I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1048 Louisiana Strategy

Southern suburbs of Paris.

Breeding base of the Ministry of Agriculture.

Joseph looked at the endless green ocean in front of him and felt that he was full of vitality.

The beets grown here are the latest bred triploid beets. After this year's harvest, France will provide seeds to the whole of Europe.

Of course, the beet production in Paris is only a small part of it. Champagne and the provinces further north are the main beet producing areas.

Last week, the Ministry of Agriculture had reported to him that after Prussia learned that France's high-sugar content beet seeds were available for sale, it immediately ordered nearly 4000 hectares of seeds without hesitation.

And as if they were afraid that France would go back on its word, they immediately paid the full amount for the goods after signing the contract.

It is no wonder that the Prussians were so excited. The little bit of beets they secretly planted last year alone brought in more than 60 thalers, or about 200 million francs.

This is more than double what you can earn from growing wheat.

This year's harvest is imminent, and the scale has expanded four or five times compared to last year, and the income will exceed 300 million thalers!
The Prussian government then formulated a plan to expand the beet planting area five times this year, but found that there were not enough seeds.

At this time, the French agricultural service consulting company unexpectedly came to us and expressed its willingness to provide beet seeds with a sugar content of up to 12%, with no limit on quantity.

Of course, the French demanded that all beets produced in Prussia, after being refined into sugar, be sold on the Paris Agricultural Products Futures Exchange.

The Prussians signed the purchase agreement almost without hesitation.

In fact, when they obtained a loan of 70 pounds from the UK, they had already sold next year's sugar to the British in advance.

Although the price was lower than the market price, it was unavoidable at the time in order to protect the government finances.

As for the agreement on the French side, no one cares.

After the beet harvest next year, Prussia will become the second largest sugar exporter in Europe, and will no longer be short of seeds.

At most, we can take out 10% or 20% of the production to fool the French, and say that the collection of sugar beets is not strictly managed. We can make up for it after the harvest next year.

After Archad introduced the plan to cultivate sugar beets with a higher sugar content, Minister of Agriculture Vergniaud said to Joseph with some concern: "Your Highness, according to news from the Far East, Bengal and several states in northern India should have a good harvest of sugarcane this year.

“Although the acreage there is not yet very large, it is likely to have an impact on sugar prices.”

Joseph nodded slightly.

Not only in India, Britain was also encouraging Portugal to grow sugarcane in Brazil.

In addition, the Bahamas in the Caribbean has been severely infiltrated by the United States in recent years, with more than 80% of its sugarcane plantations controlled by Americans. The Bahamas was originally a British colony, with some British influence left, and is very close to the United States, making it easy for the United States to infiltrate.

At the same time, the original white people here were all British. After the independence movement broke out, they all left the island. After that, the blacks were in charge of the political situation - before, their greatest political experience was that of tribal chiefs.

This led to the collapse of the Bahamas' finances in the second year after independence. President-elect Corey Aron gathered a group of his confidants, dissolved Parliament, announced the abolition of the republic, and crowned himself king.

The deputy speaker and several members of parliament organized a resistance army and fought fiercely with the royalists.

Although Saint-Domingo was doing well, after all, with Brissot presiding over it, its economic situation was very bad due to the British blockade, and it was unable to provide assistance to the Bahamas.

Finally, with the support of the Americans, Aron defeated the parliament and sold a large number of "ownerless" sugarcane plantations to the Americans at low prices. At that time, France was under a naval blockade by Britain and knew very little about the situation over there, let alone intervening.

In short, after obtaining the supply of sugar cane from these places, the British sugar shortage will gradually be alleviated.

Joseph was not worried about the drop in sugar prices. The current high sugar prices were destined not to be maintained forever. The cost of producing sugar from beets in France had been pushed down to a very low level, and it was fully capable of bearing the price drop to the level before the Caribbean independence movement.

But the status of the sugar franc cannot be shaken by this.

Joseph thought about the response strategy and left the breeding base with a frown.

As soon as he returned to the Palace of Versailles, he saw the director of security walking towards him quickly.

"Your Highness, you are back." Lavalette bowed quickly and continued, "News just arrived from North America. The United States is gathering militias from Memphis, Choctaw and other places, and it is estimated that they will launch another attack on New Orleans as early as early next year.

"At the same time, nearly 2000 militiamen are heading to Alabama from South Carolina and Georgia. They are probably preparing to attack the Creek tribe."

Joseph was not surprised. The United States is now entering a period of accelerated development and will inevitably seek expansion.

The westward movement was their national policy, so it was only a matter of time before they occupied Louisiana, which was blocking the way to the west.

He inquired about the situation in North America in detail and said to Emmanuel, "Let Count Segur inform Madrid that I will meet with His Majesty Carlos IV in the near future."

Now that the Americans had started the fire, he could begin to advance the Louisiana strategy.

Two days later, Joseph's convoy left Versailles and headed towards the Pyrenees.

The night he arrived in Soria, Spain, Major Fournier, the local head of the Security Bureau, hurried to the manor where he was staying.

"I'm sorry to bother you at this time, Your Highness," Fournier said as he handed Joseph the document that had just been sent from the Chap signal tower. "But the director has instructed me to give it to you immediately."

Joseph took the report and opened it: "What happened?"

"It seems that there is a rebellion in Maijana," Fournier said. "Two months ago, the Kabyle tribe announced that it would stop paying taxes to the Algiers Parliament and claimed to be 'descendants of Rome' based on the Tunisian Origin Analysis.

"Kuloglu immediately led his troops northward and launched a siege against Meijana."

"Descendants of Rome?" Joseph looked at the report in surprise.

Meijana is a province in the northeast of Algiers, adjacent to Annaba in the westernmost part of Tunisia. It is governed autonomously by the Berber Kabyle tribe, which has a strong sense of independence, but it needs to pay taxes to the Algiers Parliament regularly.

Kuroglu is the current Dey of Algiers - elected a year and a half ago - a hardliner from the Ottoman Guards. As soon as he came to power, he set about expanding the military and began to invade the Mzab tribe south of Algiers.

The Kabyle tribe had long shown a tendency to break away from Algiers.

Two months ago, Bouzid Muklari, the "Malik" of the Kabyle tribe, took advantage of the battle between the Algiers army and Mzab to officially launch a rebellion.

"Malik" is the name the Berbers use to refer to tribal leaders.

As a result, the Mzab tribe only held out for less than two months before being defeated and annexed by the Algiers army.

(End of this chapter)