Life of Being a Crown Prince in France

Rahman and dozens of Berber nobles walked out of Uster's Governor's Palace with great enthusiasm.

After being "absent" for more than three months, the Governor reappeared on the first day in Mitidja and convened the major nobles, officials, and tribal leaders of Algiers to announce the establishment of the French Algeria Province in the name of the King and issued a series of new decrees.

The content of the decree made Rahman and others ecstatically happy.

"How much did you get?" Lazaz asked the tribal leader beside him with delight, "I got over 6,000 riyals here."

The latter, who was related by marriage, also did not hide it: "I got 4,000 riyals."

Indeed, Uster just announced that property confiscated from the Imperial Guard and the Navy could be kept by the tribes by one-third, while the rest would be handed over to the province's finance to build towns, irrigation facilities, and roads.

Although this reduced the tribe's income a bit, it cleaned up money that was otherwise shady, and nobody had objections.

Besides, in terms of the specific amounts, the Governor certainly couldn't verify them so accurately, allowing them to withhold a little more.

Several tribal leaders next to him loudly discussed: "I just calculated that according to the new tax system, our tribe will pay 200 fewer riyals each year."

"No more damned tax farmers collecting taxes as they please!"

Someone shouted in clumsy French: "Long live His Majesty the King!"

"Faisal, I really envy your French. Now you might become an official in Mitidja."

"Listen, it's not hard to learn. Now that there's no Navy, you can buy a ship to do business in Europe; you'll learn French in two years."

"I can't do that; better to buy more land."

"That's right; land is really cheap now. I plan to use all my savings to buy land."

"Does your tribe have that many people to farm? You know there are fines for leaving land uncultivated..."

"The worst case is to buy some black slaves. Black slaves from Morocco are only 25 riyals each."

No wonder they were so excited.

When the Imperial Guard and the Navy controlled the Congress, Berber-Arab descendants could only take farming, portering jobs, or engage in trade at most.

And all ports and ships were in Navy hands, with them making 80% of the trade profits.

Now with only "Roman Descendants" in Algiers, Berbers could hold official posts and engage in maritime trade, giving them a new lease on life.

And what pleased them the most was the new decree that stipulated any Algiers person could apply for 35 acres of land from the government for free. As long as they cultivated it continuously for 10 years, the land would be theirs.

If you wanted to buy more land, you could, just with a little payment, but the price was extremely cheap, only about 30% of what it was during Dey's rule.

Of course, conditions required continuous cultivation for ten years, with a yield reaching 80% or more of nearby farmland's average. Otherwise, the first offense would incur a fine of 3 riyals per acre, and the second offense would lead to land confiscation.

These Berber tribal leaders only focused on fantasizing about how much land they would buy, completely unaware that this decree was actually a covert plan to undermine them.

Joseph knew that in Algiers, over 90% of Berber-Arab descendants lived within their tribes.

These tribes were very cohesive, following the religious "Kanon" law usually and operated on the council of elders system, making it difficult for the government to manage them effectively.

In the past in Tunisia, he had suffered losses due to tribes, and it took great effort to invite all tribal leaders to Ksar Hellal Palace before he could barely install tax officers and police into tribes.

Even so, the tribe's internal daily affairs were still not open to government intervention.

This time, Joseph intended to resolve this issue once for all in Algiers.

The means was the land.

In the past, the northern fertile land of Algiers was occupied by the Imperial Guard, and the coastline was the Navy's domain, so Berber tribes could only live in the central mountainous areas, giving them somewhat average fertile land.

Now that forces of the Imperial Guard and the Navy have been cleared, their land was reclaimed by the Governor's Palace, which could attract people from Berber tribes to cultivate it.

And with the original ruling powers in these places shattered, the French government could plan towns and villages from scratch, dispatch officials for management, naturally implementing the Algiers Province's decrees.

The "tribal communal land" model that Berber tribes used before had the harvest distributed by the tribe, and it's not hard to imagine that certainly many were dissatisfied — even Utopia couldn't ensure fair distribution, let alone the North African tribes of this era.

So if tribespeople could receive land that belonged to themselves free of charge, with the harvest also entirely their own, they would surely flock to it.

Once these people got land and were self-sufficient, who would still want to listen to the directives of the tribal elders? They would practically be free from tribal control.

After a few years of this, tribes in the mountainous areas would gradually be "hollowed out" — the younger ones would most want to become self-sufficient farmers in the north.

Furthermore, these newly established towns would introduce various advanced European facilities, and goods would be much more abundant than in the mountainous area, soon becoming populated places.

Meanwhile, French immigrants could also acquire land here, strengthening Europeanization through cohabitation with the locals.

This model would fundamentally disintegrate the tribal forces of Algiers.

As for land allocation shortage?

No need to worry at all.

Algiers has over 300,000 square kilometers of land north of the Sahara, most of which is very suitable for Mediterranean climate farming. The Berber-Arab population amounts to only 1.5 million.

Not to mention allocating 35 acres each; even giving out 500 acres per person would be no problem.

In comparison, France itself has 550,000 square kilometers, yet sustains a population of 30 million.

As Joseph expected, when the new land decree reached the tribes, it instantly sparked a craze for applying for farmland.

In less than a month, more than 20,000 people applied for "new farmlands."

And the French Agricultural Services and Consulting Company also timely launched its business in Algiers, mainly renting out farm tools to "new farmland" farmers, while also providing seeds and fertilizers on credit.

The consulting company's employees also taught everyone how to compost for free and offered grain sales services.

Upon learning about this support, the following month's "new farmland" applications doubled immediately.

Almost in an instant, hundreds of villages sprang up in northern Algiers.

...

Lazaz was the first tribal leader to notice something wrong.

In just a few months, his tribe had lost three to four hundred tribesmen, most of whom were strong men, which would significantly affect the tribe's spring planting.