"Welcome to your friends of the East, and welcome to this dull place to be my company, which lacks almost nothing but gold and diamonds, which we cannot take away."

Major General Smith took the initiative to reach out in a typical London tone, saying regretful words in his mouth, but there was no trace of regret on his face.

Major General Duan Qirui shook his hand with a reserved expression and said; "My dear Excellency, I have brought with you the friendship of the East by order of Your Majesty, and we have always been a staunch ally of the British Empire, no matter how far away."

"That's a great feeling, look there...... I didn't see that lighthouse. Major General Smith pouted, with three points of melancholy and seven points of ostentation;" It was a lighthouse built by the British more than 200 years ago, and during the Age of Discovery, during the monsoon season, the ocean near the Cape of Good Hope was covered with three-story murderous waves that swooped down like towering walls, tearing all the sailing ships that passed by here to pieces, and dozens of sailing ships with dreams of making a fortune sank to the bottom of the sea every year. And this lighthouse bears witness to everything, oh...... Oh my God! Greed is the original sin of mankind, and this is the end of the world, just a line away from hell. ”

"I can understand your mood right now, Mr. General Smith." Duan Qirui replied with a solemn expression, looked back at the white lighthouse standing on the top of the hill, and continued; "When I saw this lighthouse, I thought of the lonely lighthouse in Tasmania, in that hellish place, with endless beautiful scenery but inaccessible, only silently stationed soldiers accompanied by the lighthouse, and the only thing that could accompany the soldiers was their figures, coincidentally...... I set out from Tasmania before I came, which is also known as the end of the world. ”

"Oh...... God, don't say it, it sounds terrible. ”

"Mr General Smith, Tasmania is actually a very beautiful place, with amazing views besides solitude, and I would very much like you to visit."

"Watt, you are crazy, Your Excellency General, if I dare to go to that ghost place, my wife will not hesitate to kill me, and then take my rich family fortune and 350-year-old castle to find a little white face to marry, and spend the rest of my life happily." General Smith's head shook like a rattle.

It's really heart-wrenching to see the way he looks, from the end of one world to the end of another, how crazy does it take for someone to do that?

South Africa has an inexhaustible supply of gold and diamonds, but what does Tasmania have?

Loneliness, terrible loneliness, the soldier is accompanied only by his own figure.

Major General Smith didn't have the slightest idea of trying, let alone Tasmania, he didn't want to go to Australia, God testifies, it was just another world, too far away.

The reason why East Asia is called the "Far East" is because it almost spans more than half the world compared to Europe, and it is in the far east.

To get to the Red River Valley, the capital of Australia, there is a long sea route of more than 6,000 kilometers from the Far East, and the mere thought of it makes people shudder, even if it is paradise, and Major General Smith is not willing to go.

"Your Excellency, don't talk about those frightening topics, on behalf of the commander of the British Expeditionary Force, Admiral Buller, I welcome you, and you can leave here in my Crown car."

Major General Smith brought Major General Duan Qirui to the side of the car, and said with pride in his tone; "The only right decision I've ever made is to bring in this beloved Crown with my family crest engraved on it, and I have a collection of top quality Bordeaux wines, which you'll love."

"Thank you, Your Excellency."

"Please, the grand dinner is ready, let's just have an aperitif in advance, damn the Boers don't have to worry, let's leave the unpleasant and enjoy ourselves, at the end of this damn world."

Major General Smith enthusiastically pulled Duan Qirui into the car, and then, a convoy of cars and carriages headed for Cape Town.

Cape Town, a city with a population of only 2,670,000, was suddenly flooded with more than 25,000 British expeditionary troops, and the whole city suddenly seemed crowded and lively.

These idle soldiers filled the streets, drinking, fighting, molesting women, beating people when they were upset, the local Boers were unlucky, many serious businessmen were robbed by unknown thugs, and many vicious cases occurred.

In the colonies, these British soldiers unleashed their malice in human nature and turned Cape Town into a miasma.

The British Expeditionary Force and the colonial government turned a blind eye to this, and anyway, these GIs still knew in their hearts, and the scourge was all local Boers and blacks, and they rarely touched the British and Europeans, which was not a big deal.

The lads are energetic, just vent and vent.

Since arriving in Cape Town, the officer corps led by Duan Qirui has been mired in a series of lavish banquets and balls.

This experience in South Africa really opened his eyes and deeply realized the pride of the British Imperial Army.

At the reception

Delicacies from all over the world can be eaten on a belly, fine wines, gins, gins, whiskeys and brandies are indulged in with dressed-up women, day in and day out.

On the eve of a reception, Rear Admiral Duan Qirui heard the logistics officer report to Admiral Buhler that several large ships of livestock from Mozambique had been waiting at anchor at sea for two weeks because the port could not unload their cargo in time, and a large number of livestock had died.

Admiral Buller replied unconcernedly; "Then pay them and let these boats hurry back to load, Mozambique is not far away. We need more big livestock to transport supplies, and the rest of the animals are thrown into the sea, which is really disappointing news. ”

Well, it's just a small thing.

Over here

Major General Duan Qirui got acquainted with military delegations from France, Germany, Tsarist Russia, Italy, Austria-Hungary and other countries, with a large number of seven or eight people and a few three or five people, all of whom aimed to observe this contest of bullying the weak from a distance.

In their minds, there is no suspense in this kind of war with a huge disparity in power, and the lion fighting the rabbit is bound to be a one-sided situation, and the war can be ended soon.

So, this is a short holiday trip in southern Africa.

At this time, Cape Town was like a small international event, and representatives of the European powers came to view the war with a critical eye.

Duan Qirui was not surprised to see the German military representatives at the banquet.

Although Germany was said to have formed an alliance with the Boers, Kaiser Wilhelm II was moved by the temptation of Britain to carve up the colonies of Angola, and turned his back on the Boers for the sake of this empty promise.

Therefore, at any time, relying on others is an extravagant hope, and in exchange for only a painful lesson.

If we want to say that the relations between the British and the Boers have developed to this day, a large factor is that Germany has constantly instigated the Boers and the British to work hard behind the scenes, which has led to the deterioration of the situation.

The Germans played a very bad role in it, and as a result, they didn't ask when it came to the end, do you say they were angry?

Germany is the most powerful country in the European army, constantly trying to challenge British hegemony, and after the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the strategic attempt to challenge British hegemony has become more and more undisguised, and it has begun to build a large army to build a high sea fleet, and the two sides have deep grievances.

Germany vigorously encouraged the Boers to work against the British, on the one hand, to make Britain a stumbling block, and on the other hand, to fish in troubled waters and expand its influence in Africa.

Germany's disturbance made the British feel like a fish in their throats.

In the "Janssen Incident" in early 1896, Kaiser Wilhelm II happily sent a telegram congratulating the Transvaal government on its fierce response to the British aggression, which led to a sharp deterioration in Anglo-German relations.

London argues that:

The collusion between the Boers and the Germans seriously damaged British interests in South Africa and shook its financial hegemony, and if British domination in this region could not be guaranteed, Britain's African strategy would be greatly defeated, the sea route from Europe to India would also be threatened, and South Africa's huge gold and diamond resources would be controlled by the Germans, which was the core interest of the British Empire.

Therefore, it was necessary to conquer the Boers and thwart the attempts of the Germans.

The Boers, on the other hand, were naïve enough to use German power to drive the British out of South Africa.

The Transvaal's "Boer Africa" plan, an attempt to recover the lands that the British had taken from the Boers for 250 years, seems like a fantasy at all times.

Self-confidence is good, but overconfidence is arrogance.

In order to concentrate its efforts against the British, the Transvaal concluded a treaty of friendship and permanent alliance with Orange in 1897, and in the same year, the Boers signed a military alliance treaty with Germany, and from 1895 to 1898, Germany provided the Boers with large quantities of arms, including advanced Krupp artillery and 50,000 rifles.

The two sides sharpened their knives and prepared for battle.

London knows; To fight the Boers, it was first necessary to break up the military alliance between the Germans and the Boers.

While the Boers and Britain were getting more and more at a standstill, the British secretly negotiated with Germany, the Boer backer.

In 1898, Britain and Germany entered into secret negotiations on the condition that they would join Germany in carving up the Portuguese colony of Angola on the condition that Germany no longer support the Boers.

Therefore, the interests of the weak are always betrayed.

The British tempted the Germans with the Portuguese colony of Angola, and the Portuguese had nothing to do. Germany reneged on its military alliance with the Boers, and the Boers had nothing to do.

In this way, Germany was bought.

It has to be said that Kaiser Wilhelm II was still too young to easily believe the promises of the treacherous and cunning British, and the whole of Europe knew it;

London's promises are as fickle as a child's face, and if you don't admit it, you won't admit it.

Within two weeks of Duan Qirui's good days in Cape Town, the situation in South Africa took a turn for the worse.

The Boers are not stupid, on the contrary, they are smart.

They saw through the British plot to negotiate and gain time, and at the same time constantly dispatched troops to South Africa to prepare for the solution of the South African problem by force, so they resolutely preempted the attack.

On 9 October 1899, the Transvaal government issued an ultimatum to Britain, demanding that Britain cease to increase its troop build-up to South Africa, withdraw all troops that had arrived in South Africa after 1 June, and submit all disputed issues to international diplomatic arbitration with a deadline of 48 hours for reply.

On 10 October, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain sent a telegram to Cape Prime Minister Milner to reject the conditions offered by the Boers.

At five o'clock in the afternoon of October 11, 1899, the Federal Parliaments of the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State declared war on Great Britain, and the Second Boer War broke out.