African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 424 Escape

 In the end, the deal was reached, and the two parties reached an agreement to pay the money in one hand and deliver the goods in the other. All they had to do was wait for the East African ship to land, and the Far East officials to inspect the goods in Jiaozhou Bay and pay.

The positioning of the Dresser rifle is difficult to grasp. It is indeed the first widely adopted military breech-loading rifle in the world. However, the times are developing, and all countries are developing or already equipped with more advanced rifles.

The market for Dreiser rifles is nothing more than backward regions, and Africa naturally belongs to this category. However, Ernst will not sell his own ropes in Africa, so there are only two independent markets in the Far East and South America.

In the Far East, only the Far East Empire meets the requirements of East Africa. Other regions are either colonies of other countries or cannot afford the money. This is the helplessness of small countries. Of course, Japan is an exception. If it is just arms business, Ernst can do it. Consider getting involved in the military industry.

 …

Night shrouded the entire black continent of Africa. Except for the scattered faint spots of light in the two cities that never sleep, Dar es Salaam and Mombasa, no trace of light could be seen.

The same is true for Bulawayo, which is deep in the heart of the East African Kingdom. Outside Bakola, an indigenous village on the outskirts of Bulawayo, hundreds of pairs of bright eyes are looking around.

 “Clalulu, is everyone gathered?”

“Chief, I informed each household, everyone is here!”

　　“Didn’t you alert the Germans?”

“Don’t worry, the Germans never leave the castle at night. They only patrol around during the day, and they will retreat into the castle on time as soon as it gets dark every day.”

“That’s good, let’s call everyone out today. I hope everyone knows the reason! Just yesterday, the Germans came again to ask for someone.”

"Damn Germans. According to the past, they should have taken some time to come. Now it's not time yet and they are here to arrest people. We have lost too many people since last year. Buck, Momoius, Carl Ru Ancient..." Klarulu didn't know math, but he clearly remembered the names of everyone in the village.

Logically speaking, East Africa must draw lots to recruit young people at the end of the month, but now that East Africa needs more labor, the task has been issued in advance, so the indigenous people in Zimbabwe have completely exploded.

However, based on the experience of the Ndebele people, the Shona people do not think they can cope with East Africa, and the large tribes of the Shona people are divided into small areas by East Africa, so they cannot achieve connection.

Hence, small unit villages like Bakola Village had no choice but to save themselves. Unable to defeat them, they had no choice but to flee.

“Chief, which direction should we flee?”

“The Germans have power in both the north and the south, so we can only run to the west!”

The natives do not have the ability to do specific logical analysis, but they know that the Germans came from the north and went south, so there are people from the East African Kingdom in the north and south.

As for why the East was not chosen, it is because Germans often come to Bulawayo from the East to replenish supplies. After all, it was the former capital of the Kingdom of Matabele, so East Africa continued to use it as a transit point for supplies in Zimbabwe. "But in the west, the environment there is very harsh. In the past, tribal warriors went to the west in pursuit of prey. They said it was drier than Bakola."

"Drought is a good thing. Drought means that there are definitely not many Germans there, so we should do the opposite."

In this way, after determining the direction, the natives of Bakola Village ran away overnight. The early stage of the journey was very smooth, because as they predicted, it was impossible for East Africa to deploy many people in the Kalahari Basin.

While the East African Kingdom was recruiting young men for railway construction, the Zimbabwe region, which was most severely exploited in East Africa, was also the first to fail. East Africa can be said to be trying to pull out the wool of a sheep.

Zimbabwe originally had a small population, and the entire region had a population of less than one million (3.69 million in 1960). As a result, one project in East Africa had to capture about 100,000 strong men from Zimbabwe. Who could bear this?

Prior to this, East Africa transferred people from Zimbabwe to work in various places in East Africa on a monthly basis, which was called the "blood tax". Moreover, East Africa did not return goods and exported to export. This form of only importing but not exporting completely frightened the Shona people. , various rumors are also rising among the Shona people.

The "blood tax" in East Africa directly frightened the Shona people and became the trigger for the Shona people to flee. They began to plan to escape from Zimbabwe to areas where there were no white people.

Since March, there have been hundreds of "defections" of various sizes among the Shona people, and almost 90% of the Shona people have participated in the defections.

Like rain, they slowly merged from several villages into a large river with tens of thousands of people, rushing across the grassland, and the animal groups on the grassland provided them with food rations on their way to escape.

A spectacular scene of fauna and indigenous groups suddenly appearing on the African grasslands, all fleeing. At the peak, there were more than 300,000 people fleeing in four directions: southeast, northwest and northwest. When East Africa reacted, it could not be stopped, because East Africa was really strong in Zimbabwe. Shortage of manpower.

 So the whole of Zimbabwe is like a leaky pocket, with a large number of indigenous people flowing around. The largest number in the east is near Mozambique and several indigenous kingdoms, at least around 100,000.

East Africa intercepted about 100,000 people and directly gathered the workers needed for the railway construction. As for the escaped indigenous people, they either entered Mozambique or flowed into the Kalahari Basin. The remaining stupid ones entered other areas of East Africa. Only A very small number escaped along the Okavango River into Namibia and Angola.

The "blood tax" is only part of the reason for the "defection" of Zimbabwe's indigenous people. Generally speaking, East Africa is relatively uncivilized in other aspects. For example, the indigenous people are forced to stay on the land and engage in fixed agriculture. This is very difficult for those who rely on hunting and herding for a living. It is very difficult for the Shona people. They have neither relevant technology nor experience, so their food output is pitifully low, and agriculture is extremely boring physical labor. Although hunting is dangerous, it is indeed more free.

This "defection" incident has awakened the East African Kingdom. It seems that large-scale relocation of Zimbabwe's indigenous people will be carried out and they cannot be allowed to get close to Mozambique.

I would not believe it if East Africa did not have bad intentions towards Mozambique. It is just that East Africa is not yet ready to annex Mozambique.

There are many indigenous people in Mozambique (including several indigenous kingdoms), about two million. If East Africa annexes Mozambique in the future, the local indigenous people will definitely be cleared out.

The escape of Zimbabwean indigenous people into Mozambique means that they are out of control and will increase the cost of cleanup in the future. If the indigenous people of Zimbabwe really escape into the area west of Angola, then East Africa will be happy to see the results, but they cannot enter Mozambique, the fat meat on the East African plate. .

As for the colony of Angola, why are East Africa not worried? That’s because these indigenous people can escape to Angola, and then they can also flee to West Africa. Unlike Mozambique, which is completely surrounded by East Africa on three sides, with only the east side connected to the sea, East Africa’s method of reducing the indigenous population is said to be In the end, the main thing is to drive them away. It is impossible to drive them directly into the sea.

 (End of this chapter)