Chapter 823 West Coast Development
Deerka focused on this issue and said, "No matter what method is used, the surrounding rainforest must be solved first. However, what Cabinda lacks most now is manpower. It is impossible to let your garrison complete this task, and you don't have many people."
Barco said, "Mr. Deerka, you can rest assured about this. Our primary goal now is to solve the problem of receiving supplies in Cabinda around the port. Once the problems around the port are solved, food and supplies will be guaranteed, and government personnel will move in. At the same time, we will organize people to clean up the surrounding rainforest."
So far, East Africa has not established a government in Cabinda, so Barco, a military personnel, will be connected to the work of Deerka's team.
Of course, in the future, Cabinda’s military attributes will not be weakened. As the end point of the Congo River and the end point of the northern defense of East Africa, troops will still be stationed here.
East Africa will deploy a certain number of troops along the entire right bank of the Congo River, although the Belgians bordering it are not strong and have no hostility towards East Africa.
"In this case, why don't we take advantage of the small population of Cabinda and carry out large-scale burning of the tropical rainforest area to reduce the difficulty of future work. Of course, this requires your coordination. After all, arson is a technical job. If it accidentally burns the Belgian area opposite, it may cause some misunderstandings." Deerka said.
"Mr. Deercartes, burning is indeed a solution, but it is not easy to accomplish in the tropical rainforest area. You used to work mainly in the east, and you know that the tropical grassland and the tropical rainforest have completely different climates. There are too many rainy days here, and even if there are people, it is impossible to make the fire too big. Moreover, even the burned forest needs manpower to clean up, so it is better to wait until the population is transferred from the country to solve this problem."
"You're right, Lieutenant Balco, but we have too many problems now. Cabinda is a completely isolated island in the rainforest. We can only rely on sea transportation to connect with other areas. There is no clean water or electricity here. At the same time, because of the rainforest, my survey work is difficult to complete. It is difficult to carry out various tasks. It is extremely difficult to build a city here."
The Belgians must have agreed with Descartes' words. When they were building Pointe-Noire in Belgium, they encountered exactly the same problem. Until now, Pointe-Noire has only a population of a few thousand people.
The East African government positioned Cabinda on the same level as those big cities on the eastern coast, which Descartes could not understand. In his opinion, it would be better to vigorously build Luanda than to develop Cabinda.
Of course, there are many people who have the same idea as Descartes, but Ernst knows that Cabinda is inconspicuous now, but that is only due to the limitations of the times. What is really important about Cabinda is its rich oil resources. The oil resources alone are enough to make Ernst put Cabinda on the list of important cities in East Africa, so the sooner Cabinda is built, the better.
…
As time went on, in May, the first group of government personnel and slaves arrived in Cabinda, and the Cabinda City Government was officially established.
Subsequently, the makeshift team of the Cabinda Municipal Government began to cooperate with Deerca to repair the port of Cabinda.
At the same time, people were organized to cut down the rainforest around Cabinda. A large amount of timber was transported through Cabinda to Walvis Bay, Oranjemund and other areas in the south, so that the least valuable "timber" in the tropical rainforest could be reused.
Southwest Africa has a mainly desert climate, so there is a lack of raw materials such as wood, and the development of Cabinda has effectively solved this problem.
At this time, shipping on the west coast had been restored, so there were more East African ships on the west coast. However, unlike the slave ships in the past, these were legitimate merchant ships.
In just a few months, Cabinda expanded more than four times its previous size, surpassing Portugal's efforts over several years.
At the same time, the foreign trade between Cabinda and Belgium has also achieved initial results. Cabinda can fully draw strength from Belgium in its construction. Although Cabinda’s products are not abundant at present, there are still some specialties, such as the famous "Cabinda bark".
East Africa sold part of the resources produced during the development of Cabinda to Belgian businessmen in Pointe-Noire at a low price, thereby obtaining some funds. Although it was a drop in the bucket, it was still of some value.
While Cabinda was developing, Luanda and Benguela were being built even faster. Of course, thanks to the excellent infrastructure in Luanda and Benguela, East Africa's investment in these two regions was actually not that large.
The city also maintains its original appearance during the Portuguese rule, mainly repairing the houses and roads destroyed during the war.
The development of East Africa's west coast is gradually getting on track. Of course, the most important thing is the construction of the Central Railway. Currently, the western line of the Central Railway has entered the geological survey stage.
This also made the labor force in East Africa even more tense and scarce, and the black forces that caused major trouble to the 331st Division and other troops in the South African War suffered.
A large number of black people from the former Kingdom of Congo were incorporated into the slave army that was developing the west coast of East Africa. East Africa adopted more severe measures against these Angolan blacks who had caused trouble to East Africa than against blacks from other regions.
East Africa completely learned from the Belgian Kingdom in the north. The black people of Angola became the main force in the development of the west coast of East Africa, and for "revenge" reasons, they did not enjoy "labor" treatment.
They became another black group discriminated against in East Africa after the Ndebele people. The result for the Ndebele people is that this ethnic group of more than 100,000 people has completely disappeared in the long river of history, and most of the Ndebele people physically died during the construction of the Eastern Canal.
The black population in Angola is much larger than the Ndebele, so they have been hit harder, especially in the development of the rainforest areas.
At this time, East Africa was actually already starving. Although the population of East Africa was growing very fast, it could not keep up with the faster growth of its territory.
Moreover, the problems brought about by territorial expansion have become more prominent. At this time, even the so-called "densely populated" areas in East Africa are actually far from meeting the standards of normal countries in Eurasia.
The population density of Angola and Mozambique is almost comparable to that of Siberia under Tsarist Russian rule.
Under such circumstances, East Africa could only use a large number of black slaves. In addition, during the war, the Angolan blacks had strong hostility towards the East African army, as well as conflicts. Therefore, when supervising the Angolan blacks, East Africa displayed unprecedented "retaliation measures".
Of course, compared with the United States' treatment of the Indians, East Africa still has some shortcomings. Even the Belgians in the neighboring Belgian colony believe that East Africa's treatment is too "merciful."
At this time, although the East African government, especially the military on the west coast, had emotional factors in dealing with the Angolan blacks, their main purpose was to fully utilize the value of these blacks to develop the western region.
Of course, we cannot really kill all these blacks. If it were easy to get rid of them all, it would require the East Africans themselves to do it, which would be very unprofitable.
Of course this could be done in the past, as there were a large number of immigrant resources available in East Africa. However, since the outflow of population from the German region stopped, this model no longer works.
(End of this chapter)
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
