Chapter 27 Map
Near the end of the year, the advance troops of the East African colonies had drawn a more intuitive map of the interior of East Africa.
Delivered by commercial fleet, a copy of the map now sits on Ernst's desk.
The entire map is about one meter long and seventy centimeters wide, and the approximate mountains, rivers and lakes are marked on it.
In the far east, from the port of Dar es Salaam, a road leads directly to the first town. The second and third towns are two named points on the map, with the Little Rhine River running through them.
The depiction is relatively clear, including grasslands, woodlands and farmlands. The dotted line is the border of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, which extends from north to south to the Portuguese colonies. These two basically monopolized the coastline of East Africa.
The map marks the rivers in the east in detail, and it is obvious that the water network is denser, which is also easier to explore. After all, the Sultanate of Zanzibar has been active nearby all year round, and some geographical elements can be found with the help of local guides.
There is a triangle on the north side of the map indicating a mountain range, which should be Mount Kilimanjaro. To the west of the mountain range is Lake Victoria. Lake Victoria is huge, and this is also the case on the map, and is used to indicate the shadow coverage of the water body.
As the largest lake in Africa, Lake Victoria was first discovered and named by British explorers in their search for the source of the Nile River.
The discovery was made exactly one year after Ernst awakened his memories of his past life. To the west of Lake Victoria there are two large lakes, Lake Albert and Lake Edward.
Of course, Lake Edward is not called Lake Edward at present. The original history goes back to 1889 when the British Stanley named it Lake Edward.
In addition to Lake George downstream, the British royal family has monopolized the naming rights of these lakes. However, when Ernst came to this era and regarded East Africa as his own territory, he naturally would not recognize these British names, even if they had already been named by the British.
In fact, the names of the lakes discovered by the British have not yet been determined. To be more precise, they have not been updated on the new maps in Europe. The East African colonial mapping team arrived only a few months later than the British explorers.
So, Ernst named Lake Victoria the Great Lake with a stroke of his pen, which is very consistent with the characteristics of Lake Victoria. After all, the area around Lake Victoria was called the Great Lakes Region in the previous life.
Ernst changed the name of Lake Albert to Lake Friedrich in memory of his grandfather.
Lake Edward was renamed Lake Constantine, which goes without saying, and Lake George downstream was renamed Lake Hechingen.
Lake Frederick (Lake Albert) and Lake Constantine (Lake Edward) are both part of the Great Rift Valley of East Africa, and the Great Lake is located between the two. It is a lake formed by the accumulation of water in the basin.
The entire Great Lake (Lake Victoria) covers an area of 69,400 square kilometers, making it the largest freshwater lake in Africa and the second largest in the world. The basin area is more than 200,000 square kilometers, commonly known as the Great Lakes region. In the past, more than 30 million people lived around the entire Taihu Lake, making it one of the most densely populated areas in Africa.
In comparison, the largest saltwater lake in China in the past, Qinghai Lake, was only 4,625 square kilometers, and the largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake, had a maximum area of more than 3,000 square kilometers during the flood season. The only freshwater lakes that can compete with Taihu Lake (Lake Victoria) are the Great Lakes of North America, Lake Baikal in Russia, and Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi, also on the East African Plateau.
Therefore, Ernst must take over the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), which is not only rich in fishery resources, but also has higher precipitation than the surrounding areas, flat land, and good conditions for agricultural development.
Continuing westward is Lake Kivu… Well, it’s better to call it Lake Kivu, after all, it was the famous “murderous” lake in the previous life and it’s unlucky.
Continuing to look at the west side of the map is Lake Tanganyika, which Ernst named Lake Soren. The importance of Lake Tanganyika to Tanzania is self-evident. In the past, Tanzania was formed by the merger of Tanganyika on the mainland and Zanzibar in the east.
Nya actually has no special meaning in Africa. It is mainly an English word suffix, so many countries in Africa have this suffix, such as Kenya, Nigeria... Tanzania is the collective name of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Lake Tanganyika is the largest lake in the East African Rift Valley and the second deepest lake in the world after Lake Baikal.
Lake Tanganyika is winding, with relatively steep terrain on both sides and narrow coastal plains. Compared with the open land around Lake Victoria, its economic value is not that high, but its geographical location is good. It is about 679 kilometers long from north to south. In the past, it was an important transportation route for inland countries in Central Africa, and water transportation was relatively prominent.
The lake to the south is Lake Rukwa, which is an inland saltwater lake, but it has rich fishery resources and many salt ponds at the southwestern end.
There is another large lake in the southernmost part, Lake Nyasa. For the sake of ease of memory, Ernst changed the name to Lake Malawi.
In addition, there is Lake Serenge near Dodoma, Lake Eyasi in the north, Lake Manyara, Lake Barangida...
This shows the abundance of water resources on the East African Plateau. The area of these large lakes alone is over 100,000 square kilometers, which is larger than the area of many countries. If all the lakes on the entire East African Plateau are added together, it is no exaggeration to say that it is the water tower of Africa.
In terms of mountains, in addition to Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, there is also the Mitumba Mountains in the eastern part of the Congo Basin.
To the southwest, across Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi is the Katanga Plateau, and to the south is the coastal plain of Mozambique.
Ernst decided to take the middle ground between Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi in one go.
First, three important lakeside strongholds were established, one on the coasts of the three large lakes, Mwanza in the southern bay of Lake Victoria, Kigoma on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika, and Karonga in the northwest corner of Lake Malawi.
The inland strongholds were directly chosen in Dodoma, Tabora, and Mbeya near Lake Rukwa.
As the red pen ink was drawn on the map, several red circles appeared on the map, so that most of Tanzania was within the range of these circles.
…
"Tom, make a copy of this information and send it to the East African colonies!" Ernst implemented this ambitious plan in the East African colonies.
"Also, the weapons produced by our arsenal can be sent to East Africa. Let's first form a musket unit of 600 Chinese immigrants."
Ernst went on to say, "These 600 people will be divided into six groups, each led by a senior colonial official, to clean up and maintain the management of the six new strongholds. Subsequent immigrants will increase their efforts to migrate to these six strongholds. In the future, with these six strongholds and the three towns in the coastal colony as the radiation centers, we will be able to take over the entire Tanganyika region."
Ernst said with great enthusiasm: "Also, the first batch of musketeers should use more of the original batch of immigrants. Each stronghold should be relocated with 500 people first, and the weapons and ammunition should be managed by our own people (Germans)."
Ernst thought about whether there were any loopholes.
"Oh, by the way, choose a few trustworthy people from the company, preferably local Berliners with families, to take over the management of some of the colonies. We can't let that group of mercenaries do everything. Their top priority is to ensure public security. Okay, that's all I have to say for now, go ahead and do it!"
"Yes, sir." Tom answered respectfully holding the documents, turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.
(End of this chapter)
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