The end of the year is approaching, and the advance troops of the East African colony have already drawn a rather intuitive map of the East African interior.
Transported by commercial fleets, a copy of this map now lies on Ernst's desk,
The entire map is about a meter long and seventy centimeters wide, marked with roughly delineated mountains, rivers, and lakes.
On the easternmost edge, a road extends directly from the port of Dar es Salaam to the First Town. The Second and Third Towns are marked as two named points, with the Little Rhine River running between them.
The depiction is quite clear, including savannah woodlands and farmland, while the dashed line marks the border of the Sultanate of Zanzibar, extending from north to south and reaching the Portuguese colony, essentially monopolizing the East African coastline.
The map provides detailed annotations of the eastern rivers, clearly showing a dense network of waterways, easily explored due to the presence of the Sultanate of Zanzibar's longstanding activities, with local guides available to help locate certain geographic elements.
To the north of the map, a triangle indicates a mountain range, likely the Mount Kilimanjaro, and to the west of the mountains lies Lake Victoria, which is vast, depicted as shaded water bodies on the map.
As Africa's largest lake, Lake Victoria was first discovered and named by British explorers, in search of the Nile River's source.
The discovery occurred just a year after Ernst awakened his memories of a past life; to the west of Lake Victoria are two more great lakes, Albert Lake and Lake Edward.
In actual history, the name Lake Edward was assigned by the British Stanley in 1889.
Adding Lake George downstream, the British royal family took over the naming rights for these lakes, however, Ernst, in this era, considers East Africa as his own domain, refusing to acknowledge these British names, even if some were already named by the British.
In reality, the names of these lakes discovered by the British have not yet been confirmed, more precisely, they have not been updated on Europe's new maps, and the East African colonial surveying team arrived only a few months after the British explorers.
Therefore, with a grand flourish, Ernst renamed Lake Victoria as the Great Lake, fitting for its characteristic, as it was known in his past life as the Great Lakes Region.
Albert Lake was renamed by Ernst as Frederick Lake, to commemorate his grandfather.
Lake Edward was renamed Constantine Lake, as clear as it is, and George Lake downstream was renamed Heixinggen Lake.
Both Frederick Lake (Albert Lake) and Constantine Lake (Lake Edward) are part of the East African Rift Valley, with the Great Lake lying between them, formed by basin waters.
The entire Great Lake (Lake Victoria) covers an area of 69,400 square kilometers, making it Africa's largest and the world's second-largest freshwater lake. Its catchment covers over 200,000 square kilometers, commonly referred to as the Great Lakes Region, where over thirty million people lived around Tai Lake in his previous life, one of Africa's most densely populated areas.
By comparison, in his past life, China's largest saltwater lake, Qinghai Lake, was only 4,625 square kilometers, and the largest freshwater lake, Poyang Lake, reached its largest size of just over three thousand square kilometers during the flood season. Freshwater lakes rivaling Tai Lake (Lake Victoria) include North America's Great Lakes and Russia's Lake Baikal, as well as Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi on the East African Plateau.
Therefore, Ernst was determined to take control of the Great Lake (Lake Victoria), not only for its abundant fishery resources but also due to its higher rainfall than surrounding areas, flat terrain, and favorable agricultural conditions.
Continuing westward is Lake Kivu… hmm, it's better to keep it as Lake Kivu, given its notorious past reputation as the "killer" lake isn't auspicious.
Moving further on the western side of the map is Lake Tanganyika, which Ernst named Soron Lake. The significance of Lake Tanganyika to Tanzania is self-evident, as in his previous life, Tanzania was formed by the merger of the mainland part, Tanganyika, and Zanzibar in the east.
In Africa, "Nia" doesn't carry special meaning; it's primarily an English suffix, which is why many African countries have this suffix, such as Kenya, Nigeria... Tanzania is essentially a combination of Tanganyika and Zanzibar.
Lake Tanganyika is the largest lake in the East African Rift Valley and the world's second-deepest lake after Lake Baikal.
Lake Tanganyika is winding and meandering, with steep terrain on both sides and narrow coastal plains, compared to the open lands surrounding Lake Victoria; it doesn't hold as much economic value, although its geographic location is good, stretching approximately 679 kilometers from north to south, serving as a transportation artery in the inland nations of Central Africa in his past life, with prominent water transport.
To the south is Lake Luqiao, a saltwater lake but rich in fishery resources, with many salt pools at its southwestern tip.
Furthest south is another great lake, Lake Niassa, which for ease of memory, Ernst renamed as Lake Malawi.
Apart from these are the Serengui Lake near Dodoma, the northern Lake Eyasi, Lake Manyara, Balangida Lake...
This illustrates the abundance of water resources on the East African Plateau, with the areas of these great lakes alone amounting to hundreds of thousands of square kilometers, larger than many countries; adding all the lakes on the East African Plateau, it is no exaggeration to call it Africa's water tower.
Regarding mountain ranges, besides Africa's highest peak, Mount Kilimanjaro, there are also the Mitumba Mountains in the eastern Congo Basin.
Southwestward, beyond the area between Lake Tanganyika and Lake Malawi is the Katanga Plateau, and further south is the Mozambique coastal plain.
Ernst decided to take over the area between Lake Victoria, Lake Tanganyika, and Lake Malawi in one sweep.
First, establish three important lakeside strongholds along the shores of the three great lakes—Mwanza at the southern inlet of Lake Victoria, Kigoma on the east coast of Lake Tanganyika, and Kalonga at the northwest corner of Lake Malawi.
Inland outposts were directly chosen in Dodoma, Tabola, and near Lake Luqiao's Mbeya.
With red pen lines sketched on the map, several red circles appeared, encompassing almost all of Tanzania within these circles.
...
"Tom, make a copy of this document and send it to the East African colony!" Ernst planned to implement this ambitious scheme in the East African colony.
"Also, the weapons produced by our arsenal can be sent to East Africa, starting with the formation of a six-hundred-strong Chinese immigrant musket team."
Ernst continued, "These six hundred people will be divided into six groups, led by the colonial high command to clean and maintain the management of the six new strategic points. Subsequent immigration should be increased to these six points, and in the future, using these six points along with the three towns as radiating centers, we can encompass the entire Tanganyika region."
Ernst confidently said, "And, the first musket teams should mainly use the initial batch of immigrants, migrating five hundred people to each outpost first, with ammunition managed by our own people (Germans)."
Ernst contemplated if there were any oversights.
"Oh right, select a few trustworthy people from the company, preferably native Berliners with families, to take over part of the colony's management. We can't leave everything to that group of mercenaries; their primary responsibility is security. Alright then, go and give these instructions!"
"Yes, young master." Tom respectfully answered, holding the document, and left the office, closing the door behind him.