African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 91: Chapter 87: The Northwest Chaos

Recently, life in the Karavel Kingdom hasn’t been easy.

With a large influx of tribes and displaced people from the east flooding into the Karavel Kingdom, its security can be described as deteriorating.

As a slave-based kingdom, Karavel’s organizational ability has always been relatively poor, lacking strict laws and systems.

Most of these Eastern Bantu tribesmen, driven out by East African colonizers, live off hunting, boasting remarkable physical strength.

For the Karavel Kingdom, which has developed to a certain stage in Africa, the mass exodus of Bantu people is as impactful as ancient Rome facing the invasion of Germanic barbarians.

These tribal Bantu people, under the leadership of their chieftains, plunder across the Karavel Kingdom, seizing territories as rulers.

The eastern part of the Karavel Kingdom soon descended into chaos.

The nobles in Karavel were naturally infuriated, wondering what madness had possessed these barbarians to head constantly westward.

Burundi also finds itself in a predicament, affected by the ”purge” movement from the East African colonies, being gatekeepers of the Northwestern Eight Nations, Burundi and Karavel are naturally the first to suffer.

The massive invasion of Bantu tribes has caused severe troubles for both nations, and worst of all, neighboring countries like Rwanda and Buganda, seeing their misfortune, are eager to stir up issues at the borders.

Following the principle of ”lack of benevolence warrants lack of righteousness,” Karavel and Burundi decided not to hold back.

Since they couldn’t handle the Bantu tribes, they decided not to, and opted to use force to drive them westward and northward, letting the western and northern countries feel their pain as well.

After the kings and nobles of both countries discussed, they decided to open roads domestically, allowing Bantu tribes to move west and north.

As for those who wish to stay put, frankly, given the situation, it is difficult. After all, more Bantu tribesmen are continuously arriving, lacking the strength to hold onto any territory indefinitely.

Kingdoms like Karavel and Burundi, after all, being nations, rely on their size and can use the terrain to withstand pressures on their own lands. The westward migrating Bantu tribes are not unified but are rather scattered.

Unless they unite as one, there might be a chance to overthrow these two countries, but that’s clearly unlikely. After all, everyone is a chieftain; why should they listen to any other?

The methods employed by the Karavel and Burundi Kingdoms proved effective, as, after soft and hard strategies, large numbers of Bantu tribes continued north or west.

Those previously wishing to exploit the Buganda, Ijara, and Rwanda Kingdoms were left dumbfounded.

The continuously migrating army directly collapsed local order; even the Enkole Kingdom, uninvolved, suffered misfortune, with its southeastern region in chaos.

Of the Northwestern Eight Nations, only the Tu Rou and Gitarra Kingdoms, being deep in the back, remained unaffected; however, witnessing the plight of the Southeastern Six Nations, both heightened their military presence along the borders overnight to guard against the impact of Eastern Bantu tribes.

Having been battered by colonizers with firearms in the East African colonies, the Eastern Bantu Tribes found freedom reminiscent of their past wanderings across the vast East African grasslands in the Northwestern Eight Nations.

The Northwestern Eight Nations had entered a primitive agricultural era, learning to settle down, unlike the Eastern Bantu Tribes, who constantly fought beasts on grasslands and didn’t need to worry about exposure or migration.

Therefore, in terms of physical quality, the populace of the Northwestern Eight Nations stood no match against the Eastern Bantu Tribes.

The advantage of the Northwestern Eight Nations lay in their more advanced social structures, supporting a larger population and organizing more manpower and armies.

However, following the barbarian invasions, these advantages were quickly offset by the influx of Eastern Bantu Tribes, with substantial numbers flowing into various territories.

Disruption in governance ensued, with local and central systems divided by various Eastern Bantu tribal factions.

Post the dissolution of central government oversight, local entities naturally grew, reverting quickly to tribal conflict times, undermining any centralized kingdom previously established.

In the Northwestern Eight Nations, the Eastern Bantu people thrived; before, they engaged in military contests with animals in the East African savannah. The animals weren’t unopposed; even lions traveled in packs, proving troublesome.

Now, simply plundering resources from the Northwestern Eight Nations suffices, as the region’s populace, engaged in agriculture for long, accumulated grains that readily ended up as food for the Eastern Bantu tribes.

This validates the saying: neighbors stockpile grains, I stockpile guns, and neighbors are my granaries.

The local nobles in the Northwestern Eight Nations naturally couldn’t stand by watching their assets being consumed and taken by these savages, thus organizing armies, engaging in skirmishes with Eastern Bantu tribes.

The combat was fierce, with blood flowing copiously, gradually wearing down the population in the Great Lakes Region’s northwest.

As instigators, the East African colonial government was thoroughly satisfied with the results. As colonizers, naturally, their greed for fertile land was boundless.

Unfortunately, the Northwestern Eight Nations lie in the area with the best soil and water conditions in all of East Africa, most suitable for agricultural development.

The Great Lake (Lake Victoria) spans wide, directly altering local climate, creating a region abundant with rainfall.

Its elevation is relatively high, situated in the transition from mountain land to highland basin; in temperate zones, it may not be the best, but in the tropics, it was the most suitable place for human habitation.

If considering the East African tropical savanna climate region, excluding regions north of the Sultanate and Kenya (affected by the Ethiopian Highlands and Sahara Desert), the Northwestern Eight Nations held over half the population in this area.

(In the previous iteration of the 21st century, Uganda had over 47 million, Burundi had over 12 million, Rwanda had over 13 million, totaling about 80 million. The entire East African Community population approximated 130 million—comparable to the Northwestern Eight Nations plus the East African colonies.)

Moreover, as East Africa’s largest lake, the Great Lake (Lake Victoria) alone warranted action from the East African colonial government.

Spanning nearly 70,000 square kilometers, the lake harbors invaluable freshwater resources essential for human habitation along riversides and lakeshores.

East Africa’s rivers are quite unimposing, unable to compare in terms of water volume, length, with world-renowned major rivers.

As for the White Nile, it isn’t exclusive to East Africa; its lower regions in Sultanate and Egypt are strictly speaking Northern Africa.

However, East Africa’s unique terrain has cultivated substantial freshwater lake resources; Soron Lake (Lake Tanganyika), Lake Malawi are accompanying East African rift valleys, standing as among the world’s significant lakes.

The Great Lake (Lake Victoria) also lies between two tectonic ridge lines within the East African rift valley in the highland basin.

Within the Northwestern Eight Nations are a string of smaller lakes; saying ”small” depends on comparison, given the prior three jewels, these slightly smaller lakes don’t rank in East Africa’s top tier.

Among them, Frederick Lake (Lake Albert) spreads over 5,000 square kilometers, while Qing Country’s largest lake Qinghai Lake spans only over 4,000 square kilometers.

Understanding that Qinghai Lake is a saltwater lake highlights its diminished value against the freshwater Frederick Lake.

Worldwide major lake clusters appearing in East Africa can only be surpassed by North America’s Great Lakes, while the Caspian Sea, Aral Sea being salt lakes aren’t included for comparison.

(For better emphasis on East African water resources, Lake Victoria and the freshwater resources of all China are comparably voluminous, both near 2.8 trillion cubic. Meanwhile, Lake Malawi holds 7.7 trillion cubic, Lake Tanganyika at 18.9 trillion cubic of freshwater reserves.)

In East Africa, rainfall is only comparable to that of North China’s northern and Jiangnan regions in the Far East, not considered abundant.

However, backed by such terrifying freshwater resources, addressing future water crises would be more adept.

The East African colonies may lack the capacity to channel these water resources via large-scale hydraulic projects across East Africa, but could instead relocate populations along its shores, mitigating any effects from harsh years of insufficient rainfall.

Thus, the East African colonies’ strategic policy was to capture the lands around the three major lakes and their shores, particularly the eastern and southern shores of the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), which already fell into their hands. Soron Lake (Lake Tanganyika)’s east coast entirely belonged to the colonies except for Lake Malawi, whose southern part posed future difficulties due to involvement with Portuguese colonies.