It was only in 1910 that the borders of the German East African colonies were finalized, and the line separating German East Africa from British East Africa made a bend near Mount Kilimanjaro, leaving the highest mountain in Africa in German East Africa, which was said to have been the wish of Kaiser Wilhelm II: he wanted a peak of snow on his territory.

Kilimanjaro is a snow-capped mountain at 5,892 meters above sea level, the highest mountain in Africa and the highest volcano in the world. The western peak is called the "Oaki-Oai" of the Maasai people.

Kilimanjaro is known as the "Roof of Africa" and many geographers like to call it the "King of Africa". The vegetation of Mount Kilimanjaro has obvious vertical changes due to different heights and slope directions. The foothills have less precipitation and are dotted with vast savannas, zebras and long-necked stalks. The southern part is a windward wave, at an altitude of about 1,000 meters, and is a tropical rainforest zone. With the increase of height, the temperature gradually decreases, 1000~2000 meters, which is a subtropical evergreen broad-leaved forest belt; 2000~3000 meters is temperate forest zone; Above 3,000 meters, there is a gradual transition to alpine grassland, desert zone and snow and ice. the leeward northern slopes, with a dry climate and almost no rainforests; The altitude above 2700 meters is grassland, and the grassland rises to 4200~5100 meters in different terrain parts, and then it is alpine desert or alpine ice.

On the southern slope of the foothills below 1,800 meters above sea level, thanks to the abundant precipitation, the dense mountain forests here can be said to be the most pleasant place in the whole German East Africa.

From 1905, a large number of peanuts, cotton, sisal and other cash crops were continuously exported from German East Africa to Germany and Germany, and it was also from that year that the "Central Railway" began to be built in order to build the strategic transportation network of the German overseas empire.

Although the 1,250-kilometer-long Central Railway is called the "Road of Madness" due to the complex terrain and obstruction of the local indigenous population, it is true that in the process of building the road, the Chinese who built the road encountered a series of difficulties such as man-eating lions, the special terrain of the Great Rift Valley, tropical infectious diseases, and inconvenient supplies.

The Central Railway changed German East Africa, and a large number of cash crops were transported to the port of Dar es Salaam through the Central Railway, which brought a steady stream of wealth to German East Africa, and also changed the ethnic composition of German East Africa, according to the contract signed between China and Germany, each laborer worked for a period of three years, with a monthly salary of marks, and after the end of the three-year contract, he was required to provide him with no less than 50 hectares of arable land.

In order to speed up the development of German East Africa, five years ago, they even signed the "Immigration Agreement between the Chinese Empire and German East Africa" with the Chinese government in addition to the "Labor Contract", which is undoubtedly rich, each household must be given 10 hectares of land, the land tax is exempted for the first three years, and the German East African government provides Sichuan capital, resettlement shelter, and crop seeds.Chinese Chinese The family members are also funded by the government, and their children are provided by the German East African government in special schools.

The lucrative immigration agreement is even better than the one signed between China and Brazil, which is why Chinese immigrants have continued to pour into German East Africa, and in just nine years, the Chinese population has grown from zero to 153864, with more than 3.45 million hectares of plantations, three times that of European immigrants.

"The Chinese have done in nine years what Europe took half a century to do!"

In the midst of this praise, there is also some debate in Germany about the appearance of yellow in Africa, whether it is German East Africa or Chinese East Africa? German East Africa has chosen the latter between questioning and practical interests, but in the past few years it has quietly changed the distribution of land, handing over easily accessible and fertile land to whites and remote, barren land to Chinese immigrants.

New Qilu is an inconspicuous town, anyone who comes here, sees those Chinese-style buildings, shop hangings, and listens to the authentic Shandong dialect in the mouths of merchants and farmers, they will think that they have come to Shandong, come to China, but this is on the southern slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, New Qilu is three years ago "Royal" from Qingdao transported 1864 Shandong immigrants to establish, in three years they reclaimed 10,000 hectares of land on the southern slope, established this market town with more than 300 people, and brought everything they are familiar with in China here. ,

Like any Chinese immigrant village, there is self-government, even the police are Chinese police, and there is only one German family in the whole town.

As the tax collector of New Qilu Town, Tolly was depressed after arriving here with his wife and daughter, because he did not speak German, and only a few people in this town where Chinese was the language of communication could speak German, and that was because of his language training in Dar es Salaam.

"This month's tax is 3 marks 6 pfennig......"

As Tolly stood in the tavern and waited for the interpreter to relay his words, Tolly saw that there seemed to be many customers in the tavern today, and several of them, he knew, were decent people in the town, and like any Chinese town, the government here had mostly followed the old practice, and before leaving China, their government had divided them into squads, platoons, companies, battalions, and the like for ease of management, and most of the people in the self-government were the original "officers", and among the immigrants they were often people of high prestige.

"Tolly Tax Collector, would you like to come over for a drink? ……”

Ma Dashan, who was walking towards Tory, made a gesture to the old Hu in the tavern, and the old Hu Lian poured him a bowl of wine.

"Hereby ......"

Looking at the bowl of transparent liquor, Tolly's face suddenly became pale without a trace of blood, on the first day of taking office with his wife and daughter, he had experienced the Chinese style of "catching the wind", at the reception banquet, he drank three bowls of wine, and then, well, drunk for three days, painful as a nightmare for three days, and since then, as long as he saw this wine, what he subconsciously thought of was - escape.

"Hehe, Mr. Ma, I'm working, let's do it another day......"

As he said this, Tory's feet stepped back, the smile on his face stiffened, and as soon as he exited the tavern, he almost fled in a panic.

"Haha......"

In an instant, there was a burst of laughter in the entire tavern,

"Well, it's not easy for people to make a profit!"

Holding the wine on the wine cabinet in his hand, Ma Dashan smiled at Lao Hu.

"Lao Hu, this wine ......"

"I'll ask Tolly, he didn't drink it, you can drink it! Save money! ”

Lao Hu said quite a word, and his face was full of indifferent looks.

"Hey, Lao Hu, then I can accept your love!"

After drinking the wine in the bowl in one gulp, Ma Dashan returned to the table with a smile, looked at the few people at the table, and his eyes opened.

"Let's talk about it, one box for one family, and no one can ...... at that time."

"Look at what your brother Ma said, isn't it just to buy a box of bullets, what's the big deal, there are a lot of wild things in this place, there are thousands of hundreds of bullets at home, what's the big deal, right now, there are still more than a thousand bullets in the cellar of my house!"

The person who spoke was Song Kang, he was a retired veteran, a soldier in the township, even now in German East Africa, he was still the vice president of the township association, vice president of the autonomous association, for these immigrants who had received half a month of intensive training before coming to East Africa, they were used to maintaining their domestic life, the more abroad, in other places, the more they often liked to maintain the past living habits, it seems that this is a kind of sustenance that connects them and Tangshan.

For the Chinese of this era, they may be abroad, but in their hearts the only thing they identify with is Tangshan, China, not the country, just like the national flag they hung on the porch on National Day, that is where they belong.

"It's just, won't it be ...... to buy so many bullets at once?"

Holding a cigarette pouch, Li Zhu looked a little hesitant.

"There are a total of 583 households in this new Qilu Town, and one box of bullets per household is 583 boxes, which is hundreds of thousands of bullets, will it be ......?"

"Are you worried about the Germans?"

Ma Dashan frowned.

"I have guns in the grocery store, and we can't sell a box of bullets in two months, and we sell six hundred boxes of bullets at once, even if we are fools, we know that something is wrong."

Li Zhu's words made Ma Dashan hesitate, what he said was the truth, but a telegram was sent from the consulate over there, asking them to make some preparations, what to prepare, but they didn't go into details, just told them just in case, what to prevent, and they didn't say anything either, but as a soldier in the township, Ma Dashan still heard the meaning of the consulate, which was to prepare weapons.

Weapons do not need to be prepared, when the central railway was built, the roadmen not only encountered the man-eating lions, but also encountered the attacks of the indigenous people, and finally at the strong request of the consulate, the Germans agreed to the roadmen to bring their own guns, and the first thing the new immigrants did when they came to German East Africa was to go to the grocery store to buy guns and bullets to protect against the natives and wild animals, and they had also received shooting training in the country. ,

But bullets are troublesome, and no one will have five or six hundred rounds of ammunition at home, and it would be nice to have one or two hundred rounds.

"This ......"

Hesitating, Ma Dashan had no tricks.

"Actually, according to me, the meaning of this consulate must be to make us mentally prepared, just in case, maybe just in case, maybe just in ......."

With his hand pointing to the north, Li Zhu lowered his voice.

"Referring to the British in the north, you didn't read the newspaper that O, Osh is coming......"

"Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, which meant to go to war."

Ma Dashan, who graduated from high school before retiring, said.

"If the British come, what are we going to prepare? Help the Germans fight the British. ”

"Then it depends on what Your Majesty does!"

At the mention of His Majesty, Song Kang bowed lightly in the direction of China.

"If Tangshan declares war on the British, we will be the people of the dynasty and the soldiers in the township, even if we are overseas, we should also be loyal to the monarch and serve the country, so as to live up to Your Majesty's kindness and the name of the loyalty of the people of the dynasty!"

For the vast majority of immigrants, their idea is very simple, before going abroad, except for a very small number of people, the vast majority of whom are "landless poor", they often attribute the subsistence and rich life in East Africa to the "gift of His Majesty", it can be said that the loyalty of Chinese immigrants from East Africa, Brazil, Borneo, and Lanfang Dominions to the royal family is even far better than that of their compatriots at home, and for them, The biggest celebration of the year is the emperor's birthday.

"But what if war is declared on Germany?"

"Declaring war on Germany?"

In Dar es Salaam's consulate with a strong European style, Li Zicheng's brows furrowed, he really didn't expect this possibility, at least before that, he hadn't considered this kind of thing at all.

"Mr. Consul, now we have to consider this possibility,"

Wu Zihao said seriously.

"Now we must fully consider all possibilities, one is the Reich declares war on Great Britain, and the other is the Reich declares war on Germany, because the European alliance and the Entente camp are divided, so we must fully consider all possibilities, and it is appropriate to be prepared in advance, but this is only a secret telegram from the Admiralty, although we have not received instructions from within the country, but the Admiralty has made this decision, obviously there are places they think are necessary, and now the Navy's Third Ocean Training Fleet will visit Dar es Sala in the near future, perhaps out of some consideration, it will ......"

When the words came to his lips, Wu Zihao saw that the consul's expression, which seemed to be in contemplation, changed instantly, and at this time, his face was full of surprise, and without saying a word, he turned his eyes out of the window, and the whole person was obviously in extreme shock.

Admiralty, training fleet, diaspora preparation...... A series of clues were outlined into a line in Li Zicheng's mind, and when he was close to the truth, he only felt that the hairs on his back stood up violently, and then, the whole person fell silent instantly.

"I ......"

When the words came to his mouth, Li Zicheng swallowed it back, and then he walked to the window, pushed open the blinds, and looked out the window at the blue Indian Ocean, and the whole person fell into thought again.

Nestled on the east coast of Africa, Dar es Salaam is one of the few natural harbours in East Africa, bordering the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean. The whole city is fresh and elegant, the vegetation is not in harmony all year round, and anyone can feel the sea breeze when walking on the streets full of coconut trees.

"Chinatown is Dar es Salaam, and Dar es Salaam is Chinatown!"

After leaving the port, looking at the Chinese-style buildings on both sides of the street, Shao Qingling finally knew the meaning of this sentence, whether in terms of architecture or population, Dar es Salaam, the capital of German East Africa, is more like a Chinese city than a city built by Europeans, the vast majority of residents here are Chinese, and most of the buildings are Chinese-style buildings, and Europeans and European buildings have become embellishments.

"Dar es Salaam ......"

As he walked towards the consulate, Shao Qingling began to think in his mind about another name for the city in the future, a Chinese-style name.

In Swahili it means "safe port". ”

Thinking of the information he saw on the ship, Shao Qingling named the city "Ping'an Port" in his heart, perhaps the name is more oriental. ,

"Step on the blue waves and enter the port of peace!"

Thinking that in the future, the city's streets full of German signboards will become Chinese signs, the corners of Shao Qingzero's lips raised slightly, and it seemed that he saw that a certain street here was renamed "Qingzero Street" or "Qingzero Road", which was the colonel's promise, for a naval attaché in the Egyptian embassy, he never thought that he would have such a day.

"Fortunately, there is no naval attaché in this Ping'an Port consulate!"

The city of Dar es Salaam is not large, and soon he walked to the Chinese Consulate on Kaiser Wilhelm Boulevard, looking at the three-storey consulate in the European classicist style, Shao Qingling smiled again, this is the only European-style building in all Chinese embassies and consulates abroad, for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, every embassy and consulate abroad is equal to the home of the Chinese stationed in the country, in order to give them a sense of home, often do not hesitate to build a large number of buildings with reference to ancient Chinese guild buildings, built with a strong Chinese color, The Chinese Consulate in Dar es Salaam is a different story.

The reason is simple - there are too many Chinese in Dar es Salaam! So much so that the Foreign Office needed to take into account the ideas of its owners, the Germans.

Check the seal, check the documents, check the dispatch password, in the secret room of the consulate, the secret staff kept checking the various identity certificates of the naval attaché of the legation in Egypt in front of him, when verifying the identity, Shao Qingling drank tea while waiting slowly, he knew that it would take time to check the identity, at least an hour.

Wait!

Taking a sip of tea, Shao Qingling occasionally looked at the luggage he brought, which was a radio station, and it might be more convenient if there was a telephone.

"How did you come to Dar es Salaam?"

"Unofficial channels, as long as you want to come, there will always be a way!"

"Is the fortress in the port of Dar es Salaam completed?"

"Just started construction recently!"

During the non-stop question-and-answer period, Shao Qingling got the answer he wanted, and the other party also got his answer, and it was at this time that the consulate secrecy officer got the final identity confirmation.

"Major Shao, the consul is waiting for you in the office!"

Glancing at Shao Qingling sitting in front of him, Li Zicheng's brows furrowed slightly, it was sent by the navy again, the navy, what does the navy want to do?

Although he did not know much about the army, he knew that the army was pro-German and the navy was pro-British, and now the changes in the navy in Dar es Salaam and German East Africa made him have to be cautious, although he had made some bold speculation a few hours earlier, but before he really reported it to the country, he had to hesitate, he was afraid that he had guessed wrong, and he was even more afraid that when he sent a secret telegram to the country through the telegraph office, the secret telegram would be deciphered by the Germans, and then because of his wrong speculation, it would cause unpredictable consequences, but ......

"This is a secret letter sent from China!"

Handing a sealed letterbox to Li Zicheng, looking at the pen-thick letterbox, Li Zicheng was startled, and the seal on the letterbox showed the seal of the royal family,...... Holy Decree.

"The password is a diplomatic special password, 5012 area ......"

After using the code book in the safe to translate the code, Li Zicheng's whole person was in extreme shock, the content of the secret letter was very simple, just a few simple words, it was indeed a holy decree, and it was granted His Majesty's seal.

"The Reich will declare war on the German Empire in the near future, please make emergency preparations in the enemy area!"

This one time is enough, after putting away the secret letter, Li Zicheng paced back and forth in the office, and now, the kind of uneasy news in his heart is not a matter of the navy, it is simply what His Majesty wants...... Thinking in his heart, he walked to the window, looked out the window at Dar es Salaam, looked at this port of peace, thought of the training fleet that would visit Dar es Salaam in six days, thought of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese immigrants here, and then thought of the East African garrison, which was only a few hundred people, Li Zicheng shook his head.

Peace here will soon end, but why would His Majesty declare war on Germany, such a friendly country?

"The Duties of Diplomacy ......"

With a wry smile, Li Zicheng shouted outside the door.

"Major Shao, please come in!"

After Shao Qingling walked into the office, Li Zicheng looked at the major in front of him, and he didn't need him to know that the other party was on a special mission.

"What do you need me to cooperate with, please speak up with Major Shao!"

"Floats, telephones, telephone lines!"

Shao Qingling simply put forward his own requirements.

"Well, there is also a Chinese school, preferably close to the port, and of course closer to the Doge's Palace!"

"Huh?"

When surprised, Li Zicheng hurriedly asked.

"Will anyone else come?"

But Shao Qingling did not answer his question, but said to himself.

"200 rifles and two machine guns are also needed......"

The rest is needless to say, Li Zicheng already understands what the other party is going to do, he wants to use the opportunity of sailors to go ashore to control the port when the navy warship enters the port to visit, it is normal for the sailors to enter the school, as long as they control the port, there will be thousands of sailors on the fleet from the warship to the port, and then they don't even need shelling, they can easily control Dar es Salaam, once they conquer the governor's palace, then German East Africa will be occupied, he can imagine, When news broke that the navy had occupied Dar es Salaam, the immigrants, who had always been committed to "loyalty," formed a militia to take control of government agencies, police stations, and even their neighbors.

But what about the impact of the actions of sailors and expatriates in Africa after that? Has Your Majesty considered these things?

"It's the Navy who looks at Dar es Salaam!"

At this time, Li Zicheng can only put all the responsibility on the navy in his heart, and I hope everything can be realized smoothly!