African Business Chronicles

Chapter 42 – The Immigration Boom

There were many recruiters like Wang Dazhi—returnees who traveled back to their hometowns to promote the benefits of the East African colony and ease the fears of other Chinese.

They also gave the poor and illiterate masses a viable path forward. Without connections or guidance, ordinary people rarely stepped outside of their familiar world.

Who wanted to starve in their homeland? Before, they didn't know there was another option—or didn't know how to access it. But now that they did, many were willing to risk everything for a bowl of rice.

The most striking example was a recruiter named Zhang Gensheng. His hometown was suffering through a drought, and when he returned, the response was overwhelming. Even villagers from nearby towns showed up to volunteer.

They didn't know much about East Africa, but they could see that Zhang Gensheng had clearly not suffered. In this era, you could tell someone's quality of life just by their appearance. Most peasants were yellow-faced, skeletal, and weak. But Zhang was well-fed, strong, and full of energy—the very image of someone who ate well.

And everyone remembered him. When foreign recruiters first arrived, times were still passable, and locals had watched Zhang board their "devil ship" with skepticism.

Rumors even claimed the foreigners were cannibals. Zhang, they said, would never return. But a year later, here he was—healthy, well-dressed, and clearly doing fine.

Naturally, people flocked to ask questions. They weren't even that concerned about his shaved queue (normally a revolutionary symbol); they'd seen how even the local constables bowed to his group when they arrived.

After all, anyone without a queue in Qing China was usually either a rebel or a Taiping, and such people were arrested or executed without hesitation. Clearly, Zhang wasn't one of those.

So, villagers began asking questions, and Zhang answered every one.

When they heard his descriptions, the villagers grew excited. To people who couldn't even eat daily, this sounded too good to be true.

Word spread to nearby villages. With strength in numbers, they felt more confident and figured they could look out for one another in East Africa.

Of course, they had no idea that the colony wouldn't keep them together. Once they arrived, they'd be scattered across the region.

By the end of that day, more than 1,000 people in Zhang's area had signed up to go.

This overwhelmed the recruitment office in Jiaozhou Bay. They scrambled to gather food and medicine, then reported the surge to higher-ups and requested more ships—and notified the East African colony to stockpile food for the incoming wave.

Ernst also purchased additional grain from Europe and sent it ahead to East Africa.

Thus, in Shandong and northern Zhili (Hebei), most migrants chose to go northeast (to Manchuria) or to East Africa.

The colony's biggest edge? Free food. From the port to the colony, immigrants were fed all the way. Once they arrived, of course, they were expected to work.

Those unwilling to leave their homeland couldn't be helped—but they would likely regret it. East Africa didn't have to be paradise. It just had to be better than the hell that was the collapsing East.

According to records, this wave of recruitment alone brought over 50,000 new immigrants to East Africa within three months.

The massive population boom quickly filled the Coastal District's empty lands. Zanzibar, by comparison, had only 100,000 people, while this one campaign pushed the Coastal District close to 60,000.

Luckily, Ernst had deep pockets. Few others could have absorbed 50,000 new settlers so quickly.

Another winner was the Dutch. They had signed a long-term shipping deal with Ernst, earning fixed commissions. But the sudden surge meant they had to charter extra ships at a premium.

Afterward, Dutch ships made trips in three waves—every six days, one would arrive at Dar es Salaam with a new load of immigrants. After unloading, they would return to East Asia for more.

Some immigrants were sent to the developing interior—especially the Great Lake (Victoria) and Lake Zollern (Tanganyika) regions.

But most went to fill the gaps in the Coastal District. After clearing the native tribes, large swaths of land had been sitting unused.

Now that manpower had arrived, teams were sent to begin cultivation—starting in the north and pushing south toward First Town.

The scale of migration even shocked Zanzibar. When their Sultan heard the news, he didn't react—he simply lay even flatter, accepting the new reality.

Even if Zanzibar and Portugal teamed up now, they couldn't shake the East African colony's hold on the region.

Before, military might was just a short-term tactic. But now, with real population strength, Ernst had achieved long-term stability.

With these new immigrants, over 100 new villages were formed in the Coastal District, each with several hundred people.

Three of the newly built settlements were upgraded to town-level administrative zones, each holding 1,000–2,000 residents.

Once these towns grew a bit more, Ernst planned to introduce small-scale light industry—seeding the beginnings of industrialized cities.

Unlike before, this wave of migrants wasn't just individuals. Many came as families, driven from their homes by disaster.

For easier management, they were mixed together—villagers from different regions, with different dialects, all assigned to new communities.

This meant they couldn't easily organize among themselves, and would rely more on the colony's coordination and leadership.

New steel farming tools were distributed. With better equipment, horses, oxen, and even native labor, the settlers opened up 500,000 mu (~33,000 hectares) of land.

That's 10% of the entire Coastal District, and 30% of its arable land. For irrigable farmland, it was 70%.

Of that, 200,000 mu became rice paddies. One harvest could yield 30 million kilograms of grain. After deducting rations (1 jin of paddy = 0.6 jin of rice), 8 million jin (~4 million kg) of surplus remained.

The rest of the land was planted with sisal and other cash crops.

Food would support further expansion, not export.

Sisal, however, remained a major export earner. 5% of its profits were paid as wages to colonial workers and officials.

Though there weren't many places to spend money in East Africa, symbolic wages boosted morale.

Each immigrant now had over 8 mu of land to cultivate. It was physically demanding, but Ernst didn't skimp on rations—they ate as well as people in modern times.

Even though the work was hard, the food was better than anywhere in East Asia.

Labor intensity wasn't as bad as it sounded. The imported tools were superior to anything in the Far East. Livestock and native labor further lightened the load.

They also didn't need East Asian-style precision farming. Fertilizer and pesticides came from Europe. Farming here was simpler.

To keep everyone motivated, the colony set up an effective rewards system:

Work hard, eat well (especially meat).Slack off, go hungry—and face mandatory labor duties.

During the off-season, they also built 196 kilometers of dirt roads, connecting the six most important towns in the Coastal District.

By the end of October 1866, East Africa's total population—immigrants and Germans combined—had reached over 97,000.

The Tanganyika region was now firmly under control, with all key points and lands secured.

Still, vast territories between settlements remained in native hands—over 3 million of them.

Outside the Coastal District, large tribal populations persisted.

But strategically, the colony had completed phase one: towns now encircled the countryside.

And with the immigrants still pouring in, the foundation was set for even greater expansion.

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