"There has been a change in the targets of our surveillance, these Portuguese businessmen are people with a lot of channels, and their recent actions speak volumes, like the year-end merchants who keep running promotions and discounts to make one last deal of business so that they can go home for Christmas, but it's only March, so their behavior shows that there are other factors that are preventing their business from being sustainable."

As an intelligence officer in East Africa, Eureka was keenly aware of the unusual behavior of the Portuguese merchants, who increased their purchases from East Africa and carried them away at maximum capacity, all of which were East African specialties, especially crocodile skins and ivory, which were rare items that only East Africa could.

Of course, Mozambique itself is not short of these, but Mozambique's production is not as large as that of East Africa, after all, they do not have enough manpower, so importing from East Africa is the most cost-effective.

With cash and vehicles ready, the semi-finished goods can be hauled directly to the eastern ports and shipped back to Europe by ship.

"Eureka, the last year feels like we've had the most frequent missions, but I have a hunch that these are coming to an end." Said his colleague Rice.

"It seems that the other side is ready to open the hole cards, how can we continue to go deeper and pass the information back?" Eureka asked.

"Just follow them, now we are Portuguese, so just follow the other caravans to further know the detailed reasons for this change." Rice wanted to solve the mystery further, so he planned to follow the Portuguese caravan directly through the heart of Mozambique, then sail in the east and back to East Africa.

"This is indeed a risky operation, we are not real businessmen after all, so it is easy to make mistakes in the details, so in order not to cause misunderstandings, it is better to act like a fledgling directly." Eureka suggests.

Eureka and Rice have the advantage of being young, and young people are always inexperienced, so they are no longer obtrusive in the eyes of a bunch of savvy Portuguese merchants.

"Having said that, there is one problem that cannot be avoided, and that is that if the situation changes abruptly, I am afraid that we will not be able to pass the news back home." Rice said.

"It's all the fault of this group of Portuguese, no wonder they have been getting weaker and weaker for hundreds of years, they have not thought of building roads in their territory, and even new things like the telegraph have not been popularized and promoted, so they cannot compete with us in Africa at all." Eureka also said speechlessly.

One need only compare East Africa with Mozambique to see why the Portuguese were so defeated in the last war.

That is, they did not pay enough attention to the colonies, and the infrastructure was limited to a few coastal cities and barely visible, and there was basically no development of the interior.

Not to mention that the construction of railways like in East Africa is that the number of dirt trails is insufficient, so it is understandable that Mozambique and Angola have not changed much in the past hundred years, and if you throw away some modern industrial goods, the Portuguese colonies have basically maintained the same as they were in the days of their ancestors.

And this also caused great inconvenience to the intelligence work in East Africa, which is why Eureka and Rice complained.

If it was in China, they could have passed the telegraph network built in East Africa to transmit news back to East Africa in time, while the Portuguese have not even built a telegraph to the mainland, but need to reach East African cities such as the city of Dar es Salaam and pay to use the telegraph system in East Africa, which is also the reason why Dar es Salaam has become the most important gathering place for business intelligence in Africa.

Eureka: "The military power of the Portuguese is mainly on the coast, in the peripheral areas such as the inland, and they can only work from 9 to 5 every day to find out some meaningless news, so we should apply with our superiors to enter the hinterland of Mozambique to investigate, as for the transmission of intelligence, because of the poor construction situation in Mozambique, this is something we can't overcome, we can only deal with it first, at least a lot of data from the hinterland must be transmitted to the mainland, so we shouldn't be in a hurry." ”

"It makes sense, unless the Portuguese regain the glory of a hundred years ago, otherwise even if they start a war during this period, it will not be easy to make progress, after all, we have a stricter blockade against them, but East Africa only knows five or six points about Mozambique, and Mozambique knows only one or two points about East Africa." Rice said.

Rice is actually enough to lift up the Portuguese, and the Portuguese intelligence system has gained more from East Africa over the years, not to mention the results with half the effort. It can also be said that nothing has been accomplished.

Because there is no sophisticated intelligence system in Portugal itself, let alone a colony like Mozambique.

In fact, not only Portugal, but most of the intelligence systems of European countries in this era were waste, and in the case of the last Franco-Prussian War, Napoleon III's important channel for obtaining German troops at the front line was actually the newspapers in the rear.

Of course, this can also be understood, there is no household registration policy in Europe, and the movement of personnel in various countries, especially during the war, where there is a war, it will cause a large flow of personnel in Europe, and the European countries are small, and it is very easy to find out what is going on, in this case, there is really no need to put too much effort into intelligence.

Spending a little more money is not at all as effective as making a few more friends and climbing a few more relatives in Europe, and according to the complex relationship between the European aristocracy, they are the easiest source of information.

From the central to the local, the aristocracy controlled everything in Europe, especially the grassroots, the landlord aristocracy was the hub for direct contact with the local residents, and the aristocracy controlled all aspects of the local area, including population information.

At the beginning, East Africa was able to immigrate so many Germans from South Germany, it was through friendship with the South German aristocracy, in the rural areas where the population was booming, people were worthless numbers, and if they were cut, they would grow.

This is especially true given Germany's population density, so it is advantageous for both sides for East Africa to absorb this surplus population.

After all, if the population is beyond the scope of bearing, it will inevitably cause social problems, and Germany does not have a vast colony like Britain, if the British can have more children, I am afraid that the British government will be very happy, there is always a place to arrange them, after all, even the criminals have a continent to exile.

The German population will inevitably spill over to the "homocultural region" of East Africa, a process that has of course disappeared with the completion of German industrialization, and Germany is now the world's new population importer.

However, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which developed relatively slowly, could not get rid of this situation for the time being, but the annual population outflow of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was not large, and it remained in a reasonable range every year, except in the special circumstances of the war years, like the last Ito-Austrian war, which led to a large loss of population in the Venice area.

This was a good thing for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and many of the Austro-Crarian immigrants absorbed by East Africa were Slavs and Italians, which greatly eased the national contradictions of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Of course, this has also led to some negative effects, that is, Germany and Austria-Hungary are no longer as aggressive as in their previous lives, after all, the social contradictions have eased, and the crisis of domination has been avoided to a certain extent, so there is no need to divert through extreme means of war.

The most important thing is that in the last Russo-Turkish war, Austria-Hungary did not show the ugly face of taking advantage of the fire and robbery in its previous life, and now Russian-Austrian relations are far less acute than in previous lives, and Bismarck was able to continue to maintain the relationship between the European Triple Alliance.

(End of chapter)