Chapter 380: Chapter 67, Challengers and Protectors
Early in the morning, the roaring sound of steam engines rolled in. No one was surprised; this was the Port of Venice, the largest trading port of the New Holy Roman Empire, where triple-digit numbers of ships came and went daily.

Here, the roaring of steam engines had become a part of people’s lives. Workers had already gathered at the docks, waiting for ships to dock.

Life was tough, in an age where production capacity was limited, and filling one’s stomach was not an easy task.

Arno was an ordinary dockworker who had been working here for three years, his youthful dreams worn away by reality. He had thought about making his fortune overseas several times, but thinking of his wife and children, he eventually gave up the idea.

The work on the docks was exhausting and bitter, requiring a lot of physical strength. Those who could not carry a hundred and eighty kilograms didn’t belong here.

For Arno, this was not a problem. He was not afraid of hardship or exhaustion; he just wanted to take on more jobs, earn more money, and provide a better life for his family.

He wished he could send his son to school. Don’t think that just because Austria had implemented compulsory education, it would include Arno.

The reason was that he was not a local resident and did not have Austrian citizenship. In day-to-day life and work, this did not make much of an impact.

After all, no one cared about the nationality of a laborer from the lowest tier. However, when it came to social welfare benefits, Arno was left out in the cold.

He and his father had come from Ancona to Venice to make a living over a decade ago. In all those years, he had only returned home three times, once to get married, and the other times were ship-related.

Austria managed citizenship very strictly. If one was from the German People, obtaining citizenship was very simple, provided one had no criminal record.

For other nationalities, it was different. Even though Arno had lived in Venice for over a decade, he still did not meet the requirements.

Apart from scientists, designers, engineers, and doctors, other professions faced a whole host of restrictions when it came to immigrating to Austria.

Arno knew the requirements by heart:

1. No criminal record, correct political thoughts;

2. Reside in Austria for a full 20 years, or be born and raised in Austria;

3. Make significant contributions to society (those who made major contributions could obtain citizenship directly);

4. Have at least a college education (excellent students in science and engineering may have other criteria reduced);

5. Be fluent in German and carry on Austrian cultural traditions;

6. Personal assets of no less than 8000 Divine Shields;

…

This was not Franz deliberately excluding immigrants, but rather a policy born from the imbalance in the ethnic proportion of natives when he took the throne, with the main ethnic group constituting less than a quarter.

Under those circumstances, taking in more immigrants from other ethnicities would only exacerbate the problem, wouldn’t it?

To avoid this situation, the Vienna Government had established an immigration policy that was almost impossible to fulfill.

Facts proved that this policy was correct, as it significantly improved the proportion of the dominant ethnic group.

Without restrictions, Austria would now have hundreds of thousands more Italians. Currently, over five hundred thousand foreign Italians lived in the Lombardy and Veneto regions.

Not just Italians, but Austria was also home to a large number of foreign Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, Bulgarian people…

Faced with this situation, Franz who was in charge of immigration restrictions, was even more reluctant to loosen them. Integrating different nationalities was already not easy; adding millions more would simply be courting discomfort.

After all, Austria was not short of labor and did not need these common immigrants.

The high-quality immigrants that Austria needed were no joke; those people could live comfortably in any European country.

Arno had become a victim of this policy. Unless God took a liking to him, the possibility of obtaining Austrian citizenship was nearly zero.

Right now, Austria’s social welfare was quite limited. Aside from compulsory education, Arno hardly saw much of a difference.

No matter what, the income in Venice was far superior to what he would earn back home. Not only could he keep his family fed, but there was also a little to spare.

The dockworkers’ meals were quite good, at least for the time being. There was plenty of dark bread, and meat was available daily.

Don’t be mistaken; this ‘meat’ was fish. This was Venice, where fish was not much more expensive than dark bread, and still cheaper than white bread.

To ensure the workers’ physical strength, meat was essential. The capitalists who contracted the docks were not fools; they knew that only with strong workers could they earn more money.

On the surface, dock handling seemed to require no skill; yet those in the know understood that skilled laborers could reduce the rate of damage during handling.

Do not underestimate this slight reduction in damage rate; it was the competitive edge of the dock. Austria had many ports and even more docks.

Most docks were government-owned. In contracting them out to individuals, they were deliberately split up to break regional monopolies.

If the losses on a particular dock were too high, not only would it cause disputes with customers, more critically, a damaged reputation meant no more ships would come.

From this perspective, Arno was lucky. Such competition increased their value in the eyes of the capitalists, even though it was still trivial, but at least they were not treated as disposable goods.

For example, they have basically managed to pay wages on time, provide overtime pay as required by law, and met the national standards for the food service industry.

…

“Arno, do you recognize that banner?”

The one who asked was Fachel, Arno’s fellow countryman, who had just come from his hometown and was full of curiosity about everything.

After looking for a while, Arno said enviously, “I don’t recognize it, but it looks like it should be the coat of arms of a noble family.”

Ships flying flags bearing the coat of arms of nobility are usually privately owned vessels, not involved in commercial transport, a standard symbol of the extravagant nobles.

Of course, there are occasional exceptions, for some unconventional nobles also hang their own coat of arms on merchant ships.

Fachel sighed, “How wonderful it would be to have a ship like this someday!”

Arno rolled his eyes and didn’t entertain such daydreams. He had dreamt such dreams many times before, but to no avail.

A middle-aged man in a suit had already stepped forward and was negotiating with the ship’s owner; if they agreed on a price, then Arno and the others would have work to do.

“Honorable Baron Feckney, Manar is honored to serve you!”

Baron Feckney nodded wearily and instructed, “Manar, arrange for your men to unload everything from the ship, then deliver it to the train station.

Will, accompany them and help with their work. I am now off to visit Viscount Obila, and we will return to Vienna together in three days.”

Having said this, Baron Feckney began to rest with his eyes closed. As one of the first to discover the presence of gold mines in the colonies, Feckney had now returned home clothed in riches.

When he went to the colony years ago, Feckney was so down on his luck that he mortgaged the family lands and also accumulated a substantial debt. Now, he was a tycoon worth millions of Divine Shields.

Years had gone by, and the gold mine’s reserves were nearly depleted. However, Feckney hadn’t been idle while mining for gold.

Perhaps it was some kind of racial talent, but originally his farm was only to provide for the needs of the workers at the gold mine, and he hadn’t anticipated it snowballing into something much larger.

Now, his farms and plantations combined covered an area of over four thousand eight hundred hectares, making him a well-known major landlord in the area.

Looking at the vast expanse of land, Baron Feckney realized reluctantly that he was tied to it! The main purpose of this trip home was to push for the integration of the colonies with the homeland.

With so many Austrian colonies, it was impossible to incorporate all of them into the homeland; that much was well understood. However, the merger of developed lands into the homeland was very much achievable.

In order to push this plan, recently, many nobles who had opened plantations in Africa had returned home for public relations work.

Once the domestication of the African Colony was approved, Baron Feckney planned to turn his farms and plantations into hereditary lands for his family.

During his years in the African Continent, he had also accumulated a fair amount of merit. If he could now exchange his homeland estates for land in Africa, not only could he transform his own lands into hereditary estates, but he could also incorporate the lands of those who had followed him into the mix.

The total area, when combined, was larger than the domains of many European Continent earls. With this foundation, if managed with care for several generations, the family could enter into the circle of the great nobility.

Not only Baron Feckney, many nobles had similar plans. The competition in the homeland was too fierce, making it impossible for more great nobles to emerge.

However, the African Continent was different. If one was willing to invest in it, a great noble family could emerge after a few generations.

Many colonial capitalists were also prepared to use this opportunity to transform; once domestication was approved, their time would come.

In Europe, these new rich simply couldn’t break into high society. Even if they bought their way into nobility, they couldn’t earn the acceptance of the elite.

In the African Continent, however, things were different. Besides the established nobility, there were plenty of newly wealthy individuals who could have their own noble circles.

The capitalist era? In reality, it was the nobility not allowing the capitalists into high society, which led the capitalists to overturn the table and pull the nobility from their pedestal.

Now that they had an opportunity to enter, naturally, nobody wanted to overturn the table. After all, they had already obtained their noble licenses, and were transitioning from challengers of the rules to upholders of the rules. Once the colonies were assimilated, their status would be secured.

This was exactly what Franz wanted to see; capitalists were never his enemies, only those capitalists who opposed him were.

If they were merely cracked down upon without leaving them an avenue for advancement, even a desperate rabbit would bite in retaliation, let alone increasingly powerful capitalists.

By leaving them an avenue, the capitalists, who were originally a loose group, couldn’t unite against him.

Of course, this was just part of the domestication of the colonies; in fact, it was an opportunity for all social strata across society.

Austria’s colonies were ten times the size of its homeland, with Austro-Africa alone covering seven to eight hundred million square kilometers. Even if only a small part of it was integrated into the homeland, that still provided many opportunities.

Now, if one dared to strive and venture forth, it was very possible to break through class barriers.

If to be illustrated by data, the success rate for such endeavors was 10% now, but after class solidification, the success rate for striving would be less than 1%.

Of course, that’s only to transcend one’s current social class and take a small step forward.

If you wish to ascend to the heavens in one step, it’s better not to dream. Aside from rebellion, there is no such shortcut in the world.