According to the plan he devised himself, Samuel calmly carried out surgical operations on the Abyssinian Empire, trying to take advantage of the division of the Abyssinian Empire to pry about 60,000 to 70,000 square kilometers of land in the southeast from the territory of the Abyssinian Empire.

This area contains about a quarter of the high-quality arable land of Ethiopia in the past, which is now completely undeveloped.

"General! This is a telegram from China. ”

The Signal Corps sent telegrams from Egypt by ship to Desai and delivered them to Samuel.

Samuel read the telegram with a frown the whole time.

Sapetto, the boss of the Rubatino Company, noticed Samuel's expression and asked, "Your Excellency, General! What orders did the government give? ”

Samuel shook his head and said, "Not really, but some people in the country think that my current actions are too timid, and I am not active enough to deal with indigenous countries like the Abyssinian Empire." ”

Sapeto was a little nervous, and he said, "Don't they know how much they have withheld?" It took us two or three months just to ensure the food supply of the troops with limited funds, and now we are daunted! ”

Samuel: "It's not a big deal, I expected that some people in the country would not be able to sit still, especially after we took the city of Desai. ”

Although Samuel was only able to gain a foothold in the Abyssinian Empire after the occupation of Desai, a large area of land between the port of Assab and Desai, including the land north of the Great Rift Valley (south of which belonged to the military town of Dredeva in East Africa), was already included in the territory of the Kingdom of Italy, which was dominated by deserts and a small number of grasslands, but also covered an area of more than 50,000 square kilometers.

The Kingdom of Italy now covers just over 200,000 square kilometres, and the number of areas occupied by Samuel alone is enough to excite the vast majority of people, although many of them are barren lands unsuitable for human habitation.

Sapeto: "It seems that they have forgotten the lessons of the original Italian-Austrian war, and started a war rashly without understanding the movements of Austria-Hungary, only to be met head-on by the elite troops of Austria-Hungary, and the Abyssinian Empire is not the existence that can be defeated with one blow in their eyes." ”

In the past few months, Sapeto has followed Samuel, and he has learned how difficult it is for the Arabs to deal with, and the more backward the Arabs, the more difficult it is to deal with. Fortunately, General Samuel strategized and handled it properly, and every step of the decision could predict the movements of the natives, smash the natives' plots one by one, carry out sneak attacks, and the guerrilla warfare had no way to take Samuel, but instead lost his troops, and when Samuel's army was dispatched during the day, encircled and suppressed the villages, and even carried out extermination activities, Samuel didn't care about the resistance or the good people, he only knew that the soil on which the guerrillas relied for their survival was these villages rooted in the desert.

Although the Abyssinian Empire is dominated by Orthodox Christianity, it can fight the Arabs for so many years, it must not be weak, and the Ottoman Empire in its heyday has no way to take the divided Abyssinian Empire.

Samuel: "There is no way to do it, I have received the news that the future kingdom may send troops to attack the Abyssinian Empire from the north, and they have already negotiated with Egypt to attack the Abyssinian Empire from the north through Eritrea (Latin, Red Sea, as Italy calls this region, which means land on the Red Sea coast). ”

Sapeto smiled directly: "They want to attack the Tigray region directly!" ”

Samuel was also infected and laughed, and teased, "Maybe they don't know what Tigray is." ”

As the core of Abyssinia, the Tigray region has always been the most economically developed and armed region of the Abyssinian Empire, and the capital Axum is also located here, and Johannes IV was in charge of the northern defense when he was the commander-in-chief of the northern fortress, dealing with the Egyptian army for many years.

So Tigray concentrated a large number of people and troops in the Abyssinian Empire, which is why Samuel avoided the more affluent north and bet in the south.

The remaining greatest threat to Samuel was the kingdom of Shoa on the southern shore of Lake Tana (the largest lake in the Ethiopian plateau) in the Abyssinian Empire in the west, but the kingdom of Shoa and the north were holding each other back, and they were also afraid that the north would take the opportunity to go south, so they chose passive defense.

Historically, the Kingdom of Shoa was originally an ally of the Kingdom of Italy, and Menelic II was able to successfully unify the country, and Italy made great efforts, but in the end, Menelic II gave Italy a crushing defeat and made Italy lose face in Europe.

But in this plane, the kingdom of Shoa does not have this opportunity, Italy has come to grab the land, and with a clear goal, it is impossible to support its enemies.

Now the attitude of the kingdom of Shoa, or Menelik II, towards the Italian invaders is that no one will offend me, I will not offend anyone. Of course, it would be better if Italy could fight the northern army of Johannes IV, and it would be better for itself to take advantage of the fisherman's profits, and finally unify the entire Abyssinian Empire, and by the way, drive the Italians out and restore the glory of the empire.

However, Menelik II met Samuel, his plan was doomed to fail, Samuel would not be stupid to fight with Johannes IV, in the Italian-Austrian war, the most he learned was not to underestimate any opponent, even if you want to solve the opponent, you should take the easy first and then the difficult method, so his victory can find a common denominator, buy is that every defeat of the Austro-Hungarian army starts with the Hungarian army.

And the easiest place for the entire Abyssinian Empire to get started is the southeast, where the forces are mixed, and there are no strong warlords, which means that there is no faction that can crumple the local Abyssinians together, and then cut off the local connection with the north, it will completely become a leaderless place.

Samuel said to Sapetuto: "No matter who the kingdom wants to send to the Abyssinian Empire next to get a piece of the pie, we don't need to pay attention, since the kingdom has chosen to open up a new battlefield in the north, it has no connection with us, and we can ignore any non-native orders." ”

Samuel is also angry in his heart, he knows too well the temperament of that group of aristocratic bureaucrats, and now he feels that he can do it again after seeing his slight achievements.

Samuel then speculated: "The new commander of the kingdom must be a guy with a background, this kind of person is the easiest to use chicken feathers as arrows, we had better ignore them and find all kinds of reasons to prevaricate, anyway, with our troops, it is normal that we can't get along with the Abyssinian Empire, which is heavily defended in the north of Desai, and the kingdom can't find any reason to say that we don't do our best." ”

Sapeto agrees, and now he agrees with Samuel, because Samuel is always "right".

It can't be said that Samuel disobeyed the yin, he also suffered a lot during the Italian-Austrian war, and was often deceived by his boss and colleagues, saying that he would let his troops stand up for a while, and the reinforcements would arrive immediately, but not to mention the reinforcements, the commander in the rear led the team to run away a long time ago, and his colleagues often saw death and did not move.

After a few experiences, Samuel understood a truth, that is, the words of the chief and his colleagues cannot be trusted, no matter how good the pie is drawn, it must find a reason to shirk it.

The consequence of this was that Samuel was very unsociable with his colleagues during the war, and was not treated well by his immediate superiors, but also avoided being taken to the pit by his pig teammates.

The strength of Samuel's troops has also been preserved, and occasionally he can fight a counterattack against Austria-Hungary, and when the war is over, Italy can only find Samuel, the only undefeated general, and the noble generals can only pinch their noses to shape Samuel into a new star in the army, and Samuel can only say that it is all set off by his peers.

So this time the kingdom opened a new battlefield, Samuel did not plan to participate, and even Samuel was ready to collect taxes in his own jurisdiction and recruit Italian immigrants to replenish his army.

According to his experience, if he does not cooperate with the actions of his colleagues, they will definitely wear small shoes for themselves, although colleagues are very vegetable, but they have a good father, and they are still in a group.

In this case, I am afraid that I will not see a penny of the military expenses that have been deducted in the future, and I have encountered this situation when I was in Italy, but fortunately, I can fight in Italy and replenish my troops on the spot, and the grain and grass are completely donated by the Hungarian friendly army next door.

In the Abyssinian Empire, he was unfamiliar with the land and had to rely on himself, and from the day Samuel rose to power, he could say without any burden that his success was the result of his own efforts.

(End of chapter)