Chapter 272 Looking at New Zealand from afar
Chapter 273 Looking at New Zealand from afar
Joey looked a little regretful:
“If those tens of thousands of Royal Guards could be used to build roads, the ‘King’s Highway’ between Tunisia City and El Yanai might have been completed by now.
At present, various parts of Tunisia are also following the example of France and building "King's Avenue", "local roads" or "side roads". It's just that it can't be built as luxuriously as in France. The so-called King's Avenue here is only more than ten meters wide.
"Guards?" Joseph looked at Joey. He almost forgot about this group of people.
"Yes, Your Highness. Although many Janissaries fled to Anatolia during the Great Uprising, there are still more than 30,000 people staying in Tunisia. At present, they have all been driven to Djerba Island "
Djerba is a small island in eastern Tunisia with a very poor natural environment. Without supplies from mainland Tunisia, the island cannot support 30,000 people.
Joey continued: "These people are not like the prisoners captured in Algiers. They are very familiar with Tunisia and even have some connections. If you let them build roads, some of them will escape soon."
Joseph narrowed his eyes when he heard this. So many people are a huge asset in this era!
Don't get me wrong, he had no intention of selling the Tunisian Guards as slaves. He didn't even bother to do something as dangerous as a human trafficker.
Where are these tens of thousands of people going to be used?
Joseph thought for a while and said to Joey: "It is too inhumane to let these people wait for death on the island. We must try to find a way out for them."
"what do you mean?"
"There is an undeveloped golden island in the Pacific - New Zealand. We can let the Tunisian Guards work and live there."
Joey recalled it and said hesitantly:
"Your Highness, I remember that the British had colonial claims there..."
Joseph smiled:
"They only discovered it a few years ago and haven't carried out any colonization at all. New Zealand is still dominated by the Maori indigenous people."
In fact, the first people to discover New Zealand were the Dutch, and "New Zealand" is a city in the Netherlands. After the British explorers went there, they thought the island was extremely desolate and the indigenous people were very cruel, so they did not think of colonizing New Zealand until 1837.
And Joseph planned to get there first. After all, New Zealand is an important wool producing area. The natural conditions there are so good that you only need to drive the sheep to the grassland and send people to collect the wool every year. You don't even need a shepherd. Before the development of Australia, New Zealand was the largest wool producer in the world!
Compared with the British textile industry, the two biggest shortcomings of France's textile industry are the lack of a vast colonial market and the lack of wool producing areas.
The UK itself is the largest wool producer in Europe. If France wants to compete with the UK in industry in the future, the textile industry must not fall behind. Then New Zealand's value will be reflected.
In this era, Europeans were reluctant to go to the distant Pacific to seek life. When the British colonized New Zealand in the 19th century, only about 2,000 people came. But Joseph had more than 30,000 people!
Although there are still many old, weak, sick and disabled people here, at least half can actually be put into production. Only a few thousand Frenchmen need to be sent to manage them, and New Zealand's colonial situation can be quickly opened.
Of course, how to deal with New Zealand's indigenous Maori people is also the key to successfully winning New Zealand. In this regard, Joseph had various lessons from later generations when the British colonized New Zealand, and he naturally had a good idea of this.
Qiao An was only a local official in Tunisia and had little research on the country's Pacific strategy. He did whatever the crown prince said and nodded immediately:
"Your Highness, I will transport some food to Djerba Island right now, and then send people to count the people. When the navy's transport ship arrives, they can be loaded and taken away directly."
"Then it's all up to you." Joseph said, "But it's not the navy that will pick them up, but the Twin Trading Company."
He originally wanted to bring the Dutch together to form the United East India Company and leave the development of New Zealand to this company.
However, the Netherlands has always been a little afraid of Britain since it was beaten by the British in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War a few years ago, so it has not been able to make up its mind to cooperate with France until now.
Then this piece of fat can only be handed over to Gemini Trading Company.
Since the acquisition of ships from the Tunisian Navy, Gemini's transportation capabilities have been greatly improved. Today, more than 70% of Russian-French trade is operated by Gemini, as well as trade in Nauru, the Caribbean, and the United States. Involved, it is already a quite large company.
Thinking of this, Joseph couldn't help but sigh, compared to the Dutch, Maozi did things quite easily. In addition, Mao Zi's character has another advantage - if he treats you as a friend, he will really go out of his way to help you. Alexei obtained almost all the preferential treatment that Russia could offer to the Gemini Company, which greatly increased the volume of trade between Russia and France.
Of course, brothers also have to settle accounts. The twin companies can be responsible for New Zealand's trade and transportation, but those who come to the island must be French.
The main dish of the dinner was still the tagine that Joseph liked very much. It's just that this time he came in a hurry and didn't bring the palace chef, so the taste was slightly worse than the one in Versailles. However, there were also some local Tunisian roasted camel meat, nut-roasted sausages mixed with yogurt, and... a dish that seemed to be fried meat moths.
Joseph naturally ignored the last dish, feasted on it, and then returned to the conference hall.
At this point, he finally heard Qiao An talk about the important matters he planned to deal with before coming to Tunisia this time.
"Your Highness, those rumors probably appeared last month." Qiao Anhui reported, "In addition to people spreading rumors on the streets, there is also a pamphlet about this."
He motioned to his assistant to fetch a pamphlet and gave it to Joseph with both hands:
"The core point of view is that most Tunisians come from Egypt and are the people of the Prophet. The Berbers have lived in the desert since ancient times and have nothing to do with Rome. In addition, rumors are also fabricated There are many stories about the persecution of Tunisians by Europeans, especially the French, advocating that Tunisians should be killed or driven out of North Africa.”
"Oh?" Joseph looked at the booklet in his hand in surprise. These rumors are obviously intended to disrupt France's rule over Tunisia and fall into the category of cognitive warfare. The person who could come up with this idea in the 18th century was definitely a political genius!
However, if we want to engage in cognitive warfare, the super genius of this era is far inferior to an ordinary person who has personally experienced the cognitive warfare of a major power in the 21st century.
