At Ernst's request, the Ministry of Defense and the Army General Staff worked out the relevant military movements on land in East Africa in 1883.

Yarman and Witt gave a detailed report on this military change:

"Your Highness, in accordance with your request, we have made the following arrangements for this troop transfer, among which the city of Gezira, which borders the Nile province with the Sudan of Egypt, has been strengthened, and if the British invade East Africa from the north, the city of Gezira is the only passage." Swift said.

The city of Gezira is located on the banks of the Nile River, very close to Khartoum, an important city in Sudan, with the Ethiopian Plateau, also known as the Abyssinian Empire, to the east of Gezira, the Nuba Mountains to the west, and the Kordofan Plateau to the west.

In this way, the terrain of the plain of Gezira City is particularly prominent, which is naturally an important military artery, and it is a natural danger to the Ethiopian Plateau in the east or to the Nuba Mountains in the west.

The Kordofan Plateau region is widely deserted, and the British army should not have the patience to sneak into East Africa from the desert, and the Nile Province area bordering the Kordofan Plateau has almost no population.

Most of the concentration is around the cities of Gezira in the east and Juba in the southeast, which means that even if they venture across the Kordofan Plateau into the East African province of the Nile, the enemy will face barren savannah areas crisscrossed by rivers and swampy wetlands.

The sudden rush from the arid desert to the sweltering and humid western part of the Nile province was no less difficult than the "Long March", and the conditions were even worse, and Ernst himself could not have imagined the existence of such an army in the 19th century.

"Theoretically, it is feasible to borrow from the Abyssinian Empire, but there are many factions within the Abyssinian Empire, and we can get news quickly if there is any trouble, and we have always deployed troops on the border with the Abyssinian Empire, so it is unlikely that we will raid East Africa from here."

And there is one thing that has not yet been said, that is, the Abyssinian Empire may not dare to lend to the British.

I am afraid that the Abyssinian Empire was more afraid of the occurrence of false Dao Yu, when the Abyssinian Empire was destroyed by the British once, so that the Abyssinian Empire changed dynasties, so the Abyssinian Empire was much more wary of the British than in East Africa.

"This is our military deployment in the area along the border with Sudan, which is very solid on the whole, and if something happens, we have the time to react and build a second line of defense in Juba city."

The city of Juba is also considered a major military center in East Africa, and the most important thing is that East Africa trains tropical multi-terrain combat forces here.

Of course, the infrastructure of the main Nile provinces only reaches Juba province, and most of them rely on water transport to the north.

The White Nile River basin covers almost the entire territory of the Nile Province, so the transportation of the Nile Province is extremely dependent on water transportation, and the connection between Juba City, as the provincial capital, and Gezira, the largest economic city, is completed by the White Nile River.

This makes Juba the only land and water transportation hub in the Nile Circulation Province, and from Gezira City to the heart of East Africa, it is inevitable to pass through Juba City, and from Juba City to the Great Lakes region of the core region of East Africa.

Entering the Great Lakes region means that you can connect to the rest of the core of East Africa, because the Great Lakes (Lake Victoria) shipping in the Great Lakes region connects East Africa's Northern Railway and Central Railway.

"To the northeast, we need to pay attention to the Northern Province, which is dominated by desert and therefore not suitable for marching, and only the city of Dre Dawa is close to the British colony of Somaliland. However, the city of Dredeva itself is a military powerhouse, and it is difficult to get inland to get around, so we don't have to worry too much. ”

It is more difficult for East Africa to send supplies to the city of Dre Dawa on its own, let alone from the city of Dre Dawa to East Africa, which is also an important reason for East Africa to support the development of the city of Dre Dawa to develop its own economy.

The existence of the city of Dre Dawa is more for strategic deterrence, and the secondary purpose is to serve as a military defense of the border.

"The entire north is also focused on the cities of Gezira and Dredawa, and the rest of the region does not need to change much, and the military on the eastern coast is not easy to make major changes."

The east is the current economic core area of East Africa, and it has always been the region with the strongest military strength in East Africa, so the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense do not recommend major changes, or that the eastern region is in hand, then East Africa has a chance to turn around.

Of course, in addition to looking at the army in the eastern defense, the strength of the navy cannot be ignored, and the strength of the East African navy is currently in the forefront of the world, and it can be regarded as a hegemon in the western Indian Ocean region, so that the main means of defense along the coast of East Africa has changed from relying on the coastal defense system to relying on the navy and the Indian Ocean as an offshore defense system.

In other words, East Africa has expanded its defense system horizontally to the sea, greatly improving the security of the eastern coast of East Africa and the security strategy of defending the enemy from the ocean.

"Our main task at the moment is to strengthen the military defense system in the south, especially in the central core industrial province of Matabele.

Therefore, it was planned to send a main division from the north and northwest to the south and enter the province of Matabele, on the one hand, to guard against a possible attack by Portuguese forces in the eastern part of Matabele province in Mozambique, and on the other hand, to maneuver into the territory of Heshingen Province (the Transvaal Republic) at any time through the central railway to support the hypothetical theater in the south. ”

The south, especially Matabele, is the most important region in East Africa, and of course, Ernst itself has a view on the province of Hehingen, whose resources are one level higher than that of Matabele, and which is a pool of raw materials for the future industrial development of East Africa.

It's just that because of Ernst's restrictive exploitation of Heshingen, the potential of Hexingen is hidden, which leads to a lack of awareness of Hexingen by the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff.

If the Boers and the British knew that there was the world's largest gold mine in Hexingen Province, the British would have taken action long ago.

"The south-central provinces, led by Matabele, were developed relatively late, so the composition of immigrants is mainly new immigrants since 1873, and civilian military training and war response capabilities are not as good as those in the east, so we plan to carry out reserve military training in the south-central provinces in the near future."

Unlike the eastern provinces of East Africa, which developed entirely from colonies, the central and southern provinces are quite different.

Even before the establishment of the south-central provinces, East Africa had already purged the indigenous and hostile forces of the south-central provinces through conventional military force.

The eastern provinces of East Africa even mobilized nearly hundreds of thousands of militia forces to crack down on indigenous forces within their borders, so there has always been a perfect mobilization mechanism in the east.

This means that the people of the eastern provinces are able to react quickly to the threat of war, and many have experienced battles with indigenous tribes and kingdoms.

The people of these provinces in the central and southern parts of East Africa, which were later incorporated into East Africa, obviously cannot do this, because when they arrive in East Africa, most of the existing threats have been eliminated by East Africa, so it is more urgent to reorganize and upgrade the reserve forces and militia forces in the central and southern parts of East Africa.

After all, the main threat in East Africa is the Cape Town colony and the Portuguese colony in the south, and now the central and southern parts of East Africa have developed into an important industrial base, the core area of mineral resources, and the population distribution is concentrated, so all this is necessary.

"Finally, we plan to establish two new mobile cavalry divisions, focusing on the provinces of Hehingen and Neu-Baden (Bechuana and parts of Botswana), and one of the cavalry divisions will be deployed in Neu-Baden province to be ready for possible risks along the Orange River."

The border between the colony of New Baden and Cape Town is long, and the east is very close to the Kimberley, an important city in the British colony of Cape Town (Orange Free State), and not far from the city of Cape Town in the south.

(End of chapter)