After Franz's questioning, it became clear that the let chiefs had not fulfilled their promises, and they had taken advantage of the opportunity to help build the port with the intention of wiping out the Austrian troops who had remained in Togo.

Of course, the Austrian soldiers saw through the attempts of these indigenous advance troops to infiltrate with their sidearms, so the chiefs, who were hiding behind and observing, simply revealed their true colors, and they directly sent large forces to try to break through the Austrian defenses with the superiority of their forces.

It's just that those natives who have not experienced it firsthand know nothing about the horror of naval guns, and in the baptism of fire of eight battleships, solid iron balls fly all over the sky, and the place where they pass is a blur of flesh and blood.

What's even funnier is that the natives didn't choose to flee, but simply surrendered with the head of their chief. By this point, all seven tribes in southern Togo had surrendered, and they unanimously demanded that a white man be their chieftain.

"Surrender to the enemy on the battlefield?" Friedrich thought it was ridiculous.

"No? This is called a battlefield uprising, or more precisely, it is to abandon darkness and turn to light. Franz corrected.

"And this dock is all made by natives?" Friedrich was somewhat incredulous.

"Yes, Archduke Friedrich. Colonel Morrison supervised those built by the Aborigines. Captain Parrish, who was in charge of the stay-behind guard, said.

"The quality of this project is still okay, well, for your sake, Morrison, you can stay and be the chief of them." Friedrich said half-jokingly.

Morrison studied architecture at university, but his father wanted his second son to have a better future and sent him to the Navy.

Morrison is a typical Austrian, and that is, he does not do his job. A naval colonel who does not want to be a chieftain, is not a good architect.

The talents of these people are all chaotic, just like Austria of the land power has never lacked naval geniuses. The river armies beat the Barbary pirates who were rampant in Europe, and the regular knights could not defeat the peasants who revolted.

"Okay, Archduke Friedrich, I will follow your orders and build this place into the best port in West Africa!" Morrison gave Friedrich a military salute very solemnly.

"I" Friedrich didn't want to take such a big pot, but his words were interrupted by Franz.

"Congratulations, Mr. Morrison. You've finally found something you're willing to dedicate your life to. ”

"I will use my actions to prove that your decision is not wrong." Morrison swore solemnly again.

"Has the mastermind behind the scenes been found out?" Franz was actually quite curious about who was behind the trouble.

Morrison and Parrish shook their heads, the natives couldn't tell at all, they only knew that the attack had been negotiated by the chiefs before.

However, in that great war, almost all those who knew the secrets died, and later crucified those who had supported them in order to eliminate the influence left by the chiefs.

The tribes of southern Togo are very weak, and the long years of slave hunting wars, coupled with the recent major wars, have left the indigenous population of the entire southern part of Togo to less than 50,000.

With the completion of the Togo protection agreement, Franz's trip to West Africa was a success.

If all goes well, in six months' time Austria will be able to receive its first cotton from the colonies.

The importance of cotton is far greater than most people think.

Cotton not only supports the textile industry of this era, but also plays an immeasurable role in the medical, military, and people's livelihood fields in the future.

During this period, the textile industry has become the most important industry, and the amount of cotton processed by a country can directly reflect the strength of that country.

What do you think is a sinful plantation economy, what are those black slaves? That's right, except for cane sugar is cotton!

By this time, the sugar business was long gone, and according to the Americans, it was an era of black and white (black for opium, white for cotton). ）

Historically, in 1840, the Austrian Empire produced 1 million spindles of cotton cloth, France 3 million spindles, Britain 15 million spindles, and the German states 1.2 million spindles, of which Saxony produced 600,000 spindles.

This is why Saxony is only one-third of its original territory, and it still dares to argue with Prussia.

At this time (the world line in the book), the Austrian Empire produced 1.5 million spindles of cotton cloth, as the textile industry was supported by Mexican cotton, and at the same time opened up the markets of Germany and Italy.

France's cotton cloth reached 3.6 million spindles, although it suffered heavy losses in Egypt, but it unexpectedly gained Texas cotton production, and a large amount of cheap cotton poured into France to promote the development of the textile industry.

In fact, at this time, Austria's industrial capacity was not weaker than that of France, and machinery manufacturing alone was the first in Europe, and even Saxony (the German states and Italian states also used Austrian looms, but the amount was not large. The textile machines used are all made in Austria.

But the Austrian Empire produced only 1.5 million spindles of cotton cloth, not for other reasons or because there was not enough cotton.

Britain and France ate 84% of the cotton shipped to Europe, and the rest of Europe could only eat the leftovers of Britain and France.

At this time, the world's largest cotton supplier is the United States, which is actually the dog leg of the British, and may conspire with it to raise the price of cotton at any time to impose sanctions on a certain country, or even directly cut off supply, which is quite a bad feeling of being stuck.

During the same period, Brazil and Mexico together produced about 3% of the cotton produced in the United States. In these two countries, Mexico has been in war for many years, coupled with the lack of human resources, small planting area, market and many other reasons, so that the cotton industry has never formed a scale.

Brazil, like the United States, had a slave plantation economy, but due to management problems, cotton yields in Brazil were very low.

Moreover, the local plantation owners in Brazil are very lazy or abnormal, for example, Franz has been importing rubber from him many times, but the speed of his expansion of production capacity still cannot keep up with the demand, and he would rather send slave workers to pick wild rubber than expand his production capacity.

Egypt was once close to 10% of the United States, but cotton cultivation suffered a major blow due to the war and the loss of power of the Ali government.

Local farmers don't believe in cotton, they don't trust money, they believe in food that can be eaten. As a result, large cotton fields became a food base, which was very frustrating to the French, but it had little impact on the British, who did not depend on Egyptian cotton.

At the same time, there is no excellent cotton producing area in the whole of Europe, and only a small part of southern Spain and some parts of southern Greece are suitable for cotton growth, which not only has low yields, but also poor quality, which is completely different from the long-staple cotton grown in Africa.

Cotton is not only a cotton cloth, but also a strategic material.

Nitrocellulose is an important raw material for the famous smokeless gunpowder in the future, nitrocellulose with low nitrogen content is used to make spray paint, artificial leather, film, plastic, ink, etc.

The value of smokeless gunpowder, presumably everyone knows very well, it is the second widely used explosive after black powder, without it, even modern warfare cannot be carried out.

There is a strong demand for high-quality cotton in any powerful country, and there is no sustainable war without it.

With the development of modern medicine and the popularization of the concept of disinfection and sterilization by human beings, the consumption of cotton in medical treatment will also increase exponentially.

The development of light industry is also inseparable from cotton

The low yield of cotton in modern Africa is due to many reasons such as low input, small planting area, lack of basic water conservancy facilities, management negligence, and deterioration of varieties, not that this land is not suitable for cotton cultivation.

If the Austrian Empire wanted to become a real power, it had to break through the limitations of cotton, so a colonization plan for West Africa was necessary.

Thanks to the book friend 202210140011311291 for the reward, today's jungler trip to Africa is over, and tomorrow I will write about Europe.

(End of chapter)