C3427 Annans drudgery (1/2)
The colony was a land of wealth and gold on their faces for the statesmen of the Founding Fathers, but for those who had gone to develop the colony, the colony was a mud pit.
Politicians in Paris could sing praises in the National Assembly, saying how much the empire had expanded, how much its population had grown, and how much its business interests had increased.
The newspapers reported that the people cheered as the officials continued to rise to the top!
But the colonists had to be controlled and garrisoned, right? In this case, there was a difference between being lacking fat and having hard work to do!
For those regions occupied by the Europeans in the last two or three hundred years, although for so long the Europeans had been engaged only in the plundering of resources and the dumping of commodities, there had been no investment.
But Europeans tend to make some of the cities they often live in prettier, closer to the West.
For example, there were port cities in North Africa, such as Bangladesh and the North America. They were places where France had colonized for a long time, and not only were there a lot of immigrants in Europe, but their lives were also closer to home.
You can eat food that tastes alike, you can pray in a European church, you can even spend money to find a European - born whore to be happy!
The streets were paved, the cities walled, the ports fortified against pirates, and even the natives had learned some French in the process of colonization.
To live in a colony like this, that was heaven. You could not only enjoy the glory of a European lord showing off his might in front of the natives, but also obtain a quality of life similar to that of Europe.
A colony like this would be called the 'Fatty Fei'!
But this was not the case here. The French had colonized this place since 1860, and it was the French Fleet that had been on an expedition to the Qing Empire.
It had only been ten years, and during this period, the French had to constantly fight against the local resistance forces. In the middle of these ten years, there were even a few conflicts with the Chinese.
Especially during the battle against that tyrant. Although no warships were provided here, the army still sent out a battalion of elites to assist them!
The war must have been devastating to the economy, for there was always a need to guard against the attacks of the natives and the growing strength of the Chinese, and these Annan's French troops were in constant high alert, fearing that the Chinese would come from the sea.
In this kind of tense atmosphere, there was simply no one willing to carry out the Infrastructure construction, nor did they have the energy to do so! The only achievement of the decade was the construction of this General Governor's Mansion, as well as the continuous military exploration.
Continuously detailing the map in the dense forest, constantly enriching the hydrological data of the coastline … All this is to prepare for France's long reign here.
Of course it was hard work. Annan had become what the native soldiers called hell!
Many letters from the French army stationed in Saigon to the locals indicated this point!
”This is a cursed land. I really don't know why the Emperor wants to fight here …” The air is wet, and it rains half a year a year... ”
”The road is muddy beyond compare. The strongest leather boots will rot in less than a month... Countless of us brothers have had eczema and are in excruciating pain … ”
”None of you would have thought that the mosquitoes here were even bigger than moths. The mosquitoes that drank enough blood couldn't even fly anymore, and a slap was enough to cause blood to flow from their palms …”
”There are Big Mosquitoes, Mozzie, Blossom Spot Mosquitoes, Poisonous Mosquitoes... ”There are also all sorts of tiny biting insects. Even the finest mosquito nets can't stop them …”
”These locals are so stupid that they don't even know how to cook French food. No matter how you teach them, it's hard to understand … I miss my hometown cheese so much... ”