The first update

Despite the same colonial expansion, the Congolese people will henceforth be grateful to Napoleon for their actions, at least for the next thirty years or so, they will not have to face the Leopold dictatorship in the Congo Free State, nor will they have to have their hands cut off for failing to complete the mining of rubber. Their attitudes towards the colonies were vastly different.

The King of Belgium was deflated once in front of the French ambassador and counsellor, but did not dare to express their anger directly. In the face of unreasonable neighbors, in the end, King Leopold could only endure and reluctantly agreed to the other party's approach.

However, Gabriac made an agreement with Leopold II on the front foot, and went to visit the Prime Minister Melander on the back foot and announced good news to him.

"You say that the king is going to make a survey of Africa with France, and that the colony belonging to Belgium will be placed under the name of the government?"

Chancellor Melander could not believe that such a good thing awaited him, and most importantly, that the exploration work did not require a penny from the Belgian government, and that he could finally get a colony from the French.

"Yes. I have consulted with His Majesty the King. Of course, we also don't want other countries to get involved. Like our old adversary, the Germans. They also suffer from the fact that they do not have colonies, and they have always had the idea of Africa. If one more had been added, the Belgian colony would have been much smaller. I don't think we want to see that happen, do we? ”

Gabriac's move to cross the river and tear down the bridge blocked Leopold II's last retreat, anyway, Belgium can have a colony in the end, but whether this colony belongs to the royal family or to parliament is none of Gabriac's business.

"And Belgium only needs to send scientific expeditions, and as for the security work, we on the French side will be fully responsible."

France intends to reassign part of the Foreign Legion to the Congo as a team for scientific expeditions and to test the Maxim machine gun in far-flung Africa.

"Okay."

Prime Minister Melander said excitedly, "The Belgian side will also arrange it as soon as possible." ”

Although the French negotiations were subjectively implied with charity, for Prime Minister Melander, it was not easy for a small buffer country sandwiched in the middle of an imperialist group to obtain a colony, and he did not dare to say no to any of the demands made by France.

"In a week we will have another meeting to negotiate in detail with the Belgian side," Gabriac said. ”

As Gabriac traveled back and forth between the Belgian court and the government, the Foreign Legion stationed in Algeria received the first batch of Maxim machine guns, and after a short period of training, they were surprised to discover the superiority of this weapon, and the fact that they could fire continuously with just pulling the trigger almost eliminated all the hand-cranked machine guns they used.

However, they could never have imagined that the greatest threat to the joint Belgian-French expedition to the Congo was not the unfriendly primitive tribes there, but the Portuguese, who were also looking for colonies in Central Africa.

At this time, with the support of the British, Portugal claimed sovereignty over the mouth of the Congo River as the first country to discover the mouth of the Congo River, because it was the Portuguese navigator Diego who first discovered the basin three hundred years ago.

In the midst of the sweltering and humid rainforest, a group of creatures more terrifying than vipers and spiders roam, armed to the teeth.

They built a base camp in the Congo Valley, sent expeditions into the intake, made treaties with the natives of the jungle, and declared France their protectorate for the vast majority, leaving only a small part of their territory to Belgium.

In the face of the arrogance of the French, they naturally did not dare to make more demands. Soon, however, their forcible enclosure of land in the Congo Valley aroused the discontent of the Portuguese colonists.

The King of Kongo had refused to grant the Portuguese the right to open mines, and as a result, the Portuguese colonists went to war with the Kingdom of Kongo. Fight a decisive battle at the pivotal Battle of Mbuwila. In the end, the Congolese army was defeated and the Kongo king was killed in battle. The Kingdom of Kongo was divided into a number of competing chieftains. Because the indigenous people of the Congolese region had always been hostile to Portugal, when the Belgian-French expedition offered to give the Congolese asylum, signed a treaty, and promised to provide medicine to improve their living conditions, Portugal could not sit still.

Feelings: You French are dedicated to snatching the fruits of the victory of the revolution?

The Portuguese can only be blamed for the colonial approach, which was simply brutal and brutal, but never considered another way of taking the Congo.

When the Portuguese governor at the time, Sousa Caen, heard the movement of the French upstream, and immediately announced that no French ships should be allowed to cross the Congo River valley, and he openly stated at the meeting, "This is a Portuguese colony, not your French territory." If the French side does not heed the advice, they will expel the aggressor. ”

If this demand were to be granted, the Congo River basin, occupied by France and Belgium, would be of much less value than a basin with no access to the sea. Historically, countries had held an international conference in Berlin to settle the matter, but Napoleon did not want to waste time.

He gave the French Foreign Legion, which numbered more than 3,000 people, great freedom to compete with Portugal for access to the sea.

Just when Sousa Caen triumphantly thought he had strangled the lifeblood of the French, Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gawler, who was on this mission, sent a letter to the Portuguese colonists.

"We strongly demand that the Portuguese side quickly open up access to the sea and allow the Belgian joint scientific expedition team to enter, otherwise we will take coercive measures to protect the scientific research team, and do not say anything unprepared."

The order given by Lieutenant Colonel Charles Gawler of the Foreign Legion was dismissed by the Portuguese Governor, Sosa Caen.

The Portuguese have been here for more than a decade, will they give it up?

However, Souza Caen guessed one thing wrong, France did not wait to give up, but came directly to grab it.

The French Foreign Legion, equipped with Maxim, began to approach the entrance to the sea downstream, and the Portuguese had developed a certain scale after decades of reclamation here, recruiting a large number of men to serve as a colonial army.

In terms of numbers, there seems to be a huge gap between the French colonial army and the Portuguese. When they heard that France was going to take Portugal head-on, Souza Caen laughed at the French for their incompetence.

"Well, since the French are going to die, then we won't stop it."

Figures appeared on the edge of the damp and sultry jungle, and their purpose was the Portuguese base camp in front, which also contained a group of soldiers armed to the teeth, eager to attack.

The Portuguese governor Sousa Caen personally commanded the battle, and he accepted the review with great enthusiasm, and said impassionedly, "The French colonists are nothing more than the best of the best, and they have just been defeated by Germany in the battle of the previous year. A while ago, if it weren't for the mediation of Britain and Russia, they would have been pushed flat a long time ago. Now, these French still want to run to rob our colonies, what do you say? ”

The Portuguese colonial army shouted with great enthusiasm, "Kill them all!" ”

Even the Governor was overshadowed by the impassioned atmosphere in front of him, and he said loudly, "Now this group of French people is outside, give it to me!" ”

The Portuguese colonists armed up Enfield rifles and even loaded bayonets for hand-to-hand combat, and as they fired, they approached the French troops near the forest line. They were also shouting a phrase of improvised French.

"Kill all the French!"

Charles Gawler, who was in charge of the campaign to dismount the Portuguese, was furious when he heard them shouting to kill the French, and he took off his hat and cursed.

"Fuck you, I'm a Swede!"

"Heavy, shoot me hard at these Portuguese! I don't believe I can't stop them! ”

At the command of Charles Gauller, the machine gun immediately tore through the calm of the forest line, and the tongue of fire spit out by the Maxim machine gun swept back and forth, giving full play to their power, and the Portuguese soldiers who had been charging at the forefront fell like harvesting wheat in pieces.

The Portuguese soldier had not even pulled the trigger before his chest was torn in the chest by the sweeping firing range.

The blazing sun and the sprayed blood made up a bloody scene. Constant charges have never been able to break through the line of fire. Portugal originally wanted to bully fewer people with more people, but they didn't expect that all of them would become the first batch of "guinea pigs" of the Maxim machine gun.

The smile on the French governor's face faded from the falling corpses, as he saw his soldiers falling under machine guns, and the French on the defensive were harvesting the heads of the Portuguese without fear.

Although they also tried to resist with imported Gatlings, the opponent's firepower was able to cover any corner of the Portuguese barracks, and their bullets could only graze around the French army due to their accuracy and range. 、

"Bastard, something is wrong, hurry up and retreat!"

At this time, he did not have the same calm as before, and after seeing that the situation was not good, the Portuguese governor hurriedly called all the soldiers to stop the attack and evacuate immediately. The Portuguese colonial army, which had been nearly 400 people, left in a hurry after roaring nearly half of the corpses.

However, at this time the French camp had only more than fifty people involved in the battle.

The battlefield was in shambles, and in front of the French Foreign Legion, three or four times more corpses fell than themselves.

Charles Gaulle took off his hat, touched his hair, looked at the Maxim machine gun that had experienced the war for the first time, and said with trepidation, "Fortunately, the Portuguese don't have such a thing in their hands." ”