The hard days for the Jiaozhou sailors were still ahead of them! For according to the East African government's resolution—or rather, Ernst's decision—the East African instructors would continue putting these Far East Empire sailors through intensive training for more than a year, conducted entirely under simulated wartime conditions, all the way until May of next year.
According to the original history, Japan would invade Korea in June of next year, and Korea would inevitably seek help from its suzerain afterward.
Of course, history was not set in stone. Whether the Far East Empire would even suffer this calamity was hard to say. Perhaps some fierce man might descend from the heavens, or perhaps a stroke of luck might truly let them hold back Japan's first wave of attacks.
That was right—the first wave of attacks. Based on Ernst's understanding of the Japanese, such a "minor" setback was entirely surmountable to their ambitions. Just as in his previous life, had there been no atomic bombs, they might truly have needed to storm Edo and capture the Japanese Emperor alive before they would reluctantly surrender.
Ernst was not doing this entirely out of personal selfishness. Safeguarding the Far East Empire's independence also protected East Africa's interests in the Far East. Take Jiaozhou, for instance: with East Africa fanning the flames, its economic development had arrived thirty years earlier than in his previous life. Britain, Germany, Japan, the United States, and other countries all eyed Jiaozhou greedily.
The problem was that East Africa had made this cake bigger, so naturally it could not share it with other countries. Germany and the Austro-Hungarian Empire could participate, of course, since East Africa had developed Jiaozhou under the banners of those two countries in the first place. Back then, East Africa had still been an "Unlucky