African Nationhood

On December 1916, 12, the London Cabinet issued an announcement: In view of the fact that the Rhodesia Company had been established for many years and had continued to suffer losses for many years and was unable to assume the responsibilities of a colonial company, the Cabinet decided to petition His Majesty the King to revoke the charter of the Rhodesia Company.

On December 12, King Edward VII signed a decree canceling the charter of the Rhodesia Company and establishing the colony of Rhodesia.

The London Cabinet continued to issue a proclamation, temporarily entrusting the colony of Rhodesia to the jurisdiction of the South China Dominion.

Ouyang Geng, Prime Minister of the South China Dominion Cabinet, went to London to sign the agreement with Prime Minister Lloyd George.

The reason why the Rhodesia colony was not directly incorporated but managed on behalf of the colony was that the London cabinet was afraid that South China would deliberately delay sending troops.

It's not safe to do this if you don't sign for one day.

Managing on behalf of a company is more convenient than a colonial company. On behalf of the South China Autonomous Territory, Deputy Prime Minister Shi Jinyong went to Nampula, the capital of the Rhodesia Company, and appointed David Bell, the former general manager of the Rhodesia Company, as the governor of the Rhodesia colony.

At the same time, Shi Jinyong was accompanied by a large number of civil servants. These people would directly fill the governments at all levels of the Rhodesian colony and be responsible for specific administrative affairs.

In order to facilitate David Bell's better governance, Nanhua sent Lu Yongquan as the deputy governor of the Rhodesia colony and Deng Shicong as the speaker of the Rhodesia colonial parliament.

David Bell naturally said nothing about this arrangement. He welcomed the two colleagues who arrived.

After the establishment of the colony, the three of them had to face many difficult problems.

The first problem was that there were too few people. David Bell asked Vice Prime Minister Shi Jinyong to transport immigrants as soon as possible.

At present, there are only more than 40 Chinese immigrants in the colony, more than 1 British whites, and more than 2000 Portuguese immigrants.

The Rhodesian colony needs at least 300 million immigrants to truly develop, and there is currently too much manpower shortage.

Faced with the needs of the Rhodesian colony, Shi Jinyong could only smile silently and bitterly. There were too many places in South China that were short of people.

Because of the European War, the transport of female immigrants from Europe had long since stalled.

Currently, South China can only transport immigrants from the Far East, Japan, Korea and Southeast Asia.

The cabinet signed an agreement with the United Kingdom because it wanted to recruit female immigrants to Europe. Otherwise, the shortage of women in South China would be too big and immigrants would not feel at ease.

Currently, the female immigrants that Nanhua wants most are from Central Asia and Southern Europe.

In Armenia, Central Asia, the Ottoman Turks were committing massacres there, and Nanhua was able to rescue some female immigrants.

As for women in Ottoman Turkey, Nanhua didn't really want them.

Previously, the number of Arab female immigrants from the islands in the Indian Ocean and the emirate of Bahrain was not large, and Nanhua can still be transformed.

If there are too many, there will be no way to transform them.

Female immigrants from the Balkan countries in southern Europe are also easy to obtain, and war is the easiest way to obtain the population.

The people on the Balkan side are also Slavs, with strong bodies and tough personalities.

……

After Shi Jinyong comforted David Bell, he quickly rushed back to Hanking (Pretoria).

Nanhua was about to send troops, and he had to go back and make logistical preparations.

……

At the military headquarters building in the southern suburbs of Hanking, Chairman Shi Jintang and a group of officers from the National Defense Commission gathered together.

A huge map hangs on the wall, showing southern Europe and parts of the Ottoman Turkish Empire.

This National Defense Committee meeting is mainly to discuss the area where Nanhua will send troops and the scope of operations. "Everyone, tell me, where should we enter the battlefield?"

Qu Sangqian looked at Ding He and found that the other party had no intention of speaking. He spoke first: "I think it is best for us to enter the game from the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although the Austro-Hungarian Empire is known as a million-strong army, they are targeting Serbia. We fought many times and lost our armor every time.

Such a weak empire is just the perfect way for our Nanhua Army to improve its record. "

Ye Shilong immediately agreed with Qu Sangqian's opinion, "The Austro-Hungarian Empire is indeed very weak, even weaker than the Ottomans.

Moreover, their royal family has been in the family for hundreds of years, so they must have accumulated a lot of wealth. We just happened to go and ransack the property. "

Chief of Staff De Wet put forward a different opinion, "I think we should start from the Ottoman Turks. We occupy a Rhodes Island next to the Ottomans, which is very close to the Ottoman Turks.

Moreover, the Ottoman power in the Middle East has been greatly disrupted by Britain and France, which is more suitable for us to profit from the chaos. "

Yan Han shook his head, "What Chief of Staff De Wet said is not right, the Ottomans are still very powerful.

They have fought against Tsarist Russia for hundreds of years, and even won a great victory over Garibaldi last year without losing their strength.

Most of the Middle East is a desert area, and the Ottomans do not have many troops stationed. Their core area has not been lost, and their war potential is still great. It is not wise to fight them at this time. "

Shi Jintang also agreed with the officers' analysis that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was indeed useless.

Such a huge empire fought against Serbia three times in 1914, and failed each time. It lost more baggage and equipment than was collected in Serbia, but in the end Serbia was still occupied by the Allies.

Although the Ottoman Empire was called the "Sick Man of West Asia", its performance in World War I was stronger than that of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

While at war with Tsarist Russia, it also resisted the attacks of Britain and France, and also won the Battle of Gallipoli.

On the other hand, the Austro-Hungarian Empire did not seem to have achieved any decent victories.

Just one year into the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the verge of collapse, with more than one million elite troops lost.

If the Germans had not come to the rescue, the Austro-Hungarian Empire would have been completely defeated by the Russians.

You must know that the situation of the Tsarist Russian army was very bad at this time. They even had a serious shortage of guns. Several people used one gun.

In addition, the Austro-Hungarian Empire also had a fatal problem, mainly the domestic ethnic problem was too serious.

With the rise of nationalism, the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Hungarians, and Italians in the country all wanted the empire to collapse.

After World War I, the Austro-Hungarian Empire completely collapsed.

……

Thinking of this, Shi Jintang coughed.

"Ahem, everyone is right. The Germans will be left to Britain and France to deal with. There is no need for our troops to chew on this hard nut.

The Austro-Hungarian Empire is also the weakest in my opinion, and we can take advantage of them. "

Chairman Shi made sure to adjust, and the officers present at the meeting all agreed, "The Chairman is right, we should practice with Austria-Hungary."

"He must be the Chairman of the Generalissimo. He has a sharp eye and can see through the weakness of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at a glance."

……

"Okay, stop flattering and let's get down to business. It's right to choose the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but where should we land?"

Ding He suggested: "What about Mendinegoro (today's Republic of Montenegro)? This small country has been destroyed by the Allies. We can just choose any point on the country's coastline to land, and then we can attack the Austro-Hungarian Empire. "(End of chapter)