In the middle of the 16th century, Burundi had established a kingdom. The Tutsis, who lived by herding, came here to establish their rule over the local Hutus peasants.

In the mid-17th century, the Kingdom of Burundi began to expand outward, and by the first half of the 19th century, King Ntal Rugaamba had unified most of Burundi and occupied parts of present-day southern Rwanda and western Tanzania. However, the kingdom failed to establish a centralized system of rule and remained fragmented for a long time.

The central and western parts of Burundi are dominated by highland terrain, and the terrain between them and the East African colonies is basically flat.

The main force responsible for the defense of the Kingdom of Burundi was the East African army and militia stationed in the Lake Solon region, i.e. the western sector of the Great Lakes to Lake Solon defensive line.

In order to command the front more flexibly, the colonial government of East Africa established the Northwest Wartime Command at Cassanda (geographical name).

Yarman personally sat here to deal with the front-line affairs, and based on prior intelligence analysis, Yarman decided to attack Burundi and Karawi first.

The Kingdom of Burundi is scattered, with many princes and warlords, while the Kingdom of Karawi has few small people, especially in the previous "purge" movement, which has been hit the hardest, so it is in a half-dead state.

Both kingdoms were devastated and further divided by the onslaught of the Eastern Bantu tribes.

Therefore, Yarman believed that these two countries could be taken at the same time, and the main forces of the East African army were also divided into two by Yarman, who were responsible for the combat missions in the two countries, and the two main armies finally converged on the border of the Kingdom of Igala and the Kingdom of Rwanda.

……

May 3, 1868.

The East African colonies invaded the Kingdom of Burundi and the Kingdom of Karawi without declaring war, and the East African army crossed directly across the temporary borders.

At first, the East African soldiers still thought that a big war would break out, because this mobilization of the East African colonies was unprecedented, plus extraterritorial operations, so it should be a tough battle.

But the reality is different from what the East African government expected, and in Burundi and the southern part of the Karaoui Kingdom, the East African army has not encountered decent resistance, and even human figures are difficult to see.

Aggression is nothing more than killing, burning, and looting, but the East African army is faced with a situation in which there is no robbery in the territory of the two countries, and there must be resistance to killing, and plundering the population is not the goal of the East African government, and it is the established policy of East Africa to drive out the indigenous population.

The last "purge" campaign worked so well that throughout Burundi and southern Karavi, the East African army seemed to be left in a no-man's land.

In three days, the East African army on the Western Front advanced more than 100 kilometers, and there were very few natives along the way, and the villages were abandoned, but in the dense forests, there were many natives fleeing the war in the suburbs.

When encountering the East African army, count these natives as unlucky, among these natives are the East Bantu people who were driven out by East Africa before, and after seeing the East African army, they immediately ran away.

The natives of the Kingdom of Burundi had never seen the power of the East African army, and they stayed in the local area in a daze, and they were subjected to the iron fist of the East African army.

Even the militia was able to crush the natives with their superiority in weapons, and the natives reacted after a burst of fire, and began to flee north in panic.

It can be said that ninety-nine percent of the natives of Burundi and the Karaoui Kingdom have never seen any race other than blacks, let alone a hot weapon such as firearms.

The active Arabs and some European explorers in the northwest may have carried some advanced weapons, but the groups they basically deal with are the princes and nobles of the indigenous kingdoms of Africa, such as the Arabs, who choose to cooperate with the indigenous forces even if they are involved in the slave trade, and generally do not end up in person, especially in such a deep inland area.

And European explorers, in fact, are not a good thing in this era, most of them are funded by European capitalists and nobles, so to speak, the reconnaissance team of the invaders, they want to obtain first-hand information about Africa, and naturally communicate with African chiefs, kings, etc.

Although the results along the way were minimal, the East African army did nothing, such as burning abandoned villages, and the entire East African control area was in ruins for a while.

The main reason is that the indigenous people really don't have any good things, plus the land was abandoned in the war before, and even the valuable product of food was not produced, and those bottles and cans of East African soldiers couldn't look down on it, so they simply lit a fire, and they could prevent the breeding of plagues, and no one knew what these villages had experienced before, and whether they were clean or not.

Bujumbura (city in northern Tanganyika).

"Alas, I thought that such a stirring army would definitely encounter a large-scale war, but as a result, this indigenous kingdom is inferior to the tribes of the East African steppes in my opinion! I met a few birdmen in so many days. Haisheng Li and his comrades-in-arms complained.

"Isn't that just right! You just want to fight so much, and now you rush every day, set fires, and shoot twice when you encounter the natives, but you have to fight to the death with the natives in such a comfortable life? John Zhang said to Lao Li.

"Desperate? I think only he lives or dies, with the gun in his hand, I Lao Li has never been cowardly, which time is not easy to solve the other party. Haisheng Li proudly touched the gun in his hand and said.

"That's because you haven't met a ruthless man, what kind of weapons are these natives holding, and the shovels in my house are stronger than the native's spears (spears)." John Chang said.

"Isn't it that they don't? If they also have muskets, then I will naturally weigh who let them not have this guy's business. Lao Li said.

"It also bullied the indigenous backwardness, wasn't the Qing country bullied by the foreigners like this?" John Chang said.

"Hey, don't mention anything to me about the Qing Kingdom, from top to bottom, the emperor Lao'er and the local landlords and old wealth, there is no good thing, the reincarnation of the past is definitely a sin created in the previous life, it is better to be born directly in Germany in this circle!" Lao Li said.

"Heh, it may not be very good to be born in Germany in this era, look at the group of Austro-Hungarian immigrants in our team, they didn't live a hard life before, and they are stronger than the Far East." John Chang said.

"You can't say that, people are poor, and their waists are hard! With the support of Germany and Austria-Hungary behind him, he speaks tougher than us. Lao Li retorted.

"What are you afraid of, we are also Germans now, I heard the people who went back to the Far East to recruit people, wearing this body, we are also individuals in the Far East, those landlords and old wealth, town mayors and county magistrates, we must also greet each other with courtesy." John Chang said.

"Besides, Prince Constantine and Prince Ernst have repeatedly stated that there is no ethnic distinction in East Africa, as long as they recognize the sign of Germany, they are Germans......"

(This is a dialogue plot made up against the backdrop of the time, mainly to reflect the changing mentality of immigrants, please do not substitute for the modern era.) ）

……

Oruchi Reis looked gloomily at another abandoned village, which, judging by its size, was likely to be an important city in the Indigenous Kingdom.

Because it was several times larger than the other villages, the city was at best a larger village by the standards of Oruch Reis and the rest of the group, whether in the Far East or in Europe.

But in backward Africa, it is very likely to be the central city of the region, or even the fief of the princes and nobles.

Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi, is not special in Burundi, and the Germans colonized it in the past, and ruled the Burundi region as the center, and Burundi inherited the status of the capital after independence.

A team of more than 300 men led by Oruchi Reis made its way north along the eastern shore of Lake Soren (Lake Tanganyika).

The shores of Lake Solon were definitely a densely populated area of the Kingdom of Burundi in the past, but Oruchi Reis didn't see many people along the way.

And according to the speed of the team led by Oruchi Reis, if they can't meet the natives with some strength, they will be able to reach the border of the Kingdom of Rwanda in a few days.

The entire Burundi theater of operations, which extends about 100 miles forward, is already connected to the Great Lakes region of the East African colony (Burundi is further south than the Kingdom of Karavi).

It is exactly the northernmost point of Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) and the southwest corner of the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), the area south of the straight line.

The East African army in the Karawi Kingdom mainly has two offensive directions, one is directly north, all the way to the border between Buganda and the Karawi Kingdom.

One way is to advance to the northwest, to the direction of the Igala Kingdom, this way is the main force of the Karawi Kingdom war zone, and the army to the north is mainly to prevent the Buganda Kingdom from interfering in the south, with the goal of defense.

From Bujumbura in the far west, all the way to the junction of the Kingdom of Karawi to the Kingdom of Buganda at the junction of the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria).

The East African army formed a straight line from northeast to southwest, slowly eroding the four northwestern countries from southeast to northwest.

The team led by Oluch Reis, the westernmost of the East African army, is currently resting in Bujumbura, and Lao Li and John Chang are the Chinese immigrant soldiers in this team.

Oruch Reis's team was improvised, with more than 40 regular troops, mainly Chinese, because the Austro-Constitutional immigrants and German immigrants arrived relatively late, so the number in the army was relatively small, especially the immigrants from the German region (mainly referring to Germany) have only been introduced into the colonies in large numbers in recent months, so there are fewer people entering the army.

The new introduction of German immigrants was mainly used to dilute the proportion of the population within each settlement and to strengthen the spread of German culture.

At present, with the addition of Austro-Hungarian immigrants, the Pan-German nation has actually gained the upper hand (Europeans are collectively referred to as the Pan-German nation, and the Chinese who intermarry with whites are classified as mixed race and used to divide the Chinese community, of course, these are statistical concepts, and are not used as official documents of the East African government). Coupled with educational, administrative guidance, East Africa is accelerating Germanization.

The first German mercenaries, with the exception of non-combat attrition and a few unlucky ones, were already serving in the military and government offices of the East African colonies.

Orucci Reis was one of the German mercenaries who followed Yarman to the East African colonies.

(End of chapter)