African Entrepreneurship Records 2

Chapter 920: Plotting for Mindanao
In fact, the territory of East Africa has shrunk to a certain extent due to the negotiations with France. For example, some land in the eastern part of Antananarivo that was occupied by East Africa was returned to France after the negotiations between the two countries.

After all, this is a no-cost business. The benefits East Africa gained from France's invasion of the Kingdom of Imerina far outweighed these, so France essentially lost out. France could have obtained the entire territory of the Kingdom of Imerina, but it failed to do so because of East Africa.

Of course, returning part of the land of the Kingdom of Imerina is not important for East Africa. Most of the other areas acquired by East Africa are mountainous areas and areas that can form passes. This allows East Africa to strategically suppress the French colony of Madagascar.

Of course, if this part of the land had not been returned, the territory of East Africa would have surely exceeded 13 million square kilometers, instead of just starting out as it is now.

However, East Africa should not be too greedy. East Africa is now the second largest country in the world in terms of area, and the 13 million square kilometers are just the native land. If the overseas provinces of Lan Fang are included, the area is more than that, and this does not include other colonies in East Africa.

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"This administrative division is quite reasonable, but it will take a long time to implement. We will first set up provinces in areas without disputes, such as Orange and Southwest Africa. As for disputed areas such as the Great Lakes Province, we will have to make the transition gradually."

After all, the Great Lakes Province has to negotiate with the former Plateau Province and Western Great Lakes Province, and even Bujumbura has become independent and become the new capital of Solon Province. This is also unfair to the former Western Great Lakes Province. After all, the resources of the former Western Great Lakes Province are concentrated in the provincial capital Bujumbura.

Of course, the province that suffered the most was Plateau Province. Not only did it lose its western territory and become the main body of the new Solon Province, but it also ceded the richer Mwanza City in the north. Dodoma City completely became the only dominant city in the province, but this was obviously not what the Plateau Provincial Government wanted.

Therefore, the original provinces need to do a good job of handing over each other, involving industries, resources, population and so on. The provinces in remote areas are easier to deal with, after all, they are completely blank slate, and there will not be overly intense disputes.

"By 1900, there were still nearly three years left, which was enough time to complete these tasks. This basically means that the political landscape of East Africa was basically stable after 1900. On this basis, after 1900, East Africa's expansion shifted from the African continent to overseas colonies, especially the Southeast Asian region."

Ernst still had his eyes on Southeast Asia. After all, compared with exerting political influence on East Africa in other directions, Southeast Asia was the easiest.

According to the territorial location of East Africa, under normal circumstances, the priority should be West Africa and North Africa, but the competition in these two regions is too fierce. Before the decline of European countries such as Britain and France, Ernst was basically not optimistic about the local situation.

Thinking of this, if nothing unexpected happens, the Spanish-American War should break out next year, and East Africa should take action in advance.

After the meeting, Ernst called in Foreign Minister Hermann and Director of the National Security Agency Walsden.

Ernst asked, “Walsden, how are our preparations in the Philippines going at this time?”

"Your Highness, the progress is going smoothly. We have disguised our personnel as people from different countries and entered Mindanao one by one. Currently, we have more than 2,000 core personnel on the island, and about 8,000 peripheral personnel. However, it may be difficult to control the island."

Walsden said that it was just difficult, which was an understatement. In fact, Mindanao had a very low status in the Philippines, similar to a "wild land". Even in the past, the population of Mindanao was nearly half that of Luzon. Now the population of the entire Philippines is only about 19 to million, even less than that of the Abyssinian Empire. It was not until the mid-th century that the population of the Philippines exceeded million.

This is the result of the Spanish efforts to "feed" the people. In the early 19th century, the population of the Philippines was only over one million. At the beginning of Spanish colonization, the population of the Philippines would have been even lower. So although "colony" is not a positive word, the improvement in productivity and medical and health levels in backward areas in this era is visible to the naked eye. Otherwise, the population of each colony would not have doubled. Of course, some colonies are exceptions that are not human, such as the Belgian Congo colony next to East Africa.

"According to our statistics, the current population of Mindanao is about 300,000 to 400,000. The main population of the Philippines is concentrated in islands such as Luzon. Therefore, although we only have more than 8,000 people in Mindanao, it is risky to control Mindanao, but the chances of success are still very high."

The error in the figures given by the National Defense Security Agency is not large, which also shows the desolation of Mindanao. Even though Ernst often says that East Africa is sparsely populated, if you look throughout East Africa, only Southwest Africa and the Congo rainforest have a smaller population than Mindanao.

Of course, from the perspective of population density, Mindanao is far larger than Southwest Africa and the Congo Rainforest. After all, Southwest Africa covers an area of ​​more than 800,000 square kilometers, the Congo Rainforest covers an area of ​​more than one million square kilometers, while Mindanao is less than 100,000 square kilometers.

The population explosion of Mindanao in the past life began in the late 20s. Before that, Mindanao was equivalent to the ancient exile places of the Far East countries or Siberia of Tsarist Russia for the Philippines. It was not until the Philippine government promoted immigration in 1939 that the population of Mindanao began to grow significantly and exceeded 21 million in the st century.

Comparing the population of more than 20 million with the current population of 300,000 or 400,000, it can be seen that the tropical rainforest climate was indeed a "green desert" before the Industrial Revolution. Not to mention development, even survival was quite difficult.

Of course, this is also the reason why Ernst set his sights on Mindanao. If the population is large, who would want this place? The Abyssinian Empire and the Kingdom of Imerina are examples of this.

As Ernst and the old spy Walsden were talking, Foreign Minister Hermann, who was standing next to him, broke out in a cold sweat.

"Your Highness, are you planning to have a conflict with the Kingdom of Spain? This is a matter of interfering with the sovereignty of another country, and Spain is not a small or weak country. Doing so may cause a diplomatic incident." Hermann asked from the side.

Walsden did not speak. In fact, the Crown Prince's ambition for Mindanao was long-planned. East Africa's infiltration into the local area began long before the South African War. Ever since he became the director of the National Defense Security Agency, Mindanao and Kauai in Hawaii have been the focus of the National Defense Security Agency outside of Europe, the United States and Japan. The only difference is that Kauai has become an East African territory, and now only Mindanao is missing.

Ernst: "The Nanyang region is a key area for East Africa's future overseas layout, so it is reasonable for us to make some preparations in advance. After all, the Nanyang region has been divided up on the surface, so if we want to gain a foothold here, we must take some special measures."

Herman: "But the Northern Hawaiian Kingdom probably only had one chance to take advantage of the right time, right place and right people. We also took advantage of the fact that the Hawaiian Kingdom was an independent country at the time. Even if it was a little later, the Americans would have controlled the entire Hawaiian Kingdom. We obviously don't have such conditions in the Philippines. After all, the Philippines is one of Spain's important colonies, which is completely different from Hawaii. If we do this, we're afraid it will anger the Spanish government."

Of course, Ernst had no intention of offending Spain. After all, East Africa had offended many countries, including Britain, Portugal and Japan, which were countries with considerable strength in the world. Other countries that were destroyed by East Africa did not even have the chance to hate East Africa.

As for how to obtain Mindanao from Spain, Ernst naturally wanted to replicate the successful experience of the North Hawaiian Kingdom last time, letting the United States play the villain and East Africa reap the benefits behind the scenes. Of course, Hermann and others naturally did not understand the key, after all, they were not Ernst.

(End of this chapter)