Chapter 207: Brave New World (9)
Chapter 207: Brave New World (9)
Louisiana, Nouvelle-Orléans.
France had succeeded in obtaining all American continental territory except Texas from Spain, but because of the limits of the eighteenth century, it was impossible to immediately dispatch every local administrator and civil servant needed to control American land.
As a result, the Louisiana we arrived at was, so to speak, still in an ambiguous state somewhere between Spanish and French.
Border security was being handled by the Spanish colonial army, while the port and urban districts were being patrolled by French colonial security forces. And in the Governor’s Office, aside from a few section-chief-level personnel, all the employees were still the existing Spanish civil servants.
Spain needed time, because it had to begin a large-scale administrative plan to decide whether those officials and troops would be reassigned to Nueva España, sent to another colony, or repatriated to the homeland.
France, meanwhile, could have used the treaty as grounds to expel those Spaniards immediately, but if the Spanish officials and soldiers all left at once, Nouvelle-France would be exposed to a literal administrative vacuum, so France also needed time until the necessary personnel arrived from the mainland.
Once the interests of both sides became entangled like that, a rather bizarre scene emerged.
“Welcome to America, and it is an honor to meet you. I am Don Manuel Luis Gayoso de Lemos y Amorín, Governor of Louisiana of Nueva España.”
“A pleasure to meet you. I am Guillaume de Toulon.”
“…I am Major General Charles-François Dumouriez, Governor of Louisiana of Nouvelle-France.”
After the two of us representing France and Manuel representing Spain exchanged handshakes briefly, we entered the Governor’s Office building.
“As a member of the honorable Spanish army, I am fortunate to be able to surrender to gentlemen such as yourselves.”
When we opened the door to the governor’s office and entered, Manuel drew the ceremonial sword displayed on the wall and handed it to us.
I was technically a reserve second lieutenant, but at present I was, above all, a civilian, so I stepped back. In my place, Major General Dumouriez stepped forward and accepted Manuel’s sword.
“You fought honorably. As a member of the French army, I accept your honorable surrender.”
“Thank you. I will now assist you regarding the transfer of administrative authority over Louisiana and the other regions.”
Mm. No matter how I thought about it, this felt very strange to someone with twenty-first-century sensibilities. It was not like a governor handing over duties to the next elected official. It was more like handing over authority to a foreign military governor.
In any case, after finally replacing the flag of the Kingdom of Spain hanging over the Governor’s Office with the French tricolor, the schedule for the first day came to an end.
Then, as the sun dimmed and fell and we headed to our lodgings for tomorrow’s schedule, I called the cavalry major escorting me over to my carriage.
“Attention! What is your command, Your Excellency!”
“Your name was probably Major Joachim Murat, correct?”
“That is correct, Your Excellency!”
Now that was spirited. Brother Grouchy really had sent the right man. But why was a mere major dressed more flamboyantly than a general, no, even a marshal? Did he perhaps have an inflated ego?
Well, come to think of it, that would be understandable.
The expedition that arrived with me was largely divided into three groups.
The first was the Russian prisoners.
There was no need to explain them any further. These fellows had already suffered complete mental collapse after being abandoned by their homeland, so I would pass over them.
The second was our company people.
There was no need to explain this side either, so I would pass over them too.
The third and final group was made up of macho men who had boarded the ship in search of adventure, romance, and danger.
Rather than spend their whole lives farming, these men wanted dangerous challenges. Rather than a stable life, they wanted an adventurous one. In this New World, they dreamed of becoming a second Columbus, a second Vasco da Gama.
And after spending two months cramped together on that narrow ship with nothing but gloomy men all around them, their male hormones were now not just overflowing but on the verge of exploding.
If I let them mature for another month or so, I might be able to create the strongest macho men in the world, men who could even beat Hulk Hogan in single combat. But a good leader, by nature, had to manage the emotions of the people beneath him. I had no perverse hobby of waving a juicy piece of meat in front of a caged and starving hunting dog.
“Major, how is the cavalry doing?”
“Fully prepared!”
Major Murat nodded with a firm expression. I nodded along with him, then spoke slowly.
“Good. The moment it is eight o’clock tomorrow morning, depart north.”
“How far should we go and mark out, sir!”
“How far? Go to the end of this world and come back.”
“I obey!!”
A broad smile was already hanging across his face.
“All right, everyone, disembark! Disembark!”
“Take it slow, get down carefully!”
With a creaking sound, a broad wooden plank was lowered from the ship to the dock, and the seven thousand or so Russians set foot in a new world.
“Why is it so warm here?”
“Whew, the sweat’s just pouring off me.”
“Ah! What was that? A mosquito?”
The temperature, the humidity, even the insects. Everything was different from the homeland they had lived in until now.
“Tch. No matter how different it is from home, is it impossible to grow attached to it?”
“Right. We farmed even through the Rasputitsa. This place is heaven.”
“Exactly.”
The Russians, who had now been granted a new kind of citizenship—meaning, “not French, but in any case something equivalent to being French”—murmured like that.
What could they do, even if they disliked it? Their homeland had already cast them aside. All they had left now was sheer stubborn grit.
“All right, everyone, please follow me.”
Once everyone had disembarked, they then began walking for quite a while behind a Frenchman on horseback.
After eating lunch and dinner on the road, and after spending a night with their bundles for pillows, what they came face to face with was—
“…Good heavens.”
A vast plain.
If all that enormous land were reclaimed, would there be a single person in this world who would starve to death? No, there would not. If even after plowing all that land there still were not enough mouths to work it, then the world would need a population of five billion.
The horizon stretched on without end, and fertile land crossed by waterways flowing out from the great Mississippi River spread before them.
There was no farmer who would not tremble before that vision, a utopia for cultivators, and, with a bit of exaggeration, something like the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve were said to have wandered.
And when everyone stood agape, unable to speak—
“Everyone.”
“Y-yes?”
“Go and reclaim as much land over there as you wish. We will recognize ownership in proportion to what you reclaim. If you have any further questions, please visit the Governor’s Office.”
They had known the land would be sold. The government could not possibly provide food for prisoners using tax money as precious as blood. But ownership? According to how much they reclaimed? What in the world did that mean?
But after saying that, the Frenchman abruptly turned his horse and disappeared. The ones left behind all blankly followed his departing figure with their eyes, and only after he had shrunk into a dot and vanished did they come back to themselves.
So then… if I reclaim land, it becomes my land. Was that what he meant?
I become a self-owning farmer?
I become a self-owning farmer! Me! Me!
Without anyone saying who first, they all pulled out their bundles and took up the mattocks and seed bags that had been issued by the Governor’s Office.
“Ptui. Good. Let’s do this.”
“You bastard of a patch of land! Here comes Sergei, the storm farmer!”
“Waaaah!!”
Instead of the mattock bouncing off the ground, it bit into the earth like soft butter, making large holes wherever it went. And if they dug channels for water, clear little streams flowed along them, and the soil instantly gulped down the water in great mouthfuls.
To these people, who had survived by farming even in snowy Russia, the rich black earth of Louisiana was far too easy an opponent.
“Yahoo!”
“Forward! Follow Murat and let us go see the end of the world! The future will remember us as the greatest explorers in the world!”
“Waaaah!! Murat! Murat!”
Fuck. How was that a unit of soldiers and not a gang of bandits?
“I think those fellows are insane. Don’t you agree, Mr. Le Bon?”
“……Ahem.”
Philippe Le Bon, the technician sent by the Ears of the Nation, only coughed repeatedly at Charbonneau’s words.
Philippe Le Bon could not quite deny it. He too understood the energy that came from youthful vigor. Had not his own heart thumped with excitement that morning at the thought of exploring an unknown world?
But for them to keep acting like that even after more than four hours had passed since departure, with their excitement not dropping in the slightest and their eyes practically rolled back in madness… well. It did seem rather very strange.
Still… well, so long as the results were good, that was enough. Right.
Having finished that brief moment of self-justification, Le Bon returned to his real work.
“What are you doing there?”
“Calculations. Well, you might say I’m running a simulation in my head.”
Even though riding in the carriage should have left his head spinning and his stomach uneasy, Le Bon simply dropped a few drops of motion-sickness medicine into his eyes and went on scribbling in his notebook as if nothing were wrong.
“Calculations?”
“The amount of metal that goes into the converter, the amount of oxygen that reacts with it, the amount of coke needed to make up for that, and how much iron of what purity would be extracted when heated to a certain level. Things like that.”
“……And that can be done just by scribbling a few times in a notebook?”
“You never know until you actually run the experiment. But if you work out estimated values like this beforehand, it helps later.”
Le Bon said that with a smile, shaking his notebook in his hand.
Late July, 1794.
Nouvelle-Orléans.
“Wow, this actually kind of looks like sunglass frames.”
Not quite at the level sold in a twenty-first-century optician’s shop, but at least about on par with fake sunglasses sold at highway rest stops.
Wearing those primitive sunglasses made by darkening the lenses, I was enjoying beach life in high spirits.
The birds chirped, the flowers bloomed, and on a day like this, it was only natural for a kind young man like me to spend a pleasant time with a glass of wine. It was written in the Samgang Haengsildo too. I did not know which volume or section, but anyway it was.
And to be blunt, there was nothing else I could do right now except rest and recharge like this.
The expedition had already been sent out, I had dumped Nouvelle-Orléans administration onto Dumouriez, and there was nothing left for me to do now.
Our expedition had departed roughly two to three weeks ago, so in another one to two weeks they would return, and only then would we either develop the mines or call the whole thing off.
Until then, Guillaume was going to rest comfortably. Guillaume was free. Oh ho ho.
“Y-Your Excellency?”
“Yep. What is it?”
I said that while lowering my sunglasses beneath my eyes.
“Well… a letter has arrived from Boston.”
Boston? That did not sound good.
“Who sent it?”
“It is from Deputy Talleyrand.”
Without a word, I accepted the letter, broke the seal, and read the contents.
[I need help. I am on the verge of being expelled from the United States of America.
Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord.]
Was I losing my eyesight these days? What kind of bullshit was this?