Greece to roman road

Even before the Ma-Jinjin Railway has been surveyed, some discerning people have revealed their investment intentions.

This was beyond Constantine's expectations.

It seems that this railway should also enter preparations.

Constantine sent a telegram to Banning, still in Berlin, to search for some railway engineering experts and go to the Congo River for on-site inspections to evaluate the railway's estimated price and determine the planned route of the railway.

By September, negotiations on the Congo River Basin had gradually become clearer, and various countries had successively recognized the Congolese Commission's management rights over Congo.

Among them, the French-occupied Congo (Brazzaville), because the French firmly opposed free trade in the region, Congo was officially split into two parts, Congo (Kinshasa) and Congo (Brazzaville).

To Constantine's surprise, after the British learned of the preemptive purchase agreement signed by Constantine and the French, their original opposition to the tariffs collected by the committee relaxed.

With Banning's unremitting efforts, the Congo Committee agreed to charge a 10% tariff to maintain order on the Congo River and avoid being taken advantage of by the French.

The price is that after the Congo River effectively controls Congo, it must help the British put down the Mahdi rebel forces.

Banning questioned Constantine about this condition.

The so-called Mahdi Rebellion refers to the war between the MSL in Sudan in Africa that broke out in 1881 against Britain and Egypt.

Before the rebellion, Sudan was a possession of Egypt, an Ottoman Turkish possession.

It's a mouthful, but that's the relationship.

This is the general origin of this complicated relationship.

Around 1804, Egypt, under the rule of Muhammad Ali, carried out drastic modern political and military reforms, and Egypt gradually became stronger.

Speaking of which, the first war between Egypt and Ottoman Türkiye had something to do with Greece.

Around 1821, the flames of the War of Independence began to burn on the Greek peninsula.

The Turkish army, which had long declined, was decayed and on the verge of collapse.

The forced monarch of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, Mahmud II, could only shamelessly borrow troops from Egypt, his nominal territory, to help him suppress the rebellion.

Mahmud promised Crete and Cyprus in return for sending troops.

Muhammad Ali sent 80,000 troops to suppress the Greek revolution.

However, Greece later became independent from Turkey with the help of European countries.

Now the conflict between Egypt and Türkiye arises:

For the Ottoman Türkiye, Egypt did send troops, but it failed to accomplish anything, so why should it be paid.

But for Egypt, the 80,000-strong army cannot be used in vain. How can the mighty Caliph break his promise and get rich?

So Egypt asked Turkey for Syria, but Mahmoud refused.

The first Egyptian-Turkish war broke out.

A war broke out between Egypt and Ottoman Turkey. The unstoppable Egyptian army successively conquered Palestine and Syria, sweeping across the entire Arabian Peninsula, eyeing the Ottoman Turks' Constantinople.

If it were not for the subsequent intervention of European countries, I am afraid that the Ottoman Empire would have collapsed at this time.

Therefore, Egypt is also a country that once was glorious.

Although Egypt was still nominally an Ottoman Turkish territory, it actually gained independent status.

After Egypt became powerful, it penetrated into Sudan along the Nile River and gradually controlled the tribes along the Nile River.

This resulted in the awkward relationship between Sudan and Egypt, a territory of Ottoman Turkey.

After 1882, British troops occupied and controlled Egypt.

Later, British power expanded along the Nile River towards Sudan located upstream.

This uprising was so powerful that it spread throughout the Sudan. Even the important city of Khartoum (now the capital of Sudan) was captured, and Gordon, the British colonial governor in Sudan, was also killed.

(This Gordon also suppressed the Taiping Rebellion in China.)

Due to the severe situation, British forces could only retreat to Sudan's Red Sea.

In Constantine's memory, he vaguely remembered that this uprising lasted for more than ten years.

Constantine was inclined to agree to the British terms.

The reason is also very simple, nothing more than profit.

Sudan has always been an important passage for Arabs to enter the Congo region by land and capture black people as slaves.

These Sudanese Arabs are not good men and women, they are also outsiders.

Why is Sudan split into South Sudan and Sudan in the 21st century?

Because these Arabs are also invaders. The original indigenous people of Sudan are Negro Negroes. Their relationship is that of slave traders and slaves. They have a blood feud and regard it as water and fire.

If they knew that the Congo Committee was attacking Arabs in the Sudan, I am afraid that both the local blacks and the blacks in the Congo River area would applaud.

The Congolese Committee entered Africa in name only to maintain local order and oppose the cruel slave trade.

This is not because Constantine was singing a high-key tone, but because European capitalism was booming at this time and needed a huge commodity market, slaves were incompatible with capitalism.

The process of capturing slaves by Arab slave traders was often accompanied by massacre and robbery, which would drastically reduce the black population.

This is detrimental to the Congolese Commission.

The Congo Committee already had administrative power, and the greater the number of black people, the greater the market provided, and the more benefits the Congo Committee itself could obtain.

The Sudanese Arab slave traders were undoubtedly a threat to the interests of the Congo Committee.

Secondly, Mahdi, who opposed the colonists, sounds like a great man. In fact, he is a figure similar to Hong Xiuquan in Jinling City.

After taking power, he quickly became corrupted, indulged in extravagance, indulged in eating, drinking, and having fun, and he died within a few years.

As a religious dictator, it doesn't matter if you play with women and eat delicacies from the mountains and seas every day. As long as the economy is done well, everyone can live a good life.

But Mahdi only knows how to destroy, only knows how to buy foreign guns and cannons, and he is also good at robbing slaves, but he does not care about the economy, causing business to wither and making the city of Khartoum unable to even support itself. Go down.

Mahdi also had the ambition to liberate the entire world. He also sent some missions to Mecca and other places to promote the true meaning of anla that he experienced in his hallucinations.

Little did he know that others regarded his words as heresy and ignored him at all. In order to prevent the Sudanese people from being brainwashed by other ideological heresies, Mahdi did not stop and simply banned citizens from leaving the country, not even going on a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Fortunately, there was no radio or satellite TV at that time. If there had been, he would probably have welded the channels on the radio and asked the Sultan to strictly prohibit the installation of satellite receivers.

I don’t know if I let beauty take away my body. After a few years of messing around, I died in my forties.

The Egyptian army collapsed upon its arrival, and Sudan reverted to a colony.

Constantine really didn't like such people.

So Constantine finally agreed to the British proposal to attack Sudan from the north of the Congo to the south to help assess the rebellion, while the British supported the Congo Commission to charge no more than 10% tariff.