Chapter 538 Hohenzollern’s version of “Africa Scraping Plan”
“Uncle Carl, look at this area as Lake Chad. Just from the map you can see how vast its water area is. It is an exaggeration to say that it may be second only to the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) and Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) among African lakes.”
Today, Lake Chad has not dried up as it did in later generations, and the water area may be in three places. It is about 10,000 to 40,000 square kilometers (the lake area will expand rapidly during the rainy season), so it is also very conspicuous on the African map drawn up by East Africa.
Prince Karl is indeed very coveted. Anyone would be tempted by such a huge lake. Lakes and rivers represent civilization, especially such a large lake next to the Sahara Desert.
“Ernst, does this so-called ‘Lake Chad’ really exist?”
No wonder Prince Carl would ask this. In fact, Lake Chad had been discovered as early as the early 19th century, but the map update and dissemination speed could not keep up. It was not until recently that European countries began to explore Africa on a large scale.
But I’m sorry, one country in East Africa accounts for nearly one-third of Africa, or even two-thirds of Africa. Only West Africa is more valuable for development. Although the group of poor settlers in North Africa have followed the Arab Empire and The Ottoman Empire declined together, but there are still three pounds of nails in the rotten ship, and the cultural imprint is not easy to erase. This is one of the reasons why Algeria became independent from France in its previous life.
“Uncle Carl, don’t worry, if any country knows Africa best, it must be us in East Africa. In fact, the British discovered Lake Chad in 1822, in order to explore the Niger River and Lake Chad. relationship, and later our expedition team also visited the local area, and And the data is more detailed. "
To be precise, the first Europeans to discover Lake Chad were the Scots. There is actually no direct connection between Lake Chad and the Niger River. On the contrary, in ancient times, Lake Chad was one of the sources of the Nile River. First, Lake Chad at that time was even larger than the Caspian Sea today.
Ernst then introduced to Prince Carl: "The entire Chad region, the north is indeed not a good place, with an arid climate and widespread deserts, but the southern grasslands are close to many areas in East Africa, with precipitation ranging from 500 to 500 to Between 1,200 mm, very suitable for agriculture Although the climate in the north is a little worse for development, there are no competitors. If you can, you can occupy as much land as you want. You will not suffer any loss anyway. After all, the Arab Empire was also born in the vast sands of the Arabian Peninsula. "
It is definitely not a pure desert. There are many food-producing places on the Arabian Peninsula, but once the population is large, it is definitely not enough. This is almost the same situation in central and northern Chad.
“To the east or south is the Cameroon region. You can also consider these places. Darfur in the northwest is an Arab country. If you want it, you have to do it yourself, Darfurians. They should be more difficult to deal with than the black people in the south."
"We can send troops to clear out parts of Chad and Cameroon for you to use as a colonial base. You just need to push steadily to the west and north."
With one stroke of his pen, Ernst gave away nearly two million square kilometers of land to Sigmaringen, which made the experienced Prince Carl breathe quickly without even realizing it.
Too grand? In other words, roughness, this is the charm of immigrants, unlike Europe where people may fight to the death for the land of a village.
Of course, East Africa only said that it would lay a base for Shignalingan, which was the land of the original Wadayi Empire.
The Wadayi Empire was a sultanate established by the Abbasid nobles. In fact, many countries in the north, west and east Africa were sultanates, that is, Arab countries, except that Chad and Cameroon included Dar. Furdu is a predominantly black Arab country.
Those original sultanates have long since ceased to exist, and the culprit is East Africa. When East Africa expelled the black kingdoms in the west, they all passed through here to West Africa.
Such a large-scale population migration is bound to conflict with the local indigenous countries. Maybe they can resist after a round of migration, but black people in East Africa continue to pass through the area, and many countries have long been extinct. After all, the black people who were expelled from East Africa were not weak. They needed supplies even though they were so far away, so the locals suffered.
What Ernst said about sending troops to help Sigmaringen was actually just a formality. In fact, there were not many black forces left near East Africa.
Prince Carl: "However, although this land is large, it is too far away from the ocean, making it very inconvenient to manage."
The distance from the Indian Ocean coast to Chad is indeed not short, but it is more convenient if it is from the Atlantic Ocean. This is what France did in the past history. However, among the German countries in the world, Germany is the most powerful in the Atlantic. The German navy is not enough in its own coastal waters, so the South Atlantic has become the sphere of influence of Britain and France.
Of course, Germany is now also engaged in symbolic colonization in West Africa, but because France is strong in the local area, it is naturally difficult to achieve success. However, Germany has indeed brought a lot of trouble to France's West African colonization.
The reason is still because East Africa swallowed up the two most important colonies of Germany in Africa in the previous life (German East Africa and German Southwest Africa), so in this life Germany has more energy to devote to the colonization of West Africa. cause.
“Uncle Carl, you don’t have to worry about this. We can help you. The Northern Railway can provide you with transportation capacity all the way to the Great Lakes region. The rest of the way to Chad is also under our control. , On the contrary, in the direction of the South Atlantic, our navy is too weak to compete with other countries.”
Not to mention Britain and France, the maritime strength of East Africa in the South Atlantic is not even as good as Portugal. The reason why East Africa can launch an attack on Angola is entirely dependent on the inland areas and supporting the front line through railways and roads.
So if Sigmaringen wants to colonize Chad and surrounding areas, it is best to pass through the interior of East Africa. Of course, railway fees also have to be paid, and it can also make some money from Romania to subsidize the East African economy and increase In order to colonize Chad in Sigmaringen, a large number of people will definitely need to pass through East Africa, and East Africa will provide services for eating, drinking, and eating. The brothers have settled their scores, and East Africa's support for Sigmaringen is already very interesting. After all, others who want to use the East African Railway do not have this opportunity.
Anyway, Prince Carl is very satisfied and even thinks that his family has made a lot of money. East Africa is equivalent to giving him a colony for free, and the potential is quite good. Of course, the remaining problems need to be solved by himself.
“Well, I will discuss this with Leopold and the others.”
Apart from its own strength, Sigmaringen's biggest reliance is on East Africa and Romania. East Africa has cleared its territory, and the rest mainly depends on itself and Romania.
However, Ernst reminded: "We still need to distinguish between family and country. In fact, the military pressure to colonize Chad is not great. It is just a need for population and materials. In this regard, we in East Africa can follow Cost price is provided, so I recommend colonizing these areas separately from Sigmaringen and Romania, In particular, Darfur can be left to the Romanian army, and southern Chad is best left in your own hands.”
Although the Romanian monarch is Carol I, Romania is not the private property of Carol I. Therefore, it is best to use Romania to serve the Sigmaringen royal family.
That is, Sigmaringen and Romania cooperated to colonize Chad and surrounding areas. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult for Sigmaringen to rely on its own strength.
“Can you also provide information on population?”
"Of course, but we can only provide Far Eastern Chinese. As for white people, you can only recruit them in Romania and surrounding areas."
East Africa has absorbed all the redundant German population in Europe in recent years, especially Germany, now that the economic crisis is over, the German economy has started to develop again. Although it has been affected by the "long depression", employment has been guaranteed. After all, the people who used to compete with me for jobs have gone to East Africa, especially East Prussia, which was bankrupted by the agricultural crisis. farmers.
So historically, in the 1880s, the wave of German immigrants to the United States was no longer possible. In the 1870s, the United States itself was in a state of economic crisis, so it did not absorb German immigrants. This It is equivalent to the fact that all the German immigrants in the past twenty years went to East Africa.
So the possibility of Sigmaringen recruiting German immigrants from Germany on a large scale is close to zero, and East Africa itself cannot recruit it.
So we can only think of ways to immigrate from the Far East from countries such as Romania. East Africa can provide it. In fact, the number of immigrants from the Far East has also been greatly reduced recently. It is even difficult to get immigration tickets to East Africa. .
Because a very important option in East Africa's immigration national policy is population hedging. Now that Germans cannot be recruited, the significance of hedging has been lost.
So now many ships in East Africa have begun to serve the black trade, mainly providing cheap labor business to the Americas. This means that the highest tide of immigration in East Africa has ended and is now transitioning to a normal immigration country.
The immigration policy in East Africa over the past ten years has led to three results. One is the large-scale development and development of East Africa, which has alleviated the economic crisis in the German region, alleviated the conflict between people and land in the Far East, and provided a large amount of resources for the development of the United States. The black labor force and the corresponding number of white immigrants in the United States have been relatively reduced.
The United States is a capitalist country, and capital knows how to settle accounts. Compared with going to Europe to advertise and pay for shipping, it is obvious that black people in southern plantations are more cost-effective.
As for the slave trade, northern factory owners cannot see it. After all, the black people flowing out of the south are free. They may be a little older, but they are obedient, easy to manage, and even easier to use than before. As for prostitution of black people from plantation owners, American society does not want to fight another Civil War this time.
Ernst gave land and people to Sigmaringen. Naturally, this was not to be generous, but to build a black isolation zone to completely separate the blacks in West Africa from East Africa in the future.
The northwest already has the Belgian Congo, and the northeast is intended to belong to Ethiopia, but there is only a hole in the middle that needs to be filled.
With the support of East Africa, Sigmaringen colonizes Central Africa (Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and parts of Sudan) with a high probability of success.
The possibility of Germany establishing one or two colonies in West Africa is not small. After all, in its previous life, Germany had Togoland (Republic of Togo), Cameroon and even Gabon (Germany and France competed with Morocco, and France compensated Germany). products) and other colonies.
The three direct lineages of the Hohenzollerns all have their own spheres of influence in Africa, and the name of the Hohenzollern family as a non-chief has been implemented.
(End of this chapter)