I want to be emperor

West Africa, the capital of the West African Kingdom, Kara City.

Seven or eight steamships in the port are slowly leaving the port. The largest ones are only over a hundred tons, and the small ones are only a few dozen tons.

These were typical river steamers with a shallow draft.

Only these steamships with relatively shallow drafts can sail on the many rivers in the interior.

After this small fleet, which was partially carrying living supplies but mostly empty ships, left the port, it did not go directly inland along the river along the coast of Kara City. Instead, it first traveled dozens of kilometers south along the coastline. , and then entered one of the rivers.

This river is called the West African River by the West African Kingdom. It can be regarded as the most important river in the West African Kingdom. Its proven river length is hundreds of kilometers, and a considerable section of the river can pass ships... Of course, walking There is no big boat. After all, this is just a small river. Although there is plenty of water, the river is silted and has not been cleaned, so the navigation conditions can only be considered average.

Its downstream area of ​​more than 100 kilometers can accommodate ships of two to three hundred tons. Further up, the river becomes more complicated and the water depth in many river sections is very shallow, so only some flat-bottomed river boats of dozens of tons can pass.

But even so, this is the lifeline of transportation in the West African Kingdom, because a medium-sized coal mine discovered by the West African Kingdom a few years ago is along this river. The excavated coal mines need this river to be transported to Kara Port to supply local industry. In addition to civilian use, it is also used to supply coal to passing merchant ships.

Providing supplies for passing merchant ships is currently an important income in the West African Kingdom... although the price of coal in Kara Port is very low.

Port Kara is not the only supply port in West Africa. In fact, there are many. Not far from here is the Gold Coast. Therefore, in order to attract merchant ships to dock for supplies, the price of coal at Kara Port is relatively low... Of course, Chen Jingyun does the supply. The business is a capital-free business, the minerals cost no money, and the labor cost is basically negligible, so at most it is just some transportation costs. Even if it is sold cheaper, you still make money, and there is a lot of it.

In addition to cheap coal, other supplies provided to ships in the port are also cheap. Fresh water, food, and even various consumer prices for crew members to disembark are actually relatively cheap!

Again, this is to compete with other supply ports.

A large number of merchant ships traveling to and from the western coast of Africa will come here to dock for supplies.

In this way, the shipowner can save money, and the crew can also use less money to eat, drink, have fun and spend money... When leaving, many crew members will also buy some local handicrafts, souvenirs and the like to take away.

Therefore, although everything here in Kara Port seems cheap, people do everything, and because it is cheap, it can attract more merchant ships to dock for supplies. Taken together, you can still make a lot of money.

In this process, it can also drive the sales of some local specialty products, which can make another round of profit.

At the same time, the docking of a large number of passing merchant ships means that some local export commodities of the West African Kingdom can obtain transportation capacity conveniently and cheaply... Many merchant ships that are not full of warehouses have docked here, and they can take some goods along the way to earn some extra money. , many shipowners are also happy.

This means that export goods are easy to transport and the freight is not expensive, which overall boosts the competitiveness of various export goods in the West African Kingdom.

Therefore, providing supplies to merchant ships is very important for the West African Kingdom. Many economic activities are based on the premise that a large number of merchant ships dock for supplies.

As for the prerequisite for merchant ship supply, coal... this stuff is currently the most important material in the West African Kingdom.

In order to find coal, the West African Kingdom searched the surrounding areas... But coal is not available everywhere. Once a coal mine is found, it may not be able to mine it at low cost, and once it is mined, it may not be able to be transported cheaply.

The West African Kingdom is lucky. It found a very convenient small coal mine when it was first founded. In recent years, it has found a medium-sized coal mine in the middle reaches of the West African River that is convenient for mining and close to the river.

With the support of these two coal mines, the West African Kingdom can play a supply economy.

The purpose of this small fleet going upstream now is to transport supplies to the coal mines in the middle reaches, and to transport coal back on the way back.

In addition to the transport ships, there is also a small gunboat in the fleet, which carries dozens of soldiers from the West African Kingdom. On the one hand, they go to the mining area for rotation to replace other soldiers who have been on duty in the mining area for a long time. On the other hand, they are also for escort. .

Although this waterway belongs to the core control area of ​​the West African Kingdom, there are no indigenous tribes living around it.

But...the natives are gone, but there are still legal or illegal armed forces in various nearby areas.

There are too many messy security companies, agricultural development companies, and mineral development companies in Africa. Overall, India and Europe are even more chaotic.

Although in most cases, these other armed forces will not enter the territory of the West African Kingdom, let alone go to the West African River Channel, the core control area of ​​the West African Kingdom.

But in order to avoid any eventuality, we still need to have the necessary escorts.

No one knows if a group of crazy, poor guys will come over and rob the transport fleet... But don’t think that the Chu people who are hanging out in Africa are all rich people, let alone the Chu armed personnel who are hanging around in Africa. How high.

Who would come to Africa if they were really rich, or even slightly normal?

To be honest, the people who hang out in Africa, especially the armed personnel, are not very good...

Therefore, even land merchant ships or fleets such as the Kingdom of West Africa, which is considered a powerful force in Africa, are sometimes robbed by poor and unruly young men who appear out of nowhere...

Otherwise, why would Chen Jingyun and the others build a bunch of offshore patrol ships and inland river gunboats...not to fight against the Chu Empire, but to fight against the indigenous tribes, smugglers, and various illegal armed robbery gangs... …

Fortunately, there were no accidents during this voyage. Seven or eight ships sailed all the way up the river and finally arrived at the dock of a small town.

This small town, at first glance, looks like a typical Da Chu Empire style... It is similar to the colonial towns in many administrative territories of the Da Chu Empire. The buildings are mainly one or two-story brick and wood houses, with a few Stone cement building.

The stone and cement building is the official local building... and also a military fortress.

Although the West African Kingdom is said to have established an independent country, and the empire officially recognized their independent status and accepted them as a vassal state, it is undeniable that the West African Kingdom is actually no different from the administrative territory of the Chu Empire in many aspects. Even many policies are similar... After all, in the administrative territory of the Great Chu Empire, the Chu people run, including the official schools, only for the children of the Chu people, and do not accept indigenous students, and the indigenous students themselves The schools opened can accept indigenous students, but all courses and even teaching materials must use the officially provided versions, and teaching cannot be provided without authorization.

In the West African Kingdom, although the names are different, they also adopt similar policies... There are two types of government-run schools, one is for Chu people, and the other is for ordinary citizens, that is, immigrants from Europe, West Asia and other places. As for the local black and white indigenous people... they have no national identity and are not even considered human beings. Naturally, there is no such thing as education.

At the same time, there are similar restrictions on business establishment. In many industries, only Chu people can engage in it. European and West Asian immigrants do not have this permission.

In fact, even if a European immigrant obtained internal permission from the West African Kingdom to open a machinery factory, he would not be able to do it... Why?

Because it is impossible for the Da Chu Empire to approve the company’s import order for machinery and equipment!

According to the technical equipment restriction regulations of the Dachu Empire, the treatment of the West African Kingdom is equivalent to that of the administrative territory... and in the administrative territory, the indigenous people cannot operate these mechanical factories and the like.

Only enterprises wholly owned and managed by Chu people can obtain purchase applications for machinery and equipment.

That's why it is said that Chen Jingyun's West African kingdom is actually no different from an administrative territory in the eyes of the senior officials of the Chu Empire.

The town before us is one of the proofs.

After the small fleet docked, a group of free indigenous laborers began to unload the cargo under the leadership of the supervisor, and at the same time moved the coal in the warehouse onto the ship.

The coal mined from the coal mines will first be transported by small trains, and then stored in the town's port warehouse, waiting for ships to be shipped.

And many of the daily necessities that were moved off the ship were also transferred onto a small train!

The trains here are much smaller... because they only use small railways with a gauge of 75 millimeters. This type of railway is actually not seen in mainland East Asia or even in most areas. It is currently only available in some overseas remote and complex terrain areas. can see.

This kind of small railway, despite its small transportation capacity... is easy to build and relatively low-cost, so it has become the first choice of many overseas agricultural development companies or mineral development companies.

This railway in the West African Kingdom is the first railway they built. It is not long, only more than 20 kilometers.

The small train carrying daily necessities and some personnel clanged all the way for more than 20 kilometers before arriving at the terminal, the second coal mine affiliated to the West African Mining Company.

The West African Mining Company is also the only mining company in the West African Kingdom that is directly under the Kingdom... In a small country, there is no second mining company.

In addition to these two coal mines, the West African Mining Company also mines a small, but relatively good-quality iron ore.

It is precisely because of the existence of coal and iron mines that the Kingdom of West Africa, a small and remote country in Africa, was able to build a steel plant.

Although this steel plant is small in scale, with an annual output of only more than 10,000 tons, it is already rare in Africa.

At the same time, iron ore and coal mines can be found even in a small place like the Kingdom of West Africa, which is enough to prove that Africa is very rich in various mineral resources, but most of the minerals are relatively difficult to develop. After all, Africa has a vast inland area. There is a lack of transportation here, there are no railways, and rivers cannot be everywhere.

At the same time, the local environment is really unfriendly... It's fine in some of the more developed coastal areas, but it becomes very dangerous if you go deep inland. People have to face all kinds of ferocious poisonous insects and beasts, and they also need to face the invasion of various germs. .

In the original time and space, Europeans had already set foot in Africa...but they did not carry out large-scale colonial activities in Africa for hundreds of years. They only established trading supply stations in coastal areas!

why?

Don’t they want to go deep into the African continent to colonize and build various plantations?

They want to...but they can't.

In the mid-19th century, before modern medicine developed many key drugs and had a deep understanding of various infectious diseases, as well as prevention and treatment methods, there was no difference between colonizing the interior of Africa and committing suicide.

Therefore, the large-scale colonial activities in Africa in the original time and space actually only started after the mid-19th century... and the real success and large-scale development were only in the late 19th century and even into the 20th century.

This is similar to the colonial expansion of the Chu Empire in Africa.

The Chu people also came to Africa very early... But for a long time, the Chu people's colonization in Africa was limited to establishing supply and trade ports in coastal areas.

Later, medicine continued to develop and progress, especially in recent years, after various modern drugs were invented one after another, and modern medical technology became more and more powerful, the Chu people began to engage in large-scale development and colonization in some places with harsh environments.

This is true even in the Nanyang region... Many places in Nanyang are actually very unfriendly to immigrants, and various infectious diseases are very fatal.

Therefore, despite the fact that the Chu people have occupied the entire Nanyang for a long time, in fact, for a long time, the activities of the Chu people were in some coastal port areas and rarely went deep into the inland areas of the islands.

For example, New Guinea is a large island... Until now, it is estimated that there are only 10,000 or 20,000 Chu people living on this island...

This is very abnormal for an island that is the second largest island in the world and the largest island in Asia, with a total area of ​​700,000 square kilometers.

Why are there so few immigrants from the Chu State? It’s not because there are cannibals on the islands that the Chu people don’t dare to go. In fact, the cannibals and other savages in these places have long been exterminated by the Chu people. Since the 1900s, the Chu people have successively organized servant armies, especially the Fuso servant army, to clean up the islands in Southeast Asia... No matter whether you are a cannibal or not, you will sweep them one by one. These cannibals have long since disappeared from history. In the long river.

There is only one real reason for the low number of immigrants in Chu: the natural environment here is relatively harsh, and the risks of disease faced by immigrants are too great.

The world is so big, including North America, South America, and no matter how bad it is, there is India and Europe... People don't have to go to these poor places to struggle for survival. It's not necessary.

The people of Chu control too many places, and there are countless good places. When people immigrate, they naturally tend to go to those good places. No matter how difficult it is, they will go to some safer places.

The problems faced by some tropical islands in the Southeast Asia are also faced by the African continent.