Chapter 230
East Africa's roots are in the East African Plateau, which is about one million square kilometers, mainly covering Tanzania, Kenya and the Great Lakes region. This is an already stable land area, plus some surrounding areas, which is about two million square kilometers of land. The East African Kingdom is not afraid of any competition.
With the advantage of the number of immigrants, it is difficult for other colonists, even if all the indigenous forces are added, to pose a threat to the East African Plateau and its surrounding areas.
Now the southwestern region, which was the Zambia region in the previous life, has become a weak area of the East African Kingdom because it was incorporated not long ago. The East African Kingdom made a temporary compromise with the local indigenous forces.
Without the intervention of external forces, East Africa can naturally slowly swallow up the southwest region, but once any force instigates local activities, the East African Kingdom will be passive.
In addition to these two areas, the Mitumba Mountains, the coastal plains, and the northern desert areas all occupy a considerable area. All these areas together are close to 4 million square kilometers.
"Your Majesty, this is the current map of the Kingdom of East Africa, which we have revised after many comparisons."
(picture)
Von der Leyen spread out a map in front of Constantine. Looking closely, if one had to explain the shape of East Africa, it would be somewhat like a leaf, wide in the middle and narrow on both sides, slanting into the interior of Africa.
"This map looks really weird! It looks strange." Constantine commented on the map.
"Your Majesty, this is because when we expanded our territory in East Africa, we avoided some slightly more powerful forces. In the west, we were blocked by the Mitumba Mountains, the Congo River, and the tropical rainforest, so we only reached the east bank of the Lualaba River. We can expand unimpeded to the southwest along the plateau, and there are no other forces in the inland, which also creates conditions for us."
"In the future, this plateau will be the core area of East Africa. It has a similar climate, a large enough area, and a relatively gentle terrain. It also has topographical advantages over the surrounding areas," said Felix.
"In developing the southwestern plateau, the main problem we are facing now is transportation. In the past, when we were in the east, most rivers were east-west, which was roughly the same direction as our expansion. However, most rivers in the southwest are tributaries of the Zambezi River, extending north-south. Therefore, if we want to open up transportation in this area, we must build more bridges."
"Not only that, in addition to these tributaries, the Zambezi River itself is a natural barrier. If we don't solve the Zambezi River problem, our future expansion will also be affected."
"I think we should ask the inland river and lake troops to cooperate with us more in the future. There are too many wetlands and lakes in Africa, and their boats are very suitable. At the same time, given the conditions in East Africa, we can build more suspension bridges to temporarily replace them, at least to ensure that the troops and weapons and equipment can pass smoothly inland."
It is not difficult to see from the map that if East Africa does not want to conflict with other colonists, there are only three directions for future expansion. One is Southern Sudan, one is the Luba Kingdom, the Rwandan Kingdom, and the other is Zimbabwe.
Southern Sudan can expand, but the expansion is relatively limited, mainly because to the north is North Africa, and to the west is not a good place because of the water shortage.
So there are only the Luba Kingdom and the Runda Kingdom in the west, and Zimbabwe in the south. These two areas are pretty good, one is the Lunda Plateau, and the other is the Matabele Plateau.
As for which one to choose, Ernst didn't even need to look and directly chose Zimbabwe.
Ernst knew the country of Zimbabwe too well. After all, in his previous life, the Zimbabwean currency was world-famous and its face value was higher than that of ghost money. Ernst also worked in Africa in his previous life and was familiar with Africa's resources. Due to the special nature of his work, Ernst was active in various African countries all year round. This is also a characteristic of people engaged in engineering and mining industries in the Far East and Africa.
Zimbabwe has the most valuable resources of this era, coal and iron. It is no exaggeration to say that with Zimbabwe, East Africa can directly become an industrial country relying on its coal and iron resources.
If you look at the Zimbabwe resource analysis report, you will know that among all the African countries, coal and iron are rarely the top resources. Diamonds, nonferrous metals and some rare metals are often the top resources. Zimbabwe's top resources include coal and iron. At the same time, Zimbabwe's coal mines are of high grade and low impurities, and are high-quality coal.
(Zimbabwe is rich in mineral resources, with a rough estimate of more than 80 kinds, of which more than 40 kinds have been basically explored. The main mineral products are diamonds, platinum, chromium, gold, iron, coal, nickel, copper, zinc and lead; industrial mineral products include limestone, phosphate, clay and dolomite. In addition, the newly discovered biogas reserves are also extremely rich. According to preliminary exploration estimates, platinum reserves rank second in the world, chromium reserves rank second in the world, iron ore reserves are about 38 billion tons, coal reserves are 27 billion tons, and coalbed methane reserves are 500 million cubic meters. In 2001, rich diamond mines were discovered in Zimbabwe. Preliminary exploration results show that its diamond reserves rank first in the world. - Data source: Economic and Commercial Office of the Embassy of the Far Eastern Republic in the Republic of Zimbabwe)
Coal and oil, these two energy sources are the most important for industry, and coal and iron are the foundation of the First Industrial Revolution.
The only drawback of Zimbabwe is its lack of water. Its rainfall is on the same level as that of Shaanxi in the Far East. The rainfall in Shaanxi remains at more than 600 mm all year round (data source: Shaanxi government official website), while the rainfall in Zimbabwe is between 400 and 900 mm. At the same time, the rainfall distribution in both countries is uneven, with Shaanxi decreasing from south to north, while that in Zimbabwe decreases from east to west.
These are not problems. Without coal and iron resources, East Africa can only be an agricultural country and a mining exporter. Only with coal and iron resources can East Africa become an industrial country.
Compared with other continents, the African continent itself is short of coal. Iron ore is quite abundant, but it is concentrated in West Africa and the entire Central and Southern Africa. In the past, there were only three countries that were not short of coal and iron resources, namely South Africa, Angola and Zimbabwe.
The first two are now occupied, leaving only Zimbabwe, a "no man's land". Zimbabwe was called Rhodesia in the past, and was gradually occupied by the Boers and the British after 1880. Slowly, the Rhodesia-Nyasaland Federation was formed, which consists of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Malawi. Now the East African Kingdom has two-thirds of the world. Taking Zimbabwe also blocked the Boers' northward expansion and the Portuguese's westward expansion.
Therefore, after occupying Zimbabwe, East Africa must start planning to attack one of the two, otherwise the threat will be too great. As for who will become the enemy of East Africa first, it depends on who can reach out long enough. Ernst had always been wary of the Portuguese colonies, but the Boers were also stubborn people. Fighting on two fronts would definitely not work. It would be better to take the initiative and cripple one of them first.
(End of this chapter)
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