Chapter 475 Two Pieces of News

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace

Franz didn't know about the earth-shaking events happening in the far east. He picked up a newspaper and read it carefully.

Soon he found the "fun" of the day. The plague broke out in London, and France promulgated the African version of the "Homestead Law". I don't know if it was stimulated by Austria.

The plague in London did not attract his attention at the time. In his subconscious, the plague was a medieval disease; after all, in the era when he lived, this disease had long been far away from people.

Moreover, the population of London at that time exceeded one million, and all kinds of terrible industrial wastewater, pervasive chemical poisons, and various unknown germs and microorganisms mixed in food were everywhere.

Of course, there were curses from all over the world, such as Tasmanians, Irish, and indigenous peoples in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.

Every year, Franz's table would be sent with various epidemics in London, such as typhoid, cholera, plague, dysentery, etc., so he was no longer surprised.

At that time, Europeans even generally believed that if the Arctic melted one day and the ancient virus inside spread to the civilized world, it would not be surprising that only the British would survive in the end.

As for the French "Homestead Law", it was already expected by themselves, because France had gone to great lengths to conquer Algeria.

Since the invasion of Algeria in 1830, they have never been soft-handed. Not to mention the conventional means of total war and the creation of no-man's land, the brutal policy of the French against Algerian civilians alone is very appalling.

They also established a local management system similar to the Baojia system, which means that if one person makes a mistake, the whole village will be punished. Rebels and agitators are regularly executed in markets and town centers, and the punishment used is not the common hanging in Europe, but beheading.

The French Governor-General in Algeria, Bugeaud, called this behavior "when in Rome, do as the Romans do."

Since Algeria is close to the French mainland, the Paris authorities have always wanted to immigrate from the mainland, rather than assimilate and absorb. This idea has caused great harm to the Algerians.

However, the French did not like to leave their homeland at that time, even if there was only a sea between them.

Then the "smart" Bugaud came up with a new way to close brothels and encourage French soldiers to rape local women in order to increase the population.

The brutality of the French shocked the journalists sent from the European continent, and Franz's newspaper "Goodnight, Vienna" also sent reporters.

Of course, since the relationship between the two countries was not so harmonious, most of the reporters sent were hired French or Austrians of French descent. This can avoid accidents as much as possible.

Although these reporters were surprised and angry, most of the reports they wrote were about how many people the French killed today or recently, how many villages they destroyed, how many women they insulted, and even invited them, civilized people, to participate in this beastly hunting feast.

However, such a description is not shocking enough.

A set of data shows that since the French invasion of Algeria, the local population has been reduced from more than 4 million to 2.3 million, and the population has almost halved in less than 20 years.

At this time, the French colonists came up with the "Homestead Law" not only to attract their own immigrants and increase government revenue, but also to eliminate the Algerians' will to resist.

Paris stipulated that the wasteland in Algeria would be regarded as unowned land, and French pioneers could buy large tracts of land here at a very low price.

In fact, due to geographical climate and technical limitations, coupled with wars and massacres, many lands in Algeria were in a state of fallow and undeveloped.

This wave of operations directly allowed the French government to obtain 70% of the land in Algeria. At the same time, those Algerian locals who owned their own land had to report their names, property, family information, and attitudes towards the rebels.

The French colonial authorities registered them, and then announced these people's attitudes towards the rebels outside each village, and even issued the so-called "good citizen certificate", forcing these people to become running dogs of the French.

The Governor of Algeria, Bugeod, offered so much land to his monarch Louis Philippe, which made the latter so happy that he couldn't help but praise his future love, but the former just said modestly.

"Algerians are too lazy, they don't deserve to own these lands, the glory belongs to France!"

Although the French have insufficient grain production, they still choose to continue to grow grapes on high-quality farmland. After all, the income from growing grapes is much higher than growing grain.

In fact, as the whole of Europe is in a relatively peaceful and rising period, people's consumption level has actually increased, and France's high-quality red wine has always been in a state of supply and demand.

But the high income belongs only to the French, and it is a disaster for the Algerians. The large-scale conversion to grapes has caused local grain prices to soar.

This has created a strange phenomenon, that is, the better the wine business is, the harder the life of Algerians is.

In other aspects, the French colonial authorities are also very unkind. For example, when a European reporter asked about the atrocities of the French army against local Algerian women, French officials shamelessly publicly condemned Algerian women for being too "dissolute", especially the black veil on their faces, which is completely a "hint".

So Governor Bugeod asked local women to stop covering their faces with black veils to avoid unnecessary physical friction.

At the same time, the French also sold low-quality alcoholic beverages to Algeria, claiming that they were beverages, not wine. This behavior greatly undermined the local social atmosphere and increased the crime rate.

However, these French pioneers didn't care about these things. They only knew that their wallets were bulging. In the face of wealth, everything else was nothing.

In addition to Algeria, Morocco next door was not much better.

The French army's measures when attacking Morocco were equally extreme. In fact, because the Moroccan king took in Algerian refugees, this greatly angered Bugeod.

This "kind father" of the Algerian people intended to let the Moroccans feel his "love" as well.

So he ordered the massacre of "Tlemcen". This city is an important border town between Morocco and Algeria, and it is also the base camp of the Algerian rebels.

In fact, before this, the war between Morocco and France had been on and off, because the former had mastered the "fatal weakness" of the latter, that is, the British.

Abd Rahman (Sultan of Morocco) had bribed the British again and again to mediate between Morocco and France.

Before, the French were still busy with Central America and Algeria. Now that they finally had time, they would not let go of Morocco, a piece of fat meat that was delivered to their mouths.

At this time, the British Consul Lamond was also a real man. Seeing that the French side was determined, he rushed to the Moroccan Palace overnight to inform the French of their intentions and returned the bribe.

This touched Abd Rahman greatly, and what touched him even more was that the British Consul also planned to sell him arms, and the price was naturally very touching.