The Ndebele people's rebellion spoiled Constantin's good mood for continuing his tour of Dodoma city. If it had been natives rising up elsewhere, Constantin himself would have considered it only natural. The natives were merely less civilized, not fools; they knew how to resist as well.
But East Africa had shown the Ndebele people every courtesy in Zimbabwe, effectively sharing rule of the Matabele Plateau with them. After all, both East Africa and the Ndebele people were invaders in the eyes of the local Shona people, who made up more than eighty percent of the Matabele Plateau's population.
Just as the British used Indians in Africa, the East African government had intended to use the Ndebele people as Indians, backing them in suppressing the local Shona people. Yet it seemed they had tried to steal a chicken only to lose the rice used to lure it.
Still, though the Ndebele rebellion was vast in scale, it was nothing to fear for the Kingdom of East Africa. The Ndebele people had risen through military might, and so had the Kingdom of East Africa. Moreover, the Ndebele people did not outnumber East Africa's troops in Zimbabwe by much.
They had developed from the Zulu Kingdom to the Matabele Plateau for only forty or fifty years. After decades of intermarriage and growth with the local Shona people, their entire ethnic group, including those of mixed blood, numbered at most a little over a hundred thousand.
To the Shona people, the Ndebele army was an army of ten thousand that could not be defeated. But the Ndebele people could not even beat the Boers, so East Africa did not think much of them either.
However, to punish the Ndebele people for failing to appreciate favor, Constantin had already decided to send their entire people