The behavior of East Africa made Cape Town very jumpy, but now there is no way to face the behemoth of East Africa on its own, but Cape Town does not need to be sad, East Africa did not intend to target Cape Town, in fact, the Portuguese in Angola also felt terrified.

Letania is a long way from Walvis Bay Harbour, separated by vast desert areas, but the west of Letania is a region where Namibia and Angola meet. This can be seen from the map of Namibia, where almost all the important rivers in Namibia are located in the north.

Although these rivers are also dominated by seasonal rivers, the plateau in the northern region is quite large, and the precipitation barely reaches 500 mm.

Although there are plateaus in the south, there are still mountains, which are the reason why it is inconvenient for East Africa to invade Namibia directly from the east.

Imagine that it is difficult to cross the Kalahari Desert, only to be confronted head-on by stretches of high mountains, over the alpine plateau, and the result is still a desert, this despair cannot be overcome by willpower, so East Africa will adopt the method of land and sea when colonizing Namibia.

The highland region to the west of Letania Province, formerly known as the Ovanbolan region in Namibia, is the country's most important agricultural area, where subsistence food crops such as millet, sorghum and potatoes can be grown, and 30 percent of the country's population lives.

How important this region is to Namibia, so to speak, Namibia's food self-sufficiency rate is only about 20 percent, and most of this 20 percent food self-sufficiency rate is contributed by Ovanbolan.

It's no wonder that the Portuguese don't like Namibia, it's a real piece of land, but that's only in terms of colonial costs.

For East Africa, the value of Namibia is different, the importance of the sea is self-evident, and if Namibia is captured, East Africa will immediately become a two-ocean country.

As for Namibia's harsh climate, it is not a problem for East Africa, which has enough agricultural land to do not need to increase it, just like the original positioning of South Africa, and there is no need to vigorously develop plantation.

April 1877.

At the same time, East Africa planned the Congo rainforest zone, and the Ubangi River Inland River Force was established to carry out regular patrols on the Congo River and the Ubangi River, which also indicates that East Africa will completely incorporate the Congo Basin east of the Ubangi River into its own territory.

East Africa as a whole is in a state of offensive in the west, and with the blessing of the railway, the transportation capacity of East Africa has been greatly improved, especially the western section of the Central Railway, which is close to the Angolan colony, and ends abruptly in the interior, forming the feeling of a broken railway.

And why the western section of the Central Railway was built like this, it can be said that Sima Zhao's heart, known to passers-by, is one of the manifestations of the plot to colonize Angola.

……

May 1877.

Bloemfontein.

Under the persuasion of the British, the Orange Free State held a final vote on whether or not to join the Cape Town colony.

"With one thousand three hundred and eight votes in favor, two hundred and thirty against, and four hundred and fifteen abstentions, I declare that with effect from this date the Orange Free State is dissolved and automatically joins Cape Town."

President Brand personally dissolved the last Boer republic, and the South African region was completely transformed from a tripartite power into a two-tiger confrontation.

In fact, President Brand was also very helpless. He himself preferred the Orange Free State Republic to remain there, but if he did, he was afraid that the Orange Free State might have a civil war the next day, so merging with the Cape Town colony was poison that had to be swallowed in Brand's eyes.

In addition to the Boers, the only remaining forces in South Africa are the Kingdom of Lesotho, but the Kingdom of Lesotho was robbed by the British at the beginning of the year and declared its demise, which is also in line with the character of the British, after all, the Kingdom of Lesotho, which was crippled by East Africa, has no use value, and with the Orange Free State also incorporated into Cape Town, Britain initially unified the southern part of South Africa.

The Orange Free State voted against it because they did not want to be in the same league as the British, maybe East Africa was not a good thing, but Britain was definitely a bad thing, and most of the abstainers did not want to get involved in the dispute between the British and the Germans, and in their opinion the Orange Free State should remain neutral.

These people were generally native to the Orange Free State, but the opposition and abstentionists were weak, and many more Boers, especially those who had been driven from East Africa to the Orange Free State, hated East Africa to the core, and most of the people of the Orange Free State also hated East Africa.

Under the deception of the British, the Orange Free State did not hesitate to throw itself into the arms of the British colony of Cape Town and became part of the colony of Cape Town.

In the situation of the former wolf and the tiger, it is clear that Britain is more deterrent than East Africa, and the Orange Free State is quite aware of what East Africa has done in the Transvaal before, and they are also afraid to follow in the footsteps of the Transvaal.

British Cape Town Envoy Lyant: "The Boers have made the right choice, from today onwards, you will all be my own brothers, and we will work together to defend the peaceful order in South Africa." ”

In order to reach an agreement with the Boers, the British generously said that they could split the accounts with the Boers in the diamond mines of the Orange River, and of course, out of the need for national defense pressure, they were temporarily managed by themselves to maintain military expenditures, and then return that part to the Boers after three years.

At the same time, the British also promised to forgive the arrears of the previous two countries, which was very important for Orange, the Orange Free State and the Transvaal Republic were half a pound and eight taels, and the fiscal revenue was basically in a state of deficit, so they borrowed a lot of money from the British, after all, it was impossible for the Boers to borrow money from the Zulu and other natives.

In the case of the Boers, Governor Henry Buckley of Cape Town also made a bid promising that the Boers would be on an equal footing with British citizens, that Britain would respect the rights of the Boers and guarantee the sanctity of their private property.

Of course, if Ernst knew the promise of the British to the Boers, he would definitely scoff at it, and the dog could not change the way to eat, and the same was true of the promises of the British.

And this time the deception of the British was almost no different from the previous life, they did not even show the slightest material benefit, but only shouted slogans, and took advantage of the anti-East African sentiment of the immigrants of the Transvaal Republic of the Orange Free State to bring the Orange Free State into their sphere of influence.

This is almost inevitable, the Transvaal Republic was originally more populous than the Orange Free State, and after they were driven away in East Africa, a large number of Transvaals poured into the Orange Free State, and quickly gained the right to speak in the Orange Free State by virtue of the population advantage, coupled with the support of the British, but the original Boer power of the Orange Free State was hollowed out.

East Africa can be said to have dug a hole for itself, but the expulsion of the Boers from the Transvaal is the best option for East Africa, and it would be a real ticking time bomb for Ernst to keep the Boers in East Africa.

The Boers had already formed their own national ideology, which was contrary to the Germanization of East Africa, and the cost of reforming the Boers was too high and not necessarily effective, so it was better to let them go, even though East Africa knew that this group of Boers might become enemies in the future, and it was necessary to do so.

(End of chapter)