastated Paraguay, the biggest problem is the lack of population. In addition to the large shortage of adult males caused by the war, there is also the fact that the sixth child in East Africa sucked a large number of Paraguayan population during the war.

Finally counting the population, the population of Paraguay is only 130,000 people, which is simply a disaster for Paraguay.

This is not the end yet. At that time, East Africa did not stop, but was approached by the new Paraguayan government. Facing the crying complaints of the Paraguayan government, the international impact of this incident was not very good after all, so Ernst also agreed to help Paraguay restore its population.

As for where the new population comes from, it is naturally impossible for East Africa to return people back, so they can only continue to draw from Venice.

Originally, it was impossible for East Africa to completely digest the immigrants from Venice, and simply sent the immigrants who were screened out in East Africa and did not meet the East African standards to Paraguay.

Of course, the Austro-Hungarian Empire should also be involved in this good deed. Isn’t it afraid that the Italian population in the Venice area is too large? Now everyone is sending Italians to South America together.

This is also the reason for the slow progress of Grand Duke Albrecht. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is organizing a large number of agricultural populations in the occupied area and sending them to South America, not only Paraguay but also Argentina and Brazil.

According to the current population structure of Paraguay, Paraguay can digest 100,000 Italian single boys. Of course, the number cannot be so small. The Austro-Hungarian Empire can’t wait to send a large number of people from the Venice area to South America. Paraguay may be able to restore the pre-war level.

Transporting hundreds of thousands of people abroad is very difficult for the current Austro-Hungarian Empire, but East Africa can help, provided that all East African immigration ships are stopped and only serve the Venice area, so the Austro-Hungarian Empire has to pay for East Africa. At this time, the imperial financial appropriation is needed.

Of course, Paraguay is not without cost, and East Africa is not doing charity. Together with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it has divided Paraguay's economic interests, including a large amount of land and mineral resource development rights.

However, none of these can be realized, so they still trade at a loss. The bulk is still the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After all, the Venice area still has the largest population in rural areas, but the Austro-Hungarian Empire is willing to take advantage of this. In order to obtain the support of Hungary, through this huge financial allocation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire promised to allocate part of the land in Lombardy west of Venice to Hungary, but there is a prerequisite, that is, there must be no Italians on the land.

This is another poisonous plan. If Hungary wants to take over the land of Lombardy, it must send Hungarians there. However, compared to the developed economy of Lombardy, the Hungarian nobles are still willing to do this. As for the life and death of the Italians, they don’t care about it.

As for the Kingdom of Sardinia, in fact, because of avoiding the war, some people have already started to go to France and America on their own initiative. The French Republican government, on the advice of Count Medina, organized these Italians who fled from Italy and sent them to the front line as cannon fodder to hinder the speed of Prussia's attack.

(end of this chapter)