African Nationhood

The chain effect triggered by the death of Lord Roberts evolved in a direction unfavorable to Britain, and the Boer coalition became more and more arrogant.

The town of Kimberley, which was besieged by the Boer coalition forces, continued to be in crisis, and telegrams asking for help were all sent to Nanhua Company.

Shi Jintang expressed regret for what happened to Cecil Rhodes and told him that the distance between the two sides was too far and the Boers were very strong, so Nanhua Company could not rescue him.

The London cabinet was in a hurry and could not conjure up another army commander-in-chief, so it had no choice but to use Baron Paul Stafford Methuen to temporarily act as commander of the British Expeditionary Force.

Lieutenant General Methuen was brave, easy-going and highly respected. He was a competent staff officer.

But he is not a general with independent command ability. He lacks independent opinions and is hesitant to take on important tasks.

Facing the fierce offensive of the Boer coalition, he was helpless.

When a meeting of officers was convened, the opinions expressed by a group of defeated generals conflicted with each other, and no one could come up with a plan that could convince everyone.

However, no one was willing to lead troops to rescue the besieged towns of Kimberley and Mafeking (today's Mefogen, South Africa) on the western front.

In desperation, Lieutenant General Methuen assigned Major General Ian Hamilton to lead a team to rescue the besieged town of Kimberley.

Major General Ian Hamilton was very famous in World War I, but now his reputation is really not good.

Because when he fought against the Boers at Ladysmith, he failed to defend well and was defeated by the Boers who broke through the line.

This is a Confucian general. His writing skills are very good, but his command is still incomplete.

His thinking is very out-of-the-box and his consideration of problems is not comprehensive enough. Therefore, he can only be an army general, but not a marshal.

Among these British generals, the one who can really take the lead should be General John French, the future Field Marshal.

It's a pity that his current military rank is too low. He is just a major general who was promoted before the war and has insufficient qualifications.

Douglas Haig, another famous World War I general, was only a colonel at this time and could not stand out among the generals.

……

Faced with the assignment of the temporary commander, Major General Ian Hamilton had no choice but to take over the task and lead more than 3 soldiers towards Kimberley Town.

Because the Boers are not good at positional warfare, they are very good at raids and guerrilla warfare.

A small group of rangers, after detecting the British troop carrier, immediately decided to launch an ambush along the train.

As soon as the train carrying the British support troops left the town of De Aar, it was attacked by "Bang Bang Artillery" deployed by the Boers.

This 37mm-caliber fully-automatic artillery is an upgraded version of the Maxim heavy machine gun. The shells fire quickly but do little damage.

After a row of shells was fired, they ran away and did not engage in direct combat at all.

This raid caused many damages to Ian Hamilton's troop transport carriage. There were few casualties among the soldiers, but it had a huge impact on the morale of the soldiers.

After a lot of tidying up and comforting, it took until early in the morning for the British army to regain their composure.

They continued on their way, but were constantly attacked by surprise along the way.

The attacks they suffered along the way caused them to lose hundreds of people. Although the number of casualties was not large, the morale of the British army fell directly to the bottom.

When the troop carrier arrived at the outskirts of Kimberley Town, which was still 100 kilometers away from the town, Ian Hamilton took the initiative to stop the train. He planned to let 3 soldiers enter Kimberley Town on foot.

Everything was going smoothly, but when the British soldiers were getting out of the car to pack their bags, the Boer ambush suddenly broke out.

This ambush caught Ian Hamilton off guard. His equipment had no time to deploy, and the soldiers encountered fierce artillery fire.

In desperation, he could only let the soldiers abandon their equipment and troop trains and retreat. When they escaped from the encirclement, they counted their numbers and found that only half of them had escaped.

Ian Hamilton's eyes went dark and he almost fell down. He was already very careful. More than 3 soldiers could not travel long distances and could only take trains.

Now that they were ambushed by the Boers and lost so many soldiers, his future was really in doubt.

After being ambushed, Ian Hamilton could no longer rescue Kimberley Town. It was not that he did not want to rescue, but that his soldiers were not strong enough.

These soldiers were frightened and their morale was at a loss.

……

The experience of Ian Hamilton's troops does not represent the entire British army. For example, General Buller, who resigned because of his previous rigid and rigid tactics, was more flexible when he went to war again.

He led his troops to continue the attack on Ladysmith. This time his choice was more pragmatic and he did not risk further attacks and attacked slowly.

Paired with artillery units, use the "Xu Jin Barrage" to advance little by little.

From here it can be seen that the Boers are not good at fighting positional warfare, and the shortcomings of their guerrilla warfare are also revealed.

Troops were sent out at the end of January, and by mid-February the British troops on the eastern front recaptured Ladysmith.

If Admiral Buller's stupid method is followed, victory is inevitable, but it will take time, but the London cabinet cannot wait.

They were impatient and repeatedly urged Lieutenant General Methuen to speed up the progress.

Lieutenant General Methuen had no choice but to ask the cabinet to give the Nanhua Company an order to allow the Nanhua Company to fight.

At the same time, Lieutenant General Methuen could not let the Western Front fall, so he had to replace Ian Hamilton and let Major General John French continue to rescue the Western Front with the newly formed cavalry division.

At the end of February, the town of Kimberley, which had not waited for rescue for a long time, was captured by the Boer coalition and Cecil Rhodes was captured.

……

Major General John French and his cavalry division, who were still busy on their way, did not know the news.

So they plunged into the encirclement of the Boers. The newly formed cavalry division of 10,000 people was directly overwhelmed by the Boers' Maxim machine guns and bang-bang cannons.

In this battle, Major General John French was captured and Douglas Haig narrowly escaped. But he was shot in the arm, and by the time he escaped to safety, the wound on his arm was infected.

……

It was already early March when Nanhua Company received the telegram from the cabinet. Faced with the cabinet's urging, Shi Jintang took his time and began to bargain with the cabinet.

Boss Shi brought up the old story again, hoping to obtain the British government's approval and establish an autonomous dominion on its own in Southwest Africa after the war.

The cabinet directly rejected such unreasonable demands and asked Shi Jintang to do his duty as the general manager of the colony and obey the cabinet's rule.

Since the cabinet is doing this, no wonder General Manager Shi is being hypocritical.

So Nanhua Company negotiated terms with the cabinet and requested that military expenses and logistical supplies be provided first. Without money and supplies, Nanhua Company could not send troops at all.

In order to save the crisis on the Western Front as soon as possible, the cabinet promised to immediately fulfill its promise to give Nanhua Company 100 million pounds in military expenditures as long as the Nanhua Company lifted the siege of Ma Fuking.

……

One million pounds, it's worth doing.

So General Manager Shi contacted the Boers and informed them that the supplies they had ordered before were ready. How to hand over them?

The Boers were also worried about how to hand over the situation.

General Manager Shi directly gave a solution. Nanhua Company should respond to the order of the cabinet and attack to lift Ma Fujing's encirclement.

At that time, Nanhua Company will send troops, and you will surrender Ma Fujing after a symbolic resistance.

After we enter Mafeking, we will place all the supplies you ordered into Mafeking, and then you will attack again.

We will retreat directly, and then you can both receive supplies and continue to occupy Mafeking.

This plan was quickly recognized by the Boers, and both parties agreed on the time and place of advance and retreat via telegram.

……

On March 3, a regiment of 14 people from Nanhua Company's Orange Forest Garrison Division, led by division commander Ye Shilong, crossed the Limpopo River at night. The person on the other side of the river who was responsible for the response was Louis Botha.

After the two sides agreed on the time and place for the feint attack, the two sides separated.

After resting for 2 hours, Ye Shilong led his team to take advantage of the darkness to explore the Boer position.

Then they fired guns into the air and played ping-ping-pong-pong for more than two hours.

At dawn, Nanhua Company appeared directly at Ma Fujing's train station and "occupied" it.

After daybreak, Ma Fuking's British troops came to investigate and found that Nanhua Company had occupied this place.

They were amazed, and then took Ye Shilong to meet with the British Colonel Robert Stevenson Smith Baden-Powell who was holding on.

The British colonel was so thin that he was almost skinny and bones. They had long been out of food. He was so excited when he saw the reinforcements that he almost cried.

Through conversations, we learned that there were more than 100 British soldiers left and more than 1 dead. They had repelled hundreds of Boer attacks.

The ability to hold on until now is all due to the British colonel. He organized and trained a large number of white children to help with the defense.

Ye Shilong directly put the British colonel and all the surviving white people in the city on the train, sent them to Harbin Town, and then transferred them to Mapu Port.

There are ships over there that can take them to Natal or Cape Colony.

After sending away the white people, only some black natives were left in the city.

Ye Shilong directly asked his soldiers to clean up. These black people would be British spies, so it would be better to clean them up directly.

As for the looted property, it is registered and transported to Harbin Town for storage.

The news that South China Company had resolved Ma Fuking's crisis overnight surprised Cape Town and London.

When the British Colonel Baden-Powell returned to Cape Town and confirmed that they were really safe, he breathed a sigh of relief.

The cabinet did not expect that the combat power of this Chinese regiment was quite high, so it directly transferred 100 million pounds to the South China Company. Then the cabinet ordered the South China Company to follow Cape Town's orders and suppress the Boer resistance as soon as possible.

Lord Shi would naturally not be so obedient. He ordered Ye Shilong to send a report to Cape Town, saying that they could not attack other places after being attacked by the Boers in Mafeking.

One month later, all the supplies promised to the Boers were delivered, and Nanhua Company notified the Boers to come and receive the supplies.

In the early morning of April 4, Nanhua Company reported to the Cape Town headquarters: Because the Boer offensive was too fierce, the garrison troops suffered heavy losses and could not withstand it, so they had no choice but to abandon Mafeking.

The Boers also quickly announced that they would occupy the important town of Mafeking.

……

Shi Jintang received a telegram of thanks from President Paul Kruger, praising Nanhua Company for its integrity and being a good friend of the Boers...

Shi Jintang replied to President Paul Kruger, hoping that he would do him a small favor.

The Boer president was naturally willing to help and asked Shi Jintang to speak out.

So Shi Jintang asked the Boers to help him force Cecil Rhodes to sign an equity transfer letter for the Rhodesian company, leaving the equity transferee blank.

Paul Kruger became more and more afraid of this Chinese colonial company. He was so greedy that he dared to directly swallow up the rights and interests of the British.

But he was definitely happy to see this happen, so the Boer president readily agreed.

After getting a satisfactory answer, Boss Shi went to Jin Xiyue's room that night humming a ditty.

You've been working hard for a while, and it's time to relax. (End of chapter)