African Entrepreneurship Records

Chapter 489: War is war, trade is trade

If the Portuguese can really occupy the land passage between Lake Solon (Lake Tanganyika) and Lake Malawi, it will indeed have an impact on East Africa, because it is the place where the East African Central Railway must pass to enter the interior.

However, it is quite difficult to occupy this place. It has the heavy industrial base city of Mbeya in East Africa, three large arsenals, and the headquarters of the 111th Division. Lake Malawi is also one of the three major bases of the East African River and Lake Troops, and the East African formation The black regiments also trained on the east shore of Lake Malawi.

 East Africa has all the advantages of water and land transportation, and its logistical supplies are also quite convenient. If Portugal can break through the East African Army from Lake Malawi and its coastal areas, there will be no need for East Africa to exist.

 …

Clément had an idea to raid the Songo stronghold, but practical factors prevented him from implementing his idea immediately.

“Why haven’t your Portuguese supplies been sent to the front line yet? Isn’t the section from the mouth of the Zambezi River to Tete navigable?”

After being laughed at by international friends, Portuguese general Kevin Duck was also disgraced. He comforted Clement and said: "We have no experience in such large-scale wars before, so Mozambique's logistics system is not suitable for large-scale material transfers." We have basically no experience. We are currently recruiting ships from all over Mozambique and believe that we should be able to transport the supplies to Tete in time within half a month."

The Mozambique colony has enjoyed peace for a long time. A war involving thousands of people is considered a big war in the Mozambique colony. The last time there was such a large-scale war was the annexation of the southern part of the Kingdom of Malawi. In fact, it was bullying the indigenous tribes with crude weapons with firearms.

 At other times, the main threats faced by the Portuguese came from the sea, so naval battles were more frequent than land wars, and they had more experience.

So this war against the East African Kingdom did exceed the expectations of the Mozambican government. They have no experience in dealing with such military mobilization of tens of thousands of people. In addition, the preparation time is relatively hasty, and the logistics supply is naturally insufficient.

It was okay not to comfort him. After comforting him, Clementine became furious: "Half a month? The supplies we carry are only enough to last a week. This does not include ammunition reserves. You are planning to let our soldiers starve. Under such circumstances, launch an attack on East Africa!”

Kevin Duck: "This... is not impossible. Anyway, we can attack inland first, and the supplies should be delivered soon."

Clement: "What about those troop transports when we came here? Couldn't they bring supplies?"

Kevin Duck said with shame: "We temporarily rented those ships from passing merchants. After paying the money, they dispersed. The time and money spent on getting back together cannot be afforded by our colony in Mozambique."

In order to transport 30,000 people to Tete in one go, the Mozambique colony could only temporarily rent merchant ships to transport the 30,000 people from southern Mozambique to the center.

This kind of temporary chartered ship is not cheap, and it also requires passing ships. Only some empty ships are willing to accept it. As for where the empty ships come from, they are usually ships that go to Mozambique to unload cargo, mainly Arab merchant ships.

Many of these Arab merchant ships are owned by Arabs from Zanzibar Province. Their main business is to bring consumer goods from East Africa to Mozambique to earn the price difference.

Mozambique has no manufacturing industry and everything needs to be imported. East African cheap goods are the first choice of the local Portuguese and tribal chiefs. In addition to the Arabs actively selling, the local Portuguese in Mozambique will also go directly to the port or Dar es Salaam to purchase goods. .

Kevin Duck continued: “The cost of renting a boat is three times higher than usual, and no one is necessarily willing to do it, so we can only requisition local boats to reduce costs, but local boats organize them in Mozambique’s large and small rivers. It takes time and our food also has to be transported through them from the interior of Mozambique.”

Of course, one thing Kevin Duck did not say is that Mozambique also imports food from East Africa, mainly because white Portuguese soldiers need flour to make staple foods such as bread and cakes, and East Africa is the closest flour producer to Mozambique.

The Mozambique colony is mainly based on plantations, and the cultivation of food crops is not active. The most suitable food crop in Mozambique is rice, which is obviously not in line with the taste of the Portuguese, and the Portuguese have no experience in rice cultivation. Fortunately, the population of Mozambique is dominated by black people. It doesn’t matter what black people eat. They can eat cassava, bananas, etc. It is impossible for white people to eat these.

It’s okay to eat occasionally, but staple foods still have to be imported. Especially since food prices in East Africa are very cheap, Mozambican businessmen and plantation owners have even less incentive to grow food crops.

Clement: "Okay, your local government is such a waste. Since there are still not enough ships, use black people to send food and ammunition to the front line. I will see sufficient supplies within a week."

 Kevin Duck: “General Clement, don’t worry, I will respond to Maputo.”

Clement said seriously: "General Kevin Duck, I said it is a request, and it is a request that you must fulfill. It is not as simple as reacting to Maputo. No matter what method Maputo uses, I only want military supplies." , and it must be delivered to Tete within a week.”

Clément has understood clearly that the colonial government of Mozambique is unreliable and inefficient. It deserves to be beaten by East Africa. Moreover, Clément has learned through this incident not to put pressure on the colonial government of Mozambique. Not only are they inefficient, There may also be corruption.

Even if the efficiency of the French army is high enough, corruption problems cannot be avoided, and this is probably even more true for the bureaucrats in the Mozambique colony, so Clement continued: "When you write to Maputo, you must give a special order. In my name, I I won’t accept even one gram less of the supplies you want.”

Kevin Duck quickly nodded and said: "No problem!"

Kevin Duck also knows the virtues of rear-area bureaucrats. Anyway, this time it was Clement, a Frenchman, who asked the rear-area government to restrain itself. He had nothing to do with him and was not afraid of offending others.

After saying that, Clément lay down on the chair and lit a cigar in a leisurely manner, then started smoking leisurely.

Upon seeing this, Kevin Duck asked: "General Clement, do we really have to wait until the supplies are delivered before launching an attack on East Africa?"

Clement: "What's the hurry? Well, let's first send a small force to capture the Songo military stronghold in East Africa. The large force will wait behind us. Once the supplies are delivered to Tete, we will launch a large-scale offensive."

 The soldiers and horses have not moved, but the food and grass go first. Clement would not launch an attack first if he did not have sufficient military supplies. After all, he was not familiar with the specific conditions in the interior of East Africa. Even relying on the Portuguese's crude map, it was possible to get lost. What if he ran into the enemy's trap? manage.

Furthermore, Clement was worried about the black soldiers under his command. There was always desertion, but fortunately there were only a few running away every day. Clement did not dare to ask too much from an army in this state, and everything was focused on stability.

 Kevin Duck: “How many men do we send to capture Songo?”

Clement: "Just a thousand people! There are only two to three hundred people in the Songo stronghold. Three or four times the number of troops should be able to capture the Songo stronghold."

In Clement’s view, the combat effectiveness of East African border troops, especially small military strongholds like Songo, should not be very high.

Although the combat effectiveness of black soldiers is questionable, after training by French instructors, they should be able to fight compared with the armies of colonial countries such as East Africa.

Moreover, with more troops and fewer troops this time, with more than three times the superior force, there was no way that I could not even capture a small border stronghold.

 (End of this chapter)