Natal

Cape Town.

"Those Transvaalers' demands are outrageous! Is this a naked threat against us?" Governor Bartle Frere was truly enraged by those brainless Boers.

Directly going to war with East Africa! Bartle Frere felt that the Boers did not want to go to war with East Africa at all—they were declaring war on him, their immediate superior.

Yet Bartle Frere could not voice his suffering, because the Orange Free State was still a British colony.

If the Transvaalers launched a war against East Africa at this time, what would Britain do? Stand by and do nothing? That was clearly impossible.

This was basically no different from Britain going directly to war with East Africa. After all, the Orange Free State's incorporation into the Cape Colony had been an established fact.

So Bartle Frere could only accept the Transvaalers' extortion.

"Tell those Transvaalers that we can provide military aid, but only for half a year. After that, they will have to solve the rest themselves. Drop them a hint: once the Orange Free State regains its status as an independent country, it can possess 'independent' fiscal authority, especially over taxation. Do not say anything more."

This was the limit of what Bartle Frere could do as governor. After all, the offensive work still had to be done by the Transvaalers.

As for the mine owners and merchants dealing in resources such as diamonds, they merely had to pay an extra tax. That money would be enough to keep the Transvaalers going. The diamond trade was a business of colossal profits. Though East Africa had also been exporting diamonds in recent years, East Africa was as restrained as the British—when they could be sold at a high price, who would sell them as mere stones?

Moreover, this era had no synthetic diamond