Greece’s Roman Road

Chapter 42: tariff

Before the Majin Railway has been surveyed, someone with insight has already revealed their intention to invest.

This was beyond Constantine's expectations.

It seems that this railway should also enter the preparations.

Constantine still ordered Banning in Berlin to search for some railway engineering experts, go to the Congo River to conduct a field trip, evaluate the pre-price of the railway, and determine the planned route of the railway.

By September, the negotiations on the Congo River Basin had gradually become clear, and countries successively recognized the Congolese Commission's management rights over the Congo.

Among them, the Congo (Brazzaville) occupied by France was officially split into two parts, Congo (Kinshasa) and Congo (Brazzaville), due to the firm opposition of the French to free trade in the region.

To Constantine's surprise, the British, after learning of the preemptive purchase agreement signed by Constantine and the French, loosened their opposition to the tariffs that had just passed the Commission.

With Banning's unremitting efforts, he agreed to the Congolese Commission to charge a 10% tariff in order to maintain the order of the Congo River and avoid being taken advantage of by the French.

The price was that the Congo River had to help the British quell the Mahdi rebellion after effectively controlling Congo.

Banning asked Constantine about this condition.

The so-called Mahdi Rebellion refers to the MSL rebellion against Britain and Egypt in the Sudanese region of Africa that broke out in 1881.

Before the rebellion, the Sultan was a possession of Egypt, a possession of Ottoman Turkey.

It's a mouthful, but that's the relationship.

The origin of this complex relationship is roughly like this.

Around 1804, Egypt, under the leadership of Muhammad Ali, carried out drastic modern political and military reforms, and Egypt gradually became stronger.

Speaking of which, the first war between Egypt and Ottoman Turkey had something to do with Greece.

Around 1821, the flames of the War of Independence began to burn on the Greek peninsula.

The long-decayed Turkish army was rotten and collapsed at the touch of a button.

The monarch of the helpless Ottoman Turkish Empire, Mahmoud II, could only be cheeky and borrow troops from Egypt, his nominal territory, to help him quell the rebellion.

Mahmoud promised Crete and Cyprus in return for sending troops.

Muhammad Ali sent 18,000 troops to suppress the Greek revolution.

It was only later that Greece became independent from Turkey with the help of European countries.

Now the conflict between Egypt and Turkey emerged:

For Ottoman Turkey, Egypt did send troops, but it didn't get anything done, so why should they be paid for?

But for Egypt, 18,000 troops can't be done in vain, how can the caliph be reneged on his promises and get rich.

So, Egypt asked Turkey for Syria, but Mahmoud refused.

The first Egyptian-Turkish war broke out.

A war broke out between Egypt and Ottoman Turkey. The overwhelming Egyptian army successively conquered Palestine and Syria, swept the entire Arabian Peninsula, and eyed Constantinople in Ottoman Turkey.

If it weren't for the intervention of European countries later, I am afraid that the Ottoman Empire would have collapsed at this time.

Therefore, Egypt is also a once glorious country.

Although Egypt was nominally a territory of Ottoman Turkey, it actually gained independence.

After Egypt became strong, it infiltrated Sudan along the Nile River and gradually controlled the tribes along the Nile River.

This has resulted in the awkward relationship that Sudan is a territory of Egypt, a territory of Ottoman Turkey.

After 1882, British troops occupied and controlled Egypt.

Afterwards, the British power expanded along the Nile to the Sudan, which was located upstream.

The uprising was so powerful that it affected the entire Sudan. Even the important city of Khartoum in Sudan (now the capital of Sudan) was captured, and C.G. Gordon, the British colonial governor in Sudan, was also killed.

(This Gordon also once suppressed the Taiping Rebellion in Huaxia.)

Due to the severe situation, the British forces could only retreat to the Red Sea area of ​​Sudan.

In Constantine's impression, he vaguely remembered that the uprising lasted for more than ten years.

Constantine was inclined to agree to the English terms.

The reason is also very simple, nothing more than profit.

Sudan has always been an important passage for Arabs to enter the Congo region by land and abduct blacks as slaves.

These Sudanese Arabs are not good men and women, they are also outsiders.

Why is Sudan in the 21st century divided into South Sudan and Sudan?

Because these Arabs are also invaders. The original natives of Sudan were Negroes, and their relationship was that of slave traders and slaves.

If you know that the Congolese Committee is attacking the Arabs in Sudan, I am afraid that both the local black people and the black people in the Congo River area will applaud.

The Congolese Commission entered Africa in name to maintain local order and oppose the cruel slave trade.

It's not that Constantine sang high-profile, but that European capitalism was booming at this time and needed a huge commodity market, and slaves were incompatible with capitalism.

The process of capturing slaves by Arab slave traders is often accompanied by massacres and looting, so that the black population will be drastically reduced.

This is not good for the Congolese committee.

The Congolese Council already has management power, and the more blacks there are, the greater the market it provides, and the more benefits the Congolese Council itself can gain.

The Arab slave trader in Sudan is undoubtedly a threat to the interests of the Congolese Council.

Second, Mahdi, who opposed the colonists, sounds like Wei Guangzheng, but in fact, this is a figure similar to Hong Xiuquan in Jinling City.

After taking power, he quickly became corrupt and degenerate, arrogant, extravagant, eating, drinking, and having fun, doing everything, and he died within a few years.

And as a dictator with religious overtones, if you play with women, it doesn't matter if you enjoy the delicacies of mountains and seas every day, as long as you do a good job of the economy, everyone can have a good life.

But Mahdi only understands destruction, foreign guns and foreign guns only know how to buy, buy and buy, and he is good at plundering slaves, but he doesn't care about the economy, which makes business wither, and the city of Khartoum cannot even support itself. go down.

Mahdi also has the ambition to liberate the whole world, and he also sent some missions to Mecca and other places to publicize the true meaning of what he experienced in his hallucinations.

No one knew that people regarded his words as heresy and ignored him at all. In order to prevent the Sudanese people from being brainwashed by other ideological heresies, Mahdi did not do anything about it.

Fortunately, there was no radio or satellite TV at that time. If there were, he would have welded the radio channels to death, and he would have ordered the Sultan to strictly prohibit the installation of satellite receivers.

I don't know if it made Mei Se emptied, and after a few years of nonsense, she died when she was in her forties.

The Egyptian army fell apart as soon as it arrived, and Sudan became a colony again.

For such a person, Constantine really did not like him.

So Constantine finally agreed to the British proposal to attack Sudan from the north of the Congo to the south to help assess the rebellion, while the British supported the Congo Commission to charge no more than 10% tariffs.

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