On March 1, 1686, a long procession walked alone on the Great Karoo Plateau.

They traveled north from Guangcheng County, passing through Wukeshu Township, a settlement set up by the people on the east bank on the Little Karoo Plateau (located near the later Kirkwood Town), and then turned northwest and entered the Greater Karoo Plateau, and finally reached Tuobei Township (near the later Janssenville Town) - by the way, here is an additional introduction, Guangcheng County is a county that was just established in January this year, under the jurisdiction of Guangcheng Township, Yincheng Township, Xinxi Township, Beiwei Township, Wukeshu Township and Zhenhe Township (located near the later Partenchy Town), a total of six townships, With a total of more than 27,000 inhabitants, it is the 135th county-level administrative unit in the country.

This force was well supplied when it set out from Guangcheng County to the north, so it still maintained a high morale when it reached the arid region of the desert after going through hardships and dangers. The two leaders of the team looked at each other and quietly breathed a sigh of relief: the journey is finally over, and everyone can finally live in the house provided by the local government, with hot water to scald their feet, and delicious meals, I don't know how much better it is than the current life of eating and sleeping.

"Captain Meng, although the superiors did not explicitly say the purpose of letting me lead the team to send you north and establish a new settlement, I can guess a thing or two. Let me ask, do you also think that there is gold in the arid desert to the north? Cavalry Major Lai Weizhong spat out a mouthful of saliva with fine sand grains, squinted his eyes and asked, "You know, the dog's head gold in the hands of those natives may not really come from there, but they may also have obtained it through trade, robbery or other means. You know, those people have a very low level of civilization, and they have always been stupid and stupid, and they can't tell the origin of these dogs' heads. Therefore, it is actually biased for the higher authorities to send people all the way north to establish settlements on the basis of these clues. ”

"Major Lai, it's actually very understandable about this matter." Meng Xiaohu wiped his face with a towel, and then explained: "Maybe the princes of the Executive Committee are not sure whether there is gold in the desert in the north, but because the natives who live there have a large amount of dog-head gold in their hands, it is worth sending an expedition to investigate, and this is the role we are playing now." As you know, the international silver price is now the same every day, and the value has been falling slowly, which is not very beneficial for any country that has a silver standard. Therefore, the Executive Committee now feels that it is also very important to control as much gold as possible, and then reform the gold and silver standard system that has been in place in our country for many years. ”

"Going around and around, in the end, you can't do without a money word." Lai Weizhong shook his head and said with a wry smile: "Okay, now let's take a good rest in Tuobei Township, and then go north quickly with full energy to conduct a thorough inspection of that desert to protect national interests to the greatest extent." ”

The two talked and laughed like this, and arrived outside the Tuobei Township field, and the main cadres of the local township government were already outside to greet them. They had reason to look forward to this team, because they carried a large number of labor tools, daily necessities, weapons and ammunition, which were to be handed over to their Tuobei Township Government.

"Are the remnants of the Kama Kingdom safe lately?" As soon as he met the head of Tuobei Township, Lai Weizhong asked about the local security situation, which was obviously one of his own jobs.

"It's pretty good!" The head of Tuobei Township immediately replied: "Those people are not stupid, they know that we are not easy to mess with, so they rarely come to our side to make trouble, and only care about bullying other black tribes to expand their territory and strength." The remnants of the nobles of the Kama kingdom, who still write in Dutch, are much more civilized than the other black tribes, and the work of 'precursing the king' is done very well. ”

Hearing what the township chief said, Lai Weizhong immediately laughed. The precursor to the king is the last role of the East Coast's definition of the remnants of the Kama Kingdom, that is, relying on their subordinates to fight wars of conquest in other black settlements can make the blacks passively reduce their strength in mutual attrition, so as to achieve their own goals.

In fact, if this kind of policy were known to the British and Dutch, they would definitely beat their chests and sigh! Because in their eyes, these blacks are all resources, all money, and all valuable labor, how can they be willing to consume each other? But the way the East Coast colonized was different, it was a real immigration, a land under the sun, how could it be possible to allow blacks to stay here too much? Therefore, let them consume each other first, and then wait until it is almost time, and the main army on the east coast will pour out and pack them up.

"It's a miracle that these unbeatable slippery heads have been around for decades, and they're still gasping." Lai Weizhong shook his head lightly, and said in a slightly exclamatory tone: "I think that when Mo Dashuai led his troops to fight with these guys for the first time, we were only cramped in a few strongholds near Hezhong County, and we were fighting with them for a stronghold that entered the Dongshan Mountain Range. At that time, how could the Xhosa people of the Kama Kingdom have imagined that there will be today, and we did not expect that it would sweep the whole of southern Africa in just a few decades? ”

In other words, the people of the East Coast really have no burden at all to occupy the vast lands of southern Africa. The original owners of this land, the Khoisan reds, have died out (the few that did not die out have also been incorporated into the South African Eight Banners and slowly consumed), and the East Coast and the blacks are outsiders to the land, and the two sides can compete freely without any moral pressure.

Now, under the pressure of decades of competition, southern Africa, which was gradually blackened, has entered the yellowing stage. East Bank settlements were established on the land, and then the Xhosa blacks were squeezed out step by step by guns and bayonets to expand their living space. In fact, to some extent, the East Coasters have never organized many large-scale offensives against the Xhosa blacks, and all of them are improvised offensives for the sake of fighting for land, which is actually a good thing for the Xhosa people.

But even this kind of phased intermittent military operations could not stand the low level of civilization of the Xhosa blacks, so that they were squeezed from the southwest to the east, and the large plateau in the middle became the pastures and cultivated fields of the people on the east coast. Now, after some time of dissipation, the people of the east coast finally "remembered" the remnants of the Kama kingdom and planned to expand their territory to the north, the direct cause of which was the rumor that there was gold in the north.

This rumor is actually just a rumor, and it will not have any great influence. But who made the Hanaka Regional Administration in debt and melancholy because of the South African Railway? In addition, the Yiyang Bay area next door also rumored the news of a large gold mine, so the financial difficulties of the Hezhong District Administration changed its strategy and began to advance from Guangcheng County to the north step by step, while fighting the black forces of Xhosa while looking for the legendary gold mine.

It can be said that the multi-sided colonial forces in the entire land of South Africa are basically fascinated by gold. Although the gold cannot be directly consumed, but must be transported to the local area to be minted into gold coins as gold reserves, the government will also give them a small proportion of the "settlement" of foreign exchange, with materials and part of the money to return to these local governments, so there is still a lot of profit in this.

And here is an extra kick, the so-called South African Railway, which runs through the entire Trans Nakami region, is now very close to being fully completed after years of investment and construction. Everyone knows that this railway, to be honest, will cost a lot to all parts of South Africa, and no one can guarantee whether this railway will be profitable in the short term, and thus improve the finances of the Transoxiana Regional Administration. As a result, the attractiveness of ready-made gold is greater, although its exact location also seems a bit ethereal.

"I heard that Commander Yang Liang and Yang are reorganizing the army in the area of Yiyang Bay, and there seems to be a move, is there any news from your army?" At this time, Meng Xiaohu, who had been quiet before, spoke and asked.

"On the side of the First Regiment of the Army, I am afraid that it will continue to produce for a while before it can move west. Money is needed to fight a war, but they don't have the budget, so they can only rely on local governments to help. However, the determination to go west should not change, and the news of the gold mines there is much more accurate than ours here. Once the conditions are met, the main force of the first regiment will definitely move westward and completely control the gold mine and coal mining area. Lai Weizhong said.

In other words, more and more political situations now show that there is a huge amount of coal buried under the ground in South Africa, and the quality is very good, and there are all kinds of it, which is simply a treasure trove. Therefore, for the East Coast, which is very short of industrial coal and thermal coal, the importance of South Africa has risen to the core level, and if anyone dares to fight South Africa's idea, then the East Coast will definitely fight with it, because this is the future of East Coast development.

In addition to coal, more and more people are amazed by the fact that South Africa's diamond and gold reserves are now being amazed. This can be seen in the recent changes in the deployment of the East Coast government, which has shifted the colonial focus from the West Coast to the east, and now they have a strong desire to control several large gold mines to complete the gold reserves.

"It's right to lay the groundwork first. After all, the Europeans don't know that there are big gold mines in South Africa, and no one is going to compete with us in this place. And by the time they got the news, we had already taken root there, and our position could not be shaken. I just hope that in this process, try to be as 'gentle' as possible, because the soldiers and civilians of the Eight Banners of the island who migrated from New Huaxia Island are also barbaric and have caused a lot of humanitarian disasters. Meng Xiaohu sighed lightly and said.

Lai Weizhong pursed his lips quietly and didn't say anything. How can there be no immortal in war! If this Meng Xiaohu had known about the "humanitarian crisis" that had recently been created by his native country on the Chaco Plains, he would not have cried out at the beginning!