After successfully opening up the colony of Guinea, Austria did not stop colonizing and set its sights on the Congo region.

Anyway, in this year, there are borderless lands everywhere, and whoever occupies it will belong to whomever it is, so Franz will naturally not be polite.

By October 1854, Austria had opened 13 colonial bases on the African continent, sending more than 40,000 immigrants to the colonies.

……

Franz asked suspiciously: "Prime Minister, why did you stop sending immigrants to the colonies?" ”

You must know that according to Austria's original plan, but to send all the refugees over, now it is less than a tenth of the completion.

Prime Minister Felix explained: "Your Majesty, the plague in the Balkans has spread, and if there is an urgent need to send immigrants now, I am afraid that it will be brought to the colonies.

Despite our efforts to recruit doctors, the colony's health facilities are still not optimistic, and the consequences of the plague should spread. ”

Franz shook his head and said, "Prime Minister, you're overthinking. There are only a few people in the colony, and even if there is an outbreak of the plague, it is very easy to disperse and isolate.

Moreover, winter is just around the corner, and this plague should come to an end, and even if it is brought to the African continent, the situation will not be too serious.

Judging from the intelligence we have gathered, the mortality rate of Russian soldiers infected with the plague is only seven or eight points, which is not as high as the natural mortality rate of African colonization.

The war in the Balkans is coming to an end, and most of these refugees will choose to return to their hometowns, and it will be difficult for us to emigrate in the future. ”

This is not an exaggeration, the mortality rate of immigrants to the African continent in this era is so perverted, usually a lot of deaths on the road.

Is the mortality rate low if refugees remain in the Balkans? The answer is no!

In fact, if they remain in the Balkans, their mortality rate will only be higher.

Without sufficient benefits, the Austrian government could not have spent a lot of money to help the refugees, and the Ottoman Empire could not have helped the refugees, so could the French still be expected to be virgins?

In this era, everyone is working hard to feed themselves. Relieving millions of refugees in the Balkans will consume a lot of financial and material resources, and who will do it if there is not enough benefit?

Without adequate relief, these refugees will become outcasts, and then go to more areas that plague more and turn more people into refugees.

Before the twentieth century, human productivity was limited, and there were only two ways to deal with refugee flows: relief or killing.

Most of the time it was solved by killing, and the feudal dynasty could not help it at all. There is no good or evil, right or wrong, everyone is here to survive, and if there is not enough food, then the weak can only eat the strong.

Austria's African colonization movement was very cautious, sending about 5,000 to 8,000 immigrants at a time, which were then dispersed across a dozen settlements. It's not that they don't want more, it's that food restricts the number of immigrants.

If it is just to send people over, then organizing 180 cargo ships at a time can easily send away tens of thousands of people, then logistics have become a big problem.

The continent is limited in terms of development, and indigenous tribes are too lazy to farm and rely entirely on natural resources for their survival. The first colonizers to go to Africa also survived on the local natural resources.

Obviously, this is only suitable for a few people to colonize activities. A colony was spread out by a few thousand people, not because Franz did not have a population in his hands, but more because he was afraid of an unexpected situation, and the logistics of the colony were cut off.

When the numbers are small, they can also take risks and get enough food from the local area to survive, but if they are overpopulated, they can't.

Prime Minister Felix went on to explain: "Your Majesty, our immigration is already very fast, and in terms of the number of immigrants, apart from the French, even the British do not have so many immigrants on the African continent.

There is not enough local output to support migrants, and there is not enough return in the short term, and if precious mineral resources are not found, these areas will put a heavy strain on finances in the future. ”

Franz would have been worried about the situation if he didn't know the local resources, but this reason obviously doesn't work.

It is even more impossible to insist on going your own way, and if there is no cooperation from the top of the government, it will eventually become a colony by the emperor alone, and the final result is obviously tragic.

Franz said calmly: "Then, find a way to solve this problem." Our colonial strongholds are all in the coastal areas, send them a number of fishing boats to them, and teach immigrants to fish.

There is so much fertile land around, and a little planting is enough to feed themselves. As long as the initial period of time has passed, the food problem can be gradually resolved.

The colonies don't keep lazy people, and if they don't want to do anything, they organize to be cannon fodder, whether they are sent to fight the local indigenous tribes or used to explore the interior.

If the food problem is solved, there will be less pressure in the future. Once the colony is stabilized, we will be able to prospect for mines there, and we will be able to recoup our costs as long as one or two strongholds have a harvest.

These colonial strongholds can also provide logistical supplies for overseas merchant ships, and earn some expenses to subsidize administrative expenses.

If you can't find minerals, you go to logging, I don't think there are even timber resources in the local area; Whether it is to grow food, cash crops, or raise livestock, it is still possible to maintain the operation of the colony in the plains. ”

This is not Franz bragging, you can't make a fortune by farming and animal husbandry, but you can still be self-sufficient.

This kind of industrialized operation will not make much money, but it will definitely not lose money. Historically, one of the main reasons why colonies have lost money is that there are not enough immigrants.

It is normal for the number of immigrants to be insufficient to effectively exploit the local natural resources, the development of basic industries, and the inability of the colonial government to obtain sufficient tax revenues.

Prime Minister Felix reminded: "Your Majesty, these require a lot of investment, and now we have invested millions of dong in the colonization cause, and to achieve a balance between the balance of payments in these areas, this investment will exceed ten million guilders." ”

Franz replied with a smile: "Of course, I know very well what this is doing, and if tens of millions of guilders are invested, Guinea and the Congo region will be completely controlled by us."

I grow coffee, palm, cotton, cocoa, rubber, tobacco, tea on such a large area of land, and I can also make a profit of several million rupiah every year.

This is not counting mineral resources, it is not possible that we are so unlucky that we have no gains, right?

This account is very easy to calculate, and the colonial powers such as Britain and France did not do this, not because they did not want to do it, but because they did not have enough immigrants in their hands.

There are still four and a half million refugees in Dalmatia, waiting to be resettled there.

We can start with cash-for-work, keep them in the local area and improve local transportation, and then slowly emigrate them to the African colonies.

Everything is difficult at the beginning, as long as the first stage of investment is completed, the harvest period will follow. If the government does not have sufficient financial resources, it can raise funds from the private sector.

Unlike the mainland, colonies do not require direct government involvement, nor do they entrust these operations to private companies.

I was even considering whether to allow individuals to participate in the colonial cause and encourage the aristocracy to open up colonies overseas. ”

Prime Minister Felix was convinced that the colonial enterprise was unlike any other, and that as long as it could guarantee that the costs would be recovered, the government would have earned it.

In the management of the colony, it may not make a lot of profits, but it can provide enough industrial raw materials for domestic industry, and the newly opened market promotes the development of domestic industry and commerce.

The colonies also had the advantage of reducing the exodus of native populations. This situation is not obvious now, and it will only be more serious after the completion of industrialization in the future.

Especially after the outbreak of the economic crisis, when there was no job in the country and people were forced to emigrate overseas for their livelihood, the role of the colony came out.

As long as the development is okay and the government can guide it a little more, it can attract a large number of immigrants to the past and avoid the outflow of population.

There is now a large number of emigrants from the German region, and there is no need for more, as long as a third, or even a fifth of them, have been fooled into the Austrian colonies, and there is no fear of any enemy challenge on the African continent.

In order to retain these immigrants, it is necessary to develop the local economy. Without a sustainable foundation, it is clear that it will not be attractive to settle down.

As long as the population of the Austrian African colonies was large enough, Austria would have the upper hand in the new round of African colonial partition movement.

This advantage will be directly reflected in the domestic economic development in the future and promote the development of domestic industry and commerce.