Chapter 216 Provinces and Colonies

Chapter 217 Provinces and Colonies

The Tunisian Guards left a pile of corpses and retreated. The rebels immediately launched a counterattack under the order of the French officers.

Seeing this, Jamil drew his scimitar and rushed to the battlefield, shouting and leading the soldiers to chase after the Ottomans.

Although tens of thousands of rebels rushed up in a mess, and there was no queue or formation to speak of, the guards had completely lost their will to fight at this time, and they only cared about fleeing, so the battle soon turned into a one-sided massacre.

More than two hours later, almost all the Tunisian Guards were driven to a small area in the north of the city. Seeing that the situation was over, Koca had to order his men to lay down their weapons and surrender.

The rebel soldiers were killing with bloodshot eyes, and they showed no mercy to the guards who shouted "surrender" until Jamil personally came out to restrain them, and then they stopped the slaughter.

At this time, only about 7,000 people were left out of the tens of thousands of guards, including Koca and other senior officers who were hacked to death.

Jamil left some soldiers to guard the prisoners. He led the army to rush into the city of Tunisia.

The prosperous capital of Tunisia was soon controlled by the rebels. The guards in the city had already fled. The indigenous residents ran to the streets and cheered loudly for the rebels.

Soon, thousands of rebel soldiers surrounded the Kasir Palace. Jamil led the officers and the high-ranking officials of the indigenous tribes and rushed in directly.

Haji came to the palace door tremblingly under the protection of Pruspur and other police intelligence agents. Before he could say anything, the rebel soldiers roared like waves around him:

"Execute him!"

"Kill this Ottoman!"

"Kill him, he is also a guard!"

"Behead..."

Haji was immediately scared and pale. He never thought that he would face death before he even had a chance to sit in the position of Bey.

Jamil and the local high-ranking officials beside him looked at each other in silence and nodded slightly.

He drew out his scimitar, adjusted his headscarf, and strode towards Haji:

"You Ottoman dog, you must wash away your sins with blood!"

Haji looked at the bloody blade in fear and staggered back, but Jamil caught up with him in a few steps and raised the scimitar in his hand.

At the critical moment, a loud shout came from the back of the crowd:

"Spare his life!"

Jamil and others turned their heads and saw that Joan, the French consul in Tunisia, brought Elder Alai, scholars such as Hilada, and several French officers, pushing away the local soldiers and walking over.

Jamil and the native chiefs hurriedly saluted the dozen people, and then heard Joan say in fluent Arabic:

"Respected General Jamil, I think you may have made a mistake."

"Ah? What do you mean?"

Joan bowed to Haji and said:

"Bey is Bey, he is definitely not a guard, let alone an Ottoman."

The natives looked at each other and thought: Wasn't the first generation of Bey Hussein an officer of the Ottoman Guards, and drove away the previous guard leader, and then took control of Tunisia?

How come he is not?

Joan immediately followed the instructions of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and argued:

"Bey is the ruler of Tunisia. He only belongs to Tunisia, not Osman. Strictly speaking, it was the Guards who betrayed him, secretly colluded with Osman, and persecuted the Roman descendants in Tunisia!"

He gestured to Haji again:

"Haji Bey's grandmother is Genoese and his mother is Tougurt. Even if there is a little Ottoman blood in his body, it has long been very thin."

Hearing this, Haji secretly wiped his sweat and was glad that his grandfather and father did not strictly follow the tradition of the Guards because of their greed for beauty, otherwise he would really be dead today.

Joan looked at Haji again and said loudly:

"Is that so, respected Bey?"

Haji was immediately shocked, desperately grasping this last chance to survive, and nodded vigorously:

"Yes, yes! I will always be a Tunisian, a descendant of... oh, a glorious Roman! I have nothing to do with the damn Ottomans!"

A Turkish chief frowned and raised an objection:

"But Bey is also the Pasha appointed by the Ottomans."

Joan immediately waved his hand:

"That's all because of the threats of the Ottomans. And Haji Bey has never been appointed."

Haji continued to nod:

"Yes, yes! I will never be the Pasha of the Ottomans!"

Jamiel and the indigenous chiefs looked at each other again with doubts. Seeing this, Joan quietly winked at Elder Alayi.

The latter immediately stepped forward and said in a melodious tone:

"Everyone, the Bey is a ruler recognized and served by all tribes. He is not an Ottoman and should not be betrayed by you."

Ishaq came out from behind Jamil at the right time and took the lead in saluting Haji:

"I will always be loyal to you, great Bey."

Seeing that the leaders of the rebels took the lead, the native chiefs hurriedly expressed their loyalty to Haji one after another, followed by the officers.

In the end, including Jamil, thousands of natives present bowed their heads to Haji. The latter finally breathed a sigh of relief and looked at Joan and others who saved his life with extremely grateful eyes.

Southern Bizerte

In a villa protected by Swiss Guards in red military uniforms, Joseph yawned, dropped the "horse" in his hand, and ate the black "pawn" on the chessboard.

Since he promised the queen to "stay in the boat," he couldn't go anywhere. He could only stay on the "wooden boat" in the house and pass the time by playing chess.

Berthier, who was sitting opposite, pushed the "car" forward three spaces, hesitated for a moment, and finally asked the doubts in his heart:

"Your Highness, why do you care so much about the Tunisian Bey? I mean, maybe it would be a good choice to let the rioters vent their anger on him."

Joseph moved the "queen" to keep his "horse":

"After all, Haji has cooperated with us. Although he is out for revenge and to get his sweetheart back, morally speaking, we should not just ignore him. Moreover, although he has no real power, he is an unexpected person after all. A symbolic figure in Nigeria. Various decrees are issued from the Cahill Palace in his name, and they can be implemented faster. If he dies, it will be possible to wait for the local Tunisians to balance the interests of all parties and launch a government. I don’t know when it will be.”

What he didn't say was that Haji had no ability and was better managed. If a Tunisian indigenous person with outstanding methods and strategies is allowed to take power, it will be a bit troublesome.

Berthier held the chess pieces and nodded:

"Your Highness's concerns are indeed very necessary, but I thought too simply."

Joseph smiled and said:

"In addition, having a Bey can avoid the possibility of military dictatorship. It will also facilitate the future merger of Tunisia and France."

Berthier was a little surprised:

"Are you saying that Tunisia will not be a French colony, but... a province?"

"That was my intention. So from the very beginning I was promoting French identity here."

"But, Your Highness," Berthier hesitated, "will the cost be too high?"

People of later generations often think that colonies are full of bloody oppression, taxes are sky-high, and people everywhere are in dire straits.

In fact, most of the time, colonies would only be subject to some trade restrictions, such as prohibiting buying from someone or selling to someone. The tax rate is not too high. For example, the various tax rates in the United States before independence were even lower than those in the UK, the sovereign country.

The biggest difference between colonies and non-colonies is investment - no matter how low the tax rate is in the colonies, the money paid will eventually be spent on the mother country. The colony does not receive any construction funds, and there is no money for disaster relief if something goes wrong. The local residents are bound to be angry.

At the same time, if there is a problem in the colony, the mother country can just ignore it without any psychological burden.

Therefore, the investment in building a province is actually much higher than that of a colony.

Joseph looked at the chessboard, and with some reluctance replaced the "horse" and "pawn" on the opposite side with the "rook", nodded and said:

"You are right. This means that we have to invest a lot of money in Tunisia, especially in the early stage." He changed the topic, "But it is worth it. Tunisia is rich in products and fertile land, and at the same time it has If it is built as a good port with an excellent location, the initial investment will be recouped very quickly, and it will even become an important economic pillar of France in the future!”

He was well aware of the importance of North Africa to France in later generations. Even without much construction, North Africa was once the cornerstone of France becoming a world power.

In the twentieth century, Chirac, the last decent French president, once said, "Without Africa, France will be reduced to a third-rate country."

At the moment, if France wants to compete with Britain, simply plundering resources from North Africa is completely unfeasible. After all, it is far less vast than the British colonies in America and India.

Since quantity cannot be compared, then quality can only be compared.

Develop Tunisia to become the core region of France and achieve productivity close to that of European territories. The contribution of such a region to national strength will be far from comparable to that of the Americas or the Far East.

Joseph looked at Berthier and continued:

"Did you know that compared to the colonies of Britain and Spain, North Africa has an incomparable advantage, that is, it is very close to us? Marseille and the Port of Bizerte are only separated by the not-so-wide Mediterranean Sea. From Corsica Starting out, even with a slower ship, it only takes three days to reach Tunisia, which is shorter than the time from Lyon to Paris.

"The British are destined to lose the United States, because it takes more than 40 days for the decree issued from London to reach Philadelphia. Similarly, it will take a month and a half for the British to know what happened there.

"You see, India will also break away from Britain in the future, because it is also a very far away place.

"But Tunisia is different. As long as we have a firm foothold here, no one can let it leave the embrace of France."

He added in his heart: Unless the national consciousness here awakens and strives for independence from within. Therefore, before the storm of national awakening spreads in Europe, we should cultivate a sense of identity between France and Tunisia as soon as possible, so that they will really be monolithic in the future.

Of course, in addition to recognizing the "same origin", allowing more French people to immigrate to Tunisia is the most reliable method.

After all, Tunisia currently has a population of less than 1.8 million, of which hundreds of thousands are of European descent. As long as the immigration policy is appropriate, in a few years these places will become physically of the same origin.

Bethier only knew that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince had extraordinary military and strategic vision and amazing political skills, but he didn't expect that he also had such a profound understanding of the international situation. The words "Son of God" immediately popped up in his mind.

Because apart from this reason, he really couldn't think of how to explain that the young Crown Prince had so many advanced insights and strategies.

His thoughts were surging in his mind, but his hands did not stop. He pushed the "Queen" forward a few squares and whispered:

"Your Highness, General."

Joseph looked at the chessboard and smiled helplessly:

"It seems to be a sure kill. Your chess skills are really amazing."

"You are too polite." Berthier packed up the chess pieces and said casually, "Speaking of chess skills, a Hungarian named Kempelen invented a machine called "Turk". It is a machine that can play chess. I played with it once, and I only lasted 14 steps before I was defeated by it."

So awesome? Joseph's first reaction was to think of "AlphaGo", but he immediately dismissed the idea - in this era, even the steam engine has not been fully developed, how could artificial intelligence appear?

He immediately remembered that he seemed to have seen this on the forum before, and it turned out to be a scam - someone hid in the machine and used magnets to control the chess pieces to play chess.

So he winked at the Chief of Staff:

"Lieutenant Colonel Berthier, I can tell you a trick to help you easily defeat that "Turk."

As the two were talking, Perna knocked on the door and saluted them separately, pinching the corner of her clothes a little nervously and said:

"Your Highness, Commander, I heard that many soldiers in the legion have suffered from dysentery recently. Maybe I can help."

People in this era did not accept female doctors at all. Perna could only serve beside the open-minded Joseph. She came to Tunisia and did not help at all. She was also taken care of by His Highness all the way because of seasickness, so at this time, she wanted to do something to prove herself.

Joseph nodded: "I thank you on behalf of the soldiers, Dr. Perna. However, you still have to change into men's clothes."

"Yes! Thank you, Your Highness!"

...

Paris.

Royal Palace.

The Duke of Orleans read the latest "Paris News" comfortably in the sunlight from the window. The newspaper published some things about Tunisia. Although the specific situation is not clear, it is said that there has been chaos there, and the war has spread everywhere.

Obviously, the prince who has no political experience has messed up!

He hummed a dance music happily, and when he looked up, he saw his son passing by the window.

He felt that something seemed to be wrong with Philip, so he rubbed his eyes and stopped his son to look carefully.

In the bright sunshine, the latter had large red papules on his neck and his left eye was also very red.

The Duke of Orleans frowned and asked with concern:

"Philip, are you sick?"

The Duke of Chartres smiled nonchalantly:

"Nothing, just romantic love disease, dear father."

The Duke of Orleans was struck by lightning when he heard this, and he froze in place - the so-called "love disease" was the nickname given to syphilis by the nobles.