"The Zulus are coming! Assemble! ”

"Woo......"

I don't know how many times this month, the Transvaal Republic General Andris roared angrily.

This time it was a small force of the Zulu kingdom that also carried firearms, like the Ndebele people, and launched an attack on the Boers.

When the Boers finally gathered, as a trumpet sounded on the opposite side, the Zulu army, well-trained, began to retreat.

Andris could only watch as the Zulu army retreated and pursued, but no one dared to give this order, because the Zulus on the opposite side were a group of sinister natives, and they must not have held their fart.

For the Boers, life is getting harder and harder, the most important thing is that the pressure on national defense is getting heavier and heavier, the little Zulu Kingdom is becoming more and more provocative, and with the British on their side, it is difficult for the Boers to inflict any heavy damage on the Zulu Kingdom, and even fight more and more conservatively.

The hatred between the Boers and the Zulus can be said to have been settled since they met, and in fact neither was the owner of the land, the Boers went north, while the Zulus went south, so that the two forces met head-on in the Natal region.

The original owners of the Natal region were the Ndebele people, who were completely defeated by East Africa, and the Ndebele people were of the same ancestry as the Zulu people, but because of the invasion of the Zulu kingdom, the two sides fought a bloody war in the Natal region.

The outcome was not yet known, but the Boers who had gone north dealt a fatal blow to the Ndebele people.

The Boers heading north had to face the Ndebele on the border with the Cape colony, but a series of attacks went well.

Soon after the start of the war, they united with the rival tribes of the Ndebele and launched a daring raid on their capital, plundering many old and weak women, children, livestock, cattle and horses.

The king of the Ndebele was at war with the Zulu kingdom and was discouraged by the sudden blow. He led his entire tribe across the Limpopo River to the north to escape the Zulu and Boer attacks.

This is also the reason for the establishment of the kingdom of Matabele in Zimbabwe, compared with the Zulu people and the Boers, the Ndebele people are definitely the most unlucky, and the Matabele kingdom of the Ndebele people has just flourished, but it encountered the East African kingdom that went south, and gave the Ndebele people the final blow, and the entire tribe became captives.

After the Ndebele people retreated, the Boer colonists established the first Natal colony on the land left by the Ndebele people, and appointed governors, militia commanders, etc.

The Governor of Natal, Retif, also wrote to the Zulu king in the north, Dingang, asking for permission for the Boers to settle on farms on land close to the Zulu border. Ding Gang replied that if Retifu could help Zulu recover the 700 cattle stolen by the nomads, he would agree to the Boers' request.

Subsequently, Retief helped the Zulu king recover the lost cattle as agreed, and the latter signed a land transfer treaty with the governor in the capital city of Mganggandelovu. However, at the celebratory banquet, the Zulu king suddenly attacked and ordered the guards to disarm Retif and his guards, and they all stabbed them to death with short spears.

The Zulu Field Army, which was ready to attack, was also immediately dispatched to launch an all-out assault on the unstable Boer colony. All Boer farms and forts were destroyed, several camps were attacked at night, and even the port of Durban, the only outlet to the sea, was captured. More than 500 women, children, and children were killed, leaving the remaining survivors in danger and waiting in the camp to fight.

At a critical moment, the Boer farmers wrote to Pretolius, the commander of the militia in the Cape colony. He was asked to take on the responsibility of leading the Boers against the Zulu kingdom, and to lead the Boer militia remaining in the Cape to aid the Natal region.

At this time, civil strife broke out in the Zulu Kingdom, and Ding Gang's younger brother Mpanda led 17,000 soldiers to set up his own door because he was afraid that the other party would murder him. This allowed Pretorius to concentrate on Tingang and support Mpanda as an ally in the war.

The two sides fought a decisive battle at the Encomm River. Armed with an old naval gun and a marine gun, Pretorius' men repelled each wave of the offensive by firing grapeshot.

A small number of Zulus attempted to bypass the Enkam River and attack the chariots from behind, but were also met with continuous fire from the colonizers.

Since the Boers often fed the black slaves with meat obtained from hunting, almost everyone was a master shooter. Even the slaves who followed them had a high level of proficiency in carrying guns.

In addition, the rifle itself has a range twice that of the Zulu spear, killing the Black Samurai in groups in the Enkam River.

As the battle dragged on to dusk and the Boers ran out of ammunition, the desperate Pretorius led 300 Boer cavalry to launch a counter-charge against the Zulus.

Under the brave onslaught of the Boers under the leadership of Pretorius, the Zulu black warriors were exhausted and scattered, unable to organize an effective offensive again.

More Zulu warriors were driven into the Nkam River and killed, staining the entire Nkam River with blood, creating the so-called "Battle of the Blood River", a battle that went down in history.

In the end, 3,000 people fell on the battlefield, and only one was killed on the side of the Boer colonists, and the Zulu kingdom, which had always been arrogant, had to flee in disgrace.

The Battle of the Blood River also decided the ownership of the Natal region, and the Zulu Kingdom, which had been completely dominant, began to fall into passivity.

The Boer convoy arrived in the capital of the Zulu Kingdom and found that Ding Gang had already led the entire city to abandon the city and flee north. They supported the Zulu prince Mpanda as king, allowed the Boers to settle in Natal, and paid 10,000 kilograms of ivory to Pretorius as an indemnity. He then led an army to pursue the fleeing King Ding Gang, forcing him to be killed by the guards after fleeing into Eswatini.

However, the good days of the Boers did not last long, and although they defeated the Zulu kingdom, the British took a fancy to the colony of Natal.

The British invaded the Republic of Natalia on the grounds that the Boers had violated the rights of the Zulus, and in 1843 the defeated Boers marched inland again, finally breaking the defenses of the Zulu Kingdom and establishing the Transvaal Republic and the Orange Free State in 1852.

The two tigers competed, the British benefited, and the Zulus, with the support of the British, also began to shake off their disadvantage and frequently launched counterattacks against the Transvaal Republic.

The Transvaal Republic was harassed by the Zulu Kingdom almost every day, and the small wars never stopped, and the main forces of the Transvaal Republic army had to be concentrated in the southeast to counter the Zulu Kingdom provocations.

As for the huge East African kingdom in the north, at first the Transvaal Republic was also startled by the newcomers of the Germans, but after getting along for so long, they found that the Germans had no intention of doing anything, but instead started trading with themselves, and slowly let down their vigilance, but the Boers were still afraid that the Germans would be the same virtue as the English livestock, so they supported the defeated generals of the former Ndbele, and this also laid the root of their own demise.

(End of chapter)