Less than 50 kilometers from Port Edward, Phoenix Mountain has the largest oil storage base on the east coast of Africa, which can store 1.5 million cubic meters of crude oil, which translates to about 9.4 million barrels or 1.48 million tons.

There is not a single oil storage base of this size in the United Kingdom, but there are eleven in southern Africa, eight of which are concentrated in Nyasaland, Rhodesia, and the Transvaal.

Of course, because the Strategic Reserve Program has just been launched, most of the oil storage bases have not yet been built, and the only ones that are actually put into use are Port Edward and Cape Town, and the other oil storage bases are still under construction.

It was only after Roque's introduction that Viscount Gladstone learned how important Port Elizabeth really was to Southern Africa.

Despite the advancement of internal combustion engine technology, the internal combustion engine has become more and more advanced and important, gradually surpassing the steam engine and becoming the true industrial heart.

An important problem brought about by the popularization of the internal combustion engine is that the importance of oil is gradually increasing, the situation in the UK and southern Africa is similar, there is almost no oil in the country, there is now oil in Port Elizabeth in southern Africa, which has solved the energy crisis, and the oil supply in the UK still depends on the oil fields in Romania, and is constantly facing the threat of Germany, so the Viscount Gladstone is particularly concerned about Port Elizabeth.

"Port Elizabeth discovered a huge oil field, and now the daily production of oil has reached 50,000 barrels (the previous statement is wrong, it is 20,000 barrels per day), but Port Elizabeth is not safe, as the importance of oil continues to increase, the Ottoman Empire covets Port Elizabeth, the Governor of Egypt also wants to take back Port Elizabeth, and some local tribes also want to share the profits brought by oil, in short, Adan is now very difficult." Of course, Roque still complained, the actual situation is definitely not so serious.

Although the Ottoman Empire coveted the oil of Port Elizabeth, the Italian threat to Tripolitania was more serious than that of Port Elizabeth, so the Ottoman Empire signed a supplementary agreement with Nyasaland to sell more land along the Persian Gulf coast to the former Umbrella Company.

After knowing that the oil had been discovered in Port Elizabeth, the Governor of Egypt once intended to jointly develop the oil in Port Elizabeth with the Umbrella Company, but was resolutely rejected by Roque, who had too much oil underground in Port Elizabeth, and Roque would never allow others to touch it.

As for the local indigenous tribes mentioned by Roque, the land that Port Elizabeth now nominally owns is only 37,000 square kilometers, but in fact it controls more than 50,000 square kilometers of land, and within 300 kilometers of Port Elizabeth, the indigenous tribes have either moved away or disappeared mysteriously, and cannot survive at all.

"Locke, if you can, you can send oil to the mainland through the Suez Canal, and I promise that the local merchants will give you a good price." Viscount Gladstone is also salivating over Port Elizabeth, before the discovery of oil in Port Elizabeth, many British people, including Viscount Gladstone, did not even know that Port Elizabeth existed, and now with the discovery of oil, the name Port Elizabeth is gradually becoming known.

"Your Excellency the Governor, there are eleven strategic reserve warehouses in Southern Africa with a total design capacity of 21 million cubic metres, and it would take at least seven years to fill them up at least seven years if all the oil were to be sent to Southern Africa based on the current oil production in Port Elizabeth." Roque was noncommittal, the war was imminent, and southern Africa still had to protect itself first, and Roque would not consider selling oil to Europe until the oil reserves in southern Africa reached the safety line.

Of course, the data that Roque told Viscount Gladstone was also an ambush, and Port Elizabeth now produces 100,000 barrels of oil per day, not 50,000, and at this rate, Roque would have enough time to fill the strategic reserve warehouses in southern Africa before the outbreak of world war.

"Seven years is too long, do you think the arms race can last for seven years? It won't take seven years, five years at most, London and Berlin will go bankrupt, and then a war will be needed to end all this. "Viscount Gladstone overestimated the strength of Germany, Britain had no problem holding out for five years because it had more colonies, and Germany could only hold out for three years at most.

Three years later, Germany needed war to test the effects of the arms race.

"I have more than a dozen oil exploration teams in Port Elizabeth looking for oil, and hopefully oil production will increase further—" Roque made an illusory promise that even if he sold oil to Europe, it would not be able to sell it at a price now, and that it would only be in time for Southern Africa to enter the market at a certain stage when the war had reached a certain stage and all sides were exhausted.

That's when you can get the most out of it.

"If there are not enough oil exploration teams of a dozen or so, increase the number of people, if a dozen is not enough, it will be fifty, if there are not enough fifty, it will be a hundred, and more oil must be found no matter what." Viscount Gladstone did not care about the cost, although Port Elizabeth found oil, but still no European companies went to the peninsula to find oil, if you do not know the specific location of the oil field, this aimless search is undoubtedly a needle in a haystack, and the cost of drilling an oil well is huge, once there is no gain, it will be lost.

Not everyone has Roque's courage, Roque also knows that Port Elizabeth has oil, so he will invest a huge amount of money, otherwise Roque would not dare to start.

"It's useless, even if we can find more oil, if it's beyond Port Elizabeth, it still doesn't belong to us." Roque sets up a trap for Viscount Gladstone.

"To whom? Ottoman? Or those indigenous tribes of the peninsula? Whoever finds it is whoever's! If anyone disagrees, then shut him up! "Viscount Gladstone is domineering, and this is the attitude of a Governor of Southern Africa.

Of course, this shut up is not to reason with facts, Viscount Gladstone will not reason with the indigenous tribes, physical destruction is a means once and for all, the Americans will not reason with the Indians, and the result is the current United States.

"What if it's the Ottoman Empire?" Roque is not used to this way of doing things, it is simply too simple and crude.

But Roque liked it.

"It's the same with the Ottoman Empire, now the Ottoman Empire can't even handle the Italians, I guess the Ottoman Empire won't exist for too long, aren't you the best at this, arm those indigenous tribes, let them go to trouble the Ottoman Empire, you just wait to pick the fruit." Viscount Gladstone is really not sarcastic, there are so many white people in southern Africa, why does the British government look at Roque differently as a Chinese?

Of course, it was because Roque was able to bring benefits to the British Empire, not any skin color, and the Boers were also white, but when it violated the interests of Britain, Britain still killed them.

"I'll try-" Roque snickered, Viscount Gladstone did know Roque very well, in fact, he didn't need to be reminded by Viscount Gladstone, Roque was doing the same.

It is actually very simple to arm the indigenous tribes of the peninsula, the nomads have always admired force, but they do not have advanced weapons, and still use scimitar spears, so they cannot compete with the Ottoman troops equipped with advanced weapons.

After the umbrella company bought Port Elizabeth, the Nyasaland military industrial group put all kinds of dazzling weapons on the shelves of the Port Elizabeth store, it doesn't matter if there is no pound sterling, the nomads still have a little savings, there are a lot of gold and camels, gold can be exchanged at the RAND Bank first, and the camels can be sold directly to the Adan company, and then they can buy various weapons including general-purpose machine guns.

Of course, the price of the general-purpose machine gun is a bit expensive, and no one wants to buy it at all, because the price of bullets is also very expensive, so the best thing to sell is the export type Lee Enfield, and the factory price of an export type Lee Enfield on the side of the Nyasaland Military Industrial Group is only 35 rand, and it will be sold for 120 rand when it arrives in Port Elizabeth.

Love to buy or not to buy.

So far, in just one year, the Nyasaland military-industrial complex has made more than a million rand in Port Elizabeth, more than the Umbrella Company and Adan Company, and the local indigenous tribes on the peninsula have received advanced weapons and are more motivated to attack other indigenous tribes, and finally dare to fight head-on in the face of the Ottoman forces.

While selling weapons publicly, Li De also made a lot of moves after arriving in Port Elizabeth, and the most important thing was, of course, to find a suitable spokesperson for southern Africa.

This spokesperson is called Ali Rashid.

Ali Rashid was born into the declining Rashid family, which once controlled Riyadh, the largest city on the peninsula at the time, but unfortunately Riyadh was only about one square kilometer in size at that time, which is really pitiful.

About ten years ago, the Rashid family lost Riyadh in a tribal conflict, most of the family members died in battle, Ali Rashid was the last member of the Rashid family, and Lid found Ali Rashid from the slaves in Port Elizabeth, and then Ali Rashid became the current patriarch of the Rashid family.

It's pitiful to say, the current Rashid family is only Ali Rashid alone.

But it didn't matter, it was easy to form a family on the peninsula, just buy slaves directly from the victorious side of the clash of clans, which was exactly what Li De did best, so Ali Rashid soon had four wives and more than 500 loyal and brave slave warriors, all of whom were now training at the New Cape of Good Hope, and in a few months, they would be able to fight with Ali Rashid.

There are few tribes with five hundred warriors on the peninsula, and even Ali Rashid can't tell how many people there are on the peninsula now, and the slightly larger tribes have three or five hundred warriors at most, and the total population adds up to one or two thousand, so it's easy for the Rashid family to grow, just annex a few tribes at will.

"You've already started doing that?" Viscount Gladstone was very sensitive, and immediately got some information from Roque's expression.

"Of course, it is in our interest to have a chaotic peninsula, and I am ready to install a spokesperson on the peninsula, and use this spokesperson to destroy those enemies, whether they are indigenous tribes or the Ottoman Empire, will eventually disappear from the peninsula." Roque was ambitious.

"What's on the peninsula? Where deserts are everywhere and the few oases that are not worth exploiting, it seems that this should not be of interest to you. "Viscount Gladstone's thoughtful desire for land in Roque, and the rest of the Chinese is well known in southern Africa, but the Chinese only need land that is suitable for cultivation, and many of the land obviously have no development value in the eyes of white farmers, but in the hands of the Chinese, crops can be grown, and the yield is not low.

Compared with the land of southern Africa, the land of the peninsula has little development value, and there is no food in the desert, and in the view of Viscount Gladstone, the discovery of oil in Port Elizabeth is also an example, which does not mean that the entire peninsula is rich in oil.

In the final analysis, it is information asymmetry.

"Your Excellency the Governor, if you have time, you should go to Port Elizabeth to see, you know that Port Elizabeth is located in the valley of two rivers, and the conditions near it are still good, a few decades ago, Port Elizabeth still had fertile land that could be cultivated, and it could also be irrigated with enough water resources, and there were even forests in Port Elizabeth at that time, that is, because of these years of disorderly development and devastating destruction, the land around Port Elizabeth has gradually become desertified, and now Port Elizabeth is not the same as before, Adan requires everyone in Port Elizabeth to plant twelve trees a year, and to keep the trees alive, believe it or not, in ten years, the forests of Port Elizabeth will reappear! Roque is confident that land desertification was once a major global problem, and everyone thought that land desertification was irreversible, but this conclusion was overturned by later Chinese, which was much more useful than shouting a few slogans.

"Are you—" Viscount Gladstone shook his head speechlessly, really wondering why Roque did this: "If you have time, why don't you think about how to drive the Portuguese and Belgians away, and look at West Africa and the Congo Free State, even Madagascar, where land is not more valuable than land near Port Elizabeth?" ”

Before the upheavals in Portuguese East Africa, probably no one thought so.

The current situation in Portuguese East Africa gives people more ideas.

Yes, the colonial order established under the leadership of Britain and France cannot be changed, and there is no justification for Britain to attack Portuguese West Africa and the Congo Free State, even if Portugal and Belgium are weak.

Now the situation is different, Southern Africa did not attack Portuguese East Africa, but most of Portuguese East Africa became part of Southern Africa, a small part became the Kingdom of Mozambique, and the Portuguese no longer existed in East Africa.

That's what Viscount Gladstone meant, since Roque can subvert Portuguese East Africa, then he should also be able to subvert Portuguese West Africa and the Congo Free State, which is not difficult for Roque.

：。 ：