There are many strange positions in the administrative sequence of Queensland, such as the chief governor, such as the political councillor, such as the captain of the coast guard, this is a compromise, Li Fushou can not appoint a governor of Shangri-La or the governor of Africa, that is the scope of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's power, the divine royal power is inviolable, so doing so is tantamount to direct rebellion.

Li Fushou likes the title of chief manager, what is the chief of internal affairs, the chief of construction, the general manager of the south, the general manager of Shangri-La, the general manager of Africa, and there are many appointments.

is also a big manager, and the difference in rank is not small.

For example, the chief of internal affairs, the chief of the internal account, and the chief of construction are all domestic slave positions, and the chief of the south (local), the central governor (local), the chief of Shangri-La, and the chief of Borneo are all important ministers in one side, and their respective weights are also heavy and light.

For example, Wu Xuewen, the general manager of Shangri-La, is not a political senator, his weight is a little lighter, and he is not qualified to enter the policy center for the time being, and after more than 10 years of experience, it is almost the same.

Wu Mozhou's qualifications are very powerful, he has been in charge of one side since he came to Australia, and now he is also the chief of Africa in the name of political senator, and he can deter the proposed Mozambican Garrison Command, and can also influence the African Expeditionary Force, and can rely on his deep qualifications and connections to strive for more resources and policies for the Mozambique region, which is really a great thing.

It is not surprising that Li Fushou has made a special trip to Africa this time and attaches great importance to it.

Mozambique is indeed a good place, the average temperature here is 20~26 degrees throughout the year, the temperature in the south is a little lower, the north is a little higher, the overall difference is not much, it is a warm spring oceanic grassland climate.

The entire Mozambique region covers an area of about 1.1 million square kilometers (including Lake Malawi and surrounding areas), with a coastline of 2,630 kilometers, bordering South Africa and Eswatini in the south, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi in the west, German Tanzania in the north, the Indian Ocean in the east, and Madagascar across the Mozambique Strait.

The plateaus and mountains account for about three-fifths of the total area, and the rest are plains, and the lower reaches of the Zambezi River cover an area of 330,000 square kilometers, which is one of the largest plains in Africa.

The land here is fertile and rainfall is abundant, with an annual rainfall of more than 1,000 mm, which is almost equal to the rainfall level in southern Jiangsu, which is suitable for the development of rice cultivation.

The region is in the warm and wet season from October to March of the following year, and the cool and dry season is from April to September, and there is no dry season, and it is suitable for planting crops such as rice, sugarcane, rubber, and tobacco all year round.

The central region of Mozambique is a plateau at an altitude of 300~500 meters, with an annual rainfall of about 400 to 600 mm, and the valley area is suitable for growing wheat, cotton, alfalfa, sisal and other crops, and the temperature is generally lower than 20 degrees throughout the year, about 18~20 degrees, which is cool and pleasant.

North of 17 degrees south latitude belongs to this area (including Malawi and the Northern Province), and the height of the plateau dips from west to east to the seashore.

Among them, there are two highest mountains, one is the Malawi Highlands, on the eastern shore of Binyasha Lake, and the other is the Nyemolli Highlands, which are 2,400 meters high, located near 15 degrees south latitude, and border with German East Africa.

More than 1,000 mm of rain falls in the highlands of the region, up to 1,500 mm in the Naimoli mountains, but only about 900 mm in the lower valleys, which are still important agricultural areas.

Due to the poor farming and sparse population of the indigenous population in the region, most of them depend on grazing and picking wild banana forests and fruit trees for their livelihood, and they can still live a very nutritious life.

This geography is equivalent to another Australia, and it is not a big problem to rule, and Queensland can easily control the region with its strong military.

In Li Fushou's memory, he knows that Mozambique is a treasure land rich in resources, with rich mineral deposits such as coal, iron, copper, gold, tantalum, titanium, bismuth, aluminum, asbestos, graphite, mica, marble and natural gas, among which coal reserves are extremely rich, tantalum ore reserves rank first in the world, and iron ore and copper ore are not lacking.

60% of the area is covered by forests, and the total forest resources exceed 2 billion cubic meters. Water resources are abundant, and the water energy resources on the Zambezi River are inexhaustible.

Li Fushou and his entourage stayed on Boi Island for a week, and he took time to take his wife on a small boat tour of the beautiful coral reef area, where the crystal clear water made him can't help but swim in the sea and completely relax.

Li Fushou rode a horse to visit Hexi Town and Hezhong Town, where he held in-depth discussions with immigrants and local officials to fully understand the difficulties of the current colonization work, affirmed the achievements, and encouraged everyone to take root in Africa and start a career.

On the return trip

After the road construction site, Li Fushou stopped to watch.

This is a construction site on Central Avenue, where a company of more than 100 soldiers is stationed to supervise the construction of more than 1,000 black laborers, in addition to more than a dozen technicians from Queensland, both white and Chinese, who are mainly responsible for road exploration and construction process quality and follow-up standard acceptance.

The site was responsible for more than 20 kilometers of road, with a 26-meter-wide avenue, all of which were paved with earth and rock, drainage ditches on both sides of the road, and tall trees planted to form a wide avenue leading inland.

"Principal, the construction of the entire central avenue is supervised by the construction corps led by Deputy Division Commander Kohler, mainly composed of part of the second regiment and the baggage regiment, there are a total of 32 such construction sites along the line, in addition to some quarries, the expeditionary force headquarters has transferred two companies of cavalry guards along the way, which is already the maximum force we can come up with." Lieutenant Colonel Li Xuanzhu explained.

"Well, it looks like the construction is good, but the efficiency is a little worse."

Li Fushou nodded, he wore a wide-brimmed military hat on his head to block the sun, and he was wearing an ordinary officer's uniform, which was neither conspicuous nor easy to mingle with the people, very down-to-earth.

The main reason is that the danger of field inspection is still quite high, he doesn't want to dress like a gun target, there are still many good hunters in Portugal, and he can keep a low profile.

"Report to the principal, this is because it is too expensive to transport diesel from the United States or Europe, it costs about 6 pounds and 11 shillings for a ton, of which more than 4 pounds is freight, so if you can use manpower, you will not need machinery as much as possible."

"I know that if the road project is released for use, two or three thousand tons of diesel a month is not a problem, and it is more cost-effective to construct it by manpower."

Li Fushou is not in a rut, the tractor drinks oil like drinking water, especially in the case of large load of road construction, tire wear, mechanical wear and diesel consumption is not a small number, accounting for the majority of the previous colonization costs.

When it comes to Africa, there are many slave labors here anyway, and they are worthless, so the province still needs to save some, and there are still more places to spend money.

"How's the food here?"

"Report to the principal, in the case of this engineering site, because there is a large banana forest nearby, so several nearby engineering sites have organized manpower to come to carry them, picking green bananas can be placed for about a week, a large bundle of green bananas is enough for 40 people to eat, and the staple food is generally this.

The soldiers would also organize hunting, hunting bison and deer, and then chopping some of the cattle and buffalo offal and boiling them together in mashed bananas to increase the nutrition of the black laborers.

On the construction site, some flour will be distributed every week, all of which are sent from the town, and after being fried in butter, it tastes good, and every three days each worker is given a piece of butter cake.

Generally, some offal or butter cakes are added to a meal every morning, because they have to work in the morning, so that they will have more strength after eating, and they will not add a meal in the afternoon, so as to prevent these black laborers from having the strength to escape after the end of the evening, which is inconvenient to manage. ”

"Oh, it looks like you've come up with a lot of ideas." Li Fushou smiled and didn't ask further.

It's good to eat this year, it's impossible to eat two steaks every morning, drink a glass of milk and then work, and the landlord's family has no surplus food!

It is not wrong to save a little if you can save a little.

"By the way, I see that many workers have light skin tones, what is the reason for this?"

"Report to the principal, this is the Makua-Lomée tribe of the local indigenous people, before the 16th century, there were a large number of Arabs in Mozambique who set up a foothold here, trafficking in human beings, the slave trade in Mozambique is very famous, and the Portuguese came to be equally enthusiastic about it, and produced a lot of black and white mixed blood, they are the descendants of these people."

"Oh, that's it!" Li Fushou suddenly realized.

"Headmaster, in our management, most of these light-skinned Makua-Lomée tribes are used as labor leaders, using them to manage the laborers of other dark-skinned tribes, they themselves do not need to participate in labor, and sometimes they can get some sugar, beef and flour if they perform well, which greatly reduces our management intensity, and we also learned this trick from the colonists of Britain and France, and the effect is very good."

"Not bad, yes, the stones of other mountains can attack jade!"

Li Fushou gently clamped the horse's belly with his legs, and the horse trotted lightly, and the nearby road has been cleared out of the straight forward outline line, and after the land is deeply turned, fly ash and stone powder are added to tamp, and a layer of gravel is added, all of which are manual labor.

Some people are digging ditches on the side of the road, some people are cleaning the roots of large trees in the planned road, a dozen laborers are pulling heavy stone grinders back and forth to compact the road surface, or several people are working together to tamp the road surface with an iron basin full of gravel, all sweating and laboring.

Road construction is grouped, basically every 100 meters divided into a section, each section by a group of laborers, several light-skinned foremen are responsible for supervision, according to the progress of the construction of the evaluation of the merits.

The group with excellent performance can eat well and eat well, and the foreman also has a reward, while the group with average performance can only eat half full, and the foreman has no reward, and the group with poor performance can be miserable, not only can only eat some leftovers, but the foreman will also be demoted to slave labor to participate in the work together, and a new foreman will be sent to be responsible.

Under such a strict supervision system, the foreman did not dare to relax a little, and the leather whip in his hand was waved loudly, each more fierce than the other.

This system also freed up the soldiers, who only had to carry their guns to maintain order, and half of them were resting during the day, and their main job was to take turns guarding at night, not only to prevent black laborers from escaping and to maintain law and order in the camp, but also to prevent ferocious wild beasts from entering the camp and injuring people.

Mozambique is a paradise for wildlife, with ferocious lions, wild leopards, African leopards, and herds of African hyenas and wolves.

In addition, herds of bison are also very scary.

The African bison is very wild, and most of the African buffalo in Mozambique is the African buffalo, which can reach a ton of weight in adulthood, with a broad head and long horns, thick limbs, and a violent and aggressive temperament, and they are the ones who attack the camp the most.

One camp once killed more than 30 buffalo in a row when the African wild buffalo herd attacked, which made the crazy wild buffalo herd retreat.

The reason why the African wild buffalo herd attacked humans is simple, because the road construction team has destroyed trees and bushes and burned weeds, causing serious disturbance to the habitat of the wild buffalo herd.

The soldiers of the Construction Corps generally welcomed the action of delivering meat to the door of the wild buffalo herd.

Isn't bison better than dry military rations?

Li Fushou and his entourage then inspected the camp, which was built on the side of a small river, surrounded by barbed wire on three sides, and the remaining side was a crystal clear river.

Along the creek was a row of simple houses, framed with wood, mixed with mud and broad leaves of thatch, layer upon layer to make the roof.

Mosquito nets were placed on all sides, which was the residence of soldiers and Chinese technicians, and the barracks and sentry kitchens were all in this area, which was relatively neatly planned, and the barracks were cleaned of bushes and weeds, the sewage ponds were filled, and the corners of the walls were covered with white lime to prevent poisonous insects and snakes from crawling in.

The black laborers' quarters were separated from the soldiers' quarters by a wooden fence, with a 10-meter wide no-man's land in between, where the soldiers pulled ropes to dry beef jerky, and hung one after another for a long time, and it seemed that they had gained a lot.

The same is true of the black labor quarters, which are simple houses built of wooden frames, but they are relatively low, and you can only get into them with your head down, and you can sit in the house, but you can't stand up, and there are no mosquito nets around them, and the sanitary conditions are slightly worse.

According to the entourage;

The foreman sleeps at the door, and there are 20 people living in a simple house, which can be carried away as long as the roof is removed, which is very convenient.

Li Fushou then looked at the kitchen and warehouse, and even chatted with a few black laborers who stayed in the camp to work through an interpreter, and the overall feeling was good.

He also knew that this might be a model camp that the people below had deliberately chosen to deal with the leader's inspection.

The black laborers were obviously fake, and when they asked them questions, they cracked their mouths and laughed vigorously, and they worked here as if they had fallen into a honey pot.

According to the translator;

They were very happy to participate in this great construction, and the officers and soldiers of the camp taught them how to build wooden houses, taught them to sing, and dried beef jerky for them to eat......

Well, Li Fushou frowned and couldn't listen to it anymore, this is too fake.

Perhaps in other camps, black laborers did not even have a simple workshop, and they worked every day except labor......

Well, Colonel Koch is not easy, with more than 3,000 men under his command, and he has to manage sixty or seventy thousand black laborers, and he must also be considerate of his difficulties.

This is also the old man who built the Red River Valley Reservoir with the German officer team, a young man in his early 30s, who is now in his 40s, and has no merit and hard work.

Li Fushou made up his mind;

When the Central Avenue project is completed, he will be rewarded with the rank of brigadier general, and then a high-ranking medal, and he will be put in the Whampoa Military Academy to retire.

The Whampoa Military Academy can set up a world military strategy research institute, and let Brigadier General Koch be the director, anyway, the level is enough, find time to lead the delegation to Europe for exchanges, go and see where there is a war, and come back to write a report and hand it in, even if the task is completed.