Chapter 538 Hohenzollern's "Africa Partition Plan"
"Uncle Carl, look at this area as Lake Chad. Just from the map you can see how vast its water area is. It is no exaggeration to say that it may be second only to the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) and Solon among African lakes. Lake (Lake Tanganyika)."
Today, Lake Chad has not dried up as it did in later generations. The water area may be about 30,000 to 40,000 square kilometers (the lake area will expand rapidly during the rainy season), so it is also very conspicuous on the African map drawn up by East Africa.
Prince Karl is indeed very coveted. Anyone would be tempted by such a huge lake. Lakes and rivers represent civilization, especially such a large lake next to the Sahara Desert.
"Ernst, does this so-called 'Lake Chad' really exist?"
No wonder Prince Karl would ask this. In fact, Lake Chad had been discovered as early as the early 19th century, but the map update and dissemination speed could not keep up. It was not until recently that European countries began to explore Africa on a large scale.
But sorry, East Africa alone accounts for nearly one-third of Africa, or even two-thirds of Africa. Only the West African region is more valuable for development. Although the shabby people in North Africa declined along with the Arab Empire and the Ottoman Empire, But there are still three jins in a rotten ship, and the cultural imprint is not easy to erase. This is one of the reasons why Algeria became independent from France in its previous life.
"Uncle Carl, don't worry, if there is any country that knows the most about Africa, it must be us in East Africa. In fact, the British discovered Lake Chad in 1822, in order to explore the relationship between the Niger River and Lake Chad. Later, our The expedition team has also visited the area and has more detailed data."
To be precise, the first Europeans to discover Lake Chad were the Scots. There is actually no direct connection between Lake Chad and the Niger River. Instead, Lake Chad was one of the sources of the Nile River in ancient times. At that time, Lake Chad was even larger than the Caspian Sea today. Even bigger.
Ernst then introduced to Prince Carl: "The entire Chad region, the north is indeed not a good place, with an arid climate and widespread deserts, but the southern grasslands are close to many areas in East Africa, with precipitation ranging from 500 to 1,200 millimeters. This time is very suitable for agricultural development. Although the climate in the north is a little worse, there are no competitors. If you can, you can occupy as much land as you want. You will not suffer any loss anyway. After all, the Arab Empire was also born in the vast Arabian Peninsula. In the sand."
It is definitely not a pure desert. There are many grain-producing places on the Arabian Peninsula, but once the population is large, it is definitely not enough. This is almost the same situation in central and northern Chad.
"To the east or south is the Cameroon region. You can also consider these places. Darfur in the northwest is an Arab country. If you want it, you have to do it yourself. The people of Darfur should be more difficult to deal with than the black people in the south. Some."
"We can send troops to clear out parts of Chad and Cameroon for you to use as an advance base for colonization. You just need to steadily advance to the west and north."
With one stroke of his pen, Ernst ceded nearly two million square kilometers of land to Sigmaringen, which made the experienced Prince Karl breathe quickly without even realizing it.
Too arrogant? In other words, roughness, this is the charm of immigrants, unlike Europe where people may fight to the death for the land of a village.
Of course, East Africa has only said that it will lay down a base area for Shignalingen. This base area is the land of the original Wadayi Empire.
The Wada'i Empire was a sultanate established by the Abbasid dynasty nobles. In fact, many countries bordering the north, west, and East Africa were sultanates, that is, Arab countries. However, Chad and Cameroon, including Darfur, were all black. The main Arab countries.
Those original sultanates have long ceased to exist, and the main culprit is East Africa. When East Africa expelled the black kingdoms in the west, they all passed through here to West Africa.
Such a large-scale population migration is bound to conflict with the local indigenous countries. Maybe they can resist after a round of migration, and black people in East Africa continue to pass through the area. Many countries have long been destroyed. After all, they were destroyed by East Africa. The black people who were expelled were not weak, and they needed supplies even though they were so far away, so the locals suffered.
What Ernst said about sending troops to help Sigmaringen was actually just a formality. In fact, there were not many black forces left near East Africa.
Prince Carl: "However, although this land is large, it is too far from the ocean, making it very inconvenient to manage."
The distance from the coast of the Indian Ocean to Chad is indeed not short. It is more convenient if it is from the direction of the Atlantic Ocean. France has done this in the past history. However, among the German countries in the world, Germany is the most powerful in the Atlantic Ocean. The German navy is not enough in its own coastal waters. , so the South Atlantic became the sphere of influence of Britain and France.
Of course, Germany is now symbolically colonizing West Africa, but because France is strong in the local area, it is naturally difficult to achieve success. However, Germany has indeed brought a lot of trouble to France's West African colonization.
The reason is still because East Africa swallowed up the two most important colonies of Germany in Africa (German East Africa and German Southwest Africa) in the previous life, so in this life Germany has more energy to devote to the colonial enterprise in West Africa.
"Uncle Carl, you don't have to worry about this. We can help you. The Northern Railway can provide you with transportation capacity all the way to the Great Lakes region. The rest of the way to Chad is also under our control. On the contrary, it is the direction of the South Atlantic. , our navy is too weak to compete with other countries."
Not to mention Britain and France, the maritime strength of East Africa in the South Atlantic is not even as good as Portugal. The reason why East Africa can launch an attack on Angola is entirely dependent on the inland areas and supporting the front line through railways and roads.
Therefore, if Sigmaringen wants to colonize Chad and the surrounding areas, it is best to go through the interior of East Africa. Of course, the railway fees will also have to be paid, and you can also make some money from Romania to subsidize the East African economy. In addition, Sigmaringen wants to colonize Chad will definitely need a large number of manpower to pass through East Africa, and East Africa will provide services for eating, drinking and sleeping. Brothers have settled their scores. East Africa's support for Sigmaringen is already very interesting. After all, others who want to use the East African Railway do not have this opportunity.
Anyway, Prince Carl is very satisfied and even thinks that his family has made a lot of money. East Africa is equivalent to giving him a colony for free, and the potential is quite good. Of course, the remaining problems need to be solved by himself.
"Well, I will discuss this with Leopold and the others."
Apart from its own strength, Sigmaringen's biggest reliance is East Africa and Romania. East Africa has cleared its territory, and the rest mainly depends on itself and Romania.
However, Ernst reminded: "You still need to distinguish between the family and the country. In fact, the military pressure to colonize Chad is not great. It is just a need for population and materials. In this regard, we in East Africa can provide it at cost price, so I It is recommended that Sigmaringen and Romania colonize these areas separately, especially Darfur, which can be left to the Romanian army, and southern Chad is best left in your own hands."
Although the monarch of Romania is Carol I, Romania is not the private property of Carol I, so it is best to use Romania to serve the Sigmaringen royal family.
That is to say, Sigmaringen and Romania cooperated to colonize Chad and surrounding areas. Otherwise, it would be quite difficult for Sigmaringen to rely on its own strength alone.
"Can you also provide information on population?"
"Of course, but we can only provide Far Eastern Chinese. As for white people, you can only recruit them in Romania and surrounding areas."
East Africa has absorbed all the redundant German population in Europe in recent years, especially Germany. Now that the economic crisis is over, the German economy has started to develop again. Although it has been affected by the "long depression", employment has been guaranteed. After all, it used to compete with itself for jobs. People had gone to East Africa, especially the farmers in East Prussia who had been bankrupted by the agricultural crisis.
Therefore, in history, the wave of German immigrants to the United States in the 1880s was no longer possible. In the 1870s, the United States itself was in a state of economic crisis, so it did not absorb German immigrants. This is equivalent to the recent historical trend. Twenty years of German immigration went to East Africa.
So the possibility of Sigmaringen wanting to recruit German immigrants from Germany on a large scale is close to zero, and East Africa itself cannot recruit them.
So we can only think of ways to immigrate from the Far East from countries such as Romania. East Africa can provide it. In fact, the number of immigrants from the Far East has also been greatly reduced recently. It is even difficult to get immigration tickets to East Africa.
Because a very important option in East Africa's immigration national policy is population hedging. Now that Germans cannot be recruited, the significance of hedging has been lost.
So now many ships in East Africa have begun to serve the black trade, mainly providing cheap labor business to the Americas. In other words, the highest tide of immigration in East Africa has ended, and it is now transitioning to a normal immigration country.
The immigration policy in East Africa over the past ten years has led to three results. One is the large-scale development of East Africa, which has alleviated the economic crisis in the German region, alleviated the contradiction between man and land in the Far East, and provided a large number of black labor for the development of the United States. Correspondingly, the United States The number of white immigrants was relatively low.
The United States is a capitalist country, and capital knows how to settle accounts. Compared with going to Europe to advertise and pay for shipping, it is obvious that black people in southern plantations are more cost-effective.
As for the slave trade, northern factory owners cannot see it. After all, the black people flowing out of the south are free. They may be a little older, but they are obedient, easy to manage, and even easier to use than before. As for the plantation owners, Black people are prostituted there for free, and American society does not want to fight another Civil War this time.
Ernst gave land and people to Sigmaringen. Naturally, this was not to be generous, but to build a black isolation zone to completely separate the blacks in West Africa from East Africa in the future.
The northwest already has the Belgian Congo, and the northeast is intended to belong to Ethiopia, but there is still a hole in the middle that needs to be filled.
With the support of East Africa, Sigmaringen will most likely succeed in colonizing Central Africa (Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic, and parts of Sudan).
The possibility of Germany establishing one or two colonies in West Africa is not small. After all, in its previous life, Germany had colonies in West Africa such as Togoland (Togolese Republic), Cameroon and even Gabon (Germany and France competed with Morocco, and France compensated for German products).
The three direct lineages of the Hohenzollerns all have their own spheres of influence in Africa, and the Hohenzollern family's non-chief title has been implemented.
(End of this chapter)