In addition to his curiosity about the East African highlands, Konstantin's visit to Dodom also had reasons for supervising local work, but Konstantin's leisure during his inspection of Dodom did not last long.

April 2, 1871.

A telegram from the city of Lusaka reached Constantine - an uprising broke out among the natives of the Matabele plateau against the rule of the Kingdom of East Africa.

After reading the contents of the telegram, Konstantin's face turned pale, and he gritted his teeth and said to Witt: "It seems that we are still too merciful to the natives of the Matabele plateau, and after this rebellion is put down, we must let the local Ndebele people know what real colonialism is!" ”

Generally speaking, the East African kingdom rarely pays too much attention to the black resistance, most of the indigenous people with extremely primitive weapons are difficult to traumatize the East African army, and even if there is a resistance movement, it is only small-scale, but the Matabele uprising is different, it can almost be said that the entire territory of the Matabele plateau (almost the entire territory of Zimbabwe in the previous life) rebelled, and the main force of the rebellion was the Ndebele people.

The Ndebele are a Zulu people who are not native to Zimbabwe, but a foreign people who entered Zimbabwe after 1837 and enslaved the indigenous people.

He originally lived in the Zulu Kingdom, and the leader was the general under the Zulu King Chaka - Mzilika, around 1822, when Mzilikazi led the army to the north, due to disagreement with Chaka, broke away from Chaka, he led his troops to move to the Transvaal, and conquered the Sutuo and Tswana tribes along the way.

In 1836-1837, he was finally forced to leave the Transvaal due to Boer attacks. The Ndebele crossed the Limpopo River, conquered the Mashona people, occupied a vast area between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers, and established the Kingdom of Matabele, with its capital in Bulawayo.

Thus, the state established by the Ndebele people, like Prussia, was dependent on the army, and its ruling class was a military aristocracy like the Prussian Junker aristocracy, and the social organization was divided according to military needs.

Men are divided into four categories. The first group, known as "Ma Caicai", is teenagers who have not reached the age of conscription, who herd their cattle and receive initial military training. The second group, called "Ma Cha Cha", they were unmarried warriors. A warrior must be meritorious in battle in order to get married. The third category, called "Mantoto", is married warriors. The fourth category, known as the "Intona", is the military chief.

The social structure of the Ndebele people is destined to have a very strong martial character, and the Ndebele people have fought against the Boers and the Portuguese, and they are not the uncivilized natives.

The reason why East Africa was able to quickly seize the Matabele plateau was a leak at that time, because in 1868, the first leader of the Ndebele people, Mzilikazi, died, and in 1869 the entire kingdom of Matabele fell into a chaotic period of competition for the throne, and it was not until 1870 that Mzilika's son Lobengula inherited the throne, and when the East African kingdom invaded the Matabele plateau, it was when the Ndebele people were devastated at a time.

Konstantin: "Sith, you happen to be here, how do you think we should suppress this massive rebellion!" ”

As the chief of the General Staff of the East African Army, Si Te analyzed: "Your Majesty, the military forces we can use at this time are mainly the border troops located in South Salzburg Province on the shores of Lake Malawi, and the military forces in Zambia cannot be changed at will, while our troops in the Matabele Plateau are mainly concentrated on the border with the Transvaal and Mozambique. ”

As the hinterland of East Africa, Zambia's military strength is actually not very strong, that is, it can just suppress the local indigenous people, mainly militia, so it must not be dispatched at will.

East Africa's rule in Zambia is different from the fetter rule in Zimbabwe, it is a tough and repressive rule, relying on the East African plateau as the rear, East Africa is not afraid of the local Zambian indigenous resistance, and can support Zambia from the East African plateau at any time.

Zimbabwe, on the other hand, has adopted a coercive rule in East Africa, that is, giving full power to the local indigenous ruling class to maintain local stability for the time being, and the Kingdom of East Africa will not transform it until Zambia is digested.

As a result, it now seems that the system of fetters is over, which is why Constantine is very angry, the Ndebele uprising is simply a slap in the face, in the hard-line ruling area, the natives do not form a climate, and as a result, in the slightly pleasant areas of East Africa, these natives do not give face to the East African kingdom at all, this is the so-called toast without eating and drinking.

"The troops we have stationed in the Lake Malawi area are used to defend against the Portuguese, and they are mobile and equipped with the best of the best, so now we can quickly suppress the local rebellion by moving south to the Matabele Plateau, and when the information is unblocked, the border troops on the Matabele Plateau can also take the initiative to cooperate with the suppression." ”

The Ndebele uprising broke out almost instantaneously, because its central government still existed, and its monarch Lobengula should have completed the integration of all forces within the kingdom at this time, and the East African forces on the Matabele Plateau were pinned down by Mozambique and the Transvaal on the border, and it was not very strong in the interior, so Lobengula took advantage of the loophole.

Lobengula was a relatively promising monarch, and after Lobengula succeeded to the throne in history, he continued to strengthen the military organization of the Matabel Kingdom and attach importance to army building. He recruited troops from conquered areas to replenish his army. At the same time, the Zulu military training methods were imitated and new firearms were purchased to improve the combat effectiveness of the troops. He also encouraged intermarriage with other tribes and maintained the original social structure of the conquered areas.

This time and space was interrupted by the birth of the Kingdom of East Africa, but now it seems that even though history has changed, Lobengula still relies on his talents and still becomes the respected and convincing leader of the Ndebele people.

After all, the East African Kingdom had never met such a large-scale uprising, and Lobengula was the first indigenous person to impress the East African Kingdom.

However, Konstantin had already decided that this son could not stay, and the great uprising in Ndebele also sounded the alarm bell for Konstantin, reminding him that the annexation of the Hehingen Kingdom to Prussia was also due to popular uprisings.

Konstantin: "Sith, this time it is up to you to personally quell the rebellion, I have the following requirements, remember, first, we must capture Lobengula, a terrorist, to see people alive and corpses to death; secondly, that after the war all the Ndebele people will be seized by me, and I will turn them all into slaves; Third, all those who insisted on resisting should be killed on the spot; Finally, no indigenous people are no longer allowed to join each other, and we rule them separately according to their regions. ”

Konstantin was determined to take the entire Ndebele people to the East African Plateau for the most brutal rule, and let them know the consequences of offending him.

At the same time, the Ndebele uprising also gave itself a warning, absolutely not to let the indigenous form the absolute core, and then the East African Kingdom must destroy the central government of all indigenous forces in the territory to avoid the recurrence of the Ndebele uprising.

For the East African government, the Ndebele uprising was a large-scale rebellion, and the first time East Africa had encountered an indigenous organized and premeditated large-scale rebellion, so it had to strike hard.

(End of chapter)