With the backing of the Hohenzollern Conglomerate and East Africa, Jiaozhou had already taken on the outline of a major Far Eastern city, while also becoming Germany's most influential city in the East.
Utterly different from those semi-colonial treaty ports, Jiaozhou was a port controlled by the Qing government. Yet, due to its distrust of the Qing government's bureaucratic clique, the Hohenzollern Conglomerate chose to retain its armed forces.
Even if Manchu Qing Dynasty officials lacked such nerve, the local gangs might not. A local tyrant was still a local tyrant, and their courage was certainly sufficient. So long as the profits were in place, there was nothing they dared not do. These people lived by licking blood from knife edges; without armed force, there was truly little deterrence against them.
Do not assume that being a foreigner meant one could run wild and throw one's weight around. That was a privilege only the British and French enjoyed. Those two countries would be delighted if Qing China put a knife to one of their citizens; one misstep, and it would become another pretext for war.
"Father, I intend to build an experimental railway between Dar es Salaam and First Town, to strengthen the connection between them while accumulating experience for East Africa's future railway construction." Ernst picked up the telephone and spoke to Prince Constantin.
At the mention of railways, Prince Constantin became very interested, especially since this would be a railway belonging solely to their family.
In Europe, Hechingen was a poor, remote backwater. It had neither a decent river nor a railway passing through it, and transportation relied almost entirely on carriages, horses, and walking.
Yet Hechingen's roads were hardly ideal either, even inferior to those in East Africa at this time. European roads had seen little