African Nationhood

Chapter 353 A tumultuous start to the new year

By 1897, the total number of immigrants from the Nanhua Company had reached 740 million.

Due to the large-scale immigration of immigrants, various major districts in the Matabeleland region have gradually become more popular, all thanks to the promotion of the new insecticide DDT.

In the end, Boss Shi could not resist his desire for success. After symbolically asking the pharmaceutical department to issue a "use with caution" notice, he asked the pharmaceutical department to start large-scale industrial production.

Immigrants were amazed by the effectiveness of the new insecticide and did not care much about the company's ban.

After being sprayed with pesticides, there are no longer restrictions and more space for planting. This temptation is not only for immigrants, but also for local governments.

After all, there are selections every year in various places. If immigrants within the jurisdiction cannot enter the field to open up fields and produce agriculture and animal husbandry, it is the incompetence of the district chief.

Therefore, the local government, which had previously been restrained, turned a blind eye to the abuse of DDT by immigrants in order to achieve better planting results.

If Nanhua Company hadn't controlled the production of DDT from the source, I'm afraid the people below would have used this pesticide even more unscrupulously and illegally.

At the request of Boss Shi, the pharmaceutical department did not cancel the research team studying the toxic effects of DDT, but it was impossible to produce test results in the short term.

Nanhua Company hid the DDT matter from other members of the "Tsetse Fly Research Group". This was not an act of kindness on the part of Boss Shi.

Instead, this special pesticide was given to the British, and the accumulated consequences of their large-scale abuse were ultimately swallowed by the Nanhua Company.

……

The beginning of 1898 was not smooth. The continued popularity of the "North African Oil Exploration Company" triggered more Europeans to carry out oil exploration activities in various areas of Tripolitania (now northern Libya).

As exploration continued, more and more oil fields were discovered in the desert areas of the interior.

Interests affect people's hearts, and the French next door are also starting to make moves.

While they carried out oil exploration activities in their own colonies of Tunisia and Algeria, they also encouraged domestic capitalists to explore for oil in the colonies of the Ottoman Empire.

……

After receiving the news, William Sfield immediately issued a call, hoping that the shareholders of the "North African Oil Exploration Company" and the capitalists who had discovered oil fields in other areas would unite and lobby the British government as a group.

Please ask the British government to dispatch Egyptian troops to occupy the Cyrenaica region (now southeastern Libya), and at the same time put pressure on the Ottoman Empire to ensure the rights and interests of the "North African Oil Exploration Company".

The discovery of oil deposits in the Gulf of Sirte attracted the attention of the Ottoman Empire. The nobles in the empire were very smart and began to hire oil experts to explore for oil deposits inland.

As a result, the entire Tripolitania region has attracted the attention of European powers and the Ottoman Empire, and the situation has become increasingly critical.

……

Italians across the sea from Tripolitania could not sit still, because starting from 1880, the Italian government used the Ottoman Empire's blockade policy against Libya to exaggerately promote Libya as a "chosen place."

It is a "field of hope" and an "ideal home" that is suitable for farming, business and living. It mobilizes farmers to immigrate to Libya, sends businessmen to increase economic ties, and sends missionaries to collect intelligence.

According to the original time and space history, in the next twenty years or so, a large number of Italian people entered Libya, basically completing the preliminary preparations for the invasion.

However, the entry of the "North African Oil Exploration Company" interrupted the Italians' colonial plan to slowly invade.

Originally, the Italians were not that ambitious for this desert land, but after the discovery of oil, the value of this land changed.

Therefore, King Emmanuel III of Italy hurriedly sent envoys to negotiate with Britain and France.

The Italians' thinking is this: Since the two eldest brothers don't want to compete directly, it's better to leave this territory to the younger brother me to occupy.

How about then that merchants from your two countries will have equal privileges in and out of this land?

The French were greatly moved by the Italians' promises, but the British Prime Minister, the Marquess of Salisbury, was a staunch imperialist and preferred to directly occupy territory. The Ottomans were very weak in combat, so why not give the British Empire an additional territory in North Africa?

Moreover, the oil resources on this territory are enough for the British Empire to obtain key resources in future world disputes.

……

The commander of the British Army in Egypt, British Colonel Horatio Herbert Kitchener, used the excuse that the Senussi Order in Cyrenaica was dissatisfied with the British and sent troops to capture Cyrenaica.

This move caused dissatisfaction with the Ottoman Empire, but the Ottoman Empire did not dare to fight the British.

They could only send a delegation to negotiate with the British. When the French saw that the British took the lead, they took action.

They couldn't sit still anymore and asked the Tripolitanian government to give an explanation on the pretext that one of their French expatriates was missing.

The Italians saw that Britain and France no longer respected martial ethics. They also believed that Italian businessmen had been treated unfairly and demanded an explanation from the Ottomans.

The situation in North Africa is on the verge of breaking out.

……

At the same time, the U.S. warship "Maine" was bombed and sunk in Havana Harbor, and the Cuban colonial government could not explain it.

The U.S. military launched a retaliatory action, first blockading Cuban ports, and then capturing Spanish merchant ships, giving the Spanish government a deadline to provide an explanation.

Finally, it declared war on the Spanish government on April 4, and the Spanish-American War broke out.

……

After the outbreak of the Spanish-American War, Britain, France, and Italy also began to declare war on the Ottoman Empire. The military forces of the three countries were like a bamboo, and they defeated the colonial government forces of the Tripolitanian government.

By the end of June 1898, the Ottoman Turkish government and the three countries signed an agreement to abandon the Tripolitania colony.

The colony of Tripolitania was handed over to the three countries respectively, and the Ottoman Empire gave up its colonial management rights in this area.

Then France, Italy and Britain started negotiations. After more than a month of negotiations.

The three countries delineated the colonial scope, and the western part adjacent to France came under French rule.

The central part came under Italian rule, and the eastern part, close to Egypt, came under British rule.

After the establishment of the three major colonies, the French and Italians carried out colonial rule very steadily.

The British were in trouble because they had stirred a hornet's nest.

The Senussi Order, a nationalist indigenous organization, opposed the Ottomans during their colonial rule and opposed the Italian colonial rule after the Italians arrived in the original time and space.

Now that the British came, they began to resist the British.

The British were very unfortunate to have stepped into a quagmire, and Colonel Kitchener, who presided over the military invasion, was therefore firmly restrained.

In the future Boer War, he may not be able to participate as scheduled.

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(End of this chapter)