Chapter 211 The Crown Prince’s Personal Conquest (please vote for me)

Chapter 212 The Crown Prince’s Personal Conquest (Please vote for me)

Queen Mary flipped through the document in front of her that Joan submitted about the situation in Tunisia. In fact, she had read it several times yesterday. She frowned and said:

"Attack, or attack, who did this?"

Qiao An stood at the end of the conference table and said carefully:

"It's not clear yet, Your Majesty. However, the attack seems to be related to the Tunisian Guards."

Queen Mary asked some more about the specific situation in Tunisia, and then looked at the sitting ministers:

"What do you think about this matter?"

The Duke of Orleans glanced at the empty seat of Foreign Minister Vilgen - the latter was sent to Northern Europe by Brian and was "concerned" about the war between Sweden and Russia - and suddenly felt empty in his heart. Less than a year ago, his forces still occupied nearly half of the seats in cabinet meetings, but now he is left alone.

He coughed dryly and nodded to the queen:

"Your Majesty, in fact, this situation often occurs in the colonies of various countries. For example, Congo, South Africa, and Peru will have riots every now and then. The Americans even completely drove the British out of the Thirteen States.

"Yes, the United States. You see, the British fought there for seven or eight years, killed more than 30,000 soldiers, spent hundreds of millions of livres, and still suffered defeat in the end.

"So I think we should try to avoid a similar situation to the British in Tunisia."

He had met secretly with British Ambassador to France Hartley a week ago. The latter asked him to help influence French policy and thereby withdraw from Tunisia.

His reward was a large amount of political benefits, including letting Vilzin preside over the signing of an agreement with Britain that seemed to be beneficial to France, helping him gain political prestige. Now, Virgen was the Duke of Orleans' only ally in the cabinet. It was of great significance to keep him, so the Duke of Orleans immediately agreed.

"I also think we shouldn't invest too much energy in Tunisia." Mono raised his chubby arms and said, "There are pagans there, and our financial situation does not allow us to waste money in North Africa."

Usually, immigration-related matters are in charge of him as the interior minister, but this time Brian, at Joseph's instruction, handed over the Tunisian immigration affairs to Mirabeau.

Mono saw a piece of "fat meat" involving tens of millions of livres slipping away from his hands. He was very dissatisfied and began to work hard to stir up the matter.

When Brian heard the words "financial situation", he suddenly agreed. However, the matter in North Africa was promoted by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, so he restrained himself and did not express his position.

Joseph frowned upon hearing this. Tunisia is the fulcrum of his North Africa strategy. It has just begun to take shape, how can he give up so easily?

Not to mention that he is still waiting to use Tunisia's fertile land to alleviate next year's famine. The more than one million yuan in immigration funds that have been invested in the early stage cannot just sit back and watch so much money go to waste.

He was about to say something when the Minister of War stood up, raised his fist and said loudly:

"If a small group of thugs scare us out of the newly acquired colony, I bet that France will become the laughing stock of all Europe tomorrow! In fact, just sending out a decent legion can let the natives of North Africa know that we are It’s awesome!”

The military naturally hopes to use troops on a large scale against Tunisia. In this way, the royal family will seek help from the military, and it also means that a large amount of war funds will pass through his hands-this is an excellent opportunity to make a fortune.

The Lord Admiralty and Mirabeau immediately agreed.

One of them is also eyeing military spending, while the other hopes to use Tunisia's market and resources to support industrial development.

For a time, the two sides who supported and opposed started a war of words.

Queen Mary blinked her big blue eyes and looked back and forth at the ministers on both sides. She soon discovered that there seemed to be more ministers opposed to withdrawing from Tunisia.

So, she raised her hand to signal everyone to be quiet, and said in a majestic voice: "I have decided."

She signaled to the Minister of War: "Marquis Saint-Priest, please submit a plan to increase troops in Tunisia to me as soon as possible."

"As you command, Your Majesty."

Walking out of the conference hall, Joseph still frowned.

Although the cabinet has made the decision not to abandon Tunisia, it is obviously heading in the direction of falling into a security war.

This is completely different from his pre-planned-not to mention that a large-scale security war will consume a huge amount of money, it is likely that the Tunisians will not be completely conquered in a year or two, and may even plant hatred in the hearts of the Tunisians. French seeds.

This will turn into endless trouble later on.

Joseph shook his head. He had not yet thought of an effective solution, so he returned to his study and placed a large amount of North African information brought back by Joan on the table, ranging from the political and military structure there, to customs and habits, to religious culture. Wait, study it carefully page by page.

After an unknown amount of time, Eman came in quietly for the tenth time and helped him cut the wicks of the candles one by one.

Joseph opened a document about Tunisia's population structure and saw a description of its Guards, "...As the highest class in Tunisia, the Guards have always practiced internal intermarriage and are a closed group... "

He suddenly thought of something and hurriedly found information about Tunisian religious forces. Suddenly his eyes lit up, this is it!

For the sake of safety, he motioned to Eman on the side: "Please bring Baron Joan."

"Ah? Your Highness, it's already 1 o'clock in the morning..."

"So late? Oh, then tomorrow morning."

…

Two days later.

The interim cabinet meeting was held again.

The Marquis of St. Priest proudly presented a thick stack of plans to increase troops in Tunisia to Queen Mary.

Seeing the queen flipping through the military plan blankly, he hurriedly coughed and told her the main content:

"Your Majesty, we plan to have General Kellerman lead 25,000 soldiers to Tunisia, plus the original 3,000 soldiers there, and divide the troops to control here, here and here..."

He said, pointing to the map of Tunisia on the table: "Then use a mobile force to clear out all the big towns one by one..."

After briefly introducing the combat deployment, the Marquis of St. Priest added:

"According to estimates, the initial funding for the entire military operation will be approximately 10 million livres. Additional funds will be added later based on the war situation.

"Furthermore, in order to facilitate unified command, it is necessary to merge the Berthier Corps under General Kellermann."

"You want so much money?!" Queen Mary looked at him in shock.

The Duke of Orleans duly interjected:

"If the war cannot be ended quickly, it would not be surprising to throw in tens of millions of livres. I still think that giving up Tunisia is the most correct choice."

"What are you talking about?" The Minister of War looked very dissatisfied. "We will win within a few months!"

"That's impossible to say..."

Joseph stood up suddenly, interrupted the two of them and said:

“I don’t agree with giving up Tunisia either!”

Marquis Saint-Priest immediately cast a look of approval:

"Praise for your courage and wisdom, Your Highness the Crown Prince!"

Joseph just glanced at him lightly and said in his heart, "I praise your size!" How dare you attack my Guards Corps? I'll settle the score with you later!

He continued loudly: "However, I think there is no need to rush to increase the number of troops. We can first try to persuade the Tunisians who are making trouble."

"persuade?"

Except for Joan and Mirabeau, who were already informed, everyone else in the hall cast strange looks.

"That's right." Joseph nodded seriously, "There are always reasonable people in Tunisia.

"And it only takes a few hundred thousand livres to convince them."

Joan and Mirabeau immediately agreed in accordance with Joseph's prior instructions.

Brian was frightened by the 10 million military expenditure, and immediately expressed his support for the "persuasion" method.

The Duke of Orleans uncharacteristically sided with the Crown Prince - what kind of persuasion? ridiculous! It is simply the imagination of a child with no political experience. But as long as he didn't send troops, he could explain it to the British ambassador.

Queen Mary did not expect that her son's method would receive so much support, so she nodded and said:

"Perhaps, you can try to convince them first. If that doesn't work, then implement the plan of the Marquis of St. Preet."

Joseph smiled and bowed to her:

"I won't let you down."

…

That afternoon, Joseph told Joan about the deployment in North Africa in his study: "The Tunisian Guards are the only breakthrough.

"They have always intermarried among themselves, refused to integrate into the local Tunisians, and tried their best to oppress the locals. This resulted in them not having any 'friends' there."

He suddenly changed the subject: "Do you know what politics is?"

"Huh? Politics?"

Joseph gave the answer directly: “Politics is about killing more of your own people and less of your enemies.

"And the Tunisian Guards made exactly that mistake. They made themselves into a minority.

“At the same time, they own the vast majority of Tunisia’s wealth.

“And they no longer have the overwhelming military advantage they had more than a hundred years ago.

"So, now we just need someone to guide the Tunisians, and the Guards can easily become 'sacrifice'."

Qiao An nodded thoughtfully: "Your Highness, what should we do?"

“We have to start from both the identity and church aspects.”

Joseph explained his plan in detail, but found that Qiao An was a little confused and couldn't help shaking his head secretly. It seems that it is difficult for the Mr. Consul to ensure the perfect implementation of the plan.

Tunisia is too important to lose. Joseph sighed, it would be safer to go there himself.

Petit Trianon.

Queen Mary shook her head so much that she almost shook off her swan-shaped hair:

"Honey, how can you go to North Africa?! It's too dangerous! It is said that there are lions everywhere there. No, this is absolutely not possible!"

Joseph gestured towards the door: "Ksod and the others will ensure my safety."

"There are not only lions, but also poisonous snakes and scorpions..."

Joseph had no choice but to use the "trick" he learned from Clementine, stepped forward and took the queen's arm, shook it slowly and evenly, and whispered:

"Please! I will pay attention to safety. Or, I will bring more soldiers."

"There are cannibals there..."

Joseph hugged the queen tightly, buried his head on his mother's chest, and continued to plead:

"Okay, I'll stay on the boat. Is that okay? If you still don't agree, I won't come to you again!"

Queen Mary thought for a while. There were no deadly storms in the Mediterranean, so this seemed acceptable.

She finally relaxed: "Take all your entourage, eat on time, and write me a letter in at least three days."

"Okay, okay, it's all up to you." Joseph kissed Queen Mary on the cheek, "Thank you, dear mother, I love you most!"

"I love you the most too, my little sweetheart!" The queen smiled and scratched the bridge of her son's nose. "Then I will discuss with the Marquis of St. Priest to see which legion to escort you."

"Oh, don't bother him. I have already made an agreement with Duchess Villar, and her husband will personally bring 3,000 Mulan troops with me."

Queen Mary hurriedly said: "3,000 people are a bit small. I will allocate you 500 more Swiss Guards."

The Swiss Guard is Louis XVI's personal guard, the most loyal Swiss mercenary group.

…

More than ten days later.

Northern Mediterranean Sea, Côte d'Azur.

The majestic fourth-level battleship "Forward"'s sails fluttered, pushing away the sea water and sailing straight south.

In its officer's cabin, Perna was lying weakly on the bed, her limbs were limp, her eyes were half-closed, her nose was twitching, and her forehead was dripping with sweat, as if she had just done some heavy physical work.

Joseph put the ice towel on her head, sighed and said:

"Did you never know you were so seasick?"

"I... this is my first time taking a boat." The girl's elven-green eyes were full of apologies, and she said weakly, "I'm really sorry, Your Highness, I wanted to take care of you along the way, but in the end, you turned against me. Come and take care of me..."

"It's okay, you don't have to be so polite." Joseph waited for her to fall asleep, then returned to the officer's conference room on the ship, and said to several historians who were looking up information at their desks:

"Thank you for your hard work. Is there any progress?"

The scholars quickly stood up and saluted, and the leader said:

“Your Highness, Tunisia is mainly composed of Arabs and Berbers who came from Egypt back then, and they have to talk about their connection with France.

"It seems that only two hundred years ago the Holy Roman Emperor Carlos I conquered this place..."

Joseph nodded: "Please go on."

This is the task he assigned to historians - to prove that Tunisians and French people share the same origin. If you want to get a lot of people of your own, of course it would be best if everyone is related.

The scholar wiped his sweat and his voice became much lower:

"And France was also separated from the Holy Roman Empire that year."

Of course, this Shinra, which separated virtue, law, and intention, was not the same thing as the later Shinra. The current HRE can only be regarded as forcibly clinging to it. It is neither holy, nor Roman, nor imperial.

The scholar feels like he has exhausted his lifetime of far-fetched reasoning:

"So, this, this... for calculations, the French and Tunisians can be regarded as subjects of Rome."

"Very good! This is it." Joseph praised, "Please find more historical evidence and give it to the writers to write it down."

The historian's eyelids twitched and he cried:

"Your Highness, how can there be any evidence for this..."

"You don't need to be too strict about this kind of thing." Joseph winked at him, "Sometimes you can also ask Mr. Writer to help you formulate evidence."

"This... follows your wishes, Your Highness."

When the "Forward" sailed to the waters of Cape Bon, a copy of "Analysis of the Origin of Tunisia" was already on Joseph's desk.