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119 Road to life and death

 Only at this time can the benefits of a prosperous population be realized.

Henry went to pick up Roark, Owen greeted him at the door, and Philip Matilda was waiting in the hall. Except for Arnold, who had some unpleasant experiences with Roque, everyone in the Matilda family was present.

Today's Philip Matilda has a smile on her face. She is not as serious or harsh as in her previous work. She is as friendly as if she were facing an old friend. Roque is quite flattered.

Phyllis appeared on the stage under the spotlight, wearing a white dress that was extremely holy. The way she stood at the corner of the stairs and smiled at Roark was so pure and heartfelt. Roark will never forget how Phyllis looked at that time.

.

There was not much red tape. Rock gave Phyllis the ring and jewelry that represented the proposal. Phyllis accepted it shyly amidst the applause of the crowd. The proposal ceremony was completed. According to custom, Phyllis begins now.

She is Roque's fiancée. Next, we can discuss marriage.

Compared with Chinese people, British marriages are relatively simple.

There is no almanac in the UK, so the wedding is usually held on a holiday.

Of course, Roque had no taboos. There was no almanac in Johannesburg, so even if Roque wanted to choose an auspicious day, he had no choice. In the end, Philippe Matilda made the decision and chose Christmas Eve to hold the wedding.
Christmas Eve is December 24th, which is less than four months away. Time is tight and the tasks are heavy. Rock has to speed up.

The main reason is that the new house has not yet been secured.

In fact, Rock has quite a few houses. He has houses in Johannesburg, Ziwei Town, and even Pretoria. But except for the house on Mill Street in Cape Town, basically everything is similar.

Due to the nature of the temporary settlement, it is actually not suitable for use as a new house.

Relatively speaking, Phyllis has no requirements for the new house. "Dream" has fulfilled all of Phyllis's fantasies. Lacey and Carina who accompanied Phyllis were also conquered by Rock's generosity. Henry and Owen are going to be unlucky.

, the gems they got are probably not enough to satisfy two women who have already experienced "dream".

In four months, it is actually impossible to build a new house from scratch. After all, wooden houses are not suitable for Rock and Phyllis' new house. Not to mention building a palace like Olympus, at least it is not possible.

If only it were a mansion like Cape Town's Mill Street.

In fact, there are also ready-made ones, and the guild hall in Ziwei Town is quite suitable.

After the establishment of the Rand Bank, the significance of the hall became less and less, and it is now used as the headquarters of the Agricultural Association.

This is not a problem. The occupation of the hall by the Agricultural Association is actually only temporary. Now that the new headquarters of the Agricultural Association has been built, as long as Roque needs it, the Agricultural Association can vacate the hall within a week.

Then the new house will be the guild hall. After the Agricultural Association moves out, Rock will have to repair the guild hall and then use it as his residence in the Transvaal.

The day after the proposal, Roque sent Phyllis back to Ziwei Town.

"Does an engagement ceremony need to be held before the wedding?" Rock still has questions. This seems to be how it was played on TV before.

"Haha, you are stupid. We are the only aristocrats in Johannesburg. Who can we hold an engagement ceremony for?" Phyllis refused to sit in the carriage and rode with Roque.

"Hmph, you are now the Lady of Nyasaland. You have to pay attention to your stance when you speak!" Rock said fiercely, marrying a chicken, marrying a dog, marrying a dog, and walking on a pole. Now that you have entered the house of Baron Nyasaland

If we want to open the door, we must speak from the perspective of Baron Nyasaland.

"I heard that polygamy was practiced in the Qing Dynasty. Will you marry many wives in the future?" Phyllis has done her homework.

"Haha, it's not polygamy, it's polygamy -" Rock explained seriously. Because he didn't know how to translate "concubine", Rock used the word "lover".

"Oh——" Phyllis's "oh" was meaningful, and her eyes were filled with the meaning of "you are indeed a scumbag".

"Don't think wrongly -" Roque also knew that no matter how he explained, he was powerless, so he simply used Hu Gang.

Phyllis looked triumphant and didn't seem to take it to heart at all. She just used this topic to laugh at Roark.

Roark is really powerless. In fact, this is unfair to Phyllis and Ada.

But when has this world ever been fair?

The Boers in Orange thought so too.

This year's rainfall far exceeded previous years, as if it was trying to make up for all the rain that had not fallen in the previous two years. When it first started to rain, the Boers in Orange were also ecstatic, but as the rainfall became heavier and heavier,

Joy turns into worry, then into trouble, and finally into disaster.

After entering September, flooding finally broke out in Orange. The water in the center of Bloemfontein was more than one meter deep, and in some areas the water depth was more than two meters. The Boers finally tasted the pain of "eating, taking and waiting".

Fontaine is thousands of miles apart, and even if there is rescue, it will not arrive within three or two months.

Relatively speaking, because of the construction of water conservancy projects in the past two years, Johannesburg has been less affected by floods. Because of the complete drainage facilities, the city of Johannesburg has basically not been affected. Even if the farms around Johannesburg are partially affected, the farmers

They also tried hard to save themselves and were not greatly affected.

These situations were seen by the Boers in Orange, and the imbalance deep in their hearts became more and more serious.

A temporary food distribution point in the center of Bloemfontein.

Because Orange is still not self-sufficient in food, it relies on food relief transported from the Cape and Transvaal. There are only three food distribution points like this in Bloemfontein.

That's right, Transvaal - to be precise, Johannesburg is now able to provide support to Orange. In other words, Johannesburg is already self-sufficient in food.

Every noon, countless Boers gather at temporary food distribution points. Each person can receive two pounds of potatoes, one ounce of coffee, one ounce of sugar, half an ounce of salt, and very little meat per day.

This food supply is no better than the concentration camps during the Boer War.

This is also due to the bumper potato harvest in the Johannesburg area this year. If Johannesburg had not harvested a large number of potatoes some time ago, the Boers would not even have potatoes to eat.

But the Boers didn't think so. They only saw that Johannesburg was not affected by the floods, but they didn't think about why.

They only see that Johannesburg now has the ability to provide support to Orange, but they don't wonder why no one develops the farms in Orange.

They only see that the Chinese farmers in Johannesburg live in warm and dry houses, but they do not reflect on why they are still living in tents after the war has ended for several months and they have received sufficient compensation and loans.<

/p>

Whenever there is a major disaster, there will always be some people who are unwilling to be left alone and jump up and down, and Orange is no exception.

"It's all the fault of the Chinese in Johannesburg who robbed our home. If it weren't for those damn Chinese, we could now live in warm and dry houses, and there would be farms with abundant crops. The Chinese in Johannesburg could drink fresh food every day.

They can't even finish the milk and eggs. They would rather put it in a jar and let it stink than give it to us. Look what they gave us. Potatoes that even cows don't eat. This kind of thing, everyone in Johannesburg

There are tens of thousands of kilograms on the farm, and we absolutely cannot accept this result-" Someone is unscrupulously inciting.

"Yes, we have to go to the city government, we have to go back to Johannesburg, Johannesburg is our home——"

"Yes, we go to the city hall. We are British now, and London cannot ignore us."

"Go to the city hall!"

There are still many people responding, some are incited, some are blindly following, and some are singing a double act.

"It is useless to go to the city hall. The city government officials have betrayed us. They live high up in marble houses and have no idea how damp and cold the tents are. We will go directly to Johannesburg to take back our homes.

!" Someone is setting the pace.

"Yes, we have to rely on ourselves!"

"Let's go to Johannesburg and get what we deserve——"

"Go to Johannesburg——"

More people are in line. Now they finally think of relying on themselves, but they don’t think about what they were doing before.

"There is a garrison on the border. If we go like this, we will be driven back by the garrison——"

"Don't worry, there are tens of thousands of us now, and there are only so many troops stationed on the border. They can't stop us."

"We must regain the spirit of the original Great Migration and will never accept London's arrangements for us."

Occasionally, there were voices of reason, but they were immediately drowned out by more roars. Only now did they have the ambition not to accept London's arrangement. When London offered money, no one wanted it.

Most people follow blindly, and under the instigation of some people with ulterior motives, more and more people leave Bloemfontein and head towards Johannesburg.

The Bloemfontein Municipality quickly became aware of the situation.

"I'm going to call all the police and garrisons -" Austin Pence was silently organizing the equipment. This situation must not be indulged, otherwise it will cause irreparable consequences.

"Wait a minute, Director, don't be reckless. These are tens of thousands of victims, and violence cannot solve the problem." Yang Shimozi does not agree with the use of violence.

"Then what do you think we should do? Let them go to Johannesburg? Do you think the border garrison will allow them to pass? Do you think the Johannesburg city government and the Johannesburg Police Department will accept them?" Austin Pence fired a series of shots.

, because of the existence of Yang Smuts and Louis Botha, Austin Burns' work was not going smoothly, and Austin Burns had long been very dissatisfied.

A month ago, Austin Pence visited the Johannesburg Police Station.

After the visit, Austin Burns had to admit that the Bloemfontein Municipal Government and the Johannesburg Municipal Government were not at the same level in terms of organizational capabilities and work efficiency.

After returning to Bloemfontein, Austin Burns became increasingly impatient. He would rather be a police sergeant in Johannesburg than become a police chief in Bloemfontein.

"Director, this is the reason why we exist. Now we have to contact the Johannesburg Municipal Government to discuss a solution to the problem." Louis Botha was also in talks, and the mayor of Bloemfontein went to Cape Town to try to

Another loan was secured for Bloemfontein, and Louis Botha is now acting mayor.

"Okay, you can discuss it slowly, and don't forget to inform me if there is a result." Austin Burns stopped talking nonsense with Louis Botta, picked up his hat and rushed out of the door.

Louis Botta and Yang Smuts looked at each other, with something inexplicable in their eyes. Discuss?

Don't be ridiculous, this kind of thing is not negotiable at all. If the Boers were reasonable, then they would have started rebuilding the farm long ago.

There are more than 400 police officers in the Bloemfontein Police Station, and together with six local companies of troops stationed in Bloemfontein, the total force is more than 1,000 people.

Because the incident happened so suddenly, some troops stationed outside Bloemfontein had no time to rush back, so the number of people gathered urgently was only about 700.

"We are now going to the border between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg to stop those who are trying to enter Johannesburg. I know Johannesburg's attitude towards the Boers. They will never allow the Boers to enter Johannesburg. Therefore, the police and garrison in Johannesburg are now definitely

We are ready and we must set off immediately to drive all the Boers back to Bloemfontein before they come into contact." Austin Burns communicated urgently with two captains of the garrison.

"How to catch up?"

"How to stop?"

The two captains were at a loss. Let them go to the battlefield to fight. Maybe they still have the courage to let them deal with this kind of thing. They are really not good at it.

"Sorry, I don't know either. Let's talk about it then -" Austin Pence didn't have a complete plan. This was also the first time for Austin Pence to experience this kind of thing.

Then let's set off. Thanks to the grants and loans received some time ago, the Bloemfontein Police Station and the garrison are also equipped with a large number of riding horses. Austin Burns noticed that the garrison carried heavy machine guns, although the corner of his mouth twitched,

But Austin Pence didn't speak.

After running wildly, the police and the garrison finally stopped the Boers in Orange before they entered Johannesburg.

This is actually less than 300 yards from the border between Bloemfontein and Johannesburg, which is about 270 meters in metric terms. From this position, you can actually see, on the border in front, the Johannesburg garrison and police, as well as

Kronstad's farmers are on alert.

It has to be said that Johannesburg is indeed wealthy. Even the unorganized farmers have enough raincoats and weapons.

The Orange Boers here were in much worse condition. They had no raincoats and no weapons. They could only beg the soldiers and police to let them pass.

Let them live.


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