Japanese Immigration
Even as all of Europe writhed under a wave of antisemitism in 1882, Waldemar savored the sweet taste of enormous profits.
The trouble was that Europe was running short of markets still worth playing.
If short-term gains look thin, just invest in the long game.
The gaze of Waldemar—the speculator who had torn through Europe—turned before long toward the Far East. And where that gaze settled lay the Hermit Kingdom, quiet and withdrawn: Joseon.
Joseon.
Waldemar felt a complicated tangle of emotions toward the homeland of his previous life. Emotionally, he hoped for Joseon's well-being—but one look at how the country actually ran made it impossible to hold a favorable opinion, no matter how hard he tried.
The king and queen alone look like they were born to run the nation into the ground.
Unlike Willy, who at least handled domestic affairs competently, Gojong was an incompetent disaster of a monarch even at home. The ruling class was uniformly corrupt, inept, and glutted with greed; the state apparatus was backward; and they knew nothing whatsoever of the outside world. To top it all off, the national treasury sat in a state of chronic deficit.
Looking at the examples of Vietnam and Egypt—nations that had thrashed about trying to modernize and reform only to collapse into colonies—Joseon felt like a country that would be stranger not to become a colony.
This era's Joseon really was a country destined to fall.
Waldemar felt pity for Joseon, but that did not mean he had any intention of helping the Korean people—nor the power to do so. Saving Joseon did not serve his purpose of destroying Russia.
In any case, the reason Joseon—a country that had nothing to do with him—had come up was simple. It was because of the Imo Incident that had erupted in Joseon in 1882.
On the surface, the Imo Incident that year could be read as an explosion of grievances among old-line soldiers who had suffered formal discrimination. The real picture was rather different. In substance, it was better understood as a coup orchestrated by the ousted Daewongun to claw his way back into power.
Gojong, facing his father's coup, requested Qing support; Qing forces intervened at once and unseated the Daewongun by abducting him. Taken that far, the affair could still be read as a power struggle between father and son inside the Joseon royal house. The problem came next.
The Qing garrisoned themselves in Hanseong and intensified their interference in Joseon's internal affairs. At the same time, they sailed the warship carrying the abducted Daewongun on a tour of places where Japanese influence ran strong—Busan, Wonsan, and the like—deliberately baiting the Japanese. At that point, the Imo Incident had already become the fuse for a Sino-Japanese confrontation.
That's the real delicacy.
Waldemar knew that Japan, at this juncture, felt threatened by the Qing navy's buildup. As early as 1882, the Qing had taken delivery from Germany of the modern ironclads Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. Japan possessed not a single warship capable of facing those two latest ironclads, each exceeding seven thousand tons in standard displacement.
Japan, of course, did not sit idle. After the Nagasaki Incident of 1886—when Qing sailors visiting Nagasaki committed outrages against Japanese civilians and the resulting clash detonated anti-Qing sentiment across the country—Japan placed massive orders for ironclads with Britain and set about building a navy that could stand against the Qing Beiyang Fleet.
But at the present stage, Japan could barely hope to handle even the Dingyuan alone, let alone the full Beiyang Fleet. Waldemar judged that this delicate window was the absolute best moment to approach the Japanese.
When Waldemar revealed his intention to make contact with Japan, John Connor showed open skepticism.
"Do the Japanese actually have any goods worth our interest?"
It was unimaginable by modern standards, but the Japanese of this era had little to sell Europeans beyond raw materials. Apart from their flagship commodities—raw silk, copper, and coal—they traded the traditional staples of tea, porcelain, silk textiles, and handicrafts. For a side that dealt in automobiles, petroleum, rubber, and pharmaceuticals, the margins on such goods were thin.
But a shift in perspective opened other possibilities.
"There is one."
"And what would that be?"
"People."
Since the Meiji Restoration, Japan had been overflowing with population. So why the Japanese, of all people? China was equally overpopulated, and labor was far cheaper there. The reason was simple.
If I thin out Japan's population, the Japanese will have less aggression to throw into a Russo-Japanese War.
Waldemar intended to slash Japan's young population on a massive scale.
And as a bonus, it accelerates colonial development. Perfect.
He designed a system: furnish foreign currency to Japan in exchange for importing its people; ship raw materials dug out of Africa on to Europe; then cycle the foreign currency earned in Europe back to Japan.
"Isn't that only good for the Japanese, who have surplus people to spare?"
In the short term, yes. But Waldemar had no intention of letting Japan simply pocket the gains. By flooding the Japanese market with automobiles, lightbulbs, Aspirin, and the other products that had developed far ahead of the original timeline, he could claw back whatever profits Japan made soon enough.
Besides, they have no substitute system of their own.
"You'll see soon enough."
Waldemar sent a letter to Aoki Shuzo, Japan's Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Germany, stating that he wished to receive Japanese immigrants into German Africa. In return, he offered to remit an "immigration subsidy" to the Japanese government.
For a Japanese government already fretting over the launch of the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan while so short of money it could only suck its fingers, the proposal made eyes and ears snap open.
"This firm that contacted us—Euro Bond—does it truly hold rights to colonial development?"
"Yes. It is, in fact, a well-known name in investment circles."
After deliberation, the Japanese requested instructions from Tokyo. A few days later, Tokyo's answer came back.
"Negotiate immigration terms with Euro Bond."
More precisely: find out whether the price for selling people was open to negotiation. Fortunately for Aoki Shuzo and the Japanese diplomats around him, Euro Bond was not an especially difficult company.
"We will pay twenty yen per person as a relocation incentive. The six-yen monthly wage is, of course, separate."
One yen equaled 4.15 marks. Even allowing that a Japanese laborer's monthly wage ran five to seven yen, the offer was extremely generous by Japanese standards—because the peasantry, who formed the bulk of the population, were recording incomes with no floor at all.
"Could you improve the price a little further?"
Still, the Japanese wanted one more round of bargaining.
"Shall we inquire with the Qing instead?"
"No—no. That price will do."
The Japanese agreed to the immigration terms. The age of those who would leave was also settled.
"We want workers, not baggage."
"Of course."
Japan promised to send six hundred thousand young male laborers to Africa by 1900.
"Would you have any need for young women as well?"
"Young women cannot be paid separate wages. If they accompany men as wives, however, we can provide the immigration incentive."
"Very well, then."
The Japanese believed they had struck a solid bargain. Immigration incentives alone came to twelve million yen for the men, and remittances from the emigrants could be expected to bring in millions of yen every year. For a Japanese government with limited foreign-currency receipts, it was an extraordinary windfall.
"We hope to maintain good relations with your firm going forward."
"Gladly."
In exchange for convenience in future entry into the Japanese market, Waldemar promised that if immigrant import quotas ever expanded, Japanese would receive priority.
"Our Japanese friends talked as if they would do everything for us—but in substance, they promised nothing at all."
"True enough. Still, they won't break their promise to buy our goods."
Waldemar was certain the Japanese could refuse none of it: Bayer pharmaceuticals, Standard Oil petroleum, Carnegie steel, Benz automobiles, French wine, rubber from the Congo and Brazil—none of it.
"At this rate, we'll need to buy a few ships simply for Far Eastern trade."
John Connor proposed acquiring a shipping company while they were at it.
"Shipping, is it."
Waldemar acknowledged the necessity of the shipping business as well.
"Any promising properties available?"
"I'll look into it."
Waldemar sent John Connor off and sank into thought in his box seat.
With this, Japan's young population has been cut back sharply. That demographic loss may not decide the Sino-Japanese War—but in a Russo-Japanese War, it will weigh far heavier than anyone imagines.
That did not mean he wanted Russia to win such a war, of course. If he had wanted a Russian victory, why would he have sown the seeds of revolution so diligently?
The picture Waldemar wanted was simple.
First: when war came, Russia must not grow pessimistic about the situation. Only then would the Russians refuse to abandon the fight easily.
Second: the Japanese must be made to feel anxiety over the prospect of defeat. Only by driving them into a corner would they stop at nothing.
Waldemar's design was simple—but for Russia, few schemes could prove more fatal.
Still, not every part of Waldemar's design was likely to translate into reality. The international stage held more than Germany, Russia, and Japan. There was the United States, coveting interests in the Far East and crying "dollars instead of bullets"; there was Britain, wanting a proper balance of power and the preservation of the status quo. And France, hungry for revenge against Germany, could not be forgotten either.
And then there's Willy, who could bounce off in any direction.
Factor in every variable, and one could not simply be optimistic that events would unfold ideally. Even so, Waldemar was confident in his design.
There are still twenty years left.
It was only 1882. Already he commanded influence enough to negotiate with states. Twenty years from now, even the great powers would no longer be able to ignore his opinions.
Waldemar had a servant bring him a cold cup of coffee.