The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 697 The East African Conspiracy
(Mombasa and Bagamoyo were messed up in the previous article, which has been corrected.)
Although Mombasa was the territory of the Oman Empire at this time, with the development of trade between the East and the West, there were more and more exchanges between the great powers. Even the overlord of the Indian Ocean, Said the Great, felt powerless.

Although it took him a few years to rebuild the fleet and improve his military strength to a higher level, the giant artillery ship on the Austrian side has become a lingering shadow in the heart of Said the Great.

The Austrian Empire occupied Tanzania, and the British repeatedly tossed and tossed on both sides of the Gulf of Aden. Sima Zhao's heart was clearly revealed.

Britain instigated the nomadic tribes in Somalia to rebel against the Oman Empire in the south of the Gulf of Aden, and directly occupied the city of Aden (Port of Aden) in the north.

The Omani Empire in history did not respond to the betrayal of the Somalis, and even sent its own blessing.

However, at this time, due to the frankincense and myrrh business with the Austrian Empire, the merchants of the Oman Empire firmly opposed the independence of Somalia, and the local farmers were even more afraid of losing their markets and land.

So Emperor Said planned to have a drink to release his military power, and the chiefs of Somalia wanted to assassinate King Qin with a Jing Ke.

After that, both sides declared that the other party was the enemy of "Frame Cooking", and they were forced to fight back.

Somalia's nomadic troops burned the farmland planted by the Omanis, while the latter sent fleets to sweep its coastal areas and almost destroyed all the ports along the way.

The purpose of the former is to force the latter to leave, while the purpose of the latter is to warn the British not to intervene.At this time, there were only a few hundred British troops in Aden, and the most valuable thing was a coal warehouse.

Seeing the Omani warships showing off their might outside, the British army in Aden naturally knew what it meant, so they all shrank in the city, and prohibited anyone from leaving the port so as not to stimulate a sensitive nerve of the opponent.

Obviously, the Oman Empire won the first round of confrontation between the two sides, because their goal was achieved. The nomadic tribes in Somalia got nothing except aroused the anger of the merchant class of the other side and damaged some farmland.

What followed was the brutal land war. As one of the few army talents in the Oman Empire, Al Khadi received training from British instructors since he was a child and felt that he would be able to fight even if he encountered the French army.

(At that time, it was generally believed that the French army was the strongest in the world.)
Al-Haldi brought 8000 soldiers and supplies from Wuqianfeng this time, and the destination was Hargeisa, the headquarters of the Somali Tribal Alliance.

Not long after landing, the troops of both sides met unexpectedly. As the overlord of the Western Indian Ocean, the Oman Empire showed its due strength.

In the case of a numerical disadvantage, the Somali nomads were unilaterally beaten. In the end, the Oman Empire wiped out more than 59 of the other party at the cost of only 300 people, captured more than 2000 people, and had more than 1000 peaks of supplies and gold and silver treasures.

(Feng refers to a camel.)
After the victory in the first battle, Al Khaldi fought all the way to the city of Hargeisa, and the city surrendered in less than half a day under the bombardment of cannons.

But the war was not over. The nomadic tribes in Somalia made full use of their strengths and began to attack the supply team of the Oman Empire.

In the end, the Omanis could only be forced to abandon the inland cities and retreat to the coastal areas, and the life of the Somalis was not easy as their living space was drastically compressed.

At the same time, the loss of trade routes with Omani merchants made their lives extremely difficult, and they could only rely on trade with the Abyssinians to survive.

In the eyes of outsiders, this was nothing more than a civil war in the Oman Empire. Said declared his hegemony in the western Indian Ocean to the British.

But this is meaningless to the British who have already occupied the port of Aden, because their goal has been achieved. It doesn't matter whether the Somalis can succeed or whether they can gain freedom
In addition to Somalia, the Oman Empire is even more troubled by the rise of the Second Saudi Empire in the north.Although there were less than 20 people in Naizhi at this time, he was very enthusiastic about expanding his territory.

The previous ruler of Najd, Ibn Shunait, was a fanatical religious figure. Although he fought everywhere and conquered the city, Saeed did not regard him as an opponent.

However, the new King Feisal chose a soft policy to integrate local forces, and at the same time began to marry extensively, and continued to curry favor with the British.

This put a lot of pressure on Said. He even considered sending a large army to destroy Najd directly, but that was still the territory of the Ottomans in name.

First of all, doing so will offend the powerful Ottoman Empire, and the second and most critical problem is that Najd is too poor.

At this time, Saudi Arabia was not that rich country. In 1846, the tax revenue of the entire Najd region was less than 20 pounds, and the population was less than [-]. The main industry was sheep raising and wool.

Coupled with the fact that the land is sparsely populated and he is good at guerrilla warfare, Saeed is afraid that Nejd will become the second Somalia.this
In addition, the French and Portuguese are also appearing more and more frequently in East Africa. Mombasa, the hen that lays golden eggs, may lose the Oman Empire sooner or later.

Said thought for a long time and finally came up with a way to give half of his sovereignty as a dowry to the Austrian Empire, which will be jointly managed by the two countries.

In this way, the income from Mombasa will be reduced by half, but it will be guaranteed in the long run.

Said thought well, but in fact, according to European customs, Mombasa is at most the private property of Archduke Friedrich rather than the Austrian Empire.

However, this document was finally handed over to Franz, who of course knew what was going on.But to be honest, Franz doesn't like the small place of Mombasa, after all, its port size is limited and the upper limit is too low.

Whether it is Bagamoyo or Dar es Salaam, the ultimate goal is to replace Mombasa at this time.

There is also this gift that seems to be a blood loss for the other party, but in fact it has hidden murderous intentions.Because once the Austrian Empire accepted this gift, it would be tantamount to shouldering the burden of dealing with the great powers for the Oman Empire.

But Franz doesn't care, because Mombasa is really not worth mentioning to him, so he will maintain the status of Mombasa Free Trade Port, and Franz will not step into the fire pit because of this little temptation.

It is also necessary to appease the anxious allies a little, so Franz decided to reluctantly accept it for Friedrich.

The ownership belongs to Friedrich, and the management right belongs to Franz, so a [-]-[-] split is fair.

In fact, this kind of windfall is simply uncontrollable for ordinary nobles, but as one of the richest family members of the Austrian Empire, this money is not so important.

Friedrich's handling of the money was to allocate it directly to the navy's military expenditures, which Franz very much agrees with.

The Admiral of the Navy spends his own money to build warships, admire, admire.

Franz also wrote Said a letter telling the ally how to get out of the situation.

That is, "have more children, more land."

Although this is a nonsensical statement in the eyes of many people, it is a golden word in Said's eyes.

In fact, the population of the Oman Empire is too small, and two-thirds of them are slaves.

If the Oman Empire can directly immigrate 30 people to Somalia, does it still need to be afraid of the threat of nomadic tribes?You can sit back and relax by killing the enemies directly.

The same is true of threats from Nejd and the great powers. All fears come from insufficient population.Then in return, the Austrian Empire will support the Oman Empire in colonizing the Kingdom of Malawi.
-
The Great Lakes region of the Kingdom of Malawi was one of the richest regions in East Africa at this time, but it was worth the price to tie the Oman Empire firmly to its chariot.

At this time, the Austrian Empire did not have enough naval power to defend its own colonies, so even if it was false, it had to have a good relationship with the overlord of the Western Indian Ocean.

In Bagamoyo, taking advantage of the monsoon and ocean currents, boats full of Dalit laborers arrived, and then took away goods such as sisal hemp, animal hides, bush meat, and grain that were so abundant in Tanzania that no one wanted them.

Although bushmeat was banned in the colonies of the Austrian Empire, the unique taste of the food was a favorite of Indian princes.

The mysterious jungle meat is paired with secret curry, and a bowl of fragrant Ganges water, this is the luxurious and corrupt life of Indian princes.

In addition, due to the sudden war, the price of goods on the Indian subcontinent has skyrocketed. Among them, food has risen the most. There is no other reason, because it is a hard currency.

In addition, the British reinforcements coming from all directions need a lot of supplies, so the price of food in India this year is higher than that of the Oman Empire and Abyssinia.

With the arrival of a large number of laborers, the output of crops in Tanzania will further increase.In the next five years, the development of the coastal area and the original Seven Kingdoms site will be completed, and then advance inland.

However, this kind of trade between the Governor-General of Tanzania and India cannot last for too long, because the resources of the two sides overlap very seriously, but fortunately, they can complement each other in the Southeast Asia and the Far East.

The introduction of more than [-] laborers in less than a year is already a very good achievement.

We must know that on the route from the California colony to Japan, the number of merchant ships was seven times that of the western Indian Ocean region, but only 2 laborers were introduced to California, and nearly [-] of them died.

The price of labor sold by the shogunate is very cheap, but the freight is really not low, so the loss in California this time cannot be considered small.

Speaking of colonial Tanzania, with the further increase of Dalit labor, and the introduction of the colonial government's policy of "black" against "black".

The black uncles and small animals in Tanzania were devastated. Some European scholars commented that the Indians in the colonial period only worked and did not eat meat. In fact, except for some vegetarians, the main reason was that they could not afford meat.

The attitude of the Tanzanian colony towards these Dalit laborers is close to a free-range state, plus small animals running around on the African savannah.

This led to a catastrophe in Tanzania's natural ecology. The efficiency of the Dalits' slaughter of small animals was much higher than that of the indigenous blacks, almost reaching the level of the CD-ROM operation.

Those aborigines who had already lost their tribal asylum were even more devastated, but it also solved the problem of black refugees that had always plagued the colony.

Otherwise, the colonial people would have to hire Umbrella soldiers every time they went out, which would not only be a waste, but also reflect the incompetence of local officials.

Then there is the issue of infrastructure, otherwise every rainy season would be a reshuffle, randomly reorganizing roads, or flattening farmland, and several large rivers would be randomly diverted every year, wandering freely on the Great Plains.

But soon, even more annoying news reached Vienna. A prairie king appeared in the inland area of ​​East Africa, claiming to be "the king of 300 million Eastern Bantus" and preparing to march eastward.

And the destination happened to be the Tanzanian colony of the Austrian Empire. Franz didn't think that the other party could really get millions of natives to beat him.

But Franz was very annoyed that this was an event that did not exist in history. He didn't know if there would be any weirder things after he went to destroy this tribe.

However, this matter still needs to be taken seriously. 300 million is naturally impossible, but theoretically there should be 30 to [-] people, and then remove half of the old and weak women and children who cannot be beaten, and then remove half of the logistics and management personnel.

Seventy to eighty thousand, this is already the biggest challenge facing the Austrian Empire in Africa.

Although we have encountered countries with more people before, the mobilization ability of primitive farming civilization is far inferior to that of nomads. After all, the latter can turn all the people into soldiers.

Franz felt that the addition of [-] troops was a great respect for the other party. On the other hand, the reason why those Dalit laborers suddenly went to war with the Ngoni Kingdom was found.

It was a missionary who took the opportunity of curing diseases and saving lives to preach to Dalit laborers, and then picked an imaginary enemy at random, which led to a war.

(This is one of the evil consequences of abusing religious power. It’s okay for Ngoni to be an indigenous kingdom. What if these people suddenly go to fight the colonies of the British Empire one day?)
Healing diseases and saving lives is a sharp weapon for missionary work, and one of the necessary skills for missionaries.Life and health are extremely important things in any era, and even today people are still flocking to them.

Especially for terminal illnesses like malaria, which seemed incurable at the time, both recipients and onlookers were greatly shocked.

There is also more intuitive surgery, among which cataract surgery is regarded as a magical technique.

The first cataract surgery recorded in Western history was in 1745. However, cataract surgery in this era has strict requirements on both the recipient and the operator. After all, eye surgery without anesthesia is not something that ordinary people can do. The minimum is the level of a famous general.

Fortunately, Austria developed laughing gas anesthesia. At the same time, due to the introduction of the concept of disinfection and sterilization, coupled with the accumulation of a lot of experience in colonial areas, the success rate of surgery and postoperative survival rate have been greatly increased.

The huge shock and contrast can easily make people worship, even people who don't believe in ghosts and gods will have a strong curiosity, and then sink in the next step when they can't find arguments to refute.

In addition, I have to say that the fighting power of the black natives is really not enough. Even the third-rate colonial army can defeat the largest Ngoni kingdom in Tanzania at this time.

The port of Dar es Salaam can be used after several months of renovation. In fact, some trestles were added, and the wharf of the fishing village was expanded.

However, with its natural geographical advantages, it has become a medium-sized port with a throughput not weaker than that of Mombasa.

After the transformation is completely completed, Dar es Salaam will become the second largest port in East Africa after Sofala.

At this time, Sofala was the most important Portuguese stronghold in East Africa, where more than [-] large ships could berth.

In addition to agriculture, Franz also sent a group of geologists to find important mineral veins in Tanzania.

After all, if you want native residents to immigrate to Africa, you can't just rely on farming. What they want is gold, silver, and diamonds.

Tanzania just meets these conditions. In addition, it also has oil, a very important strategic resource for later generations, and a gemstone that is not inferior to diamonds-tanzanite.

But agriculture is the foundation of everything, and it is impossible not to cultivate the land well before the navy is strong.

　I'll write something else tomorrow, I don't think anyone in East Africa will read it.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)