"Your Excellency Archduke Ferdinand!"

A row of young Austrian naval officers stood straight in front of Ferdinand, and Ferdinand looked at the "young talent" in front of him with satisfaction.

"Your Excellency, this is the East African advisory group formed by the Imperial Navy, and they will be on an errand under you in the future!" Blair introduced Ferdinand.

Ferdinand nodded and affirmed: "Okay, when you get to East Africa, you can do things with peace of mind, and you don't have any dissatisfaction when you come to East Africa, the current conditions in East Africa are a little worse, but with the leadership of me, the former commander-in-chief of the Imperial Navy, it is not considered to bury your talents, and you can just treat East Africa as your own home in the future." ”

Ferdinand and Blair defined these people in a few words, and of course Ferdinand knew that these people in front of him might be some thorns, or they were not from a good background, after all, the Austro-Hungarian system made it difficult for civilians to get ahead.

But the more this is the case, the more it shows that these guys have real skills, anyway, there is a shortage of talents in East Africa, and Ferdinand will use it correctly.

With this group of people in hand, the 800 sailors in East Africa will have a real leader, and Ferdinand can't do everything himself.

There were not many of them, but they were able to share what they had learned and some of the experience of the Austro-Hungarian Navy with the sailors of the Inner Lake Army, which was the most valuable asset.

……

January 7, 1870.

Central District, First Town, Palazzo Chervet.

"Your Majesty, Mozambique has sent a mission, saying that it wants to cooperate with us! Now their men have arrived at the port of Dar es Salaam. ”

Von der Leyen had a telegram from Dar es Salaam and reported to Prince Konstantin at the Witte Palace.

"Cooperation! What does Portugal want to do? ”

"When our men knocked on the side, they learned that they probably wanted to carve up the kingdom of Malawi with us."

"Oh, that's a rarity, I thought they were here to protest our actions in the kingdom of Kazenbe?"

Prince Konstantin took the telegram and began to read it with interest.

"Your Majesty, why did the colonies of Mozambique come to talk to us about this? With their strength, they should be able to deal with those natives alone! Von der Leyen asked.

"Quite simply, they don't have enough to swallow the entire Kingdom of Malawi on their own, so they need an extraterritorial country to help them share the pressure." Konstantin said after putting down the telegram in his hand.

"It is estimated that they have long been interested in the Kingdom of Malawi, but the resistance of the local people is too fierce, so they have not succeeded for a long time, and the Kingdom of Malawi has been almost disintegrated and divided by the Portuguese before I came, and the central government exists in name only, but the tribes below have not seen them swallow."

"Your Majesty, what should we do then, let them come to the first town to talk?"

"It's okay to let the Dar es Salaam municipality negotiate with them, there's no need to let them into the interior, which could expose some intelligence. We will agree to them in advance about cooperation, and we will take this opportunity to occupy more places with dangerous terrain and consolidate the land of the Kingdom of Malawi that we have encroached upon over the years. ”

"But I feel that this is a little too cheap for the Portuguese, Your Majesty. In this way, we did not actually take much land, but gave the southern part of the Kingdom of Malawi to the Portuguese. ”

"Now we are waging a war against the Sultanate of Gradi, and at the same time the southwest is also using troops, involving a large number of troops, and there is no energy to open another front, so let the Portuguese touch the Kingdom of Malawi, as for whether they can master it, it depends on their own creation. However, for so many years, the Portuguese have not done much about the Kingdom of Malawi, so it is still unknown whether the Kingdom of Portugal can succeed, so no matter how they play, let's do our own thing first. ”

"Your Majesty, I understand, but in my opinion, we will have a war with the Portuguese sooner or later, and there are still a lot of blank areas in Africa, so there is no need for fierce competition between the two sides, but after the interests of this region are divided, it may be uncertain."

"I naturally know this, it is better to try to stabilize the Portuguese now, and as long as we maintain the current pace of development, it will not be a problem to face the entire Portuguese kingdom in the future."

At this time, the native population of the Kingdom of Portugal was only about 4 million, but Portugal was a traditional naval power and its power in the Indian Ocean was not weak.

East Africa's population is now comparable to Sweden, the Netherlands, Portugal, Belgium, Switzerland, and Greece.

But again, the history of East Africa is too short and not enough to accumulate, so it is much better than Greece, a country that barely survives on debt.

"Your Majesty, there is one more thing, I must explain to you, if it is not resolved, it is likely to drag down the development of East Africa."

"What's the matter?"

"When we counted last year, the lower levels of government told us that East Africa could have a baby boom this year, which is a big challenge for us."

"Baby boomers? How much is 200,000 births last year enough? Can you break through this year? ”

"Your Majesty, I was also shocked when I heard this, but if I think about it carefully, it is true, immigrants arrive in East Africa, in addition to those who have already started a family, those single immigrants have also married in recent years, and through our efforts in recent years, the families formed in East Africa have exceeded one million, and East Africa is becoming more and more stable, and the people's desire to have children is very strong, and some families have even begun to have second and third children, so this year's birth rate is probably very alarming."

Prince Konstantin fell into deep thought, then looked at von der Leyen and asked, "Will they have four or five ......children?"

Von der Leyen nodded and said: "It is conservatively estimated that there will be at least five children, and if nothing else, it may not be uncommon to have more than ten families!" ”

The majority of immigrants in East Africa are peasant groups from various countries, and the population structure is very young, coupled with the special land and distribution system of East Africa, the fertility rate is indeed terrifying.

At the same time, East Africans do not go out at night, and there is no nightlife, so cats can only make villains at home, and the fertility rate in East Africa is naturally not low.

With the current population of 2.5 million alone, it may become more than 10 million or more in 20 years, and when he thought of this, Prince Konstantin instantly felt that Ernst's immigration policy was still too radical.

It's not that East Africa can't afford to feed so many people, but there are too many newborns, and the outbreak in such a short period of time will definitely cause a shortage of manpower and food pressure, after all, taking care of young children is also very energy-consuming, and at the same time, they are born together, which is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of mouths at once, and according to the traditional adult age in East Africa, they will not be able to support themselves after at least 14 years.

"In this matter, you first find out the situation in various places, report all the data, and I will discuss this issue with Ernst."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Von der Leyen replied.