The prerequisite for the Chu Empire to implement the European free trade plan was to control the west coast of Africa, at least to drive away the local European colonists, seize their colonial strongholds, and use them as supply ports to ensure the safety of the routes.

The Chu army also heard about the numerous pirates on the west coast of Africa... naturally they did not want their own transport fleet to face various pirate threats.

Therefore, even though the Chu army currently has no desire for territorial expansion on the west coast of Africa, in order to ensure the smooth progress of the European free trade plan, it is still necessary to control the coastal colonial strongholds in these places. Angola is a strategic location.

The Putao people were angry at the arrival of the Chu army at first, then desperate... and finally resigned to their fate.

They didn't even have the courage to carry out armed resistance. After the Chu army's fleet arrived, they saw the huge Chu army's warships and simply chose to surrender... and more of them had already boarded the ships and ran away before the Chu army's arrival.

.

As for colonial strongholds, whoever wants them will want to go.

As a result, the Chu army successfully captured many coastal colonial strongholds in Angola without much fighting, and then symbolically left dozens or hundreds of troops to garrison some major strongholds before heading north again.

Then there is the coast of Ghana, also known as the Gold Coast, or the Slave Coast... This place is the core area of ​​the Atlantic slave triangle trade, and gold is also produced locally. The Dachu Empire has no interest in the slave trade, and is not even interested in the so-called local production of gold.

I have no interest at all... The Chu Empire, which holds South Africa's gold, looks down upon ordinary small gold mines.

But the Chu army is interested in the local port... They want to build a large military base here to use as a strategic military base in central West Africa.

The local Europeans did resist this time... but after being bombarded by the Chu warships, they died, fled, and surrendered!

I have no choice, I really can't beat him... Whether it's at sea or on land, it's a one-sided battle.

On the sea, the sail warships of the Europeans were no different from sampans in front of the steel giant cannon warships of the Chu Empire.

Even without using these warships, the armed merchant ships under the Western Trading Company can directly tear them into pieces without any losses themselves.

The strength of the Chu Empire's navy, which possesses steam engines and rifled cannons, has far exceeded the imagination of Europeans... Forget about resisting.

In ground combat, the difference in weapons generation between the two sides is too great. The Chu army can kill everyone on the other side with artillery alone without the need for infantry...

The colonial stronghold cities built by the Europeans these days are not to mention big places, and there are no artillery defenses. Moreover, these Europeans are not actually regular armies, and their fighting will and even their weapons and equipment are very poor.

Under such circumstances, the Chu army was covered with a round of artillery fire... The opposite side was basically finished, and it was not even the infantry's turn to fight the enemy... The Chu army went north to West Africa and also attacked many European colonial strongholds, but so far,

The Type 18 rifles, which many high-ranking generals in the empire had high hopes for, had little chance to perform... because the two regular army infantry had never seriously fought against the indigenous infantry on the opposite side.

There wasn't even a fight, so there was no way to use the rifle's firepower.

On the other hand, in the Chu army, the Type 21/Type 23 flash cap percussion guns, which have begun to withdraw from the regular army's combat order on a large scale, are performing as strong as ever.

Because many landing operations and final battles were fought by the Indian Second Division...The Indian Second Division was equipped with 21/3-year-old percussion rifles retired from the regular army of the Chu Army.

And this kind of flash cap percussion gun is still more than one generation ahead of the flintlock guns equipped by Europeans in terms of performance!

Under such circumstances, the Chu army's operations in the Ghana region of Africa basically involved the navy first launching the bombardment, and then the army landing. After the army landed, the artillery bombarded first, and after the bombardment, the Indian second division was sent in... It was not the case that the Indian servant army came on stage.

Fighting, but cleaning up the mess...mainly burying corpses to avoid the plague.

What's interesting is that most of the time, after the battle, the Chu army still doesn't know who they are fighting... because the current Gold Coast area is too chaotic. There are Portuguese people, British people, Dutch people, and even French people.

There are...and then there are all kinds of messy pirates.

In the eyes of the Chu people, these European barbarians all looked the same, and they couldn't understand the language... They couldn't tell who was who.

But this does not affect the Chu army's actions in West Africa. Anyway, no matter which colonial stronghold they encounter, the operation is the same: the warships go up for a round of shelling first, the army artillery goes up for another round, and then the Indian servant troops are sent to land.

Pick up the pieces.

There were no tactics to speak of, and the battle was far from intense.

Even the scale and intensity are not as good as those usually held by the Chu Army... Just like an outing, the Chu Army has already captured a bunch of messy colonial strongholds in the Gold Coast area before the Chu Army even reacted.

By the way, more than 10,000 prisoners of war of all kinds were harvested.

These prisoners of war were not wasted and were directly invested in the construction of the local port base. The Chu army planned to build a large military base here to serve as a strategic transfer station between South Africa and Europe. After all, this place happened to be in the middle of Africa. The geography

The location is quite suitable.

And the construction of military bases naturally requires a large number of indigenous construction workers... You can't let the Chu army's combat troops carry bricks to repair the docks, right? It's fine to use the current prisoners of war.

However, just using prisoners of war is not enough. After all, there are too many facilities to be built and the time is tight. European prisoners of war are not enough in this regard. Therefore, the Chu army will also follow the old rules and send the Indian Second Division to the surrounding areas for mopping up operations.

On the one hand, the battle is to clean up the environment near the base to prevent indigenous people from urinating and polluting the environment. On the other hand, it is also to capture some prisoners of war and come back to build the camp.

The Chu army was very skilled in capturing prisoners of war and building camps all over the world, whether in India, Africa, or North America. Well, it was done this way in Nanyang and Fusang in the early years.

This all forms the basic routine.

The Indian soldiers of the Second Indian Division are also very skilled in their work. Their main job in Africa is actually to expel the local indigenous people around the overseas territories and capture some prisoners of war.

Although later generations have various prejudices against Indians, the Chu people, and at least the Chu military, are still very satisfied with the Indian servant army. They have low requirements, are honest, will not resist, and have high loyalty... very easy to use.

Tool man.

Of course, this is also related to the fact that the Indian servants recruited by the Chu army were mainly untouchables.

Untouchables in India are not the same concept as ordinary Indians. These untouchables, who have been oppressed by the upper castes for a long time, once armed by the Chu army, treat Indians much more harshly than the Chu army...

These servant armies composed of Indian untouchables often used the three-guang policy when performing tasks in India... The Chu Empire previously controlled southern India. In order to completely control the local area and expel the local indigenous people, the Chu army mobilized three

Indian servant military divisions are performing expulsion and purge missions locally!

It only took them half a year to successfully clear out the local Indians... much more efficiently than the Chu army themselves.

Some servant soldiers who perform well in the Indian region will be transferred to Africa, West Asia and other regions to serve and receive higher salaries. The best among them will also be promoted and become indigenous officers, that is, fellow captains.

And these Indian servant troops who were transferred to serve in Africa were so cruel to Indians, let alone Africans.

Many times, although the Chu Army was dissatisfied with the combat effectiveness, discipline and other issues of the Indian Servant Army, the Chu Army has been increasing the size of the Indian Servant Army, instead downsizing or even eliminating it. It can be seen that the top brass of the Chu Army

It's just hypocritical.

The success of the Indian servant army also made the Chu army consider the possibility of selecting indigenous people from other countries to form a servant army.

It's just a pity that so far, the Chu army can't find any other more suitable indigenous servant troops.

For example, Fuso... This would have been quite suitable, but the population in the Fuso area is now too small... After thirty years of melee, the population of Fuso is now estimated to be just over three million... There are not many young adults at all, and they are too physically fit.

Being weak is not a good material for a soldier.

The people of Chu were thinking of packing up the rest of the Fusang people and sending them to Africa to farm. Naturally, they were too lazy to go to the trouble of selecting young men and forming an army of servants.

In fact, there are not many indigenous people left in other Southeast Asian regions... There are only a few protected areas on a few islands with a small number of indigenous people from the Nanyang Islands, and the others have long since disappeared in the long river of history.

There are some people in Myanmar and Siam, but not many, and they are also facing the threat of the Mughal Empire. They don't have enough young people, and they don't have many people who can serve as servants for the Chu army.

Not to mention the West Asian side, there are only a few small colonies controlled by the Chu army and there are only a few indigenous people. There is an Ottoman Empire and a Persian Empire nearby, but the current relationship between the empire and the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Empire is just okay...

Not to mention the Africans...the Chu people did not regard them as human beings, and never mentioned the idea of ​​recruiting Africans as servants from the beginning to the end.

Similarly, there are Indians in the Americas... They were killed too hard in the past few years... Now there are not many Indians left on the west coast of North America under the control of the Chu army.

In the end, after all the calculations, only India, with a population of hundreds of millions, has relatively rich population resources, and the unique local caste system is also very valuable.

This is also the reason why the Chu army only recruits servant soldiers from the untouchable group, but never recruits servant soldiers from the upper castes or ordinary civilian classes in India.

What you want is the lowest untouchable.

These untouchables, because of their small number and low status, could not resist if they wanted to... But with the guns and cannons given by the Chu people, they killed other castes in India, especially the high castes. It was very exciting.

!

Many times, the people you thought were at the bottom have become insensitive and submissive... That's because you didn't give them a gun!

Generally speaking, the Chu Empire's military, mainly the army's servant army formed by the Indian untouchables, feels very good, and is willing to let them take on more important combat tasks.

This time going north to control the west coast of Africa, the Indian Second Division assumed the main ground combat mission... They did not live up to the trust of the Chu army generals. Under the cover of naval and artillery along the way, they directly swept through various European colonial strongholds, and by the way

Exterminated and expelled all kinds of chaotic indigenous tribes in the surrounding area.

This left the Chu Empire with a clean west coast of Africa.

The regular troops of the Chu army, on the other hand, took boats and slowly headed north... During the whole process, except for the occasional artillery attack on the shore, the infantry basically never fired a shot.

After this stop and go, the vanguard of the Chu Empire's expedition fleet, a small fleet carrying an infantry battalion, escorted by a cruiser and two frigates, finally arrived in the northwest region of Africa in June, that is,

Moroccan region.

The members of the vanguard fleet looked along the coastline, and finally focused on the small port city of Tarfaya on the southern coast of Morocco... There was no special reason. It was that this place was far away from Dakar, the current base camp of the Dachu Empire's European Expeditionary Force.

If the area is closer, first take a port as an outpost, and then consider building a large military base in Spain or northern Morocco.

As for the feelings of Moroccans...that's none of Chu people's business.

The Chu people's overseas expansion has always paid no attention to what the local indigenous people think, and they have always considered their own situation more.

As a result, the Moroccans were dumbfounded... In fact, they had heard before that there was a super-state called Chu from the East, which was attacking cities and territories in central and southern Africa and occupying all the European colonies in Africa.

But they never thought that one day someone from Chu would hit them on the head.

Morocco is still in the early stages of the founding of the new dynasty. The rulers are relatively capable and ambitious. When they saw the Chu people, they did not even say hello. They directly landed and occupied Tarfaya, and also brought the local garrison and civilians to Qing Dynasty.

When Zhuangdu captured them as prisoners of war and forced them to repair the port.

The Moroccans couldn't bear it anymore and first sent someone to negotiate... But the people who came to negotiate didn't even enter the entrance of the Chu army's camp, and were shot dead by the Chu army's soldiers...

The soldiers of the Chu army guarding the gate were quite boring... I happened to see a few natives coming to the door and yelling, but I couldn't understand what they were saying. Who knew what they were talking about.

The guards told them to get out, but these natives were still too lazy to leave.

The guards at the door immediately used them as targets to practice their marksmanship...
To be continued...