On December 20, 1677, in the middle of the thirsty summer on the Great Karoo Plateau in South Africa, a long procession was slowly moving forward under the scorching sun. They look tired, but the formation is well maintained, it should be an old fighting force, if you take into account that this is in South Africa and the color of the military uniforms on them, then it is clear that this is a regular battalion on the east coast of the South African garrison.

And in fact, this is a unit from Lishan County, the number is the 11th mixed battalion, the battalion commander is Army Major Li Zhixin, the hardcore henchman of Commander Guo Handong. Almost twenty days earlier, they had set out from the county town of Lishan, where the battalion headquarters had been stationed, and had traveled eastward along the thousands of ravines on the Little Karui Plateau, and had collected some supplies at Youning Township—in fact, some drinking water and livestock, which Gaine was still poor—and began to turn north, crossing mountain ridges and girches to look for traces of the enemy and pursue them.

The enemy they are looking for is the blacks of the Kama Kingdom. To be honest, this kingdom with the Xhosa people as the main body is currently in a dying state, and it can even be said that it is in a state of de facto disintegration. Thanks to the perennial sweeps carried out by the people on the eastern coast, the nomadic and nomadic farming tribes under the rule of the Kama Kingdom suffered heavy losses and gradually broke away from their rule for various reasons. Some of them were attracted by the East Coast people and took refuge in it, and then they were incorporated into the Black Eight Banners sequence, some of them went away and disappeared, and of course there were many of them who were broken by the East Coast horse infantry, and there were many of them.

In short, after the separation of these nomadic and nomadic tribes, the situation of the Kama Kingdom deteriorated day by day, the people lived in difficulty, suffered repeated military defeats, and the elite soldiers who could fight continued to lose in the previous encounters with the people on the east coast, so that when the royal court moved eastward and fought against the local Zulu-speaking tribes, they could not defeat them very easily, and even suffered several defeats, which made people frustrated. You know, the Kama kingdom has undergone a vigorous reform, when the first king concentrated considerable power, relying on personal prestige to forcibly promote the Dutch process of the country, requiring the middle and upper classes to use the Dutch language, learn Dutch culture and knowledge, introduce the Dutch religion, and also send royal children to Amsterdam to study, once made the Kama kingdom greatly strengthened, and won many victories in the conquest of the surrounding tribes.

But how many years have passed? The kingdom of Kama, which was once invincible among the aborigines, the indigenous kingdom that was once hard and steel with the people of the East Coast, and the powerful government that once talked and laughed with the Dutch and the English, actually went through the youth, prime and old age in just forty years, and how quickly it declined!

According to the information that the people of the eastern coast have now collated, the last royal court of the Kama Kingdom has moved to a place east of the Great Karui Plateau, where water and grass are abundant, and they have migrated from time to time due to war, lack of food, etc. Think about the country has been freed from the state of nomadic farming, to settle development, only to be hit by the foreign colonial army, although after repeated struggles, and produced some relatively outstanding people of intelligence to carry out reforms, but in the end it is still empty, and now it is back to the nomadic farming social form of decades ago, and the trend of civilization regression is irreversible.

It is said that now the king's orders of the Kama Kingdom are basically unable to come out of those direct tribes, and some of the peripheral tribes that were originally closely united around them are very dissatisfied because the battle with the Zulu people is too fierce, but there is not much benefit, and the prestige of the royal court is decreasing day by day. The people of the gendarmerie command estimated that the population that the royal family of the Kama Kingdom could directly control at present would not exceed 50,000, maybe less, and the standing army might not be 3,000, and there were still a few muskets that had to be put under a big question mark, after all, it had not been replenished for many years, and now it would be good to have three or four hundred shots to fire.

The strength of the Kama Kingdom is naturally not taken into account by the people of the East Coast. In fact, when the people of the East Coast were formulating their expansion policies to the interior of South Africa, they basically no longer regarded the threat of the Kama Kingdom as the first threat, and they felt that those scattered small tribes might bring more harm to the settlers on the East Coast, rather than the imaginary Kama Kingdom army with more than a thousand numbers and a large number of metal weapons, which had not appeared for many years.

According to the plan formulated by the Hanzhong Regional Administration, the current expansion south of the South Hengshan Mountains, the Lesser Karoo Plateau and the Greater Kalu Plateau is still based on steady progress and self-reliance. That is, the first priority of the newly established colonies is to feed themselves, not to serve as a military station, storehouse or barracks, and the first priority of each settlement is also to develop production, rather than focus on military training.

The Kama Kingdom, a country that has been seriously "half-paralyzed" in the eyes of the regional administration, is temporarily put aside. Anyway, they are now fighting with the Zulus and Xhosas in the east, fighting all day long for some land with abundant water and grass, and the loss of each other's strength is not small. In the eyes of Bai Yutang, the commissioner of the regional administration, this kind of behavior is in line with the interests of the East Coast Republic, and it is also in line with the long-term policy of the regional administration to fight for the land under the sun for the people of the east coast - isn't this nonsense, they are killing each other, and the people of the east coast just packed up their things and went over to live, and directly changed the seeds of this vast land, which is not beautiful!

As a result, the strategic focus of the Hanzhong Regional Administration has basically shifted back to local economic construction, such as the South African Railway, which has officially started construction (i.e., a large-scale infrastructure project nicknamed the "Diamond Railway"). In fact, the Hezhong Regional Administration planned to build the railway many years ago, and for this reason, every year it squeezed out part of the funds from the local treasury and deposited them into a special account of the Northwest Reclamation Bank, and at the same time, all the diamonds collected in South Africa were also shipped back to the mainland to be sold in exchange for funds, plus other large revenues and some 20-year bonds issued to the eight counties in Hezhong, they raised a total of more than 1.5 million yuan for the initial investment of the railway.

The local government pays for the construction of the railway, which is the favorite thing for the executive committee to see! However, this is very uncommon, and the average local government does not have the financial resources and courage to do so, so how rare is the behavior of the South African Transignagogon Regional Administration, which has been continuously saved by two generations of commissioners, and the local resources (diamonds and a small amount of gold) have also been invested, coupled with the enthusiasm of the people to buy long-term bonds for the construction of the railway, all of which show the degree of hope of more than 200,000 people in the Transriver region for this railway.

Of course, the local governments have shown such determination, and even if it is difficult for the central government, it is impossible not to be unhappy at all. No, under the supervision of the State Railway Administration, the Central Railway Company participated in the construction of the South African Railway, and undertook almost half of the expenses - according to the results of the negotiation between the two sides, the preliminary cost of the railway construction was all borne by the Hezhong District Administration, and after the financial pressure of the Central Railway Company was initially eased, they would throw money at the railway, after all, they are still undertaking the construction of the Yicheng Railway and the domestic Northern Railway, and the pressure is huge.

Of course, the Hanzhong District Administration has no opinion on this. At the same time, the Commissioner of the District Administration Bai Yutang personally broke ground in Cape Town, Rivertown and Gaoda Township, that is, the construction of the railway from Rivertown to Cape Town was given priority. This road construction plan was still a little different from the beginning, at that time Dutch South Africa had not yet been taken by the East Coasters, and it was naturally impossible to include Cape Town, Caigang, Baiting and other towns in the plan. But now it is different, Dutch South Africa has been de facto occupied on the east coast and set up counties to settle, and the Dutch East India Company in Cape Town County has been operating for many years, and the investment is relatively large, both in terms of population and economic development, it is very good, and the geographical location is also extremely critical, so the Hanaka Regional Administration has slightly modified the plan made earlier, and added a branch railway to the port of Cape Town.

Now, due to lack of funds, it is impossible to undertake the simultaneous construction of the entire railway, so Bai Yutang decided to build the railway from the town of River to the port of Cape Town first. The 271-kilometre railway, which traverses two counties and six settlements, is no small investment, and the Transoxiana District Administration has taken the 20,000 or 30,000 slaves of the Dutch East India Company who had intended to be declared "emancipated" – mostly Khoisans, Xhosa, and some Malays who had been sentenced to exile – and reorganized them into groups on the spot, and then threw them into a vigorous operation to build the railway.

In addition, the South African Regional Administration also sent a letter to the South African garrison, asking it to send some capable men and horses to take the initiative to attack and search for black nomadic or nomadic tribes to attack, not to occupy much territory (in fact, it is impossible to occupy those barren lands at present), but to take some more labor back, because the railway site is like a bottomless pit, which devours a different number of road construction workers every day, and this expendable will naturally have to be a little more.

It was against this background that the 11th Mixed Battalion led by Major Li Zhixin went north to attack in search of the enemy to strike. As for his immediate boss, Guo Handong, commander of the 8th Mixed Battalion, commander of the South African garrison, and lieutenant colonel of the army, is leading the main forces of the 8th Mixed Battalion and the South African Cavalry Battalion to the north to "suppress bandits" after landing in the area of homesickness. This is not only to cooperate with the local administration's demand for more arrests, but also to implement the so-called "South African Drill Operation" plan.

Guo Handong has been fighting there for almost two months. In that land, perhaps because of the abundant precipitation and humid climate, there are still many black tribes such as the Xhosa and Zulus, and the population density can be said to be far greater than that of the western half of South Africa, which made the nearly 2,000 officers and soldiers of the Guo Department who landed really feel excited about being transferred into the treasure house at first.

However, after two months of continuous fighting, they had already penetrated far into the inland areas, and the supplies began to gradually fail, and the personnel were quite tired, and the number of people who had lost troops due to illness increased sharply, and the morale of the whole army was somewhat low. In addition, they have caught a lot of battles all the way north, but their property is really limited, and there are only some furs, ivory and the like that can be worth a little money, and there are also some dog-headed gold of low purity, but the amount is small, and everyone can't get a few dollars if they divide it, so everyone now has the idea of withdrawing troops.

Lieutenant Colonel Guo Handong was a little hesitant at first, and wanted to hold out for a while longer, so he did not give the order to withdraw his troops for the time being. It was only later when the Yicheng area began to smash pots and sell iron to build a railway, and more than 1,000 officers and soldiers of Mao Jun and Tang Moyu in the Yiyang Bay area were suddenly weaned and were unable to continue south along the inland area to join the eastern part of Guo Han, when the news came, Commander Guo immediately understood the current situation, so he decisively ordered to retreat in batches with the captured booty and slaves, and then board the ship to return to Cape Town.

Major Li Zhixin estimated that Commander Guo's troops would arrive in Cape Town in batches at the end of this month, and the shortage of workers at the railway construction site would be greatly alleviated, and their 11th Mixed Battalion should be able to slowly get rid of the fate of blowing wind and eating sand on the grasslands and deserts, and they would be able to return to the localities to rest and recuperate. You know, together with the 8th Mixed Battalion, they have been stationed in South Africa for several years, and the officers and men have been away from home for a long time, and they are like arrows, and they really have not much interest in continuing to fight and die in this thirsty and barren desert. Battalion Commander Li always felt that if the war of public order was fought for a long time, perhaps the troops would not be able to fight regular wars, and the habits of officers and soldiers would also become very bad, and this would undoubtedly greatly affect combat effectiveness.

On the morning of December 21, they arrived at the north-western township at the junction of the large and small Karoo plateaus, a settlement that had just been established this year, near the future town of Willomor in South Africa, with a population of about 1,000 people, and more than 1,000 additional black Xhosa laborers built a reservoir here - there are some rivers that meet here, and there are also some small natural lakes, although the amount of fresh water is not very large, but on the plateau where water is extremely scarce, it is already a rare resource. As a result, the East Coast Government has mobilized a number of labourers to work here.

The officers and men of the 11th Mixed Battalion lived in a group of improvised barracks near the township government, while Battalion Commander Li went to the township to chat with the local cadres and had a fairly good lunch. After lunch, just as he was about to take a good rest, a letter from the port of Cape Town arrived here in Northweigh Township and was delivered to Li Zhixin.

Major Lee opened it in confusion, and then smiled, for it turned out that the letter was nothing else, but that the dual authorized representatives of the United Province and the Dutch East India Company had formally agreed with the East Bank Government, and had finally signed an agreement on the status of the Dutch South African colony.