African Entrepreneurship Chronicles
Chapter 400

Even Dogs Would Get Two Slaps

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Ernst did not know that Cape Town was already preparing to intervene in East Africa, and was planning to start from Germany. However, Ernst knew before the war whether there would be good relations between East Africa and Cape Town, but intervening in East Africa from Germany was just wishful thinking of British.

The strategic goal of East Africa this time is to use mountains and rivers as boundaries, occupy some easily defensible places, and take possession of South Africa's mining areas. There are British forces in many places in the mountains and rivers of South Africa. The typical one is Griqualand Republic, but Griqualand Republic is north of the Orange River.

If Griqualand Republic is south of the Orange River, then East Africa will probably not annex Griqualand Republic. After all, it is difficult to defend and can easily become a bloodletting tank.

The second is the junction between the Zulu Kingdom and Natal Colony. There is no clear boundary here. This is easy to understand. After all, British used to think that it was the dominant party and had no opponents in Africa, at least South Africa. If a border treaty is signed with these indigenous people, regardless of whether these indigenous people are qualified or not, it will also hinder their expansion advantage.

As a result, Kingdom of East Africa is now the same as the United Kingdom, and East Africa does not pay attention to this. From the colonial era to the present, East Africa has only signed a border treaty with Egypt.

The first is that Egypt has an important strategic location and a long history, so major countries are paying close attention to it. The second is that the area bordering Egypt and East Africa is Sudan, which has a mainly desert climate. Only Gezira Plain has some cultivated land, which is not conducive to the advancement of the troops. The third is that Egypt itself is not weak.

At least East Africa believes that Egypt has the strength to sit at the negotiating table, but even so, in the end, Egypt was the loser when it signed a treaty with East Africa, and ceded some "bad land" with oil in Sudan to East Africa.

Pretoria didn't rest for long. Soon after 123rd Division supported Felix in the war against the Zulu Kingdom, 514th Division, who had rested for a few days, was dispatched again. This time 514th Division's destination was Kingdom of Basutoland, which was Kingdom of Lesotho in the previous life.

In South Africa today, it can be said that every dog has to be slapped twice by East Africa, and Kingdom of Lesotho will bear the slap from East Africa.

The reason why East Africa beats Lesotho is quite simple. Lesotho is the country with the highest altitude on South African Plateau, and it is also water tower of South Africa. Many rivers in South Africa originate here, such as Orange River, some tributaries of the Vaal River, Tugela River that flows into Indian Ocean, etc.

In the previous life, Kingdom of Lesotho and South Africa had a well-known water diversion project, which diverted water from Lesotho to solve the industrial water problems of Pretoria and Johannesburg in South Africa.

At the same time, Kingdom of Basutoland happens to be the watershed between the Orange River and Tugela River, so Ernst plans to swallow up the northern part of Kingdom of Basutoland.

This will help East Africa build a defense line with Kingdom of Lesotho as the center and Tugela River, Fett River (Orange River tributaries), Champagne Castle, Vaal River, and Orange River as the backbone.

(Picture)

Ernst calls this line of defense Southern Defense Line, and the main defense target of Southern Defense Line is Cape Colony.

East Africa has offended all forces in South Africa, including Boers, Swaziland people, Zulu people people, Basutoland people, Griqualand people (Boers), British people.

However, East Africa must restrain its ambitions and cannot be too rough with Cape Town. So far, the conflict between East Africa and Cape Town can be regarded as a conflict at best. If it really attacks Cape Town, it will not be a conflict, but a declaration of war with Britain.

Although Griqualand Republic is part of Cape Colony, Griqualand Republic is not important. Basutoland is also a British protectorate, but East Africa does not intend to directly erase it from the map, but chooses to leave half of it.

These two main conflict areas are subordinate areas of Cape Colony and are not the main body of Cape Town. Only Natal Colony in the southeast is one of the core colonies.

Kingdom of East Africa is taking action against these two areas, and taking action against Cape Town are two different concepts. Cape Town is the son of Britain, and these two are grandsons. Moreover, mainland Britain cannot control these two areas. Cape Town is mainly responsible for the management.

Cape Colony can actually be regarded as an independent country. Although it is part of the Great British Empire, it has certain autonomy. Its main authority is Cape Parliament, which is composed of local people, but its leader is the British Queen, the actual chief executive is High Commissioner for Southern Africa stationed in British faction who concurrently serves as Governor of Cape Colony, that is, Henry Buckley. In addition, the British have a garrison in Cape Town. The British can now firmly control South Africa.

This configuration is actually similar to Australia, a little worse than Canada, because British Parliament passed "British North America Act" in 1867, making Canada a British Dominion close to an independent sovereign country.

In fact, if Kingdom of East Africa had not intervened, the white people of Cape Colony would have obtained autonomy this year, and then they could have set up a cabinet responsible to the parliament to achieve autonomy in the true sense.

But now, Cape Town white people have to reconsider the necessity of fighting for autonomy before. Obtaining autonomy itself means that Cape Town white people want more rights and at the same time reduce obligations, relying on the importance of Cape Colony to force mainland Britain to make concessions.

But after the enemy East Africa came, the conflict between the white people in Cape Town shifted from central London and Cape Town to the conflict between Cape Town and East Africa.

Without the blessing of the Great British Empire, how can Cape Colony resist Kingdom of East Africa, which has stronger military strength, so Cape Colony's white local forces now need to bow to London, which is not necessarily a good thing for British Government.

Kingdom of East Africa vs. Zulu Kingdom The war and Lesotho were carried out almost at the same time. Zulu Kingdom was the most difficult place to fight. However, after the cavalry division in East Africa joined the battle, the situation improved greatly.

In the open area, the cavalry division can take control of the Zulu Kingdom at any time, but Zulu Kingdom wants to retreat to complex terrain but cannot escape the pursuit of the East African Mountain Division.

This gives Zulu Kingdom a headache. The reason why Zulu Kingdom can fight Boers back and forth is that the terrain advantage accounts for a large part.

However, the soldiers of the East African Mountain Division are all from mountainous areas, which gives them an advantage in the Drakensberg Mountains, and even has an advantage over the Zulu people who live here.

Zulu Kingdom actually arrived here only a few decades ago and established a kingdom. The people who lived here before were Khoisan people. The entire South Africa used to be the territory of the Kosanyi people. Now the Kosanyi people are mainly distributed in Cape Town and Kingdom of East Africa, as well as Namibia in the previous life. There are about a hundred thousand people left.

Khoisan people belongs to an independent population, and its skin color is yellowish, because Bantu people went south (including Zulu people), and the current Khoisan people in eastern South Africa is of mixed race (the maternal line is Khoisan people), so it is darker than the indigenous people of Dutch East Indies.

It can be said that except for Khoisan people, they are all invaders in South Africa, and Zulu people is no exception. Even the history of Zulu people in South Africa is almost the same period as Boers.

In addition, Zulu people is also a nomad, and they don't often run to the mountains, so their understanding of the terrain is the same.

Zulu people, who was surrounded and suppressed by the East African Army, had to continue to flee to more complex mountainous areas, because although the East African Mountain Division was difficult to deal with, the cavalry troops were even more difficult to deal with, and it was basically a dead end in the plains.

On June 8, 1872, the last resisting Zulu Kingdom army was forced by the East African Army into Champagne Castle on the left side of the Tugela River Valley, but East African Army continued to pursue until the remnants of the Zulu Kingdom entered Natal Colony from Champagne Castle, and Zulu Kingdom perished.

On June 12, 1872, East Africa raided the Kingdom of Basutoland (Lesotho) capital Maseru (located on the south side of the Tugela River Valley), Kingdom of Basutoland was forced to move the capital to Quthing on the south side of the Orange River Valley, and Kingdom of Basutoland asked British for help.

On June 14, 1872, the Transvaal Republic's government-in-exile arrived in Cape Town, and Pretorius the Younger sought to restore the country.

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