Independence Once Again!

The military gap was indeed the easiest to erase. After all, surpassing East Africa in any other area was impossible. To put it bluntly, before East Africa, the Orange Free State was no bigger than a palm-sized patch of land, its population and territory both severely limited.

But if the Boers of the region were mobilized to the utmost, following Paraguay's example in South America, the Transvaal could also field an army of over a hundred thousand.

Of course, achieving that was clearly not the wish of the Transvaal leadership present. If they truly became like Paraguay, the future of the Republic of the Transvaal would be finished as well—unless they followed Paraguay's example and brought in a massive new population.

But Paraguay now seemed as though all its blood had been replaced. Was it still the Paraguay of old? Things certainly could not develop in that direction. After all, they were not war maniacs like Little Pelorus, who imitated "Napoleon." They merely wanted to obtain a small patch of land in South Africa and rebuild a homeland for the Boers.

Moreover, the Republic of the Transvaal probably did not possess Paraguay's former ferocity. Though Little Lopez had failed, he had truly managed to take on three enemies alone, and behind those enemies stood the support of Britain, the world hegemon.

Paraguay's level of modernization at the time had clearly been higher than that of today's Orange Free State. In East Africa's eyes, the Boers were merely a group of herdsmen in South Africa.

Yet Paraguay had already risen rapidly under the leadership of the Lopez family across two generations of presidents. It had sent people to inspect and study the great powers of continental Europe, imitating the West as it built its own nation.

It not only attracted vast