Chapter 18 – Oceanic Trade
After the Hexingen Consortium's colonial team came to an agreement with the Sultanate of Zanzibar, the Hexingen colonial group established a foothold in the area. They began constructing wagons, tents, and other travel supplies in Zanzibar to prepare for exploring the inland regions. Meanwhile, the Dutch ships docked at Dar es Salaam resupplied with fresh water and provisions, then set sail once more, heading to East Asia.
…
Hexingen.
Shifting the view back to Europe, a new building was going up in Hexingen on a large construction site not far from the city. "Ernst, are you planning to start a factory here in Hexingen?" asked Prince Constantin.
After the war ended, Prince Constantin returned from Prussia's General Staff in Berlin and was back in Hexingen again. Not long after Ernst's trip to Venice, Ernst himself came home and asked his father for a piece of land. Initially, Constantin had assumed Ernst wanted to take over the family's agricultural endeavors—though the prince didn't actually work the fields, as a landowner he had to know how to keep accounts. Prince Constantin thought perhaps Ernst wanted to experiment with crops, having previously spoken of setting up a large farm in East Africa.
Yet a few days passed, and to his surprise, his farmland had been bulldozed. It was now piled high with bricks, sand, and cement that Ernst had ordered. Seeing his expectations dashed, Prince Constantin decided to ask directly.
"Father, I plan to build a school here," Ernst said, looking pleased at the structure already taking shape.
Hearing this, Prince Constantin grew even more confused. Building a school in Hexingen—was that not ridiculous? It wasn't that he disapproved. Rather, Hexingen had no shortage of schools. Compulsory education was long established here, so every child already attended. Ernst definitely wasn't starting a new elementary school out of thin air. And there already was a secondary school, built in the time of Marquis Friedrich.
In truth, hardly any local youths moved on to secondary education. Most finished elementary school and then entered the workforce—farming at home or finding an apprenticeship in town—since high school tuition was expensive. On a good year, maybe a hundred or two hundred kids would enroll; in a bad year, fewer than a hundred. So Prince Constantin couldn't guess what kind of school Ernst was building. "The education market in Hexingen seems already saturated," he said. "You wouldn't waste resources for no reason, would you?"
Over the past few years, Constantin had realized Ernst never did anything without a profit motive. He acted more and more like a businessman. Fortunately, Ernst had proved highly successful so far, so Constantin didn't try to hold him back. But Ernst certainly wouldn't do a money-losing project.
"Father, I want to found a military academy in Hexingen to train people for our family," Ernst explained.
The words "military academy" made Prince Constantin's eyes widen. He quickly asked, "What are you thinking? A military academy needs government permission. You're not going into a military career—so what's the point? If you wanted an officer's rank, you could have just asked me, and we'd figure something out. Besides, if you really wanted a military academy, wouldn't a big city be more logical? Who'd come to a rural place like Hexingen without army support?"
Seeing his father's misunderstanding, Ernst clarified: "Father, it's not like that. It has nothing to do with Prussia. This military academy is meant for my operations in East Africa. It's not what you're imagining."
Prince Constantin understood. This wasn't a legitimate military school; Ernst intended to train his own colonial force. But the prince still didn't understand why. "Even to develop East Africa, you don't need a specialized academy, do you? You could just form a colonial team or hire mercenaries."
In those times, it was common practice to rely on official armed forces, company troops, or mercenaries for colonial ventures. Prince Constantin had never heard of founding a whole new "military school" just for that.
"Father, this ties in with my plan for East Africa. The region I'm targeting could be bigger than all of Germany, so preparing trained personnel ahead of time is crucial. If we occupy such an enormous territory alone, others will certainly covet it."
Bigger than Germany? Prince Constantin worried Ernst might be daydreaming. He himself knew little about Africa and seldom paid it any mind, so he said, "All right, let's go home and think this through."
Soon, they'd spread a world map on a table, and Constantin pointed to Tanzania. "This place here?"
"Yes, Father." Ernst took a pencil and drew on the map, forming a circle that encompassed what would later be Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, and southern Kenya. "This is my initial idea. Europe's other countries haven't noticed it yet, so I plan to have the Hexingen Consortium bring it under our Hohenzollern family's rule, similar to the British East India Company in India."
"For reference, India was an ancient civilization, but East Africa had only the Aksum civilization," he said, marking Ethiopia with an X. "Aksum's domain is far north, so I won't touch that. The only real threats are other colonial teams and the Sultanate of Zanzibar," he added, circling Zanzibar and the Portuguese colony of Mozambique. "But those are minor concerns. Most of them are small groups of slave hunters and ivory traders. As long as we act before Europe pays attention, we can clear them out however we like. Zanzibar has maybe a hundred thousand people, an Arab-ruled state, so it's not a big threat. Our first colonial force has already landed."
"As for the Portuguese, they're in decline. Their grip on their colonies isn't what it used to be, though we need to be wary of Mozambique's local government," Ernst said gravely. "But since Portugal doesn't really care about the interior, that gives me room to maneuver."
Ernst continued: "I plan to send teams to establish outposts inland, focusing around Lakes Victoria, Tanganyika, and Malawi." He used his pencil to highlight the territory between the three lakes. "With just a few hundred thousand migrants, we can fully secure it for the Hohenzollerns."
"A few hundred thousand? Where will you find that many people?" asked Prince Constantin. "That's more than Hexingen's entire population!"
"Right here," Ernst replied, pointing his pencil at China in East Asia.
Prince Constantin frowned. "If you're using foreigners, why not recruit the local Africans? Why bring in people from so far away?"
"That's straightforward," Ernst said. "China is the world's most populous nation. They've got an excess of labor, and the common people live tough lives. Every year, many go overseas seeking a living. Meanwhile, to the African natives, we're intruders, and they'll never accept our rule. If we bring in the Chinese, they'll be strangers in a foreign land, so they'd rely on us to survive."
"Then why not bring in Germans?" Constantin asked.
"I'd love to, but from Germany the cost is too high. That first colonial team we sent cost me a fortune. Whereas Chinese workers only need enough food to keep them going—it's cheaper. Besides, now that the American Civil War is over, most Germans would rather migrate to the U.S., which is well-developed. If you mention Africa, they'd be scared off by the wild animals and tropical diseases."
Because of such impressions, most Europeans only founded coastal trading outposts in Africa, rarely venturing inland—leaving Ernst an opening. "But how do you keep the Chinese under control, if their numbers grow so large?" Constantin asked.
"That's why I want to train our own people—hence the Hexingen Military Academy. We'll recruit students from China, teach them loyalty, and place them under our command. They'll help manage and divide up the Chinese migrants. Once they develop the land in East Africa, we can stop bringing in more Chinese and start drawing Germans and other Europeans. Then, with the Hexingen Consortium's resources, we'll build a basic industrial infrastructure, drive out the native Africans, and form a country akin to something between Brazil and the United States."
Hearing Ernst's idea, Prince Constantin sat in silence for a long while. It was a massive undertaking, but on paper it seemed plausible. If Ernst succeeded, it would mean founding a whole new state under Hohenzollern rule overseas—an area potentially as large as Germany itself. The thought of such a "map expansion" excited him.
"Fine. If that's your plan, I support you," said Constantin, controlling his emotions. "I have connections in these German lands. You go ahead and do what you must."
…
Qingdao Bay.
The German Commercial Liaison Office—flying the Prussian flag—was a new outpost here, alongside another in Zhuhai. Yet Ernst specifically insisted on establishing one in the north, and he picked Qingdao Bay. In addition to handling the sales of Hexingen Consortium goods in northern China, this office had a special task: selecting five hundred healthy young men, preferably uneducated, from poor farming families along the banks of the Jishui River, then taking them back to Germany.
Ernst wanted them precisely because they had no schooling, no diseases, and came from impoverished rural backgrounds. China's southern provinces, known for powerful clan networks, were avoided—he found those groups too close-knit, which could destabilize future rule. As for why the Jishui River area, that was Ernst's old homeland in his previous life. This era had no standardized Mandarin; local dialects were everywhere, but the northern tongues were more uniform than the southern ones, and Ernst could at least understand the accent from his own region.
Ernst planned to serve as principal of the Hexingen Military Academy himself and might even teach classes personally, so it was crucial the students share a common language. If they couldn't understand him, that would be awkward. He intended to give them three years to learn German. After that, he wouldn't have to oversee them so closely.
The Qingdao Bay office would also recruit workers for East Africa and handle large-scale commodity trade. Besides Ernst's own goods, he had deals with some Berlin merchants to cooperate in developing East Asian markets. His flagship items like cigarettes and kerosene lighters were already winning favor among wealthy officials in the Far East, while Hexingen Consortium used Dutch ships to ship cheap raw materials from East Asia, as well as manpower for East Africa. The Dutch themselves also squeezed in cargo, such as large quantities of silk, porcelain, and tea.
Through this overseas journey, Ernst began laying out a trade route linking Europe, East Africa, and the Far East. He depended on the Dutch for now, but he was gradually training a crew of German sailors in the process. Once the Suez Canal opened and the Venice-based fleet was ready, he would build a fully German-led trade corridor.
The route's main steps would be exporting European manufactured goods to the Far East, selling them there, then recruiting Chinese workers to develop East Africa, whose crops and minerals he'd eventually ship back to Europe. In the short term, the Hexingen Consortium would lose money on this route because East Africa was still undeveloped and needed people on the ground for any significant production. The Far Eastern market was also not fully open, and the two liaison offices were confined to coastal areas, with advertising costs and staff salaries adding up. The European side of Ernst's business had to bankroll his colonial ventures. It might take years.
The good news was that Berlin Energy & Power Company had reportedly achieved a major breakthrough, giving Ernst "another golden goose." Meanwhile, the Hexingen Development Bank was earning a growing reputation in the German lands, leaving him with more capital than ever.
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