Yet Joy appeared somewhat regretful:
“If those tens of thousands of Imperial Guards could also be used for road construction, perhaps the ‘King’s Avenue’ between Tunis City and El Ayoun would have been completed by now.”
Currently, various regions in Tunisia are following France’s example and constructing “King’s Avenues,” “Local Roads,” or “Branch Roads.” However, they could not possibly build them as lavishly as in France; the so-called King’s Avenues here are just over ten meters wide.
“The Imperial Guard?” Joseph turned to look at Joy. He had almost forgotten about these men.
“Yes, Your Highness. Although many of the Imperial Guards fled to Anatolia during the great uprising, more than 30,000 remain in Tunisia. At present, they have all been driven to Djerba Island.”
Djerba Island is a small island off the eastern coast of Tunisia with a very poor natural environment. Without supplies from mainland Tunisia, it is impossible to sustain 30,000 people on the island.
Joy continued, “These are not like the captives taken by Algiers; they are very familiar with Tunisia and even have some connections. If we put them to work building roads, people will quickly start to escape.”
Upon hearing this, Joseph narrowed his eyes. So many people represented a tremendous wealth in this era!
Do not misunderstand; he had no intention of treating the Tunisian Guard as slaves to be sold. Trafficking human lives was something he found deplorable.
Where could he put these tens of thousands of people?
After thinking for a while, Joseph said to Joy, “Letting them wait for death on the island is too inhumane; we need to find a way out for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s an unexplored golden island in the Pacific Ocean—New Zealand. We could have the Tunisian Guard go there to work and live.”
Joy recalled it for a moment and hesitantly said:
“Your Highness, I remember the British claimed colonization rights over it…”
Joseph smiled,
“They just discovered it a few years ago, and they haven’t undertaken any colonization efforts. Currently, New Zealand is still under the domain of the native Maori.”
In fact, it was the Dutch who first discovered New Zealand, and “Zealand” is the name of a city in the Netherlands. British explorers, after visiting, thought the island extremely desolate and the natives very fierce, so it wasn’t until 1837 they considered colonizing New Zealand.
But Joseph planned to get there first; after all, New Zealand is an important wool-producing region. The natural conditions there are so favorable that one only needs to drive the sheep to the pasture, and people can collect the wool annually without much need for shepherds. Before Australia developed, New Zealand was the world’s largest wool-producing area!
Compared to England, France’s textile industry is severely handicapped by two major factors: the lack of expansive colonial markets and wool-producing regions.
England itself is the largest wool-producing area in Europe. If France wants to compete with England in industrial might, the textile industry must not lag behind, hence the value of New Zealand becomes evident.
In this era, Europeans were not very willing to seek a livelihood in the distant Pacific Ocean. When England colonized New Zealand in the 19th century, there were only about 2,000 people who went there. Yet Joseph had over 30,000 people under his command!
Although many of them were elderly, weak, sick or disabled, at least half of them were capable of being put to work in production. Only a few thousand French people would need to be sent to manage them, which could rapidly establish the colonial situation in New Zealand.
Of course, how to interact with the indigenous Maori of New Zealand was also a key point in successfully taking over New Zealand. For this, Joseph had the various lessons from the English colonization of New Zealand in later years, naturally giving him confidence in this regard.
Joan was merely a local official in Tunisia, with no particular research into the country’s Pacific strategy. He would just follow whatever the Crown Prince said. Nodding, he agreed:
“Your Highness, then I will arrange to transport some food to Djerba Island and send people to tally the numbers. Once the navy’s transport ships arrive, we can directly load them up and take them away.” Read new chapters at empire
“You have my thanks,” said Joseph, “but it’s not the navy that will be coming for them; it’s the Gemini Trading Company.”
His original plan was to persuade the Dutch to establish the United East India Company together and hand over the development of New Zealand to this company.
However, after being severely defeated by the British in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War a few years ago, the Dutch had been somewhat fearful of England and thus had not made up their minds to cooperate with France.
That piece of fat meat then had to be given to the Gemini Trading Company.
Since incorporating the ships of the Tunisian Navy, the transportation capacity of the Gemini Company had greatly improved. Currently, over seventy percent of the trade between Russia and France was operated by the Gemini Company. In addition, it was also involved in trade with Nauru, the Caribbean Sea, and the United States, already becoming quite a sizable company.
Reflecting on this, Joseph couldn’t help but sigh that, compared to the Dutch, the Russians certainly were more decisive in their actions. There was also an advantage in the Russian temperament—if they considered you a friend, they would genuinely put in the effort to help.
Alexei had secured almost every concession he could for the Gemini Company from Russia, which substantially increased the trade volume between Russia and France.
Of course, even brothers settle accounts clearly. The Gemini Company could handle the trade and transportation of New Zealand, but only French people must be the ones to set foot on the island.
The main course of the evening banquet was still the Tajine Pot, which Joseph was very fond of. However, since he had arrived in haste this time and did not bring the Imperial Chef from the Palace of Versailles, the taste was slightly inferior. Still, the meal included some Tunisian local specialties like roast camel meat, nut-filled grilled sausages with yogurt, and…
a dish that seemed to be fried moth larvae.
Joseph naturally ignored the last dish, feasted heartily, and then returned to the conference hall.
It was only then that he finally heard from Joan about the important matter he had been prepared to deal with before coming to Tunisia.
“Your Highness, as for those rumors, they seem to have started appearing last month,” Joan reported. “Besides people spreading them on the streets, there is also a pamphlet about it.”
He gestured for an assistant to bring over a pamphlet, which he then presented to Joseph with both hands:
“The core view in it is that most Tunisians come from Egypt, descendants of the Prophet. The Berbers, on the other hand, have lived in the desert areas since ancient times, and they have no relation to Rome. Besides, the rumors also fabricate many stories in which Europeans, especially the French people, persecute Tunisians. It advocates that Tunisians should kill us or drive us out of North Africa.”
“Oh?” Joseph looked at the pamphlet in his hand with some surprise. These rumors were clearly meant to disrupt French rule over Tunisia, and belonged to the realm of cognitive warfare. To come up with this idea in the 18th century, one had to be a political genius!
However, if one wanted to engage in cognitive warfare, the geniuses of this era were far from a match for an ordinary person who had experienced the cognitive warfare of a great power in the 21st century.