Chapter 471 Loophole

The British in South Africa are showing increasingly strong ambitions for aggression, and this is true for virtually all the powerful forces around East Africa.

Portugal's actions in its two colonies were also accelerating. The Mozambique colony stepped up its invasion of several indigenous kingdoms within its territory, and Angola's invasion of the Kingdom of Kongo in the north also intensified.

The Belgians had already established a foothold along the coast and incorporated the Kingdom of Ankuzi (an indigenous kingdom on the west bank of the Ubangi River) into their protectorate.

The progress on the Italian side was also relatively smooth. Now they have seriously threatened the security of the Abyssinian Empire, forcing all forces in the Abyssinian Empire to stop their disputes and jointly deal with the threat of the Kingdom of Italy.

Even Egypt launched a war against the Sultanate of Darfur in an attempt to bring the Sultanate of Darfur, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, under its own rule.

In other areas of Africa, the French, Spanish and Dutch were also actively exploring in Africa. As these countries expanded their colonial operations, they encountered an existence that could not be ignored - East Africa.

At the defense meeting, Defense Minister Yarman summarized the recent defense and security situation in East Africa and its surrounding areas:

"In February 1876, a Dutch colonial ship attempted to land in Jessena Bay east of Nungwadu in the coastal area of ​​New Württemberg Province. It was discovered by the residents of Nungwadu Town. We expelled the Dutch who tried to illegally enter East Africa."

"In August 1876, the Western Azande Province reported that a six-member French expedition team was found in the west. They claimed that they had been separated from the main force and had no intention of entering the Western Azande Province."

"In November 1876, an expedition from the British colony of Natal secretly crossed the Tugela River, but was discovered and expelled by us. At the same time, there were also several British forces in the Orange River trying to sneak into our territory."

"In 1877, this year, we encountered British ships during our colonization in Southwest Africa."

“Also in May of this year, the Cape Colony merged with the Orange Free State, and the buffer zone between us and Cape Town has completely disappeared.”

"At the same time, there are signs that the British troops in Djibouti have also moved around. They may have their eyes on the Harar Emir Sultanate near British Somalia."

"The Portuguese side was also restless, and we had several small-scale conflicts with civilian colonial groups in Southwest Africa and Angola."

…

The above are only what have been discovered in East Africa in the past two years. There are still many that have not been discovered, and there may be even more. It is also very helpless. The territory of East Africa is too vast, and the Congo rainforest area directly exceeds 10 million square kilometers. If Southwest Africa is included, the area will reach more than 11 million square kilometers.

Moreover, many areas on the borders of East Africa and other countries are deserts, rainforests, rivers and mountains that are not suitable for human habitation. The area is vast and sparsely populated, and it would be difficult to detect if foreign forces infiltrated.

Not to mention those areas in East Africa that were occupied later or have poor natural conditions, the eastern coastal areas of East Africa also encountered this problem. For example, when the Dutch entered Jason Bay, thirteen days had passed by the time East Africa discovered it.

Jason Bay is a large bay (compared to East Africa), about 50 kilometers south of Soko Port.

Ports in East Africa are all developed in a limited way, with a focus on a few important ports, so it is easy to neglect the attention of some ports with less favorable conditions.

This gave the Dutch an opportunity to seize the opportunity, because from the sea, Jason Bay really looked like a no-man's land. There was no development here in East Africa, so it remained in its most primitive state.

In fact, the first people to discover the Dutch activities here were East African ships transporting railroad tracks to the new Hamburg port, but they did not attract attention because the Hechingen Ocean Trading Company and the East African government were not in the same system.

In the eyes of the crew of the ocean trading company, the Dutch in Jason Bay might be "their own people", after all, the government would not notify them in advance when developing a new port.

Just like the Soko Port that is under construction, it is a newly established port entirely because of the planned southern railway in East Africa. As for a "wild" bay like Jason Bay, most people don't have the time to get close and take a look.

The Dutch were finally discovered in a dramatic way. If they had stayed on the coast, they might have been illegal immigrants for a while, but what did the Dutch come for? They came to colonize, so after landing, the Dutch colonial group headed inland, hoping to capture some black slaves to build a base in Jason.

As a result, after going more than ten kilometers inland, they finally saw human habitation. And not only human habitation, but also large tracts of fertile land and German-style villages, thanks to the construction of East Africa, which made the Dutch feel something was wrong.

The East African farmers working in the fields also noticed something unusual about these "outsiders". They were wearing shabby clothes and carrying weapons, and it was obvious that they were not decent people.

Afterwards, the Nonwadu town police station mobilized collectively to intercept these illegal invaders. The East African police were basically retired soldiers, and there were also many militiamen among the villagers, so they quickly surrounded the Dutch group of about a hundred people without fear of danger.

After being interrogated by the Nongwadu Police Station, the identities of these Dutch people were revealed. They had no background in the Dutch government, but were just a small colonial company registered in the Netherlands. Because they were established not long ago, they were not familiar with African forces and ended up diving into East African territory.

Ernst said at the National Defense Security Conference: "The Jason Bay incident shows that we have not given sufficient consideration to coastal security, especially some natural harbors that have not yet been developed. Fortunately, this time it was just a civilian colonial gang. If a country takes advantage of this loophole to launch an attack on East Africa, the consequences will be disastrous. Therefore, we must check all harbors along the East African coast, register all harbors that can be developed and used, and develop and use them immediately. Even if they cannot be developed and used immediately, military facilities must be established and military personnel must be stationed. The navy must make coastal patrols a daily routine, and coastal telegraphs must be laid to prevent such farces from happening again."

In fact, there is a telegraph line along the coast of East Africa, but this line just stops in Dar es Salaam and goes all the way to the border of the Northern Province in the north. There are also telegraphs in the south, but they do not go through the coastal area, because there are not many port cities in the southern coastal area of ​​Tanganyika in East Africa, only Mtwara and Soko Port, and Soko Port is a newly built port. The telegraph connecting Mtwara and Dar es Salaam is completed through the former capital of the Lower Coastal District, Ronroda. Ronroda is inland, so this line does not need to pass through the southern coastal area.

Although the conditions of ports on the East African mainland are very poor (excluding islands, there is a lack of world-class natural ports compared to other large countries of the same size), there are still many of them, especially small natural ports.

These small ports had been left unattended before, and as East Africa wanted to "close its doors to the outside world", it could not invest too much in the coastal areas. Therefore, the coastal areas of East Africa at this time were almost in the same state as the coastal areas of the Far East Empire.

Ernst's previous offshore defense system did not take these natural small harbors into consideration, but focused on the ports developed in East Africa. After all, most of the coastal areas of East Africa were really barren at that time. Now it seems that these small harbors should also be used. In fact, Jason Bay is not a small harbor, but the lack of population and economy has made it abandoned. Ernst did not expect that anyone would land here, and even if he considered it at the time, he would not be able to manage it.

(End of this chapter)