African Entrepreneurship Record-Chapter 622 - 300: Improvement
Herbart fully understood Yude Li’s concerns, so he comforted him, "You don’t need to worry about this. The supplies have already been prepared and should arrive in two or three days. So you can come back in three days."
Buying weapons from the Austria-Hungary Empire at this moment would definitely be too late. However, East Africa can still muster a batch of Austria-Hungarian weapons to supply to the Orange people.
After all, East Africa is such a large country; it will certainly procure a small number of arms from other countries, which is common in many nations. What East Africa considers a "small amount" may not necessarily be so for the Orange people.
Currently, the Orange people don’t need too many rifles and ammunition, at least from the perspective of East Africa, because the Orange army is not very large. Before East Africa’s involvement, wars in Africa were generally kept below the scale of ten thousand people, especially after the arrival of colonizers, conflicts involving a thousand people were considered large-scale.
It’s East Africa and the Italians who disrupted the regional balance, escalating wars in sub-Saharan Africa to over ten thousand people, especially during East Africa’s colonial era, when the call to arms often involved over a hundred thousand troops to suppress indigenous forces deep in Africa.
Yet with the professionalization of the military, such grand scenarios no longer exist. However, East Africa’s mobilization capability has instead strengthened, though more mobilization mechanisms are now used for national infrastructure construction and similar purposes, transitioning from military to civilian focus, which can also be reversed. The root cause is that East Africa now has a sufficient population, no longer needing to mobilize to the extreme frequently.
Although Herbart said this, Yude Li was still uneasy. He said, "This is a serious matter, so I can stay here for a few days and send the message back with someone, to prevent chaos on all sides."
Herbart agreed with Yude Li’s words, knowing that if it were him, he wouldn’t want to make a futile trip either. So he said, "You can stay, but Tennis Castle is a military stronghold, so you cannot stay here. Fortunately, there is a trading post outside the city. You can stay there for a few days!"
There are very few civilians in Tennis Castle, and most of them are military families or serve the army, making it a typical military fortress of the Southern Border Province, or a "Soldier City." Thus, outsiders like Yude Li are naturally not welcome to stay in the city.
The trading post outside the city is a place for East Africa to conduct trade with the Orange Free State. East Africa cannot sell goods inside the Orange Free State since the British and Transvaal people prohibit East Africans from entering.
Yet, they couldn’t stop their own merchants from crossing over to East Africa to do business, so the trading post near the Fite River served as an official marketplace established by East Africa.
Yude Li said, "Of course, my task is to receive the weapons, and having obtained a positive response from you, General, I am very pleased."
With that, Yude Li and his subordinates slowly left Tennis Castle, in stark contrast to the rush when they arrived.
The result was due to two main reasons: first, they had now obtained confirmation from East Africa, suggesting their mission could proceed smoothly unless East Africa procrastinated and kept the Orange people hanging.
Second, the weapons would take a few days to arrive, so there was no urgency to return, allowing them some leisure.
With this leisure, Yude Li began observing Tennis Castle. He hadn’t paid much attention when entering because he was in a hurry, but now that he was looking closely, he gained a psychological understanding of how East Africa was able to defeat the original Transvaal Republic.
The so-called Tennis Castle is similar to European medieval castles but also very different, clearly having been enhanced with defensive measures to tackle modern warfare.
The number of people inside the city should not be large. Although Tennis Castle is important, it is only one stronghold on the Fite River defensive line of East Africa’s Southern Border Province, so the allocated troops are not many.
What is "not many" for East Africa would be a large number for the Orange Free State. Tennis Castle probably houses a few thousand people, most of whom are military personnel.
Before the internal unrest in the Orange Free State, the Transvaal Rebel Army had just over six thousand people. Now it has likely increased to nearly ten thousand, which for the Transvaal people is quite a lot.
After the country was destroyed, the population of Transvaal people stabilized at about a hundred thousand, making ten thousand soldiers about one-tenth of the population.
The Orange people are slightly better, with a population of around two hundred thousand, even after absorbing some Transvaal people, but the Orange Free State hadn’t established a standing army previously, allowing the Transvaal people to take the lead.
Yude Li enviously said to his subordinate, "East Africa’s military is strong, inheriting the martial spirit of the German region, with strict discipline. No wonder they could extinguish those white-eyed wolves of Transvaal in such a short time!"
"Mr. Yude Li, East Africa’s army is on par with Europe, unlike us Orange people, who didn’t prioritize this before, leading to our backwardness," his subordinate replied.
Yude Li shook his head and said, "I’m not sure about that. Building a strong army requires national power to back it. Look at the Transvaal people’s army. Their discipline is loose; they only win when the situation is favorable, unlike the spirited East African soldiers."
Compared to the Transvaal people, the Orange people’s armed force lack even more discipline and organization, but Yude Li wouldn’t criticize his own, so he directed his critique at the Transvaal people instead.
The current discipline of the East African army is the result of multiple reorganizations and rest periods.
At least during the East African invasion of the Transvaal Republic, the East African army wasn’t that much better, roughly maintained at the same level as Europe.
As of now, in terms of military discipline alone, probably only the German army can compare with East Africa, a result of East Africa’s improved national power.
The East African government now enjoys a substantial fiscal income without resorting to plundering and exploiting the indigenous people, giving them the confidence to address detrimental practices within the military ranks.
The East African Defense Army has seen a large number of immigrants in recent years, rapidly increasing the national population, but the number of army troops compared to the colonial period hasn’t increased much.
An important aspect of this is the comprehensive upgrade and transformation of the East African Army, replacing ineffective members in the military.
The East African Navy doesn’t have such requirements because it was established later, so its systems are more complete. Additionally, the entry requirement for the navy was higher from the start, with academic qualifications needed, making the quality of naval personnel better than that of the army.
Of course, the treatment of the East African army has greatly improved compared to before. With the new requirement for discipline and learning upon joining, discipline is imposed, and training is rigorous, so more support is naturally provided in terms of benefits.
Moreover, the citizens of East Africa now enjoy a significantly higher standard of living than before, and the military, being inherently more dangerous, necessitates improved treatment from the government.
For instance, in terms of clothing, food, housing, and transportation, the East African army is already much better than civilians. Moreover, education and healthcare have high rates of availability, and the future prospects, such as post-service career paths, are much broader.
