The Lion Opened Its Jaws Wide

British prisoners were the leverage behind East Africa's negotiations. Once Hermann laid that card on the table, everyone present—especially colonial powers like Britain and France—felt it most keenly. Britain's defenses were shattered, while the French took delight in its misfortune.

In the colonial wars of the nineteenth century, colonizers often needed only a small force to reap considerable gains.

Before East Africa, for instance, the Portuguese had fewer than ten thousand troops in total in Angola and Mozambique.

The most outrageous example was the East India Company's conquest of India in the eighteenth century. With fewer than a thousand homeland troops working alongside roughly two thousand mercenaries, it conquered India. Even by the nineteenth century, the total number of British Army stationed in India troops did not exceed ten thousand.

The British could be said to have replicated the Tang Dynasty Wang Xuance's model for conquering India. Though British troop numbers were small, the British assembled vast numbers of puppet forces, most of them Indians.

Closer in time was the war between Britain, France, and the Far East Empire in the 1850s, where the total force numbered only a little over 5,600 men.

Of course, the Far East Empire's war had been full of extraordinary circumstances. First, the Far East Empire had lacked control of the seas at the time, while its capital was close to the coast.

Before Britain's invasion, the Far East Empire had only one treaty port, Guangzhou—meaning "trade through a single port." This was vastly different from East Africa. In its early days, East Africa had likewise possessed only one treaty port, Dar es Salaam city, but East Africa's natural geography was poor and it lacked fine harbors.

Only after East Africa renovated numerous bays along its coastline did its current pattern of coastal cities take