African Entrepreneurship Record

Chapter 1414: Chapter 7: The Rampant Plague

On the streets of London, after finishing the meeting, General Bruce sat in the car, getting ready to leave this early‑20th‑century center of the world.

Calling London the world’s center in the current era is no exaggeration. In terms of population alone, London’s seven million inhabitants clearly surpass most countries in the world today, and in economy, politics, industry, and shipping, apart from the environment, London is almost without any weakness.

If London were a separate country, it would still rank among the foremost in the world—that’s what people mean when they say ”one city rivaling a nation.”

Looking at the extremely crowded London, General Bruce said to his secretary, ”Just by eye, you can see that London’s population density has reached a truly frightening level. Not a single one of our cities in East Africa can come close. Even Dar es Salaam City, compared with London, looks like a large‑scale village.”

His secretary Kovaye, sitting in the front passenger seat, said, ”I’d guess only New York in the whole world can really compare with London. Our East African cities still have a long way to go before they can develop to this scale.”

”But London has too many people, buildings packed too tightly, roads heavily congested, and on top of that the air quality is terrible. It only impresses country folk who’ve never seen the world.”

Bruce agreed readily. ”I definitely prefer cities in the Empire. Still, your first time in London is indeed shocking. This kind of building density is practically a forest of steel and concrete.”

From the beginning, East African cities have developed along a different path from cities in Europe and America, placing more emphasis on the human living environment. Only in recent years have we started to build some high‑rise buildings, and visually we truly can’t compare with cities like London, New York, and Paris.

After all, in terms of urban environment, East African cities lean more toward the style of small towns in Europe and America: numerous green belts, parks, and bodies of water, all designed to emulate nature—but because of our design and planning, they’re not as ”purely” natural as those small towns in Europe and America.

Kovaye said, ”That’s also why traffic in London today is really terrible. The gridlock is too serious. I’ve no idea how long it’ll take us to reach the port.”

The East African convoy was already swallowed up by London’s streets, barely able to move an inch. Too many cars, too many people, too many buildings—yet the roads are narrow and poorly designed to boot.

Watching the packed crowds and streams of traffic, Bruce grumbled, ”This really is a major pain point. No wonder London was the first country to build a subway. So little space, with so many people living in it, every inch of land worth its weight in gold—it’s extremely difficult to even think about further reconstruction. That gives you an idea of how much effort Napoleon III had to expend to remodel Paris last century.”

After waiting like this in the car for a bit over thirty minutes, the two of them finally left inner London and entered the so‑called outer London districts. The surroundings were still thick with buildings, but the everyday feel of life was much stronger here.

Bruce and Kovaye chatted idly to kill time, but before long Bruce started to notice something.

Inner London, at least in terms of planning and management, was done quite well—it is, after all, where the London Government and the wealthy are concentrated. But once they entered the outer London area, the air quality and sanitary conditions were clearly worse.

Bruce wasn’t particularly concerned about the environment here; what he focused on was the condition of the United Kingdom’s citizens living in outer London.

He noticed that pedestrians along the road would, from time to time, display symptoms like coughing and sneezing. For the moment, though, this hadn’t attracted much attention from people around them.

These small details, recurring so frequently, were what finally drew General Bruce’s attention.

His expression turned serious as he said to Kovaye, ”There’s likely already large‑scale epidemic transmission underway in London, but it doesn’t seem to be receiving much attention.”

Kovaye said, ”Your Excellency General, you’ve been tied up with meetings these last few days, so you haven’t paid much attention to the situation in London—especially since where we meet and live is in inner London, where the environment and sanitation are much better.”

”In fact, our people had already noticed that outer London might have a large number of infected individuals, but seeing symptoms this common must be something that’s only started in the last few days.”

”London may have had similar cases before, but they were rare. However, as an open, major metropolis with intensive exchanges with other countries, it inevitably draws people from the direction of the European Continent into London.”

”Now it looks like this plague is finally about to break out in London. But at the moment the British may still lack a final sense of alarm. The United Kingdom’s newspapers these days are focused on several major international conferences and haven’t really highlighted this epidemic.”

Not highlighted, but they have mentioned it. Some British papers, in their coverage of the epidemic, have mostly been mocking East Africa and France.

Kovaye said, ”The British think we’re making a mountain out of a molehill and are afraid of death, and it’s true the virus’s early symptoms aren’t very striking. But the people of London are probably about to see the full power of this epidemic.”

”According to intelligence sent from home, among those quarantined by customs for the epidemic, the mortality rate has exceeded four percent. If that figure isn’t skewed by other factors, then the whole of London is in for serious trouble.”

Hearing this, General Bruce said, ”London really is a place of trouble. We’d better get out of here quickly! I hear this flu is mainly transmitted through the air. Just being here I already feel uncomfortable. The longer we stay, the greater the chance we’ll get ourselves into trouble. We should head back home as soon as possible!”