East Africa's behavior made Cape Town very scared, but now there is no way to face the behemoth East Africa on its own, but Cape Town does not need to be sad. East Africa did not intentionally target Cape Town. In fact, Portuguese of Angola also felt scared.
Letania Province is far away from Walvis Bay Port, separated by a vast desert area, but the climate conditions in the intersection area of Namibia and Angola to the west of Letania Province are not bad! This can be seen from the Namibia map. Basically, the important rivers of Namibia are distributed in the north.
Although these rivers are also mainly seasonal rivers, the plateau area in the northern region is quite large and the precipitation can barely reach 500 mm.
Although there are plateaus in the southern region, there are still mountains. These mountains are the reason why it is inconvenient for East Africa to directly invade Namibia from the east.
Just imagine, after finally crossing Kalahari Desert, what you encounter is stretching mountains. After crossing the high mountains and plateaus, you end up with desert. This kind of despair cannot be overcome by willpower, so East Africa adopted the method of advancing by sea and land when colonizing Namibia.
The plateau area to the west of Letania Province, which was called the Owamboland area in the previous life of Namibia, is the most important farming area in the country. It can grow millet, sorghum, potatoes and other self-sufficient food crops, and is home to 30% of the country's population.
How important is this area to Namibia? Let's just say that Namibia's grain self-sufficiency rate is only about 20%, and most of this 20% grain self-sufficiency rate is contributed by Owamboland.
It's no wonder that Portuguese doesn't like Namibia. This land is indeed bad land, but this is only considering the cost of colonization.
For East Africa, the value of Namibia is different. The importance of the ocean is self-evident. If Namibia is captured, East Africa will immediately become a two-ocean country.
As for the harsh climate of Namibia, it is not a problem for East Africa. East Africa itself has enough agricultural land and there is no need to add additional land. Just like the original positioning of South Africa, there is no need to vigorously develop the planting industry.
April 1877.
At the same time, East Africa is planning the Congo rainforest zone, and the Ubangi River inland river force is established to conduct regular patrols of the Congo River and Ubangi River. This also indicates that East Africa will completely incorporate the Congo Basin east of the Ubangi River into its own territory.
East Africa is in an overall offensive state in the west, and with the blessing of railways, East Africa's transportation capacity has been greatly improved, especially the western section of Central Railway, which is close to Angola Colony and ends abruptly in the interior, forming the feeling of a broken railway.
As for why the western section of Central Railway was built like this, it can be said that Sima Zhao's heart is known to everyone on the road, and it is one of the manifestations of plotting Angola Colony.
May 1877.
Bloemfontein.
Under the persuasion of British, Orange Free State conducted the last vote on whether to join Cape Colony.
"The voting results were 1,308 votes in favor, 230 votes against, and 415 abstentions. I declare that Orange Free State will be disbanded starting today and will automatically join Cape Town."
President Brandt personally dissolved the last Boers republic, so that South Africa completely changed from a tripartite force to a confrontation between two tigers.
In fact, President Brandt is also very helpless. He personally hopes that Orange Free State Republic will continue to retain it, but if he really does this, I am afraid that a civil war may break out in Orange Free State the next day, so merging with Cape Colony is poison that Brandt has to swallow.
Apart from Boers, the only remaining force in South Africa is Kingdom of Lesotho. However, Kingdom of Lesotho was robbed by the British at the beginning of the year and declared subjugated. This is also consistent with British's character, after all, Kingdom of Lesotho, which was crippled by East Africa, has no use value at all. With Orange Free State also merged into Cape Town, Britain initially unified southern South Africa.
The negative vote in Orange Free State means that they do not want to join the same trend as British. Maybe East Africa is not a good thing, but the United Kingdom is definitely a bad seed. As for those who abstained, most of them do not want to mess up the dispute between British and Germans. In their opinion, Orange Free State should remain neutral.
These people are generally natives of the Orange Free State, but the opposition and abstentionists are weak. More Boers, especially those who were driven to the Orange Free State by East Africa, hate East Africa. Driven by their emotions, most people in the Orange Free State also hate East Africa.
Under the deception of British, Orange Free State threw herself into the arms of the British Cape Colony without hesitation and became a part of Cape Colony.
In the situation of wolf behind tiger, Britain is obviously more deterrent than East Africa, and what East Africa did in Republic of the Transvaal before, Orange Free State is quite clear, and they are also afraid of following in Republic of the Transvaal's footsteps.
British Cape Town special envoy Leint: "Boers made the right decision. From today on, you are all my brothers. We will work together to defend the peaceful order of South Africa."
British also spent a lot of money to win over Boers. In order to reach an agreement with Boers, British turned against the Orange River The diamond mine generously stated that it could be divided 50-50 with Boers. Of course, due to the need of national defense pressure, it will be temporarily managed by itself to maintain military expenditures, and that part will be returned to Boers after three years.
At the same time, British also promised to waive the arrears of the two previous countries. This is very important to Orange. Orange Free State and Republic of the Transvaal are evenly matched, and their fiscal revenue is basically in a deficit, so they borrowed a lot of money from British. After all, Boers cannot borrow money from Zulu people and other indigenous people.
For the Boers, Governor Henry Buckley of Cape Town also offered a price, promising that the Boers had the same status as British citizens. Britain would respect the rights of the Boers and protect the sanctity of their private property.
Of course, if Ernst knew British's promise to Boers, he would definitely sneer at it. Dogs can't change eating shit, and the same is true for British's promise.
Moreover, British's deception this time is almost the same as in the previous life. They didn't even offer any substantial benefits. They just shouted slogans and took advantage of the anti-East African emotions of Republic of the Transvaal immigrants in Orange Free State to bring Orange Free State into their own sphere of influence.
This is almost inevitable. Republic of the Transvaal originally had a larger population than Orange Free State. After they were expelled from East Africa, a large number of Transvaal people poured into Orange Free State. The demographic advantage gave Orange Free State the right to speak, and with the support behind British, Orange Free State's original power of Boers was eclipsed.
At this point, East Africa can be said to have dug a hole for itself, but expelling Boers from Republic of the Transvaal is the best choice for East Africa. If Ernst really leaves Boers in East Africa, it will be a real time bomb.
Boers has initially formed its own national ideology, which is contrary to the Germany ization of East Africa. If you want to transform Boers, the cost is too high, and it may not be effective, so it is better to let them leave. Although East Africa knows that this group of Boers may become enemies in the future, it must do so.