The Rise of the European Emperor

According to the information given by Senegal, Puginsky and his 45 surviving father-in-law companions are currently in control of about a thousand black young horse archers. However, about half of the thousands of black teenagers were the children of the leaders of the local tribes near the Dakar Peninsula and important figures in the tribes (such as elders, prophets, etc.), and they could not be taken away.

No more than 500 people, or even less than 500 people, could follow Puginsky to move north to the north bank of the Senegal River. Moreover, Marin had to pay a considerable price to get the local tribal leaders to agree to Puginsky's taking these people away. After all, those people are also male laborers of various tribes.

Of course, this price is also bearable. After all, the local aboriginal tribes are all soil turtles who have never seen the world. Just take some worthless things, and you can fool them. Shiny glass, for example, and things like salt, cloth, and sugar, which are not valuable in the civilized world, are valuable in Africa. For example, in the local area, a pound of cane sugar or two pounds of salt can be exchanged for a strong black slave.

Of course, those teenagers who can ride horses and shoot arrows are not ordinary slaves, and it is difficult to exchange a pound of sucrose or two pounds of salt. However, according to Eschwein's report, it seems that European-made bows and arrows are very popular among the locals.

The local aborigines are mainly hunting, and they naturally like hunting bows and arrows very much. A 60-pound hunting bow, plus a barrel of iron-tipped arrows (24 pieces), can actually be exchanged for 4 black slaves. Although those black teenagers who can ride horses and archery belong to the "technical personnel" with high social status, as long as they are not children of chiefs or elders, the exchange price will never exceed 5 pairs of bows and arrows. After all, although the local aborigines felt that the cavalry archers were powerful, they thought it was due to the bows and arrows.

The indigenous people have limited thinking ability. They only saw that the black teenagers killed the enemy and prey with bows and arrows, but they did not realize that the archers on horseback were more powerful than the archers on the ground. After all, it is difficult for the aboriginal mind to understand the meaning of the horse's maneuverability.

They only saw that the enemy and prey died under the blow of the bow and arrow, but they did not realize the great significance of the horse's maneuverability. Therefore, the locals are very fond of European bows and arrows, especially iron-headed arrows.

Iron-tipped arrows can easily pierce the fur of prey, which is much stronger than the stone javelin heads used by the local indigenous people. And those local tribes that have a good relationship with the Senegalese company, after defeating other tribes, often exchange captured war slaves with Eschwein for more bows and arrows, especially iron-headed arrows.

Of course, bows and arrows are indeed very sharp in the conflicts of local tribes. Any tribe equipped with a large number of European bows and arrows can often beat the hostile tribes to flee, which also deepens their pursuit of European bows and arrows.

As for the muskets used by the rhino hunting team led by Royce, because of the loud noise, the superstitious natives dared not approach them, thinking it was thunder from the sky, let alone want to use it.

That is to say,

As long as Ma Lincoln provides enough European-made bows and arrows, it will not be a problem to exchange for those ordinary black young horse archers of low birth. If it doesn't work, adding some other goods will always make their chief tempted.

Not too many, as long as you can take away four or five hundred black young cavalry archers, and Marin can buy hundreds of Egyptian slave cavalry from Egypt who have received Mamluk cavalry training, you will be invincible on the West African grasslands.

The Egyptian slave cavalry have all been trained to fight with the scimitar on horseback of the Mamluk cavalry, and they are good melee light cavalry. With four or five hundred black young cavalry archers, you will not be afraid of any black tribe you encounter. After all, most of the blacks in this era still use javelins with stone spear heads.

In Eschwein's report, he described the battles between the local black tribes - when the locals were fighting, the two sides held javelins and javelined each other at a distance of forty or fifty yards. Then, if one side can't resist, it starts to retreat. Often after a battle is fought, the casualties are only a few or a dozen people, and the casualty rate is very low.

This is because the javelin has a short range and poor accuracy. If you throw a javelin, the hit rate is comparable to that of a musket, and killing the enemy depends on Meng...

Bows and arrows are different. The 60-pound bow that Eschwein sold to the local blacks can easily aim and shoot the enemy precisely at a distance of fifty or sixty meters. As for the projectile, it can easily reach a range of one or two hundred meters.

This kind of strike distance is much more powerful than the African soil javelin. When the enemy on the opposite side was trying to "fog" a few enemies at a distance of forty or fifty yards, the archer here was able to accurately kill the opponent at this distance.

Although the level of bow and arrow shooting of the local black people is low, it is not enough to shoot as many rings as they want. However, at a distance of forty or fifty yards, the black target on the opposite side is so big, and most of them are not wearing clothes... In this way, the damage caused by the 60-pound bow to the opposite side is very amazing...

Think about it, there is a group of naked bastards standing there for you to aim and shoot with a bow and arrow, no armor, no shield... It will be strange if the archers can't cause a lot of damage to the opponent...

And with the virtues of black natives, if a few people were shot to death in the front row, they would collapse...

Therefore, whichever tribe Eschwein sells bows and arrows to, the fighting power of that tribe will soar, beating the crap out of the surrounding tribes, and capturing many black prisoners of war and selling them as slaves. Of course, the premise is that none of the surrounding tribes bought Eschwein's bows and arrows... If both sides have bows and arrows, it depends on which side has more bows and arrows and can shoot accurately...

Moreover, Eschwein also found that the local people did not seem to be keen on annexing the surrounding tribes to strengthen themselves...

why? Because the local blacks are still in the most primitive hunting era. Their main way of survival is hunting for food. Therefore, each tribe attaches great importance to the hunting area, that is, the territory.

Generally speaking, a tribe is not very happy to share hunting grounds with other tribes. Because, sharing the hunting ground means sharing the food with others...

At the same time, if the tribal population is too large, the pressure on hunting will also increase. Therefore, the local tribal chiefs are not willing to annex other tribes, but only like to drive away the hostile tribes and occupy more hunting grounds. Then, at most, grab a few strong men from the opposing tribe and sell them as slaves...

In the simple concept of the local aborigines, there are not too many people, just a few hundred. However, the range of hunting grounds must be large enough. In this way, there will be more food than can be eaten...

Therefore, the population of local tribes is generally several hundred, and there are few large tribes with thousands of people. Obviously, without farming, it is not easy to have a large tribe with a population of thousands.

In addition, the locals did not have horses and had a small range of activities, so naturally they did not have the idea of ​​annexing the surrounding tribes.

This is similar to the Saurons, a hunting nation, and the general population of tribes is not large, mostly in the hundreds of people. Because, the more the population, the greater the hunting pressure. In the absence of horses, people's hunting range is limited. If there are too many people, there will not be enough prey to kill.

Only after entering the farming society will there be large tribes with thousands or even thousands of people. Then, slowly forming a country...

The indigenous black people in Senegal, who were still in the hunting era, obviously had no idea of ​​merging other tribes. The conflicts between their tribes also mostly focus on snatching hunting grounds. Of course, they also captured some prisoners of war and sold them as slaves. Because Eschwein also bought slaves and exchanged bows and arrows. If Eschwein didn't buy slaves, they probably wouldn't be willing to take prisoners...

That is to say, the local tribal conflicts are generally on the scale of a hundred people, and the kind of mutual throwing guns is not as good as gangs cutting each other.

As for Puginsky and others, if they took 500 Egyptian slave cavalry and four to five hundred black juvenile cavalry to fight. There is no need for Egyptian slave cavalry to rush up and kill them, and they can easily defeat those black tribes with only bows and arrows.

Moreover, Eschwein had not yet sold bows and arrows to the indigenous tribes north of the Senegal River. Those indigenous tribes can only use javelins with stone spearheads in battle, and their combat effectiveness is quite rubbish. Thousands of cavalry can definitely sweep the tribe over there. It is actually not difficult to open up the trade route of the Songhai Empire.

If you take the conquest of the black indigenous tribes north of the Senegal River and the southern border of later Mauritania as a copy, the difficulty is probably at the novice level, and it is very easy...