Chapter 403: Competing for Africa (Part II)

According to the strategic deployment of the imperial government, the regular army of the empire first captured the Kingdom of Imelina, which was formed by the Mauritians, and after occupying the Kingdom of Imelina, it established a fortress and naval base at Fort Dofan at the southern tip of the island of Madagascar, as a springboard for the military colonization of Africa by the Chinese Empire.

Originally, the government of the Chinese Empire did not take the Kingdom of Imalina seriously. Because this backward island country is strictly backward in terms of culture and economy, it seems to belong to a primitive tribal society. The Indian Ocean Fleet of the Chinese Empire sent only two warships and 300 marines to conquer the island nation.

The Kingdom of Imelina did not have any habits of using precious metals, and their national currency was only cherished feathers, so it did not arouse the looting ideas of the Imperial soldiers.

However, when an Imperial soldier accidentally discovers a large number of gems from the altar of the Kingdom of Imelina, Yiqiē's opinion suddenly changes.

It turned out that although the Kingdom of Imerna rarely used hard currencies such as gold and silver, and the currency was only worthless feathers, the Kingdom of Imalina was rich in various gemstones. The whole country regards gemstones as sacred objects and is used to sacrifice to the heavens and the earth to the gods, so as to ward off disasters and take refuge.

As a result, the Kingdom of Imerina used precious stones as sacrificial objects, and hundreds of thousands of people across the country mined mountain stones to collect precious stones.

Perhaps blessed by the heavens, the Kingdom of Imelina, despite its economic backwardness, has more than 60 kinds of gemstone veins, and the production is quite abundant.

Soldiers of the Chinese Empire recovered more than 300,000 various gems worth more than 80 million silver dollars from the Kingdom of Imelina, changing the attitude of the Chinese Empire towards the poverty of Imelina.

Originally, the Imperial Chinese government was not interested in the Kingdom of Imelina, and only used it as a military base for the Indian Ocean Fleet of the Imperial Navy, as well as as a springboard for colonizing Africa.

But after discovering Imelina's abundance of gemstones, the imperial government began to pay attention to it. Naturally, the military would not miss this opportunity, so it forced hundreds of thousands of Imelina citizens to work as slaves to dig for treasure in the mountains every day.

As a result, the navy spent a lot of energy and manpower on the island, which delayed the original conquest of southern Africa, and the expedition leader of the Empire did not receive military support for a long time, and the Dutch were almost wiped out.

The arrival of the naval fleet boosted the morale of the expeditions of the Chinese Empire. With the support of the Imperial Marines, the military and civilians returned to the South African continent as one.

The Dutch pioneers were naturally unable to compete with the Marines of the Chinese Empire, and since the Chinese Empire's navy rescued their own expedition on the seashore, the Dutch knew that they could not protect their newly established homeland, Pretoria, so the Dutch abandoned Pretoria again and continued their exploration north.

In this way, the Chinese Imperial Marines, together with the expedition, reoccupied Pretoria. Although Pretoria is still a small village with a few dilapidated houses, the explorers of the Chinese Empire still chose to establish a colonial stronghold there. The Imperial Marines, on the other hand, chose Cape Town as their colonial stronghold because of its strategic location on the Cape of Good Hope.

Beginning in November of the 13th year of Shenwu, the Chinese Empire built a land fortress and naval base in Cape Town, and used it as a base to carry out an armed invasion of South Africa. At the same time, the number of Chinese expeditions in Pretoria is increasing. These citizens of the empire who advocated expansion, they were eager for chaos in the world, and directly organized people to attack the local natives, burning and looting everywhere. And although the aborigines are inferior in weapons, they are large in number, and although they lose most of the time, they always have one or two advantages in a hundred battles. The expeditions of the Chinese Empire, on the other hand, were too small to withstand losses and soon appealed to the Imperial forces in Cape Town for help.

The citizens of their own country cried for help, and the Imperial garrison in Cape Town had to help wipe their butts.

From the end of the thirteenth year of Shenwu, the Chinese Empire Africa sent a total of 30,000 troops to Imelina and Cape Town, together with about 3,000 imperial civil forces, to sweep the indigenous tribes in South Africa.

The arrival of the Imperial Chinese Army brought about a major change in the colonial pattern of Africa. The European powers were very sensitive to this, and after they found out that the Chinese Empire had come to share the big cake of Africa with them, they accelerated the pace of aggression.

However, the European countries were puzzled by the landing of the Chinese Empire in the southern region, and they did not think that there was anything worth occupying and developing in southern Africa. The main population of Africa is concentrated in Central and North Africa, and South Africa is very sparsely populated, and most of the Bantu people of North Africa have migrated south due to military invasions by the Turkish Empire and European countries.

Of course, if Europeans had known that South Africa had a lot of gold and diamonds underground, they probably wouldn't have thought that way.

In short, the military invasion of southern Africa by the Chinese Empire did not attract the great attention of the European powers, and they did not want to go to southern Africa to compete with the Chinese Empire, but made every effort to develop the rich lands of North and Central Africa.

Without the intervention of the European powers, it was a smooth transition for the Chinese Empire to engage in colonial wars in southern Africa. There was an Imperial Army that fought directly, and the local tribes could not resist, and either surrendered or were slaughtered by the entire village.

The Chinese Empire completed its occupation of the southern African continent, including Namibia and Zimbabwe, and the entire South African region south of Mozambique, within two months.

After the war, the army of the Chinese Empire captured more than 120,000 blacks and seiles, and eliminated the old, weak, sick and disabled, and less than 20,000 people could be used for work.

At this time, the citizens of the Chinese Empire mainly migrated to Southeast Asia and the Americas, and the number of immigrants to Africa was too small to control more than 1.5 million square kilometers of South African land, so it continued to export people to South Africa.

Historically, the Chinese Empire's method of attracting its own people was to trumpet the countless gold and silver deposits and treasures buried by the colonies, so as to attract the people to emigrate to the colonies.

However, if there is a lot of hype about the large number of gold deposits in South Africa, it is expected to attract the prying eyes of the European powers. Drawing the European powers from North and Central Africa would hinder the Empire's strategic deployment to the north.

In the end, the Chinese Empire did not trumpet the fact that South Africa had large gold deposits, but instead trumpeted Imelina as a treasure island rich in gems, attracting the people of the empire to come to the empire for treasures.

The appearance of a large number of valuable gems in Imalina quickly caused a stir among the European powers, who never imagined that such a large number of gems could exist in an island country without any oil or water. They regretted it greatly, especially the British and the Dutch, who had claimed sovereignty over Imelina, but did not attach importance to it at the time, and did not form a de facto occupation. Now that they are under the de facto occupation of the Chinese Empire, they are jealous of such a large number of gems, but there is nothing they can do. A