Chapter 309 Private Agent Organization
"Richard", whose real name is Augusta, is one of the heads of the British branch of the dark organization of the Hechingen Consortium's Commercial Intelligence Department.
The Commercial Intelligence Department of the Hechingen Foundation was established in 1866. Its original function was indeed only responsible for collecting commercial intelligence for Ernst's reference.
Later, with the development of the consortium and the development of the East African colonies, national and regional intelligence began to be searched. Ernst directly separated some people from the intelligence office of the Hechingen consortium to form a dark line organization, that is, In name, he is a business intelligence collector for the group, but in fact he is an organization of espionage agents under Ernst.
Most of its members are selected from the Hechingen Military Academy, have received professional training, and are relatively loyal. The disadvantage is that they are generally young, which is why Augusta and others are relatively immature.
The Hechingen Commercial Intelligence Service secret organization currently does not belong to the East African government, but is a special agent organization under Ernst's private name. Within East Africa, it is hosted by national audit and other departments to monitor the status of operations in East African countries. Lian Kang Standing didn't even know this organization existed.
Although the dark line organization is currently under Ernst's personal leadership, it will inevitably be integrated into the East African state agencies in the future and can be regarded as the predecessor of the East African state security department.
Abroad, the Hechingen Business Intelligence Service’s backline organization mainly exists in the United Kingdom, the United States, France and other democratically elected government countries. After all, the experience of the members of the backline organization is relatively weak, so it is better to carry out work in these countries with lax controls. , slowly accumulating work experience as an intelligence officer.
Authoritarian countries with strong governments like East Africa are not suitable for espionage activities and can easily expose their feet. Of course, the premise is that the state agency system has not collapsed. Old countries like the Far East and the Austro-Hungarian Empire can all be penetrated. into a sieve.
Fortunately, the current capabilities of Ernst's intelligence agency are limited, and its main activities are in countries that may pose threats to East Africa, with Britain, the United States, Portugal, and France being the focus.
Among them, Britain, Portugal and France have colonies in Africa, while the United States is looking for trade markets everywhere under British suppression. Therefore, East Africa is not very welcoming to American merchants. Just as the United States is actively exploring in the Far East, American merchants are also using the Far East in trade. The situation in Japan is relatively clear. For a country as big as East Africa, it can hide its secrets for a day. Naturally, it does not want to deal with Americans. Even the American businessmen's attempt to establish a trading location in Zanzibar was rejected by East Africa.
In this era, the United States is still the United States. It is not the American emperor in the previous life, but a poor man under Britain and France, so the character is packaged very well. American businessmen do come to Zanzibar under the banner of fair and free trade. He wanted to do business on the island, but Ernst chose to refuse.
American businessmen operating in the Indian Ocean have also concluded that the country in East Africa is quite closed. However, it is understandable that a German overseas colony must be more vigilant without the help of its mother country. Anyway, except for the Austrians So far, we haven’t seen any businessmen from any country that the East African government treats favorably.
In fact, there are still some, that is, businessmen from the Sultanate of Zanzibar. The Sultanate of Zanzibar is the younger brother of East Africa, so East Africa can naturally rest assured. At the same time, a large share of East Africa’s import and export trade passes through Zanzibar. The Sultanate of Zanzibar also relies on the Sultanate of Zanzibar to open markets in the Middle East and the Indian Ocean.
……
City of Dar es Salaam.
Three Hechingen ocean-going ships began to unload the Dreiser gun production machines that had been eliminated from the Hechingen Arsenal in Berlin. The East African government organized a large number of carriages and manpower to pick up the goods at the port.
“This batch of machines are relatively new, only four or five years old. Compared with the machines in the East African Arsenal, they are very advanced and more complete. The parts are all sealed in boxes and arrive at their destination. Don't break the seal before putting it on the ground, and don't let the rainwater penetrate into the parts in the box," Vicente, the technician on the ship, said to Bryce, the East African government employee who came to hand over the package. Bryce: "Don't worry, we have prepared enough rainproof cloth and hemp rope to ensure that these machines will not be exposed to the rain before they arrive at their destination."
Vicent: "Also, it's best not to be too bumpy on the road. Although these machines are not that expensive, it would be bad if they are damaged due to transportation."
Bryce: "No problem. We have had experience transporting a batch of mining equipment to Mbeya City before. Currently, we send people every month on the road from Dar es Salaam to Mbeya City. Maintenance, unless there is extreme weather, the general road conditions can still be guaranteed."
Visent: "These are not the main points. I want to know how the factory construction is going."
Bray. Si: "I don't know about this, but there should be no problem. After all, the government will definitely consider the factory problem. At least it will be able to complete the construction on your way here. There is no shortage of manpower in Mbeya City. We can add some processing points to build a few." The factory capacity is still there, and there is telegraph contact, so they must have received the news two months ago.”
The level of infrastructure in East Africa is still good, especially for large projects. There are about a thousand people living in East Africa. There are tens of thousands of indigenous people, so many that East Africa is too lazy to count them now. At least low-level labor is overflowing.
Excluding the old, weak, sick and disabled, there are still millions of laborers, but the life span of the indigenous people is extremely short, and there are basically no people who are too old.
Ernst was lucky. The planning of the Mbeya Arsenal came at a good time. The Prussian government intended to eliminate the outdated Dresser rifles. With the reunification of Germany, military products would naturally be unified into Prussian standards, resulting in Many German military-industrial enterprises are faced with the problem of changing careers. If they are lucky, they will be absorbed by Prussia. If they are not, they will have to close down. Especially in the countries below Germany, many have their own military industries. Although they are mainly small workshops, they Some of the equipment is good, but the scale is relatively small.
So for almost the price of scrap iron, you can buy a bunch of machinery and equipment and piece them together, which really allows Ernst to put together a complete full weapons production chain.
Although the Berlin Hechingen Arsenal produces guns, parts mainly rely on procurement, and there are complete gun parts and accessories production workshops in these countries.
After acquiring a large number of various weapons production machinery and equipment, as long as they are reassembled and produced in East Africa, basically most of the weapons that Europe can currently produce, plus the steel in Mbeya City, East Africa All can be completed independently.
Weapons that cannot be produced in East Africa, including pistols, bayonets, daggers, small artillery, etc., were all provided by East Africa in this procurement.
Although the output may not be satisfactory due to the low production efficiency of manual workshops and the large gap in steel production capacity, the independence of weapons and equipment in East Africa can be considered an important step.
(End of this chapter)