Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 226 Congo
ps: Thanks to Luwopaduwu classmate for 100 starting coins and Fengyepiaopiaosihenian classmate for 200 starting coins.
Hu Yaqi's mission to Germany was not as simple as he told Li Han. In fact, while shouldering the responsibility of strengthening the normal economic exchanges between China and Germany, Hu Yaqi also needed to contact the German civilian colonial association and persuade the colonial association to cooperate with the Han government. Then, through the German Colonial Association, he and the German government reached a cooperative consensus on African colonial affairs.

The Han Dynasty's colonial activities in Africa began in 1872. Kismayo, as an immigration transit point, was the first colony opened by the Han Dynasty in Africa. Mtwara in Tanzania, Matadi in Congo and Ebolowa in Cameroon were colonial outposts established subsequently.

Among the four colonial outposts, Kismayo and Mtwara were the first to receive attention from the Han mainland. However, an incident that occurred in 1875 changed Li Mingyuan's attitude towards the development of African colonies.

At the end of 1875, King Leopold II of Belgium convened a European conference to openly discuss the division of colonial power among countries in Africa.

Belgium was a weak country, and Leopold II's desire to use the power of other European countries to expand its colonial sphere in Africa aroused Li Mingyuan's vigilance. Because in history, it was after the Seven Conference in 1876 that Leopold II funded the adventurer Morton Stanley to conduct a colonial survey deep into the interior of Congo in the name of helping Africa to civilize. In the end, based on Morton Stanley's survey, he obtained recognition from other European countries and successfully occupied the vast Congo region as a colony.

Belgium's occupation of Congo was supported by Britain. Li Mingyuan was worried that explorers supported by the King of Belgium would enter Congo and expel the colonial forces established by the Han Kingdom there. Therefore, after learning of the ambitions of Belgian King Leopold II in the Congo region, Li Mingyuan dispatched foreign mercenaries who had been stationed in the country to Africa to assist local Chinese officials in expanding their colonial sphere of influence in Congo.

The Han Foreign Legion was reorganized from the earlier Rio Grande do Sul Foreign Legion. After the Franco-Prussian War, the Foreign Legion recruited more than a thousand retired soldiers from the newly established German Empire, bringing the total number of the Foreign Legion to 1,500.

The Foreign Legion was organized into a regiment, led by Frank, the first mercenary leader to defect to the Wehrmacht, and commanded by a Chinese officer.

Under Li Mingyuan's command, two battalions of foreign legionnaires led by Frank came to the Congo region, a company of troops came to Ebolowa, Cameroon, and except for a small number of foreign soldiers stationed in Mtwara, all the remaining foreign soldiers were stationed in the mainland for tropical survival training to serve as support forces for the African strongholds.

In the second half of the 19th century, quinine produced from cinchona trees entered the practical stage. Due to its geographical advantage of being located in South America, the Han Dynasty was able to obtain a large amount of raw materials to produce the anti-dysentery drug quinine. Therefore, compared with European countries, the Han armed forces stationed in African strongholds had a more sufficient supply of drugs for the prevention and treatment of tropical diseases, and the proportion of soldiers' deaths caused by tropical diseases was much lower than that of European countries.

After the foreign legion soldiers under the National Defense Force entered the Congo region, they first wiped out the surrounding indigenous forces such as Matadi and occupied the coastal areas along the Congo River estuary. Then in 1876, Han State negotiated with the Portuguese government. Han State ceded the occupied Danba area to the Portuguese colony of Angola, and obtained the Portuguese government's recognition of Han State's occupation of Cabinda, Matadi and other Congo River coastal areas. The two parties divided their respective spheres of influence in southern Congo according to the later dividing line between Congo and Angola. As a result, Han State's colonial operations in Congo obtained the first written recognition from a European country.

The colonial boundary agreement with Portugal preserved the Cabinda region, allowing the Han Dynasty to obtain a moderately sized coastal port area in Congo, thus avoiding the problem of lagging colonial development due to the small coastal area of ​​Congo in later generations.

The Congo region is rich in natural resources. Due to the lack of national strength of Belgium and the lack of seaports in the Belgian Congo, the Congo colony has not been well developed. In 1878, the vast areas of the inland Congo had not received the attention of Britain, France and other countries due to the primitive natural environment and the prevalence of tropical diseases. After the future main competitor Belgium was squeezed out of the Congo region, only France could form a competitive relationship with the Han Dynasty. France occupied the Gabon region west of the Congo River. Because it had not yet conducted in-depth colonial exploration of the Congo River basin, the two sides had not yet had direct conflicts. However, in order to avoid future disputes between the two sides in the Congo River region, Li Mingyuan believed that it was necessary to pull Germany into the competition for colonizing Africa in advance.

In the early days of the German Empire, Prime Minister Bismarck advocated concentrating national strength on developing the domestic economy and opposed wasting precious national strength on colonial expansion in Africa.

From an objective perspective, Bismarck's propositions were in line with national interests. During his tenure as prime minister, even though Germany acquired African colonies such as Cameroon, Namibia, and Tanzania through the Berlin Conference in 1884, he did not increase Germany's economic investment in African colonies. Instead, because the management of African colonies was not profitable, he planned to sell the colonies to other countries.

The difficulty in bringing valuable benefits to Germany from the development of African colonies was the main reason why Bismarck did not support the expansion of African colonies. In order to change Bismarck's attitude towards colonizing Africa, Li Mingyuan prepared a gift for the German government.

The gift that Li Mingyuan prepared for the German government was a distribution map of Cameroon's mineral resources. The map listed in detail several famous aluminum, gold and copper producing areas in Cameroon in later generations. It would be handed over to Bismarck personally by Huo Yaki.

Li Mingyuan worked as a mercenary in Africa in his previous life. He had a good understanding of the mineral resources that caused the turmoil in Africa. Therefore, based on the impression in his mind, Li Mingyuan marked the origins of the mineral resources that might be used in Africa on a notebook, and then selected several mineral producing areas in Cameroon as a gift to the German government.

Li Mingyuan was very familiar with Sierra Leone's diamond producing areas, South Africa's undiscovered super-large gold mines and other famous mineral producing areas in later generations. However, these places were in the hands of British and French colonists. Even if Li Mingyuan had a country supporting him, he did not dare to compete with them for these large mineral producing areas. Therefore, Cameroon, which had not yet fallen into the hands of the two European powers of Britain and France and where German businessmen had a considerable sphere of influence, became a suitable gift to win over the German government.

The several mineral areas marked by Li Mingyuan on the drawings have been confirmed by the Chinese colonial expedition team. Among them, an aluminum mining area located in northern Cameroon has a reserve of more than 5 million tons in later generations, making it a rare giant aluminum mining area.

Cameroon's aluminum ore reserves are too large. Using the Han country's national strength to forcibly occupy it will only bring trouble. Moreover, Britain and Germany both have colonial outposts in Cameroon. The reason why Germany was able to completely take over the Cameroon colony was because of the exchange of interests with Britain. Therefore, in Li Mingyuan's view, it is a very cost-effective deal to exchange Cameroon, which has several large mining areas, for Germany's support and take over the Congo, which is richer in resources.

(End of this chapter)