Chapter 1253 Yin Tai Road Bridge
Although East Africa has always attached importance to the military's tropical jungle combat training since the 1970s, it is basically conducted in the local tropical rainforest areas and lacks large-scale actual combat experience.
East Kalimantan is a real battlefield that has profoundly tested the East African army's tropical jungle combat capabilities in the past two years.
As for the final result, it can only be said that it was barely above the passing line. In order to encircle and suppress the remaining forces of the two sultanates, the casualty data in East Africa was not very good.
And this is not unexpected. After all, Ernst knew very well that East Africa's colonization in the Southeast Asia region was different from other countries.
Other countries pay attention to convincing people with "morality". As long as the local upper class society is settled and they are willing to serve other countries, fierce wars and conflicts will basically not break out.
The most typical one is India. For example, some uprisings and riots in India did not even require the British to take action. The Indian princes and nobles solved them on their own.
The two actually have a symbiotic relationship, and they join together to parasitize the people at the bottom. To put it simply, they are the imperialist powers and the compradors they support.
They can coexist. In this case, there is no need to fight to the death.
On the other hand, East Africa is different. East Africa's colonial activities in Southeast Asia did not need to support compradors at all. East Africa has always implemented the policy of "removing people and leaving land".
This also determines that local forces will work together to fight against this life-and-death enemy in East Africa.
Cristiano said: "As long as the Kra Isthmus territory is properly dealt with, the empire's colonial system in the Southeast Asia region will basically be formed. Whether or not the Malacca Strait is controlled at this time is no longer a decisive factor for East Africa."
After all, the Strait of Malacca is not the only way from East Africa to the Southeast Asia. In fact, the East African navy can also use the Sunda Strait between Sumatra and Java.
Even the fastest way from the East African mainland to Lanfang Overseas Province is the Sunda Strait, but taking a long detour through the Malacca Strait.
This is mainly related to the geographical location of East Africa. East Africa straddles the equator and its land extends to both sides. However, East Africa's economy and population are concentrated in the south, as are its ports.
For example, the thousands of miles of coastline in Somalia are difficult to utilize and develop. In addition to factors such as desert areas and small population, the coastline of Somalia is too smooth and lacks good ports.
And if the ship sets out from southern East Africa, the distance to the Sunda Strait will be closer, and the significance of the Malacca Strait will be greater to Europe and Asia.
Cristiano said: "The Sunda Strait is one of the alternatives to the Malacca Strait. In addition, there are other passages between the Dutch East Indies, and our early acquisition of the Kra Isthmus further strengthens our strategy between the East Indian Ocean and the South Ocean. Safety."
"But after all, the Sunda Strait is not in our hands, but is controlled by the Dutch. Although the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are two countries, we must also consider the possibility of being sanctioned by two countries at the same time. Although this possibility Very little."
The Netherlands definitely does not have the courage, otherwise East Africa would not be able to easily take East Kalimantan from the Netherlands, and even Lanfang Overseas Province turns out to be the Dutch sphere of influence.
If the Netherlands dares to block the Sunda Strait, it is estimated that the entire East Indies will be transformed into a royal flag the next day.
"So the establishment of the Kra Isthmus territory means that the empire's stable and economically significant channels between the Indian Ocean and the Southern Ocean have been increased to three."
"The connectivity security issue between the mainland and the South China Sea has been basically solved, thus expanding the effective radiation range of our navy from the homeland to the eastern Indian Ocean and the South China Sea."
"The role of the Kra Isthmus is to provide us with strategic support points in the East Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Siam."
"As long as the Isthmus of Kra is in hand, it is impossible for other countries to cut off the communication and material transportation between the Empire and the Pacific Fleet." In the past, the biggest threat faced by the Pacific Fleet was to be cut off from sea transportation channels. After all, the Pacific Fleet is not small in size, and supplies Transportation is too dependent on the Strait of Malacca and the Strait of Sunda.
This is tantamount to handing over the Pacific Fleet's logistics supply line to the British and Dutch. East Africa certainly cannot tolerate this risk continuing.
It is different with the Kra Isthmus. Even because the Tapi River Plain is not included in the territory of the Kra Isthmus, it is impossible for East Africa to pay high costs to build the Kra Canal.
The fact that the Kra Canal was proposed in the previous life shows that it is still cost-effective. After all, it can indeed shorten the route distance of Eurasia.
Without the Hebi River Plain, building another Kra Canal would cost several times more. Although East Africa is not incapable of construction, it will certainly not engage in such a loss-making business.
Cristiano said: "The Kra Isthmus territory can build an Indo-Pacific road bridge to connect East Africa between the South Ocean and the Indian Ocean through rail and road transportation."
"This way we can secure the port on the eastern side of the Kra Isthmus, via land transport, thus maintaining a potential route for supplies and trade."
"And this requires us to build ship repair yards, oil depots, combat readiness material warehouses, etc. in the eastern part of the Kra Isthmus to provide supplies and ship maintenance services to the Pacific Fleet at any time."
"The price is that we only need to build one or more 100-kilometer roads to achieve our goal. The narrowest part of the Kra Isthmus territory is only about 100 kilometers, and it is impossible to go more than 200 kilometers to avoid complex terrain."
One thing to be clear here is that the Kra Isthmus and the Kra Isthmus territory in East Africa are two completely different concepts.
The Isthmus of Kra includes the territories of Siam, East Africa, and the United Kingdom, and the Isthmus of Kra is just East Africa’s description of the colonial area of the Isthmus of Kra.
And if it is the Kra Isthmus, its narrowest point is actually only more than 50 kilometers, but this narrowest point is not within the territory of the Kra Isthmus in East Africa.
It is Chumphon and Ranong in Siam in the north, which are the areas that the British tried their best to prevent East Africa from acquiring. If East Africa acquired these two areas, it would only need to build a 100-kilometer canal to open up the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
As for other regions, if East Africa continues to implement the canal plan, it will take at least two to three hundred kilometers, and at the same time, it will not be able to borrow the Tapi River channel.
In other words, if the Hebi River Plain fell into the hands of East Africa, East Africa would only need to manually dig an artificial river channel of tens of kilometers and build a number of ship locks, dams and other infrastructure to achieve this goal. The original river course of the river can save a lot of costs.
In other words, the amount of the project was not much larger than that of the Panama Canal. Naturally, Sir Clare of the United Kingdom saw this at the time, so he tried his best to prevent East Africa from achieving this goal.
Of course, East Africa, or at least Ernst himself, had no intention of building the Kra Canal from the beginning. After all, East Africa could choose to bypass the Sunda Strait, or choose to go further east of Java Island to bypass the Strait of Malacca, such as Lombok Strait.
This is also what the East African Navy is actively doing. It can be said that the East African Navy has much more hydrographic and geographical data on the waters of the East Indies than the Netherlands has accumulated over hundreds of years.
Some merchant ships in East Africa would not choose to bypass the Strait of Malacca if they were not restricted by the poor infrastructure conditions of the Sunda Strait.
After all, before East Africa, there were basically not many ships choosing this route in the Sunda Strait, so that the urban infrastructure conditions on both sides of the Sunda Strait were thousands of miles away from those in the Malacca Strait.
Cristiano finally said: "Through land construction, connecting the two sides of the Kra Isthmus, this is a very short land bridge. We call it the Indo-Pacific Bridge."
Although the Indo-Pacific Road Bridge is an important passage connecting the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, it does not have an astonishing span like the Continental Bridge, which can easily reach thousands of kilometers. It is only over a hundred kilometers long, so it can only be said to be a road bridge.
(End of chapter)