African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1266: Chapter 275: Indo-Pacific Land Bridge

Although East Africa has consistently focused on tropical jungle warfare training for the army since the seventies of the last century, it has primarily conducted these exercises within its own tropical rainforest regions, lacking large-scale combat experience.

However, East Kalimantan serves as a real battlefield, profoundly testing the tropical jungle warfare capabilities of the East African army over the past two years.

As for the final results, they barely surpassed the passing line. In order to eliminate the remaining forces of the two sultanates, East Africa’s casualty figures are not particularly favorable.

This was not unexpected since Ernst knew very well that East Africa’s colonization in the South Sea Region differs from other countries.

Other countries emphasize using ”moral conduct” to win over people; as long as the local upper society is appeased and serves various nations willingly, intense war conflicts are unlikely to erupt.

The best example is India; for instance, some uprisings and revolts in India don’t even require the involvement of the British, as Indian princes and nobles resolve them themselves.

Both sides actually form a symbiotic relationship, uniting to prey upon the lower-class populace. In plain terms, they are imperialist powers and comprador agents they support.

They can coexist; thus, naturally, there’s no need for a life-or-death struggle.

In contrast, East Africa is different; East Africa’s colonial activities in the South Seas don’t require supporting comprador agents and have always implemented a ”keeping the land, removing the people” policy.

This has destined local forces to unite and resist East Africa as a formidable enemy.

Cristiano said, ”As long as the Kra Strait Territory is properly managed, the empire’s colonial system in the South Sea Region is basically formed. At this point, whether or not to control the Malacca Strait is no longer a decisive factor for East Africa.”

After all, there’s not only the Malacca Strait from East Africa to the South Sea Region; in fact, the East African Navy can also travel through the Sunda Strait between Sumatra Island and Java Island.

Even the fastest route from East African mainland to the Lanfang Overseas Province is through the Sunda Strait, while taking the Malacca Strait would involve traveling a greater distance.

This is mainly due to East Africa’s geographical positioning, spanning the equator with lands extending in both directions, while East Africa’s economy and population are concentrated in the south, including ports.

For instance, the thousand-mile coastline in the Somali region is hard to exploit and develop due to factors like desert regions and sparse population, along with the overly smooth coastline that lacks excellent ports.

However, if ships depart from East Africa’s south, the Sunda Strait is closer, and the significance of the Malacca Strait is greater for Europe and Asia.

Cristiano said, ”The Sunda Strait is one of the alternatives to the Malacca Strait. Additionally, there are other channels within the Dutch East Indies, and our early acquisition of the Kra Isthmus further strengthens our strategic security between the Eastern Indian Ocean and the South Sea Region.”

”But the Sunda Strait is ultimately not under our control; it’s controlled by the Dutch, and although the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are two countries, we must consider the possibility of being sanctioned simultaneously by both, despite this being minuscule.”

The Netherlands certainly doesn’t have the courage to do so; otherwise, East Africa couldn’t have easily taken East Kalimantan from Dutch hands, and even originally the Lanfang Overseas Province was within the Dutch sphere of influence.

If the Netherlands dared to blockade the Sunda Strait, it’s estimated the entire East Indies would change flags overnight.

”Therefore, establishing the Kra Strait Territory means increasing the stable and economically significant corridors between the Indian Ocean and the South Sea Region to three.”

”The connection and safety issue between the mainland and the South Sea Region are basically resolved, thus expanding the effective range of influence of our navy from the mainland to the Eastern Indian Ocean and South Sea waters.”

”The Indian Ocean Fleet can effectively support any conflicts in the South Sea Region at any time.”

”The role of the Kra Isthmus is to provide us with strategic support points in both the Eastern Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Siam.”

”As long as the Kra Isthmus is in our hands, no other country can sever the connection and material conveyance between the empire and the Pacific Fleet.”

Previously, the greatest threat faced by the Pacific Fleet was the severing of sea transportation routes, given its considerable scale and over-reliance on the Malacca Strait and Sunda Strait for material conveyance.

This means handing over the logistics supply lines of the Pacific Fleet to the British and Dutch, a risk East Africa cannot tolerate indefinitely.

With the Kra Isthmus, things are different. Even without incorporating the Tabi River Plain into the Kra Isthmus Territory, East Africa cannot bear the high costs of building the Keray Canal.

The very proposal of constructing the Keray Canal in previous life indicates it had some cost-benefit value; it could indeed shorten the maritime distance across the Eurasian continent.

In the absence of the Tabi River Plain, building another Keray Canal would incur several times the costs; although East Africa possesses the capability to construct it, it certainly won’t opt for such a loss-making deal.

Cristiano said, ”The Kra Isthmus Territory can construct the Indo-Pacific land bridge, connecting East Africa between the South Seas and Indian Ocean through railroad and highway transportation.”

”Thus, we can ensure that the harbor in the Kra Isthmus’ east can maintain a potential material and trade corridor through land transportation.”

”This requires us to build dry docks, oil depots, and war material warehouses in the Kra Isthmus’ east to provide material and ship maintenance services for the Pacific Fleet at any time.”

”And the cost is merely constructing one or more roads stretching a hundred kilometers to achieve our aim; the narrowest part of the Kra Isthmus Territory is merely a hundred kilometers, and even bypassing complex terrains wouldn’t exceed two hundred kilometers.”

It’s crucial to clarify that the Kra Isthmus and East Africa’s Kra Isthmus Territory are entirely different concepts.

The Kra Isthmus includes the territories of Siam, East Africa, and the United Kingdom, while the Kra Isthmus Territory is simply East Africa’s reference to its colonial area in the Kra Isthmus.

Regarding the Kra Isthmus, its narrowest part is somewhat over fifty kilometers, yet this narrowest segment isn’t within East Africa’s Kra Isthmus Territory.

Instead, it’s located north in Siam’s Chumphon Province and Ranong Province—areas the British strongly oppose East Africa acquiring. If East Africa gains these two areas, it would only need to construct a hundred-kilometer canal to connect the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

If in other areas, East Africa would need to implement the canal approach, at least two to three hundred kilometers, without leveraging the Tabi River channel.

In other words, if the Tabi River Plain fell into East Africa’s hands at the time, East Africa would simply require artificially digging a several dozen kilometers-long man-made channel and developing a series of locks and dams, achieving this goal, as utilizing the original Tabi River channel would save substantial costs.

In terms of workload, comparable to the Panama Canal, Sir Claire of the United Kingdom perceived this advantage at the time, hence strongly resisted East Africa reaching this goal.

Of course, East Africa—or at least Ernst personally—never intended to build the Keray Canal from the beginning since East Africa could entirely opt for bypassing the Sunda Strait or choose the farther eastern side of Java Island to bypass the Malacca Strait, just like the Lombok Strait.

This endeavor is exactly what the East African Navy is actively pursuing; arguably, the East African Navy’s grasp of hydrographic and geographical data of the East Indies waters even surpassed the Dutch accumulation of several centuries.

And if not restrained by the dreadful infrastructure conditions in the Sunda Strait, a portion of East Africa’s merchant ships wouldn’t choose to bypass the Malacca Strait.

After all, before East Africa, few ships opted for the Sunda Strait, resulting in the ten-thousand-mile gap in the quality of infrastructure conditions between cities on the banks of the Sunda Strait compared to those on the banks of the Malacca Strait.

Cristiano finally said, ”By land construction connecting the banks of the Kra Isthmus, this is merely a very short land bridge that we call the Indo-Pacific land bridge.”

The Indo-Pacific land bridge, though a vital passage connecting the Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean, doesn’t boast the shocking span of a continental bridge, often spanning thousands of kilometers, but measures merely around a hundred kilometers, hence can be termed a road bridge.