Chapter 697: East African Plan

(Mombasa and Bagamoyo were written in a mess in the previous article, and have been corrected.)

Although Mombasa was the territory of the Omani Empire at this time, with the development of trade between the East and the West, the great powers had more and more exchanges, and even the overlord of the Indian Ocean, King Said, felt powerless.

Although he rebuilt the fleet in a few years and made further progress in military strength, the cannons and ships of the Austrian side became an indelible shadow in the heart of King Said.

The Austrian Empire occupied Tanzania, and the British repeatedly tossed around on both sides of the Gulf of Aden.

The British instigated the nomadic tribes in the Somali region in the south of the Gulf of Aden to rebel against the Omani Empire, and directly occupied the city of Aden (Aden Port) in the north.

The Omani Empire in history did not react much to the betrayal of the Somalians, and even sent their blessings.

However, at this time, due to the frankincense and myrrh business with the Austrian Empire, the merchants of the Omani Empire firmly opposed the independence of Somalia, and the local farmers were even more afraid of losing the market and land.

So Emperor Said planned to release military power over a cup of wine, while the chieftains of Somalia wanted to stab the King of Qin.

Afterwards, both sides declared that the other side was a "dead" enemy, and they were forced to fight back.

The nomadic troops of Somalia burned the farmland planted by the Omanis, while the latter sent a fleet to sweep its coastal areas and almost destroyed all the ports along the way.

The purpose of the former was to force the latter to leave, while the purpose of the latter was to warn the British not to intervene. At this time, there were only a few hundred British troops in Aden, and the most valuable was a coal warehouse.

Seeing the Omani warships showing off their power outside, the British troops in Aden naturally knew what this meant, so they all shrank in the city and prohibited anyone from leaving the port to avoid irritating the other side's sensitive nerves.

It is obvious that the Omani Empire won the first round of confrontation between the two sides, because their goal was achieved, and the nomadic tribes in Somalia got nothing except arousing the anger of the other side's merchant class and damaging some farmland.

Next came the brutal land war. As one of the few army talents in the Oman Empire, Al-Haldi had been trained by British instructors since childhood and felt that he could fight even if he met the French army.

(At that time, it was generally believed that the French army was the strongest in the world.)

This time, Al-Haldi brought 8,000 soldiers and 5,000 peaks of supplies, and his destination was Hargeisa, the base camp of the Somali Tribal Alliance.

Soon after landing, the troops of both sides met unexpectedly. As the overlord of the Western Indian Ocean, the Oman Empire showed its due strength.

Under the disadvantage of numbers, the Somali nomads were unilaterally beaten. In the end, the Oman Empire eliminated more than 300 people on the other side at the cost of only 59 people, captured more than 2,000 people, and more than 1,000 peaks of supplies and gold and silver treasures.

(Peak refers to a camel.)

After the victory in the first battle, Al-Haldi fought all the way to the city of Hargeisa. Under the bombardment of artillery, the city surrendered in less than half a day.

But the war was not over. The nomadic tribes in Somalia took full advantage of their strengths and began to attack the supply team of the Oman Empire.

In the end, the Omanis were forced to abandon the inland cities and retreat to the coastal areas. The Somalians had a hard time and their living space was sharply compressed.

At the same time, the loss of trade routes with Omani merchants made their lives extremely difficult, and they could only rely on trade with Abyssinians to barely survive.

To outsiders, this was just a civil war in the Oman Empire. Said declared his hegemony in the Western Indian Ocean to the British.

But this was meaningless to the British who had already occupied the port of Aden, because their goal had been achieved. As for whether the Somalians could succeed or gain freedom, it didn't matter.

In addition to Somalia, what made the Oman Empire more headache was the rise of the Second Saudi Empire in the north. Although there were less than 200,000 people in Najd at this time, they were very enthusiastic about expanding their territory.

Ibn Shunet, the former ruler of Najd, was a fanatical religious person. Although he fought wars everywhere and conquered cities, Said did not regard him as an opponent.

The new king Faisal chose a conciliatory policy to integrate local forces, and at the same time began to make extensive marriages and constantly curry favor with the British.

This put great pressure on Sayyid, and he even considered sending a large army to destroy Nejd directly, but it was still nominally the territory of the Ottomans.

First of all, doing so would offend the powerful Ottoman Empire, and the second and most critical problem was that Nejd was too poor.

At this time, Saudi Arabia was not a rich country. In 1846, the tax revenue of the entire Nejd region was less than 100,000 pounds, the population was less than 200,000, and the main industry was sheep farming and wool plucking.

In addition, the land was vast and sparsely populated, and it was good at guerrilla warfare. Sayyid was afraid that Nejd would be the second Somalia.

In addition, the French and Portuguese were also appearing more and more frequently in East Africa, and the Omani Empire, the hen that lays golden eggs in Mombasa, might not be able to keep it sooner or later.

Sayyid thought for a long time and finally came up with the idea of ​​giving half of its sovereignty as a dowry to the Austrian Empire, which would be jointly managed by the two countries.

In this way, the income from Mombasa will be reduced by half, but it will be guaranteed in the long term.

Said's idea is good, but in fact, according to European customs, Mombasa is at most the private property of Archduke Frederick rather than the Austrian Empire.

However, the document was finally handed over to Franz, who certainly knew what was going on. But to be honest, Franz didn't think much of Mombasa, a small place, after all, its port size was limited and the upper limit was too low.

Whether it was Bagamoyo or Dar es Salaam, the ultimate goal was to replace Mombasa's current status.

And this gift, which seemed to be a loss for the other party, actually had a hidden murderous intention. Because once the Austrian Empire accepted this gift, it would be equivalent to shouldering the burden of dealing with the powers for the Omani Empire.

But Franz didn't care, because Mombasa was really not worth mentioning to him, so he would maintain the status of Mombasa as a free trade port, and Franz would not step into the fire pit because of this little temptation.

It was also right to comfort the uneasy ally a little, so Franz decided to accept it on behalf of Friedrich reluctantly.

The ownership belonged to Friedrich, and the management rights belonged to Franz, and a 50-50 split was fair.

In fact, such a windfall is simply impossible for ordinary nobles to hold back, but as one of the richest family members of the Austrian Empire, this money is not so important.

Friedrich's handling of this money is to directly allocate it to the navy's military expenditure, which Franz agrees with very much.

The admiral of the navy spent his own money to build warships. Admiration, admiration.

Franz also wrote a letter to Said, telling this ally how to get out of trouble.

That is "have more children and plant more land."

Although this is a nonsense in the eyes of many people, it is a golden advice in the eyes of Said.

In fact, the population of the Oman Empire is too small, and two-thirds of them are slaves.

If the Oman Empire can directly immigrate 300,000 people to Somalia, does it still need to be afraid of the threat of nomadic tribes? Just kill the enemy and you can rest assured.

The same is true for the threats from Najd and the powers. All fears come from insufficient population. Then in return, the Austrian Empire will support the Oman Empire to colonize the Kingdom of Malawi.

——

The Great Lakes region of the Kingdom of Malawi was one of the richest regions in East Africa at that time, but in order to tie the Oman Empire firmly to its chariot, this price was worth it.

At that time, the Austrian Empire did not have a navy strong enough to defend its colonies, so even if it was just a pretense, it had to maintain good relations with the overlord of the Western Indian Ocean.

In Bagamoyo, with the advantages of monsoons and ocean currents, ships full of Dalit laborers arrived, and then transported away sisal, animal skins, bush meat, and grain, which were too much for anyone in Tanzania.

Although bush meat was prohibited in the colonies of the Austrian Empire, the unique food was the favorite of Indian princes.

The mysterious bush meat was paired with secret curry, and a bowl of fragrant Ganges water, this was the luxurious and decadent life of Indian princes.

In addition, due to the sudden war, prices on the Indian subcontinent soared, and the most severe increase was in food, for no other reason, because it was hard currency.

In addition, the British reinforcements coming from all directions need a lot of supplies, so the price of food in India this year is higher than that in the Oman Empire and Abyssinia.

With the arrival of a large number of workers, the yield of crops in Tanzania will be further increased. In the next five years, the development of the coastal areas and the ruins of the original seven countries will be completed, and then advance to the inland.

However, this kind of trade between the Tanzanian Governorate and India cannot last too long, because the resources of both sides overlap seriously, but fortunately, they can complement each other in the South Pacific and the Far East.

In less than a year, more than 80,000 workers were introduced, which is already a very good result.

You should know that on the route from the California colony to Japan, the number of merchant ships is seven times that of the Western Indian Ocean, but only 50,000 workers were introduced to California, and nearly 20,000 of them died.

The price of labor sold by the shogunate is very cheap, but the freight is really not low, so the loss in California this time is not small.

Back to the Tanzanian colony, with the further increase of Dalit workers and the introduction of the colonial government's policy of "black" to "black".

The black uncles and small animals in Tanzania have suffered a catastrophe. Some European scholars have commented that Indians in the colonial period only worked and did not eat meat. In fact, except for some vegetarians, the main reason was that they could not afford meat.

The attitude of the Tanzanian colony towards these Dalit laborers was close to free-range, and there were small animals running all over the African savannah.

This led to a catastrophe in Tanzania's natural ecology. The Dalits were much more efficient in killing small animals than the indigenous blacks, almost to the level of the CD operation.

The indigenous people who had already lost the protection of their tribes suffered a catastrophe, but it also solved the problem of black refugees that had been plaguing the colonies.

Otherwise, the people in the colonies would have to hire Umbrella soldiers every time they went out, which was not only a waste, but also reflected the incompetence of local officials.

Then there was the problem of infrastructure. Otherwise, every rainy season would be a reshuffle, with roads randomly reorganized or farmland flattened. Several large rivers would randomly change their courses every year and wander freely on the plains.

However, even more unpleasant news soon reached Vienna: a grassland king emerged in the inland area of ​​East Africa, who called himself "the king of three million Eastern Bantu people" and prepared to launch an expedition to the east.

The destination happened to be the Tanzanian colony of the Austrian Empire. Franz didn't think that the other side could really get millions of natives to fight him.

But this was an event that did not exist in history, which made Franz very annoyed. He didn't know if there would be something more strange after he went to destroy this tribe.

However, this matter should still be taken seriously. Three million is naturally impossible, but in theory there should be 200,000 or 300,000 tribesmen, and then remove half of the old, weak, women and children who can't fight, and remove half of the logistics and management personnel.

70,000 or 80,000, this is already the biggest challenge facing the Austrian Empire in Africa.

Although they have encountered countries with more people before, the mobilization capacity of primitive agricultural civilization is far inferior to that of nomadic peoples, after all, the latter can mobilize all the people.

Franz felt that increasing the number of troops by 5,000 was very respectful to the other side. On the other hand, the reason why those Dalit laborers suddenly went to war with the Ngoni Kingdom was found.

It was a missionary who took the opportunity to cure diseases and save lives to preach to Dalit laborers, and then randomly picked an imaginary enemy, which resulted in a war.

(This is one of the evil consequences caused by the abuse of religious power. Ngoni is an indigenous kingdom, so what if these people suddenly attack the colonies of the British Empire one day?)

Curing diseases and saving lives is a powerful tool for missionary work, and one of the necessary skills for missionaries. Life and health are extremely important things in any era, and people still flock to them even today.

Especially for terminal diseases like malaria, which seemed to be incurable at the time, both the recipients and the onlookers could feel greatly shocked.

There is also a more intuitive surgery, among which cataract surgery is regarded as a divine art.

The first recorded cataract surgery in Western history was in 1745, but cataract surgery in this era has strict requirements for both the recipient and the operator. After all, eye surgery without anesthesia is not something that ordinary people can do, and at least a famous general level is required.

Fortunately, Austria has developed nitrous oxide anesthesia. At the same time, due to the introduction of the concept of disinfection and sterilization, coupled with a lot of experience accumulated in colonial areas, the success rate of surgery and the survival rate after surgery have been greatly increased.

The huge shock and contrast can easily make people worship, even those who do not believe in ghosts and gods will have a strong curiosity, and then sink step by step when they cannot find arguments to refute.

In addition, it must be said that the fighting power of the black natives is really not good enough. Even the third-rate army of the colony can defeat the Ngoni Kingdom, the largest in Tanzania at this time.

After a few months of renovation, the port of Dar es Salaam can be used. In fact, it is just adding some piers and expanding the dock of the fishing village.

However, with its natural geographical advantages, it has become a medium-sized port with a throughput not inferior to Mombasa.

After the renovation is completely completed, Dar es Salaam will become the second largest port in East Africa after Sofala.

At this time, Sofala is the most important stronghold of the Portuguese in East Africa, which can berth more than 100 large ships.

In addition to agriculture, Franz also sent a group of geological experts, whose task is to find important mineral veins in Tanzania.

After all, if you want local residents to immigrate to Africa, it is not enough to just rely on farming. What they want is gold, silver and diamonds.

Tanzania just meets these conditions. In addition, it also has oil, a very important strategic resource in the future, and a gemstone that is as expensive as diamonds - Tanzanite.

However, agriculture is the foundation of everything. In addition, it is not possible to not farm well before the navy is strong.

I will write something else tomorrow. I feel that no one reads this East African part.