African Entrepreneurship Records

  Chapter 69 Hechingen Royal Family Territory

  With the efforts of Sergey, the Russian government finally decided to sell the Alaska colony to the Hechingen consortium.

  The final price was set at 7 million rubles after repeated pulls from both parties, which is really a jumping price.

  Of course, in order to appease the Russian government, some of the more livable islands and territories were not taken back by Alaska, and the actual land area traded was about 1.6 million square kilometers.

   In return, Sergey himself directly benefited nearly one million rubles in this transaction.

   March 13, 1867.

  Under the witness of the Prussian government, the Hechingen Consortium and the Russian government signed the "Agreement on the Transfer of the Alaska Colony", and the Alaska colony was assigned to Prince Constantine.

  That is to say, starting today, the main body of the Alaska colony is the overseas territory of the royal family of Hechingen.

   This transaction was made public by some European media, but it did not cause any waves. After all, in the eyes of Europeans at that time, Alaska was just a barren land thousands of miles away, and perhaps polar bears were the largest number of residents in Alaska.

  As for Ernst, although he bought Alaska with money, he has no intention of developing Alaska.

   It is entirely out of the mentality that there is no date to fight three poles. After all, it is too cheap. It is impossible to encounter such a good thing that you can win a large piece of land with a little money in the future.

  Thanks to the bribes to Sergey and others this time, although they paid millions of rubles alone, in the end these Russian ministers did well with the money.

   You must know that in the previous life, the United States spent more than seven million dollars to buy Alaska, but Ernst only paid rubles.

  In this era, the exchange rate between the dollar and the ruble is basically two to one, and affected by the Crimean War, the ruble still has room to continue to depreciate.

  So even with the money paid for bribing the Russian minister, Ernst saved nearly half of the money and won the Alaska region.

  That is a full 1.6 million square kilometers of land, not to mention whether it is useful now, even if Ernst left his descendants to inherit it in the future, it will also allow them to live a prosperous life.

   As for the possibility of being in vain, Ernst also took it into account, in addition to inviting the Prussian royal family to guarantee.

  I have also done some work in other areas, such as the payment to the Russians. Ernst used installments.

   After paying the first 2 million rubles, the remaining 5 million rubles will be paid off within 10 years, so that the Russians must be honest if they want to get the money.

   In less than ten years, Ernst will have a way to drive away all the Russians in Alaska, which was agreed in the previous agreement.

   After all, the Russians now still have the southernmost land in Alaska, which is a full 20,000 square kilometers, and the Russians also need manpower to develop it.

Therefore, in the agreement between the Hexingen Consortium and the Russian government, it is clear that Alaska (Greater Alaska) under the Hexingen royal family has the right and obligation to send Russians in the territory to Russia’s South Alaska (Little Alaska) territory to assist in development. Therefore, Russians are not allowed to stay in the greater Alaska area.

  In the greater Alaska region, Ernst intends to adopt the most advanced "closed country" policy to expel businessmen from various countries and monopolize the local fur market.

  At the same time, expedition teams and private individuals from various countries are strictly prohibited from entering the Greater Alaska region to engage in any activities. If the resources in Alaska are really discovered, then Ernst's money will really be in vain.

  Now, Ernst is buying Alaska and putting it there to eat ashes. It is best for no one to discover the real value there.

  Including the newly purchased land of Zanzibar, the current territory of the Hexingen royal family has reached an astonishing 2.8 million square kilometers.

  For the convenience of declaring to the outside world, Ernst and Prince Constantine discussed the two places together as the territory of the Hechingen royal family of the Hohenzollern family.

   Such a large territory will naturally attract the attention of interested people, but other countries acquiesce that this is an overseas colony of Prussia.

   After all, Ernst's industrial body is still based in North Germany, and taxes are naturally paid to the Prussian government.

  At present, the East African colonies can barely connect with Ernst's industry, limited to tropical crops such as grain and sisal.

  Incorporated into Ernst's industry as part of the raw materials, and Ernst's industry is a part of the Prussian industry, so it is equivalent to the industry that the East African colonies finally served in the German region.

  So there is no problem in saying that the East African colony is an overseas colony of Prussia, but the Ernst and Hechingen consortia are intermediaries, linking the industrial integration of East Africa and Germany.

  At present, Prussia's right to speak in North Germany is increasing day by day, and anyone with a discerning eye can see that as long as no other country interferes with Prussia's merger with North Germany, it is only a matter of time.

   If Ernst wanted to make a fortune quickly, it would be too easy. As long as someone goes to East Africa to look for ore, he can definitely make a lot of money in a short time.

   But this may cause the great powers to pay attention to Africa in advance. Productivity determines the relationship of production. The reason why the great powers focused on Africa at the same time in the late 19th century was because the second industrial revolution changed the production models of the great powers.

  They have embarked on the road of capital export from commodity export, so they need to occupy the raw material market and consumer market all over the world.

  The East African colony is currently on the eve of this general trend, so Ernst started the relatively backward planting industry in East Africa. Although the time for the planting industry to accumulate wealth is slow, it is better than stability, and at the same time it can slowly accumulate the colonial population.

   Only when the population under the rule reaches a certain scale, can the future East African colony be able to resist the invasion of other colonists.

  At the same time, the freedom of colonial immigrants is strictly restricted, and the collective management model is adopted to prevent the outflow of some information.

  For example, the current East African colony, in fact, has developed well among the colonies in the world, but Europeans still don’t know about it due to geographical reasons (the Ottoman Empire and the Arabs are all over North Africa and East Africa).

  The hysteresis of information gave Ernst room to operate. By making good use of the twenty years before the great powers divided Africa, first determining the general scope of the East African colonies and consolidating immigration migration, there is still a chance to gain a foothold in Africa.

  In fact, as long as most countries don’t risk their lives, it is still difficult for other countries to take advantage of them. Ernst’s early stage is very comfortable as long as he farms honestly in Africa and avoids some international hotspots.

  So, next to the East African colonies, apart from digesting the newly annexed Kenyan land, there is basically no big deal.

   As for the Alaska colony, in order to send away the Russians and businessmen from other countries in Alaska first, Ernst decided to deploy an East African colonial army to the Alaska colony to work with the new Alaska colonial government.

  (end of this chapter)