Map

As the end of the year approached, the advance party of the East African colony had already drawn a relatively intuitive map of the East African interior.

Transported by commercial fleet, a copy of the map now lay on Ernst's desk.

The entire map was over a meter long and seventy centimeters wide, marked with the approximate locations of mountains, rivers, and lakes.

At the easternmost edge, a road led directly from Dar es Salaam Port to First Town. Second Town and Third Town were two named points on the map, with the Little Rhine River running through them.

It was depicted quite clearly, including grasslands, woodlands, and farmland. The dotted lines marked the borders of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, stretching from north to south all the way to the Portuguese colony. Those two had basically monopolized East Africa's coastline.

The rivers in the east were marked in detail. The water network was clearly rather dense, and it was easier to explore as well. After all, the Sultanate of Zanzibar had operated nearby for years, and local guides could be hired to locate certain geographical features.

At the northern edge of the map, a triangle indicated a mountain range, which should have been the Kilimanjaro range. To the west of the mountains lay Lake Victoria. Vast in area, it was likewise covered by the shading used to represent bodies of water on the map.

As Africa's largest lake, Lake Victoria had first been discovered and named by British explorers, who had done so in their search for the source of the Nile River.

Its discovery had happened exactly one year after Ernst awakened the memories of his past life. West of Lake Victoria were two more great lakes, Lake Albert and Lake Edward.

Of course, Lake Edward was not yet called Lake Edward. In the original history, it would not be named Lake Edward until 1889, when the British Stanley gave it that name.

Together with the downstream Lake George, the British royal family had claimed the naming rights to all these lakes. But since Ernst had come to this era and regarded East Africa as his own territory, there was naturally no way he would recognize those British names, even the ones the British had already bestowed.

In fact, the names of the lakes discovered by the British had not yet been finalized. More precisely, they had not yet been updated on Europe's new maps, while the East African colony's surveying team had arrived only a few months later than the British explorers.

Therefore, with a sweep of Ernst's pen, Lake Victoria was renamed Great Lake. It suited Lake Victoria's characteristics perfectly; after all, the region around it had been called the Great Lakes Region in his previous life.

Ernst renamed Lake Albert Lake Frederick, in memory of his grandfather.

Lake Edward was renamed Lake Constantin, needless to say, while the downstream Lake George became Lake Hechingen.

Lake Frederick (Lake Albert) and Lake Constantin (Lake Edward) were both part of the East African Rift Valley, while Great Lake lay between them, a lake formed by water collecting in a basin.

Great Lake (Lake Victoria) covered 69,400 square kilometers. It was Africa's largest freshwater lake and the world's second largest. Its drainage basin covered more than two hundred thousand square kilometers and was customarily called the Great Lakes Region. In his previous life, more than thirty million people had lived around the entire Taihu Lake, making it one of the most densely populated regions in all of Africa.

By comparison, Qinghai Lake, the largest saltwater lake in China in his previous life, covered only 4,625 square kilometers, while Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake, reached only a little over three thousand square kilometers even at flood season. The only freshwater lakes capable of contending with Taihu Lake (Lake Victoria) were North America's Great Lakes, Russia's Lake Baikal, and Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, which also lay on the East African Highlands.

Therefore, Ernst was determined to seize Great Lake (Lake Victoria). Not only were its fishery resources abundant, but it also received more rainfall than the surrounding areas. Its land was flat, and conditions for agricultural development were excellent.

Further west lay Lake Kivu... Hmm, it was better to keep calling it Lake Kivu. After all, that infamous "killer" lake from his previous life carried bad luck.

Continuing along the western side of the map was Lake Tanganyika, which Ernst named Lake Solen. Lake Tanganyika's importance to Tanzania was self-evident. Tanzania in his previous life had been formed by merging mainland Tanganyika with Zanzibar to the east.

Niya did not actually have any special meaning in Africa; it was mainly an English word suffix. That was why many African countries carried this suffix, such as Kenya, Nigeria... Tanzania was simply the combined name of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.

Lake Tanganyika was the largest lake in the East African Rift Valley and the world's second deepest lake after Lake Baikal.

Lake Tanganyika twisted and wound its way along, with relatively steep terrain on both shores and narrow coastal plains distributed alongside it. Compared with the open land surrounding Lake Victoria, its economic value was not as high. Still, its geographical position was quite good. It stretched roughly 679 kilometers from north to south and had been a vital transportation route for inland Central African countries in his previous life, with water transport particularly prominent.

Further south lay Lake Rukwa, an inland saltwater lake. However, it possessed relatively abundant fishery resources, and many salt pans lay at its southwestern end.

At the southernmost point was another great lake, Lake Nyasa. For the sake of easier remembrance, Ernst still renamed it Lake Malawi.

Besides those, there were Lake Serengu near Dodoma, Lake Eyasi in the north, Lake Manyara, Lake Balangida...

This showed just how abundant the water resources of the East African Highlands were. These great lakes alone covered more than one hundred thousand square kilometers, larger than many countries. Add together all the lakes of the East African Highlands, and calling it the African Water Tower would not be an exaggeration.

As for mountain ranges, aside from Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest peak, there were also the Mitumba Mountains east of the Congo Basin.

To the southwest, beyond the area between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, lay the Katanga Plateau. Further south was the Mozambican coastal plain.

Ernst decided to swallow in one bite the central region between Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Malawi.

He would first establish three important lakeside strongholds, one along each of the three great lakes: Mwanza on the southern bay of Lake Victoria, Kigoma on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, and Karonga at the northwestern corner of Lake Malawi.

The inland strongholds would be directly placed near Dodoma, Tabora, and Lake Rukwa's Mbeya.

As red fountain-pen ink traced lines across the map, several red circles appeared upon it. In this way, most of Tanzania fell within the range of those circles.

"Tom, make a copy of these materials and send it to the East African colony!" Ernst put this ambitious plan into action in the East African colony.

"Also, the weapons produced by our arsenal can be sent to East Africa as well. First, organize a six-hundred-man musket unit from the Chinese immigrants."

Ernst continued, "Divide those six hundred men into six groups, each led by a member of the colony's upper management. They will clear out and maintain control over the six strongholds in the new plan. Later immigrants must be relocated to those six strongholds in greater numbers. In the future, with these six strongholds and the three coastal colonial towns as centers of influence, we will be able to bring the entire Tanganyika region into the palm of our hand."

Ernst spoke with high spirits, "Also, the first batch of musketeers should make greater use of the earliest immigrants. Relocate five hundred people to each stronghold first, and let our own people—the Germans—manage the ammunition for the weapons."

Ernst thought over whether there were any loopholes left.

"Oh, right. Select several trustworthy people from the company, preferably Berlin locals with families, and have them take over part of the colony's administrative authority. We cannot let that bunch of hired groups handle everything. Maintaining public order is their foremost duty. All right, those are the instructions for now. Go take care of it!"

"Yes, Young Master." Tom respectfully replied as he took the documents, turned, left the office, and closed the door behind him.