"In order to save China's 40,000,000 subjects from civil war and poverty, we should occupy new territories to house the surplus population of the empire and find new sales areas for the goods produced in the factories and mines...... If you don't want a civil war, you should be an imperialist...... The world has almost been divided, and what remains is being divided, conquered, and colonized. It www.biquge.info's a pity that for historical reasons, we even missed the conquest of the South Seas, which is just a leftover meal for the Westerners, but thankfully we have another place - Africa, and today I am about to arrive in the Central African colonies......"

After closing the diary, Sima Lei stepped out of the cabin again, came to the deck, stared at the sea, looked at the naval officer beside him and asked.

"When will we arrive in West Shanghai?"

"Three more days at the earliest, sir!"

West Shanghai!

This place name seems a little funny, but this name is just like the ancient Beitongzhou and Nantong prefectures. For China, it means pioneering. There are now two Shanghais in the world, one on the banks of the Huangpu River and the other on the west of the Congo River estuary in Africa.

Four years ago, African companies had set up anchorage here, and three years earlier, African companies had purchased Portugal's stronghold along the coast of West Africa for 520,000 silver dollars, and just as Sima Lei had graduated from the Imperial Higher School of Administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had just reached an agreement with Portugal to buy all of its colonies in Africa for 7.5 million silver dollars. On the same day, the Imperial Court set up a colonial affairs office, and at the same time announced that the government would buy the Far East Trading Company and the African Concession Company's "corporate territory" in Africa for 50 million yuan.

It is precisely because of this that Sima Lei was sent to Africa, as the first batch of civilian officials sent to Africa, he naturally did not need to wait for the migrant ship in Jiangxin Island like those prisoners of war, but directly took the navy warship to Africa to take up his post.

What does Africa look like?

Sima Lei's entire knowledge of Africa comes from the books of the School of Administration, and he knows that Africa is the last piece of land that has not yet been occupied by the Western powers, and it is also the lifeblood of China's future. There is the living space that China needs.

There, death and opportunity coexist!

There were a lot of uncivilized blacks living there, and of course blacks were not an obstacle to the colonial cause, but the real obstacle was the disease and the climate.

"Only the best cadets will be sent to Africa!"

At the time of graduation, the Prime Minister said so. Sima Lei's results are convincing—he graduated in ninth place, and now, his first mayor of the new city, will rule over everything there, including the right to kill the natives and exiles.

And he has only one mission - to turn it into a paradise for future Chinese immigrants! After all, in the future, there will be lives here, so millions of Chinese immigrants.

And his role is to pave the way for the arrival of large-scale immigrants in the future.

That night, the 900-ton sail steam warship "West Africa" sailed into the mouth of a large river with an extremely wide water surface.

By the third day, the West Africa, having traversed the narrow channel, finally navigated an open stretch of the river, greeted by a rocky cliff with piles of mud on the bank, and a few houses on the hillside, some built in depressions, some built on the mountainside. The land is inhabited, but it is still very barren. From the boat towards the shore, many people wriggled like ants, mostly blacks, most of whom were unclothed, and a wooden trestle stretched into the river.

"It was the first trading post set up by an African company."

Standing beside Sima Lei, Li Chongli said, he used to be an employee of the African company, and now he is Sima Lei's assistant, he boarded the warship at the trading post yesterday, welcomed the arrival of the mayor, and the appointment of officials by the government, which means that from now on, the development of African colonies will be completely according to the will of the imperial government, and will no longer be the behavior of the company.

A few minutes later, when he was greeted by the officials of the time, the former employees and guards of the African Company, Sima Lei ascended the pier, and it was only then that he noticed that this was not so much "West Shanghai" as a town under construction.

"My lord, two years ago, when we first came here, it was still a primeval forest, but now it is our most important city in the entire Congo River basin, from which we can go deep into the heart of Africa, and just last month, our people persuaded 12 chiefs to give up their powers, and now more than 200 indigenous chiefs have given up their powers......"

Li Chongli looked at the new mayor and said that he had always expressed doubts about whether a young official like Sima Lei could take on the important role, but this was not something he could control.

"The government naturally knows what the company has achieved, but if I'm not mistaken, our biggest enemy now should be the Kingdom of the Congo, right?"

The Kingdom of Kongo was born by the Congo tribes who conquered some tribes in the middle and lower reaches of the Congo River, and arose about 400 years ago.

Sima Lei also has a certain understanding of this.

"My lord, now the power of the Congo kingdom is no longer worth mentioning, their so-called kingdom is actually a tribal alliance, and the most important problem for us now is that compared to the Europeans, we lack the power of religion."

Li Chongli directly said the current problem.

"Religion?"

Sima Lei asked rhetorically with some puzzlement.

"Does religion have anything to do with our reign here?"

"There is a fundamental connection, as early as hundreds of years ago, Europe sent missionaries to spread religion in the country, and these missionaries chose a strange method of proselytizing, they sailed along the Congo River in boats, and when they reached the villages near the shore, they kidnapped the tribal nobles, converted them to Catholicism, and sent them back. It sounds incredible, but the Kongo dynasty quickly embraced Catholicism, making it the most successful place for Catholicism in sub-Saharan Africa. Catholicism is now so deeply rooted in the lower Congo River that Jesus was already described as black here more than 200 years ago, and if we want to maintain our rule here, we have to make a fuss about religion and make religion a tool for us as a pioneer in Africa. ”

At this moment, Sima Lei noticed a scene on the construction site in the distance, and saw only a few black men marching in a row with difficulty, they walked upright, but very slowly, trying to balance the small bamboo basket full of dirt on their heads, the jingle bell and the sound of their footsteps were rhythmic, they had a black rag around their waists, because they were thin enough to be able to see each of their ribs, each of them had an iron collar around his neck, like a dog collar, and an iron chain tied them together, The links of the chain swayed and jingled rhythmically between them.

Their thin chests gasped together, their nostrils seemed to twitch, and their eyes stared blankly ahead. They walked less than 20 meters away from Sima Lei, without looking at it, with the downright, deathly indifference and numbness characteristic of black people.

Behind these blacks were a prisoner guard, who carried an old-fashioned front-loading rifle in his hand, and who may have been a "bandit." He was wearing a uniform coat with a button missing, and when he saw an official standing on the road, he quickly put his gun on his shoulder, as if he was afraid that the chief would see that he was not working hard, only to see him pick up a bamboo whip, whip it at a black man, and curse in Chinese with a Cantonese accent.

He could vaguely be heard scolding these black men for being lazy, and seeing this scene, Sima Lei nodded at him, and the man grinned as if he had been appreciated, and whipped the black men harder to make them work faster.

In this regard, if it was in the country, Sima Lei would definitely rush up and whip the guard fiercely. But here he will not stop it, the conquest of civilization by barbarism is barbaric, and the conquest of civilization by barbarism is no less suave and no less violent.

And now these savage, uncivilized, untreated blacks in the United States and in Brazil, are making their contribution to the cause of civilization -- they will build a new city here, the new Shanghai, which will in the future become a transit point for millions of Chinese immigrants into the heart of Africa, and it will surely prosper.

Of course, the prosperity here belongs to civilization, and the civilization here will light up this wild land, as for these uncivilized barbarians, who cares about them?

And Sima Lei is also part of the great cause to which this noble and just act belongs—to transmit civilization to the barbaric land! Of course, the civilization here in the future belongs only to immigrants.

"So, do you have any suggestions?"

"My suggestion is that we should learn from the Europeans and use religion to control the barbarians here, and of course, whether Confucianism, which emphasizes "education without class" and "benevolence and righteousness", is not spread to the barbarians, and I personally think that worshipping God after making appropriate modifications is also optional......"

In Li Chongli's explanation, Sima Lei just walked silently, he did not go to the city government at the first time, but chose to go around the new city, at this time, the new Shanghai, is a construction site, everywhere is the appearance of building civil engineering, in the future this will become the capital of the Central African Viceroyalty, and now what is being built is a Chinese-style palace, which will be the governor's residence.

“…… Religion is the best option to paralyze the nerves! ”

"So, have you thought about it? Religion will also be passed on to us, what if our people also accept this religion? And if we don't accept this religion, then how can they accept it? ”

The last group walked to the edge of the city and looked at the woods in front of them, and at the edge of the trees, the black people could be seen guarding the ground. Some of them were crouched there, lying or sitting among the trees, some leaning against the trunks, some clinging to the ground, hidden or visible in the dim light, their postures different, but all showing the numbness of the savages.

These blacks were not enemies, they were not criminals, they were laborers recruited from various tribes, and without these people as laborers, the new Shanghai would not have been built, and not even enough fields and plantations would have been cultivated around it.

"Uh, my lord, this question has not been considered by the lower officials."

The mayor's rhetorical question made Li Chongli stunned, and then spoke.

"So what do you think? Should Europeans be allowed to influence these blacks through Catholicism? ”

"Well, that's a real problem!"

When I walked towards the city government, I met a lot of immigrants along the way, and of course, there were almost no "voluntary" immigrants in the whole of New Shanghai, either prisoners of war, or exiles, and some extremely poor immigrants, of course, who were also forced.

Everything here is unkempt, people, objects and houses. Columns of dusty blacks, dragging their figure-of-eight feet, come and go; Industrial products, tattered cotton cloth, glass beads and copper wires stacked in the dark were brought in in a steady stream in exchange for precious ivory. It may be a city now, but it was originally just a trading post, and now it is a place where old trade continues.

In this unkempt bazaar, Sima Lei noticed that some of the Chinese vendors were often standing next to several black women, and even some black women were holding children in their arms. He asked, without looking up.

"Among immigrants, is there anyone who marries a black man?"

"This is a colony, there are more men and fewer women, and some things are always unavoidable, after all, ......"

As Li Chongli said this, he noticed that the mayor's face became ugly.

"Have you forgotten the prohibition of intermarriage with natives?"

The prohibition of intermarriage with the natives, a practice that has been developed since North Borneo, was studied by Sima Lei at the School of Administration, and from this prohibition we can see the idea of the framers - to maintain the status of the Chinese in the colonies by prohibiting marriages, and to distinguish the two by differences of blood, rather than to merge with the natives by so-called marriages.

"My lord, of course these are not marriages, they are not marriages, those black people are not even concubines, it's just, it's just ......"

After thinking for a moment, Li Chongli thought of a suitable word.

"Female slaves are female slaves of the countrymen, but they need to meet the requirements of their masters in certain aspects......"

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