African Entrepreneurship Records

  Chapter 25 Military Industry Primary Ticket

  As a supplement to the agreement, Ernst deliberately obtained the entry ticket for the arms industry from Prussia, and first solved the problem of starting from scratch.

  This time Ernst explained the purpose in advance, that is, for the issue of weapons and equipment for the East African colonies under the management of the royal family of Hechingen.

   After all, there is nothing wrong with producing weapons and equipment in Europe, but it is hard to say if you have a production line. Even if it is a relatively backward technology, you will try to avoid spreading it.

  Since Ernst emphasized that it is for the purpose of colonizing East Africa, the Prussian government does not need to worry too much about its use, as long as it sends people to check the accounts and pay taxes reasonably.

  This time, the Prussian royal family and government were very generous. In addition to a small arsenal, there were several original flintlock production lines that were about to be decommissioned, as well as bullet production lines. At the same time, he promised that Ernst could order other materials needed from Prussian military enterprises such as Krupp in the future. Of course, he had to pay and could not use them in Europe.

At this time, Prussia was affected by the Second Schleswig War and increased the retirement of front-loading flintlock guns to produce rear-loading rifles, so they generously gave the production line of front-loading flintlock guns to Ernst. Just to make room for the new production line.

   Ernst is very satisfied with the availability of these old weapon production lines. Ernst plans to equip the East African colonies with these weapons that are about to fall behind.

  There are more and more Chinese immigrants in the East African colonies, and there will be more strongholds in the future. Ernst’s armed forces in East Africa are only hired Germans, but the number is only more than 2,000, while the number of Chinese immigrants is now almost 3,000.

In fact, more than 2,000 people are already quite a lot. On the eve of the First World War in later generations, the troops in German East Africa included 68 white officers, 60 white non-commissioned officers, 132 white medical officers and administrative personnel, 2 black officers, 184 black officers, and 2,286 black soldiers.

  Such a small army is suppressing an area of ​​more than 900,000 square kilometers of land. Now Ernst's investment in the East African colonies is not comparable to that of Germany in his previous life.

  Only at the military level, there are 2,000 white troops of their own ethnicity, and Chinese troops will be organized in the future.

  In the previous life, German East Africa was the most valuable colony of Germany in the previous life, and its value was not that high in the eyes of Germany. Germany mainly planted cash crops such as cotton, rubber and sisal here.

  Germany mainly hopes to gain a stud in the European continent. As long as it wins the European continent, it can divide the dominance of the world at will, and there will be any colonies by then.

  So during the First World War, Germany voluntarily gave up its overseas colonies and concentrated on fighting the Allies in Europe.

  And Ernst regards East Africa as his retreat, so he is more concerned about population, agriculture, and industry.

  The current increase in immigration is to avoid the situation in South Africa in the future, to vacate the cage and change the bird. This can be regarded as learning from the Americans, but Ernst will not do it so rough, massacre is impossible, and there is a high probability that he will choose to send it to another place by ship.

Agriculture, this is what Ernst is currently doing in East Africa. In addition to planting cash crops, Ernst has retained the main position of food crops. The colony development plan cannot be postponed because of a small immediate benefit. Only enough food , the immigrants can be resettled in place.

  Industry is a little far away. The basic conditions in East Africa are too poor now, and there is no room for industrial development. It is mainly a basic industry such as the mining industry, and Ernst does not plan to carry it out.

  Before East Africa is fully controlled, in case of discovering incredible minerals, I am afraid that it will be burned, so Ernst proceeded carefully.

   Mastering East Africa requires a sizable army. Few Germans are willing to go to East Africa to develop, so Ernst intends to organize a small number of Chinese and build a Chinese army.

  Used to control the land in East Africa, the future expansion of the colony is bound to collide with those tribes and other colonists.

Ernst did not want to reproduce the experience of German East Africa being gang-beaten by the colonies of neighboring countries during the First World War. Even if a war broke out, he should have several times the strength of the opponent. Compared with a fair confrontation, gang fights are king. .

  Using natives to form an army is definitely unreliable. In the previous life, Britain led the colonies of various countries in Africa to form an army of 250,000 natives to deal with German East Africa. In the early days, thousands of colonists in German East Africa made fun of them.

  So the fighting power and fighting desire of the natives can be imagined. Maybe they also know that they are going to die, so they just put it badly, but Ernst is more willing to believe that this is their daily state.

  If it is not impossible to change the lazy character of these aborigines, as long as the education is done well, starting from the next generation, it should be possible to correct it.

  But who will bear the cost of money and time, and the colonists are here to make a fortune, not to help the poor. The wealth of society is limited. It is better to let them work hard than to expect money from the colonists.

   Of course, this is not the case for all colonies. For example, the colonies of the United States and Canada that have been "cleaned up" are all "our own people" and cannot be treated like aboriginals.

  So it turned to the state of a normal country. At present, the East African colonies have not achieved this goal, and there is no way to pack and send all the indigenous people.

  Constrained by the population, Ernst intends to build a Chinese army of 50,000 in East Africa in the next three years.

  In order to prevent this army from getting out of control, all officers are Germans, and students from the Hechingen Military Academy serve as staff officers and other deputy staff to assist in management.

  Ernst also wants to expand the German community in East Africa, but there is no good way at present, who wants to develop in that kind of "barbaric" place.

   Only when the infrastructure construction of the East African colonies is completed, and Europe is in chaos, and under the threat of war, can Ernst reach out into Europe to attract those ordinary people.

  As the earliest Chinese army in the East African colonies, the weapon problem was naturally solved by these old front-loading flintlock production lines.

  This expected army is not the kind of standing army, but a special-type army that is similar to the agricultural army that needs to participate in production and construction on a daily basis.

   After all, the current opponents faced by the East African colonies are only those uncivilized indigenous tribes, most of which are still in the stage of making spears, bows and arrows from stones and trees with a small amount of iron.

   Such opponents are not worth forming a professionally trained standing army to deal with. As long as Chinese immigrants learn to fire and aim with flintlock guns retired from Europe, it will be a dimensionality reduction blow to those indigenous tribes.

  (end of this chapter)