Li Yong did not expect the other party to return so quickly, and the two sides quickly reached an agreement on relevant matters and initialed a secret agreement.

The town of Ed sent a considerable number of black coolies to take back hundreds of lightly and seriously wounded on stretchers, and properly settled them in the town, and the care of the wounded could only be done by the Italians themselves.

Holding this batch of disarmed wounded in his hand is equivalent to holding a pigtail in his hand, which makes Li Yong feel confident that Morgada has arrived nine times out of ten, and there is no need to worry about the other party's remorse.

Once this matter is discovered, it will be a shocking scandal, which can make the Count de Santis and the top officials of the Italian African Expeditionary Force disgraced and discredited.

A few days after that

Serious incidents of banditry continued to occur in the farms and pastoral areas around the town of Moldada, and the black indigenous people and some masked horse bandits ravaged the countryside, killing the Italians who settled here, and even affecting the town of Moldada, which caused great panic among the local Italian diaspora.

At the instigation of people with good intentions, the more relevant rumors spread, the more terrifying they became;

What is the cruel revenge of the black tribes of Tigray, it is said that there is a shadow of the rebels of the Kingdom of Ethiopia, and it is possible to bloody the town of Molghada, where the defense is empty.

Fearful, two-thirds of the Italian expatriates fled the area in wagons with their belongings and moved to towns in the central region of Eritrea.

A week later

The Count de Santis arrived at the town of Morghada with an army of 1,600 men, with less than 100 Italian expatriates left in the town, and after a short rest of two days, the army withdrew along the only passage to the central district, and then sealed the mountain passage.

Somali militias soon took over the area, and a large number of black coolies began to build forts in the steep mountains in full swing.

Soon after, good news came that excited all the Italian people.

Negotiators sent by the Kingdom of Italy and Emperor Menelik II of Ethiopia formally signed the Treaty of Usali, which united the northern part of the Kingdom of Ethiopia occupied by Italian troops with the Eritrean colony.

On the map of the merged overseas provinces of the Kingdom of Italy, the town of Morghada mysteriously disappeared......

More than two months later

End of June 1889

The cruiser Naniwa, which is part of the African fleet, arrived at the port of Modada, and a grand welcome ceremony was held on the pier, with dragon and lion dances and stilt walking.

Wu Mozhou, the commander of the African Expeditionary Force, Rear Admiral Mo Rufeng, the commander of the African Fleet, Commodore Zhu Qingxi, the commander of the African Fleet, Gu Kaizhi, a senior Somali official, and Colonel Lei Xiaopeng, the governor of the garrison, and other high-ranking officials came down from the warship with a group of attachés.

Firecrackers rang out on the pier, and cheers were endless.

Not seen for a few years

Wu Mozhou's figure has gained a lot, his skin is tanned by the strong African sun, he looked around the bay surrounded by mountains with great interest and said;

"The environment here is very beautiful, and the climate is quite good, so I think it's a good place to focus on development."

"Yes, Lord Chief, the climate here is much better than that of Xi'an, and it is an area that our Somali Province is preparing to focus on for the next step, and I hope to give it a lot of support." Gu Kaizhi, a high-ranking Somali official, hit a snake with a stick and took the opportunity to make a request.

"Hahaha...... Brother Kaizhi, the support is certain, but it may not meet your requirements. Wu Mozhou laughed, looked at Li Yong and the others accompanying him, and said with deep meaning;

"The palms and backs of the hands are full of meat, and I also hope that Somali Province will develop faster and better, but the resources given by the Red Fort are so much, you still have to mobilize more civil forces to participate in the construction of towns, this is the land of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, not to mention anything else, it is enough for our big boss Li's fingers to leak."

"Where, where...... Humble and honest. Li Yong hurriedly stepped forward and bowed.

"Mayor Li, you don't need to worry about the tree, I'm here to reassure you." Wu Mozhou said a reassuring sentence with a kind expression, and then his face turned straight, and he saluted to the east with both hands and fists; "When the Earl knew of what you had done, he said it himself;

All the benevolent heroes who have the idea of their homeland in China and the waves of Buwei are all good men of China, especially Li Yong as a model, and are specially awarded the title of "Honorary Knight" for encouragement.

The Earl has specially appointed me to confer the medal on my behalf, and no matter where I go, I must keep in mind the blood flowing in my body and not disgrace it. ”

The surprise came too suddenly, and in the envious eyes of everyone, Li Yong knelt on one knee facing the east and touched his chest with his right hand to show humility.

Wu Mozhou took out the gold knight medal of honor to help him pin it to his chest, and in the thunderous applause of the surrounding people, Li Yong stood up with a red face to accept the congratulations.

"Knight of Honor" is a lifetime title, although not a nobleman, but it is not a rare thing, but it is not a matter of rarity, and only 10 places are awarded to the Red Fort every year, each of whom is a person who has made significant contributions in various fields, and can receive great honor.

According to British tradition, the word "knight" should be added to the name of the recipient as a sign of honor.

This is a necessary condition for entering the top circle of overseas Chinese, and there is no title of "jazz" behind the name, and there is no confidence in speaking.

This little episode of the award made the welcoming atmosphere on the pier even more enthusiastic, it was really a noisy gong and drum, flags were waving, and the sound of firecrackers was deafening.

After a brief speech to the welcoming crowd on the pier, Wu Mozhou boarded the carriage and headed down the smooth road towards the town of Molghada.

Located about 4.5 km from the port and in a valley surrounded by mountains, the town of Morghada is a town with late Italian Renaissance architecture, mostly stone buildings, towering houses and minarets with a strong Mediterranean atmosphere.

There were already more than 3,000 Chinese immigrants in the town, most of them veterans and their families who had followed Li Yong, many of whom came from well-to-do families.

Compared to the hot climate of Xi'an, the cool and pleasant plateau climate of Moldada is more livable, so Chinese immigrants quickly fell in love with it.

Li Yong really used this place as a base camp to build, and he donated a large amount of money to build a wide road and Taoist temple, a city god temple, and a town office in the town, so the town is full of construction sites, presenting a scene in the ascendant.

Morghada is a small town after all, and the time it has been in hand for too short is that there is almost no decent place to receive it, and Li Yong is now living in a small building abandoned by Italian expatriates, the conditions are quite simple, far less luxurious than the Xi'an-City Manor.

The tallest building in the town is naturally the church, and Wu Mozhou and his party of high-ranking officials stayed here and settled down temporarily.

Of course, their trip was not for sightseeing, but for the proposed fortress to be built, "Humen Pass", to conduct on-the-spot investigation and demonstration.

The province of Somalia was threatened by the Italian army, and after the signing of the Treaty of Usali, the Kingdom of Italy officially launched a plan for large-scale migration to the region, and put forward an ambitious infrastructure construction concept to build this vast colony into an Italian overseas province.

In just over two months

More than 31,000 Italians landed on this African soil, and they poured into towns and villages to enclose land, planning to build thousands of kilometers of roads, canals, railways and other facilities, and planned to build towns and cities on a large scale, and open up plantations and pastures......

Completely predictable

The Italians would inflate the land like a balloon, and the Kingdom of Italy would be more inclined to guide the lower classes of landless peasants to migrate to the Ethiopian colonies than to migrate to the distant American continent.

It is closer to mainland Europe, from mainland Italy across the Mediterranean Sea into the Suez Canal, and the steamer enters the Red Sea for a day and a night before arriving in Ethiopia.

The Irish, Germans and Italians are the three main forces of European immigration to the United States, especially the middle and lower classes of Italian people, who are very keen to go to distant North America to realize their land dreams, and the average annual loss of population is 200,000 or 300,000.

As a traditional agricultural and population exporting country in Europe, the Kingdom of Italy is keen to encourage people to migrate to Africa, and the government has launched ambitious investment plans, which is very worrying to the African governor.

It was against this background that the Humen Pass Fortress Plan was introduced, with the aim of taking advantage of the natural geographical conditions to contain the Italian influence in the area west of Moldada.

Who exactly does the Eritrean region belong to? If you really want to talk about this matter, you have to blame London for "one woman marrying two husbands".

Think back to the beginning

When Britain demarcated the boundaries of its Somali colony, it included the entire Eritrean region, which was tacitly under Queensland's possession.

But it didn't take long for the Downing Street cabinet to change several times, and the original policy was greatly deviated, and London secretly acquiesced to Italy's acquisition of this African colony, and then clapped its hands and left it alone.

This has created a complicated situation in which each side has its own side and one side is far from each other.

In this era of the jungle, the Red Fort did not expect London to stand up for itself at all, and the Humen Pass Fortress plan was a measure to make up for the loss of the sheep and keep the enemy out of the country.

In the foreseeable future, it will not be possible for the Red Fort to develop the area on a large scale, let alone compete with the Kingdom of Italy for investment and resources.

The focus of the Red Fort colony is not here at all, but in Mozambique, and the only strategically important area of Somalia is the island of Great Hanish, which is the most important.

Therefore, the construction of a fortress-type pass to separate the two sides and protect the vast soft hinterland of Somali province is a very realistic option and the only reliable measure.

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