Second-class staff officer of the Admiralty, the second-class staff officer of the Admiralty, stood up, nodded to Ding Canlin, and said calmly: "According to the plan, the Admiralty will build two forts at the mouth of the later Berg River (Berg Japanese Vier Dutch: Berg River) about 150 kilometers north of the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. In addition, a castle and a river port will be built at the location of the later Verdrif City in Berg Hanoi. The lower reaches of the Berg River are wide and abundant in water. After a little dredging, it can accommodate large warships and transport ships. The river port is far from the turbulent sea and is an ideal anchorage for our country's transport fleet and naval fleet."

Before Box Yang traveled through time, he was a first-year high school student. After several years of experience, he is now a rising star in the Navy. With Box Yang's words, everyone turned their attention to a hand-painted large-scale African coastal map directly in front of the conference room. Mo Ming posted a small red flag at the entrance of the Berg River.

"Why not build the port to the location of Cape Town in later generations?" someone asked, "I remember it seems to be a good deep-water port. It was the legislative capital of South Africa in later generations, and it was extremely prosperous."

"That's right. The port we selected is not a commercial port, so she first focuses on safety, concealment and wind and wave resistance. Look at the map. The river channel in the lower reaches of the Berg River is winding and twisting. At the estuary, there is a natural sand dam that blocks the huge waves that may occur on the sea surface outside the dam, just like at the estuary of Yazi Lake. With such excellent natural conditions, the water flow in the anchorage in the dam is very smooth, which is conducive to ships avoiding bad weather. In addition, the narrow and winding river channel at the estuary greatly reduces the speed of the ship's passage and the time of passage is also large.

In order to extend. Once an enemy ship comes to attack, we only need to guard the turrets on both sides of the river. There is enough time to sink the enemy ships. Finally, the most important point is concealment. Since it is an inland port, we only need to use the terrain to conceal the turret at the entrance, so it will be difficult for anyone to discover this port from afar. This is very suitable for us who are weak in the primary school and cannot place too many troops and population here." Box Yang talked about the map, explaining the benefits of choosing this port one by one, which won the affirmation of many people here.

"Staff General Huang finished talking about the benefits, let me talk about the disadvantages of choosing this port." After Mo Ming looked at Box Yang, he cleared his throat and continued: "It's mainly one point. After the water flow of the Berg River is smooth, the mud and sand carried in the river water are easily silted at the estuary to reduce the water depth of the port. Of course, this only requires us to clean the dredging regularly, which is not a big problem. Moreover, as far as I know, the water of the Berg River is clear and the mud and sand carried in the river water is not much. The interval between dredging in our port may be in ten years."

Mo Ming and Wang Yang sang together, and finally reached an agreement with everyone on the choice of South Africa.

Next, Mo Ming continued to introduce: "After the Navy established a stable stronghold at the mouth of the Berg River, it will use this stronghold as the foundation and bypass the Cape of Good Hope southward. Explore the best route to enter the Indian Ocean and the climate and hydrological conditions of the waters along the route. Due to the guidance of captured British sailors, this process is expected to be shortened to several months to one year. After entering the Indian Ocean, the Navy will select a node at the northern end of Madagascar, which is tentatively designated as Anziranana in later generations."

After Mo Ming finished speaking, Lieutenant Box Yang stood up again, put a small red flag on Anziranana's position, and then said to everyone: "Please look at the map. Anziranana is located at the northernmost end of Madagascar. It is an excellent natural deep-water port. Two relatively extended capes seal several deep-water bays. The inside of the capes is calm and there are many excellent deep-water anchorages. The water depth is generally more than 10 meters, and there are also super-deep anchorages over 20 meters. The width of the waterway between the capes is less than 2,000 meters. After the construction of the fort is enough to block any hostile ship trying to pass through this waterway. The excellent natural conditions are even better than the conditions in Jiaozhou Bay in Qingdao in later generations."

"I'll just fuck you." Fan Lei, a traveler from the construction team, raised his hand and said, "I'm not worried about South Africa, the conditions over there are OK. But what about Madagascar? Especially Anziranana in the north, which is a low-latitude area, with a tropical rainforest climate, mosquitoes and flies breeding, and it's easy to cause diseases. Especially a kind of fruit fly, which can parasitize under the human epidermis, is very harmful. I've worked in Africa before, and you must pay attention to this! I have nothing to add to anything else, so you can continue."

After carefully recording this in the notebook, Mo Ming flipped through the manuscript paper and continued: "The geographical location of Anziranana Port is extremely important and is an important intermediate node for communicating our route. In the future, whether it is to go north to the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf or east to Southeast Asia, this is an important position that connects the past and the future. After operating this place, we will have the foundation to base ourselves on the Western Indian Ocean. Next is the last intermediate node of our entire African route - Djibouti. Yes, it is Djibouti on the west side of the Gulf of Aden. Below, the content about Djibouti will be explained in detail by Second Lieutenant Huang."

Box Yang nodded, then walked to the map, pointed to a place in Northeast Africa on the upper right side of the map and said, "This is Djibouti, located on the west side of the Gulf of Aden. Later generations were once a French colony called French Somalia. The port we want to choose is not located in the city of Djibouti in later generations, but goes west along Tajula Bay to enter GBT Lake, and choose a port at the foot of a continuous mountain range on the south bank of the lake. The reason is the same as before, safe! Everything is for safety! Please see, there are two relatively sharp corners at the entrance of GBT Lake, which shortens the width of the waterway connecting the inner lake and the outer sea to less than one thousand meters, and the terrain is extremely dangerous. By the same token, after setting up a fort fortress at the top of this sharp corner, all enemies can be blocked outside the lake, which is the most ideal as a naval base."

"This place is North Africa, and it is still close to the Arabian Peninsula. There should be little rainfall? Is it inappropriate to be a naval base and a supply port?" Someone raised objections.

"This is why we set up the port on the south side of the GBT Lake." Mo Ming explained, "Although there are some seasonal rivers in the later Djibouti city in Tajula Bay, they are still relatively dry, hot and water-deficient. Later local residents bought water from Ethiopia. The south side of the GBT Lake is different. This is a place of mountains. The vegetation coverage rate along the foot of the lake is quite good. There are also some rivers in the mountains.

Streams and other streams are gathered and poured into the lake. We can make full use of these mountain water sources to build artificial reservoirs, which is enough to support a fleet and the survival needs of few local residents. Later generations I remember that the Chinese government invested in the construction of a transit port in GBT Lake, as a port for the export of potassium salt resources of Asal Lake not far from the northwest. I think everyone knows the importance of potassium fertilizer to agriculture. This is a treasure house and can be developed well in the future."

"Okay, after talking about Djibouti, next is our terminal station - the Port of Suez of the Ottoman Empire." Mo Ming closed the manuscript paper at hand and looked at the silent people under the podium and said: "From Dongfang Port to Port of Suez, the entire route has a journey of more than 10,000 nautical miles. According to the cruise speed of 4 knots, our fleet may take more than four months to complete the journey for the first time, which does not include the time to avoid bad weather in the middle. Here we are here

It can be made clear that the Executive Committee has made a determination to open up a new route. Even if the difficulties are great, we must open up this channel that can be called the second lifeline on the sea. This is not only a business issue, but also a basic national policy of the Executive Committee and the East Coast Republic of China in the next few decades, or even hundreds of years. Here I can reveal one thing, that is, the Ottoman Turkey, a great empire that has begun to decline, will be an important weight for the Executive Committee to balance the situation in Europe in the future."

"If we manage these nodes in the future, can we use this as a basis to advance to the Ming Dynasty?" Finally, someone raised this question. In fact, there has always been such a call among the people who traveled through the journey, which is to open up an Eastern route and find ways to immigrate to the Ming Dynasty to save a lot of money; if necessary, even interfere with the situation in the Ming Dynasty and pull or fight against several forces that existed at the end of the Ming Dynasty to make them more in line with the interests of the East Coast Republic.

Before, because the East Coast Republic of China was small and weak, they were still trembling in self-protection, let alone expeditions to East Asia, these people rarely mentioned this. Now that the opening of African routes is the case, these people have raised the old story again. The reason is very simple. From Anziranana or Djibouti to the east, they crossed the Indian Ocean and entered Southeast Asia, which is not far from the Ming Dynasty. Perhaps the East Coast Republic of China can extend its tentacles here.

"There is no such plan for a few years. Maybe it will move eastward in the future, but it won't be now." Mo Ming said clearly, "Please note that our total population is still small in the country. Including the latest European and East Asian immigrants to Hong Kong, it has only reached a scale of 17,000. Such a small population will seem unscrupulous in everything. Moreover, after we manage these intermediate nodes and open up the entire route maturity, it may take several years. This matter cannot be urgent. The country's development needs to be progressive step by step, and there is no joke."
Chapter completed!