Government of the Transvaal Republic.

"Your Excellency the President, we can't sit idly by, the reality forces us to do it in advance, otherwise it will be even more difficult to make a comeback in the future."

"Now our main problem is military spending, raising such a huge army, for a country like ours is a great burden, with a sentence of poor military description must not be too much, now with the addition of the Orange people, the entire Orange Free State Boers are only about 400,000, that is, only 200,000 men, but also to remove the old, weak, sick and disabled, so a standing army of more than 10,000 people, for us is simply an astronomical amount, simply not able to sustain."

"In the past, when our Transvaal Republic still existed, the treasury often ran rats, and it couldn't afford to raise an army at all, and now even when rats come, they have to go out with tears, and the only thing left is a bunch of debts!"

"In this way, even if we return to the country in the future, we can only continue to pay off the debts of the British, so Your Excellency the President, we must let the British make a choice, either provide more free aid, or disband the Transvaal Restoration Army on the spot."

Little Pretorius listened to his subordinates' report with a gloomy face, because of the military problem, the Transvaal Republic was now faced with two choices: either disband the troops or start a war as soon as possible.

Neither option is good for the current Transvaals, and disbanding the forces would be a serious blow to government authority.

After all, the promised "Restoration" army, but the army is gone, what does this make the Boers in the Orange Free State think?

In order to maintain combat effectiveness and maintain the operation of the army, the Transvaal army had already undergone several drawdowns, which naturally caused discontent among the Oranges.

Because the Oranges were more active than the Transvaal in promoting the "restoration of the Transvaal Republic", this was not because of the "conscience" of the Oranges, or because they regarded the Transvaals as "siblings".

It was to get this group of British lackeys to leave the Orange Free State as soon as possible, and the premise for the Transvaal people to leave the Orange Free State was obviously that the original Transvaal Republic was re-established, otherwise the Transvaals could only live in the Orange Free State.

As for starting a war as soon as possible, the Transvaals also wanted to do so, but now the Transvaals are just a dog led by Britain on a rope, and the British government has become the main force in maintaining regional peace, and the important reason for this result is that Britain is not ready for war yet.

So little Pretorius said: "If the British don't cooperate with us, then this war is doomed to failure, so now the question is not whether I want to go to war, but when the British want to go to war, after all, the gap between us and East Africa is too big, as long as the East Africans continue to consume us, even a few big victories can't change our disadvantage." ”

Population is the core secret of East Africa, and the semi-closed state management system in East Africa makes it difficult for countries and powers outside the region to obtain the true population data of East Africa.

However, through the observation of the East African coast, as well as the performance of the previous wars in East Africa, other countries agree that the population of East Africa should be no less than 10 million, but they don't know which one is more than Brazil, and as for the level with the United States, no country dares to think so, after all, East Africa has existed for too short a time.

East Africa is happy to disguise its national strength, and apart from the military and trade volumes, there is basically nothing visible on the surface for other countries to judge East Africa's national strength.

After all, the value created by each person is different, for example, the value created by a steam engine is about the same as that of dozens of workers, and even agricultural exports have a very large room for flexibility, in addition to not wanting to overwhelm international food prices, domestic consumption is also very large.

However, after all, East Africa is a big country, rich in all kinds of products, grain, all kinds of cash crops, industrial products, minerals, as well as a huge trading fleet, a strong army, and it is impossible to achieve such a comprehensive situation without a population of 10 million.

After all, it is impossible for small countries with a population of one million to have such a perfect industrial chain and trade exports, so East Africa can only be a large country with a population of more than 10 million, which can be glimpsed from the development of open cities along the coast of East Africa.

The two major cities in East Africa, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, are at all inferior to those in Europe, and their industrial development is on the same level as that of Europe and the United States, so it can be assumed that the eastern coast of East Africa has reached the level of Europe.

The huge territory of East Africa, which can also consolidate national defense, and Portugal, the Transvaal, the United Kingdom, and a group of countries on the northern border as neighbors, shows that the stock of East African troops is very considerable, and such an army needs to be cultivated by population.

And what is most troubling for British spies is that the country of East Africa has been demilitarized all these years.

Just like Dar es Salaam, the streets used to be full of East Africans wearing military uniforms, at that time East Africa was called a "military state" by passing ships, and later Dar es Salaam had more clothing styles, but the number of police officers climbed, and it became a "police state", and now Dar es Salaam and several other open cities are completely no different from ordinary European cities, and walking on the streets feels no different from German and Austro-Hungarian cities.

All this shows that East Africa is developing in the direction of a normal country, but in this state, East Africa's military strength is not weak but strong, and even a powerful new navy has been established.

This can only show that East Africa's national strength is growing, and there is no need to "arm the whole country" as before, which is a manifestation of self-confidence, and the confidence of East Africans is obviously related to the growth of East African countries' national strength.

The intelligence of the British was naturally equal to the intelligence of the Transvaals, and the Transvaals could have had close contact with the East African border.

The fact that the Transvaals feared the fact that the eastern part of the country had maintained a large army in the south, built numerous fortifications and military fortifications on the border, and had certainly spent a lot of money on the military.

The two provinces on the southern border (Southern Frontier Province and New Baden Province) have a perennial garrison of about 50,000 people, plus military families and personnel serving the army, there are almost hundreds of thousands, not to mention that the capital of Southern Frontier Province (Zulu Kingdom and the southern Transvaal Republic) Port New Hamburg is currently the undisputed largest city in South Africa, with a population of as many as 130,000, while Cape Town, which ranks second, has only about 50,000.

Therefore, only the two provinces bordering the Orange Free State in the south of East Africa have a similar population to the population of the Orange Free State, and these two provinces are only the lower provinces in East Africa, and there are more than 20 provinces and regions in East Africa, and only Southwest Africa and the Congo rainforest, and some western provinces are less populated than these two provinces.

"There is a huge disparity in strength between us and East Africa, so we must rely on the British for everything, and if it were not for Britain, I am afraid that East Africa would have crossed the Feit River and attacked us, the elements of the Transvaal Republic." Little Pretorius clearly knew the gap between East Africa and the Transvaal Republic, so he said with a little sadness.

"Your Excellency, it is not a matter of considering the difference in national strength between the two countries, the great cause of restoration is the responsibility of our generation of Boers, to reproduce the glory of the Boers in those years, the master of the land of South Africa is us, Britain and East Africa are thieves, and we can only solve the big problem of East Africa first.

The smallest gap between us and East Africa is militarily, as long as all the Boers are united and have the support of the British, we may not be able to get the script of Prussia to counterattack France. ”

(End of chapter)