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Chapter 1569 Rhapsody on the Roof of Africa (rd update, please subscribe)
Late at night, the sky over Ethiopia is filled with stars.

The capital Addis Ababa was quiet under the starry sky. Indeed, as the capital of the country, except for the street lights on a few avenues as an image project, the street lights in most blocks were not lit.

There was a light inside the courtyard of the SEA Commercial Representative Office. It was a fire!
It is the flame of burning documents.

The staff of the representative office are burning confidential documents according to the secret telegram sent by Chang'an. At the same time, the staff and their families of the representative office are also preparing to evacuate.

Everything seemed to be an ominous sign.

Outside the representative office, Ethiopian military police looked at the black smoke in the yard nervously. Although they didn't know what was happening, they could predict that something big was about to happen.

Not only ordinary military and police officers thought so, but Mengistu, the Ethiopian President who came to power through a military coup a few years ago, also thought so and he even suffered from insomnia.

"What are they going to do?"

Mengistu, who was in the Presidential Palace, talked to himself.

After learning about the black smoke coming out of the SEA representative office, Mengistu fell into a state of panic.

After all, everyone knew what the flames there meant, it meant that they were destroying confidential documents.

Why destroy those confidential documents?

Obviously it was not because the representative office had too little space, but because something big was about to happen.

Such a major event is very likely related to war!

Although this bedroom looks magnificent and no different from an ordinary bedroom, it is actually a "bunker". Like many people, he built a bunker to deal with possible air raids.

After all, no one wants to be beheaded by a battle axe.

Especially after the unpleasant conflict with SEA, two days ago, the British ambassador to Ethiopia lodged a protest against its support for Kenyan rebels and allowing them to use Ethiopian territory to set up training camps to train rebels.

Mengistu originally did not take this protest seriously at all, but now he had to take it seriously.

Because it is not only the UK that has submitted a protest, but also the sea,

If it was just Britain, Mengistu would never have lived in the bunker at all, after all, Britain was a declining empire.

No one would take the British threat seriously. In the past few years, he has been protested by the British countless times.

But this time is different from the past because there are other people besides Britain.

But SEA is different, they never disdain threats because they advocate action.

Because of this, Mengistu moved into the bunker directly and would not come out of the bunker until he figured out the other party's intentions.

"Will they attack us?"

Mengistu did not have the confidence in his heart. While he was so worried, he was also thinking about another problem.

"Really, those Russians always bring trouble to Ethiopia."

Mengistu thought so because he was increasingly dissatisfied with the Russians. Although in the past few years, with the full help of Russia, Ethiopia's appearance has changed dramatically. With the efforts of tens of thousands of Soviet advisers and technical workers and the work of hundreds of thousands of Soviet agricultural machinery, millions of hectares of barren land have been turned into fertile farms.

Reservoirs, canals and modern farms have appeared on the ancient land of Ethiopia.

Such achievements once attracted the attention of the whole world, and even Mengistu proudly declared that Ethiopia has now become the most developed country in Africa.

Of course, this development refers to agriculture.

But on the other hand, Mengistu's dissatisfaction with the Soviets was also accumulating.

Over the past few years, the Soviet Union has provided Ethiopia with loans of more than 30 billion rubles, all of which were used to develop agriculture.

Land reclamation requires a large number of tractors, farm planting requires Soviet seeds, fertilizers and pesticides, and of course, Soviet agricultural machinery.

In order to develop agriculture, Ethiopia had to borrow money from the Soviet Union to import the necessary agricultural materials.

On one hand, farm production is increasing. On the other hand? On the other hand, foreign debt is increasing.

In order to repay foreign debts, they had to export most of their grain production to the Soviet Union.

In this process, although Ethiopia has undergone tremendous changes, the lives of ordinary Ethiopians have not improved much.

After all, modern farms do not need too many agricultural workers. Moreover, for the vast majority of Ethiopian farmers who are uneducated, they are expected to become agricultural workers.

On one side, Ethiopia's agriculture is growing rapidly, but on the other side? The lives of the poor have not changed much.

In this situation, Western intelligence agencies including the CIA began to spread various rumors in Ethiopia.

They claim that all of Ethiopia's development dividends have been plundered by the Russians, who are plundering Ethiopia's wealth.

Such rhetoric is almost equivalent to the accusations made by the Russians against other African countries.

This statement is not only agreed by many ordinary Ethiopians, but also by Ethiopian officials, including President Mengistu.

"Yes, if the Russians had not supported the Kenyans, there would be no such trouble. We have done so much for them, and they are not even willing to increase the proportion of foreign exchange payments in grain trade."

When saying this, Mame Newman was full of complaints. He was Mengistu's younger brother and the chief of staff of the army. They launched a military coup together that year, and it was he who made the connection and established contact with the Russians. With the help of the Russians, he carried out the military coup. In order to avoid being "targeted beheading", he also lived in the bunker and became a bunker boy with his brother.

Of course, it was also Mame who caused Emperor Haile Selassie to die of "disease". After the military coup was successful, Emperor Haile Selassie was kept under house arrest in the palace. Half a year later, in order to completely eliminate the hidden danger, the emperor died of illness, and his remains subsequently disappeared.

In the next six months, many people, including the crown prince, died in various accidents. In short, following one principle - the whole family was intact, except for Princess Linacea Lacy who was visiting her grandmother in Switzerland. The descendant of "King Solomon and Queen of Sheba" who had been passed down for nearly three thousand years disappeared completely from the world.

As the initiator of all this, Mengistu never regretted it, because this was the price Ethiopia had to pay to enter modern society.

Now listening to his brother's complaints, he also said:

"Yes, they are only willing to pay 10% in foreign exchange, and the rest is used to offset their loans."

"loan……"

Mame says:

"We will never be able to repay the Russian loans. We need to import more things and incur more foreign debt every year."

Nodding, Mengistu said:
"Yes, fortunately, we can export grain. Through exports to Russia, we have repaid our foreign debts and received a large amount of agricultural machinery, fertilizers, pesticides and other various production materials. Of course, we also received a large amount of weapons and equipment from the Soviet Union."

In the past few years, Ethiopia has even built the most powerful air force and armored forces south of the Sahara.

This modern army was used by Mengistu to suppress the opposition and maintain the foundation of his rule.

Ma Mei was naturally very clear about this. He thought for a moment and said:
"But, brother, we always need foreign exchange. After all, we need foreign exchange to import goods from Western countries."

In addition to producing machinery and arms, both Mengistu and the Ethiopian upstarts needed a variety of luxury goods from Western countries.

Luxury cars, jewelry, high-end clothing... and all kinds of luxury goods.

All these things needed foreign exchange to buy. However, the Soviet Union was unwilling to pay more foreign exchange. Because of this, many Ethiopian upstarts, including Mengistu, began to have grudges against the Russians and even resentment.

After all, they put their heads on the line and became the new elite of this country not only to realize the modernization of the country, of course, to realize the modernization of Ethiopia.

But when they became the country's new elite from ordinary middle and lower-level officers, everyone's mentality changed a little.

They once accused the emperor and the nobles of living a luxurious life and ignoring the welfare of the people. But when they gained power and became the new nobility, they moved into those magnificent mansions and began to enjoy the life that they once hated.

Luxury cars from the Western world replaced the jeeps, and luxury goods from the Western world became their capital for showing off to each other.

In their mansion, they enjoyed fine wines from the West and delicacies prepared by French chefs.

In short, it is better than in the past, but all of this requires money!

After all, those luxury goods in the West require money to buy.

That's why they need foreign exchange.

"We still can't do without the Russians. After all, we can't do without them in every aspect."

Although he was extremely dissatisfied with the Russians, Mengistu was still very clear about the reality.

The reality is that he cannot do without the Russians and Russia's support, especially those modern farms and agricultural facilities cannot do without Russian advisers and Russian technical workers.

Without Russia's assistance, especially without Russia's technical support, Ethiopia will soon be reduced to its original state.

So Mengistu was still able to distinguish reality.

After thinking about it, he said.

"But since we can export grain to the Soviet Union, we can also export grain to other countries. Starting this year, we will increase the amount of grain exported to the international market.

Moreover, some countries are now showing goodwill to us. They are different from the Americans, but they have deep conflicts with the Soviets.

Yes. We can take advantage of the conflicts between them and gain more benefits between the two countries. "

Having said that, Mengistu thought for a moment and continued.

"We can use them to get rid of the constraints imposed on us by the Russians. For example, we can ask them to help us build a fertilizer enterprise or a tractor factory..."

Just as Mengistu was saying this, the piercing ring of the phone interrupted his words, and then Ma Mei answered the phone. Listening to the voice on the other end of the phone, his face suddenly changed and he said:
"What, what did you say?"

After hanging up the phone, Ma Mei, horrified, looked at her brother and said.

"They, they bombed those training camps. They must have used Tomahawk missiles..."

(End of this chapter)