Pretoria, located on the Transvaal Plateau, is named after Pretorius, the founder of the Transvaal Republic. The district is neatly laid out, and the streets are all square-shaped, making it easy to identify the direction.

The two men and three horses entered the city from a wooden bridge over the Apis River. The white man who walked in front was tall and neat-looking, riding a tall steed with a new Mauser magazine rifle stuck in his back. Closely followed by the yellow natives, holding a pack of bags, although he also rode a Boer horse, but just looking at the costume will not admit that he is a native servant.

Pretoria already has the prototype of a modern big city, the most prosperous business district, with hotels in western-style buildings. Liang Hong and Paul chose to stay at the inn, which was reserved for pedestrians, cheaper than a hotel, but had a yard for horses and vehicles.

The Hellner Inn, which looked very clean, had two people asking for a superior suite, and three horses for boarding for a pound a day. The last time the expedition was robbed, there were more than 100 pounds of gold coins in the captured bag, which is all the cash in Liang Hong's hands at present. Although he already has a deposit of 20,000 yuan in the base account, that can't be spent in the outside world.

After a brief wash, the two of them went to the tavern next to the inn.

"Salad, broth, two steaks, two breads."

Liang Hong came to the counter and said to the boss standing inside. However, instead of responding directly, the white boss shouted at Paul, who was still sitting at the table.

"Sir, do you want two steaks?"

After seeing Paul's affirmative answer, the boss calculated the total price, which was eighteen shillings. Steaks are expensive, five shillings each, which is equivalent to more than two silver dollars.

"Your master is very good, you should know gratitude."

When collecting the money, the boss lectured earnestly, and Liang Hong was speechless when he heard it. Is it kind to the owner who eats a steak? At the time of the Transvaal, the answer was yes.

The food in the tavern tastes average, but the prices are high, probably because it is closer to gold.

Evening is the time for dinner, and there are many people who come here to eat, not only tourists from the nearby inns, but also locals who come out to socialize. The smell of tobacco and alcohol mingled together, and the whispers converged into a buzzing noise, interspersed with the occasional loud and generous statement by a few drunken people.

Liang Hong silently ate the food while pricking up his ears to listen to the conversations of the diners around him, which was a good opportunity to learn about the world and the country of the Boers. Paul was fond of saying that he was tolerated by long periods of silence, and that he was a preacher who had been brainwashing people by preaching. After being stopped from chatting several times, his mood became a little depressed, which made Liang Hong lament that the missionary was not a professional spy after all.

"The Transvaal is a free country, a land of Africans, and it has nothing to do with the British."

At the table next to it, a few uniformed Boers were having dinner and talking about the relationship between the British and the Boers, the most fashionable and sensitive topic in the area at the moment. Just now mentioned that the British colonial secretary Neville Chamberlain sent an official letter to Milner, the governor of Cape, making it clear that the Transvaal was a British vassal state, so several people were excited. The Afrikans are also Boers, the original meaning is the native of Africa, and the Boers call themselves Afrikans, in fact, they want to swear their sovereignty over southern Africa.

"In the London Accords signed that year, the definition of suzerainty was very vague."

It was the whispering of two people at the table on the other side, chatting in English, apparently foreigners. Liang Hong's ear voice is very sharp, half of which is attributed to the congenital physique, and the other half is later special training.

"So how do we report it? Soon the two sides will have formal negotiations. ”

The person who asked was a young lady, who was petite and slender from the silhouette, and her appearance was not too bad.

"Neutral, objective, truthful reporting of the incident itself, not too much subjective commentary."

The middle-aged man continued to instruct the newcomer in a didactic tone, "We Americans have no conflict of interest with either side, but the Boers are not friendly to the Americans. ”

Americans, no wonder the accent sounds familiar, and later generations of English can be all over the world in American tones. These two people are American journalists, there were female journalists at the end of the nineteenth century, the difference in the development of civilization, think of the distant eastern country, girls still have to wrap footcloths.

It's a pity that he is only an indigenous person now, otherwise he might have gotten a lot of useful information from them if he walked over and chatted for a while. Glancing at Paul who was doing nothing opposite, he sighed again that it would be much easier for him to have a group of professional spies under him.

"Boers are very aggressive, sometimes be careful", the middle-aged man still pointed at his female compatriots.

"Violating their laws, under the control of the police. If you don't offend but think you're not pleasing to the eye, you'll be in the hands of the Secret Intelligence Agency. The police will end up with the court, the intelligence service, and God will know where you will be sent in the end. ”

Out of the corner of his eye, seeing the man shrugging his shoulders helplessly, Liang Hong was also taken aback in his heart. Secret Intelligence Agency, is it difficult that someone from the Lanzvaal official also crossed? Even the British Empire did not formally establish a secret intelligence service until 1909. It seems that he has to be more careful when he is active in this land.

After dinner, the two men and women sitting next to each other checked out and left. To Liang Hong's surprise, these two people actually walked all the way ahead, and they also lived in the Haierna Inn.

The next day, Liang Hong locked Paul in his room and walked around the city alone. Without Paul, I felt that it was too tiring to continue to pretend to be a servant, and second, I was afraid that this guy would come out and couldn't help but talk nonsense.

The Hironne Inn is located on the west side of the city, along Via Pretorius to the east, around the cathedral is the city's most prosperous business district and the heart of the city. A short distance north from the cathedral is the Presidency and other state authorities, the administrative center of the entire Transvaal.

I had planned to go to the Ministry of Mines and the Tax Bureau to inquire about the procedures, but before I could enter the gate, I was chased away by the police on duty outside. You are a lowly colored native, what are you doing in the power office, so the police came over and didn't use their mouths to speak, they just picked up their batons and started fighting. Fortunately, Liang Hong's hands were fast and he was not slow to run, and he only received two sticks in the back and was not seriously injured.

Quickly escaping from this dangerous area, Liang Hongqi's teeth itched. When I first went to school, the history textbooks were just nonsense, what British imperialist troops slaughtered and suppressed the industrious Boer people. The Boers may have been industrious, but they were also fierce enough, and the Anglo-Boer War was a contest between old and new colonists, and there was nothing good in nature.

But things have to be done, but it's a pity that he is yellow-skinned, and Paul is white, but the guy who opens his mouth and may come out with the teachings of the Ming religion is even more unreliable.

Wandering aimlessly down the street, I looked up and saw the plaque hanging on the door of the house facing the street, Pierre & Associates. Liang Hong patted his head suddenly, yes, we can find professionals to consult, or even let them come forward to handle it.

This Pierre Law Firm is not good, and the small character of the bird on the plaque seems to be in French. We don't understand French, so forget about it. Local-owned law firms are not good. The Boers were all Protestants, and perhaps before he could finish his lecture and make a fake, a brave and upright Boer lawyer would be able to recruit the police. The law firms of the British are not good, and the Boers hate the British to death. The German law firm still doesn't work, Paul is a pretending German, maybe any sentence will be exposed.

Come to think of it, only American lawyers are ideal. Americans are preoccupied with freedom and commercial interests, and are more focused on the transaction itself. Today's Americans are not the arrogant and domineering world policemen of later generations, and their status is more like that of China in later generations, a low-cost copycat country.

Eventually, Liang Hong finally found his ideal law firm on the street, the American-owned Brooke Law Firm.