Chapter 25 Military Industry Primary Ticket
As a supplement to the agreement, Ernst specifically obtained an entry ticket to the arms industry from Prussia to solve the problem of building one from scratch.
This time Ernst stated his purpose in advance, which was to address the issue of weapons and equipment for the East African colonies under the management of the Hechingen royal family.
After all, there is nothing wrong with making weapons and equipment in Europe, but it is hard to say if you set up a production line. Even if it is relatively backward technology, they will try their best to avoid spreading it.
Since Ernst emphasized that the purpose was to colonize East Africa, the Prussian government did not have to worry too much about its use. It only needed to send people to check the accounts and pay taxes reasonably.
The Prussian royal family and government were very generous this time. In addition to a small arsenal, they also provided several original flintlock production lines that were about to be retired, as well as bullet production lines. They also promised that Ernst could order other materials he needed from Krupp and other Prussian military enterprises in the future, but of course he had to pay for it and it could not be used in Europe.
At this time, Prussia was affected by the Second Schleswig War and increased the retirement of muzzle-loading flintlock rifles and switched to the production of breech-loading rifles. Therefore, it generously gave the production line of muzzle-loading flintlock rifles to Ernst to make room for the new production line.
Ernst was already very satisfied with being able to obtain these old weapons production lines. Ernst planned to equip the East African colonies with these weapons that were becoming outdated.
There are more and more Chinese immigrants in the East African colonies, and the number of strongholds will increase in the future. However, Ernst's armed forces in East Africa are only hired Germans, with a number of only more than 2,000, while the number of Chinese immigrants is nearly 3,000.
In fact, more than 2,000 people were already a lot. On the eve of the First World War, the German East African military force included 68 white officers, 60 white non-commissioned officers, 132 white medical officers and administrative personnel, 2 black officers, 184 black non-commissioned officers, and 2,286 black soldiers.
Such a small army suppresses an area of more than 900,000 square kilometers of land. Now Ernst's investment in the East African colonies is incomparable to that of Germany in the past.
Just talking about the military level, there are 2,000 white troops of the same ethnic group, and Chinese troops will be organized later.
In the past life, German East Africa, as Germany's most valuable colony, was not that valuable in Germany's eyes. Germany mainly planted cash crops such as cotton, rubber and sisal here.
Germany mainly hopes to go all in on the European continent. As long as it wins the victory in Europe, it can divide the dominance of the world at will and have all kinds of colonies at that time.
Therefore, during the First World War, Germany took the initiative to give up its overseas colonies and concentrate on fighting the Allied Powers in Europe.
Ernst regarded East Africa as his retreat, so he paid more attention to population, agriculture, and industry.
The current increase in immigration efforts is to avoid a situation like South Africa in the future, to change the cage for a new bird. This can also be regarded as learning from the Americans, but Ernst will not do it so crudely, and massacre is impossible. It is likely that he will choose to send them to other places by ship.
Agriculture is what Ernst is currently doing in East Africa. In addition to growing cash crops, Ernst retains the main position of food crops. The plan of colonial development cannot be postponed because of a little immediate benefit. Only when there is enough food can immigrants be settled in place.
Industry is a bit far-fetched. The current infrastructure in East Africa is too poor and there is no space to develop industry, mainly basic industries such as mining, which Ernst does not plan to engage in.
Before completely controlling East Africa, if any incredible mineral resources were discovered, it might bring disaster to Ernst, so he acted cautiously.
To control East Africa, a sizable army is needed. There are almost no Germans willing to develop in East Africa, so Ernst plans to organize a small number of Chinese and establish a Chinese army.
Used to control the land in East Africa, the future expansion of the colony will inevitably clash with those tribes and other colonists.
Ernst did not want to repeat the experience of German East Africa being beaten up by colonies of neighboring countries during the First World War. Even if a war broke out, his side should have several times more troops than the enemy. Compared with a fair confrontation, a group fight is the kingly way.
It is definitely unreliable to use indigenous people to form an army. In the past, Britain pulled together colonies from various countries in Africa to form an army of 250,000 indigenous people to deal with German East Africa. In the early days, they were made a fool of by the thousands of colonists in German East Africa.
Therefore, the natives' fighting power and desire to fight can be imagined. Maybe they also know that they are going to die, so they just give up. However, Ernst prefers to believe that this is their daily state.
It is not impossible to change the lazy and coping character of these indigenous people. As long as we improve education and start with the next generation, we should be able to correct the problem.
But who can afford the money and time costs of doing so? Besides, the colonists are here to make money, not to alleviate poverty. The wealth of a society is limited. It is better to let them fight to their death than to expect to get money from them.
Of course, this is not the case for all colonies. For example, in colonies like the United States and Canada that have completed the "cleansing", the remaining people are "their own people" and cannot be treated like the indigenous people.
So they turned to the status of a normal country. Currently, the East African colonies have not reached this goal and do not have the ability to pack up and send all the natives out.
Due to population constraints, Ernst plans to establish a 50,000-strong Chinese army in East Africa in the next three years.
In order to prevent the army from getting out of control, all officers were Germans, and students from the Hechingen Military Academy served as staff officers and other deputy positions to assist in management.
Ernst also wanted to expand the German community in East Africa, but there was no good way to do it at the moment. Who would be willing to develop in such a "barbaric" place?
Only when the infrastructure construction of the East African colonies was completed and Europe was in chaos and under the threat of war, could Ernst reach out to Europe and attract ordinary people.
As the earliest Chinese army formed in the East African colonies, its weapons problems were naturally solved by these old muzzle-loading flintlock production lines.
This envisioned force is not a standing army, but a special force similar to the peasant army that is required to participate in production and construction on a daily basis.
After all, the opponents currently faced by the East African colonies were only those uncivilized indigenous tribes, most of whom were still at the stage of using stones and trees to make spears, bows and arrows with a small amount of iron tools.
Such an opponent is not worth forming a professionally trained standing army to deal with. As long as Chinese immigrants learn to fire and aim with the flintlock rifles retired from Europe, it will be a dimensionality reduction attack on those indigenous tribes.
(End of this chapter)
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