Chapter 726: In-depth
“There has been a change in our surveillance targets. These Portuguese businessmen are all people with quite rich channels. Their recent actions fully illustrate the problem. It is like businessmen at the end of the year trying to make the last sum. business, and continue to carry out promotions and discounts so that they can go home for Christmas, but it is only March, so their behavior shows that there is Other factors caused their business to be unsustainable. "
As an intelligence agent in East Africa, Eureka keenly observed the unusual behavior of Portuguese businessmen. They increased their purchases from East Africa, and all at the maximum price. The transportation capacity is used to transport the goods, which are East African specialties, especially crocodile skins and ivory and other rare items that are only found in East Africa.
Of course, Mozambique itself does not lack these, but Mozambique’s output is not as large as that of East Africa. After all, they do not have enough manpower, so importing from East Africa is the most cost-effective.
You only need to prepare cash and vehicles, and you can pull the semi-finished goods directly to the eastern port, and then transport them back to Europe by ship for sale.
"Eureka, it feels like our missions have been the most frequent in the past year, but I have a hunch that these are all coming to an end," said his colleague Rice.
"It seems that the other side is preparing to reveal its trump card. How can we continue to go deeper and pass the information back?" Eureka asked.
"Just follow them. Now we are Portuguese, so as long as we follow other caravans, we can further know the detailed reasons for this change." Rice wanted to further solve the mystery, Therefore, he planned to follow the Portuguese caravan directly through the hinterland of Mozambique, then go to sea in the east, and then return to East Africa.
"This is indeed a risky operation. After all, we are not real businessmen, so it is easy to make mistakes in details, so in order to avoid misunderstandings, it is best to act like a fledgling." You Rika suggested.
The advantage of Eureka and Rice lies in their youth, and young people are always inexperienced, so they no longer appear to be out of place in the eyes of a bunch of smart Portuguese businessmen.
"Having said that, there is an unavoidable problem, that is, if the situation suddenly changes, I am afraid we will not be able to pass the news back to the mainland." Rice said.
“It’s all the fault of these Portuguese people. No wonder they have become weaker and weaker over the past few hundred years. They have never thought of repairing the roads in the territory, and they have not even popularized and promoted new things like telegraphs. So they can't compete with us in Africa," Eureka said speechlessly.
As long as you compare East Africa and Mozambique, you will know why the Portuguese suffered a complete defeat in the last war.
That is, they do not pay enough attention to the colonies. The infrastructure is limited to a few coastal cities that are barely acceptable, and there is basically no development of the inland.
Not to mention building railways like those in East Africa, even the number of muddy trails is insufficient, so it is understandable that Mozambique and Angola have not changed much for hundreds of years. If you throw away some modern industrial products, Portugal Human colonies basically remained as they were in the days of their ancestors.
This has also brought great inconvenience to intelligence work in East Africa, which is why Eureka and Rice complained.
If they were in China, they would have been able to send messages back to East Africa in time through the telegraph network built in East Africa. However, the Portuguese have not even built a telegraph to the mainland. Instead, they need to go to Dar es Salaam. Dar es Salaam and other East African cities paid to use the East African telegraph system. This is also the reason why Dar es Salaam has become the most important business intelligence gathering place in Africa.
Eureka: "The Portuguese military power is mainly along the coast. In peripheral areas like the inland, we can only pry out some meaningless information from nine to five every day, so we should apply with our superiors. , went into the hinterland of Mozambique to investigate. As for the transmission of intelligence, because of the poor construction situation in Mozambique, we cannot overcome it. We can only deal with it first. At least we must transfer a lot of data from the hinterland to the mainland, so we should not be anxious. "
"It makes sense. Unless the Portuguese regain their glory a hundred years ago, they will not be able to make progress easily even if they launch a war during this period. After all, our blockade on them is stricter, but East Africa "My understanding of Mozambique is only five or six points, and Mozambique's understanding of East Africa is probably only one or two points," Rice said. Rice has actually praised the Portuguese enough. The Portuguese intelligence system has gained twice the result with half the effort in East Africa over the years. It can also be said that nothing was accomplished.
Because there is no sophisticated intelligence system in Portugal, let alone a colony like Mozambique.
In fact, not only Portugal, most of the intelligence systems of European countries in this era are useless. Take the last Franco-Prussian War as an example. An important channel for Napoleon III to obtain the German troops on the front line was actually the newspapers in the rear.
Of course, this is also understandable. Europe does not have a household registration policy, and people move among various countries, especially during wars. Wherever a war breaks out, it will cause a large flow of people in Europe. Moreover, European countries are small in size. What is there? Trouble is very easy to detect. In this case, there is really no need to put too much effort into intelligence.
Spending more money is not as effective as making more friends and having more relatives in Europe. According to the complex relationships among European nobles, they are the easiest source of information.
From the central to the local level, the nobility controls everything in Europe, especially at the grassroots level. The landowners and aristocrats are the hubs that directly contact local residents. The aristocrats control all aspects of the local area, including population information.
In the past, East Africa was able to immigrate so many Germans from South Germany only through friendship with the South German nobles. In rural areas where the population is booming, people are just worthless numbers. Once they are cut, another crop will grow.
According to Germany's population density, this is even more true, so East Africa's digestion of these excess populations is beneficial to both parties.
After all, if the population exceeds the acceptable range, it will inevitably cause social problems, and Germany does not have a vast colony like the United Kingdom. If the British can have more children, I am afraid the British government will be very happy. There will always be The place arranges them, after all, even criminals have a continent to exile.
The German population will inevitably overflow to "same-culture areas" like East Africa. Of course, this process has disappeared with the completion of Germany's industrialization, and now Germany has become a new population importing country in the world.
However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which is developing relatively slowly, cannot get rid of this situation for the time being. However, the annual population outflow of the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not large and remains within a reasonable range every year, unless it is a war. The special circumstances of the era, like the last Italian-Austrian War, resulted in a massive loss of population in the Venetian region.
This was a good thing for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Many of the Austro-Hungarian immigrants absorbed by East Africa were Slavs and Italians, which greatly eased the ethnic conflicts in the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Of course, doing this in East Africa also caused some negative effects, that is, Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire were no longer as aggressive as in their previous lives. After all, social conflicts were alleviated and the governance crisis was avoided to a certain extent, so there was no need for Diversion through extreme means of warfare.
The most important thing is that in the last Russo-Turkish War, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not show the ugly face of taking advantage of the situation in its previous life. Now the relationship between Russia and Austria is far less sharp than in the previous life, and Bismarck can continue to maintain the European Three Kingdoms Alliance. relation.
(End of this chapter)