French Boom on the Southeast Frontier
Annexation. The French southeast border region. South of the Alps, Nice was enjoying an unexpected boom. They'd simply switched nationalities to French, and now they were reaping unprecedented prosperity.
First, taxes.
"Every January 1st, we collect exactly as specified in the tax code."
"Uh, sir, I don't quite follow."
"If you're not sure, it's usually about 15%."
"Thank you!"
Unlike the tax collectors who used to squeeze 250% of income, the French national tax officials from the treasury honestly took only the amount stipulated by law.
Next, commerce.
"Salt tax? What kind of barbaric levy is this? Tax squad! Round them all up!"
All sorts of petty taxes from the Sardinian days were abolished.
"Wait, is this even allowed? Do you know who I am?"
"Nope."
There were a few minor protests, but they vanished.
"French salt merchants here! Alpine rock salt at 3 francs per livre! Selling it like this leaves no profit. Buy it, buy it!"
"Nice's going rate for salt is 50 francs per livre!"
"What the hell."
"Jackpot! Who’s your backer?!"
"France."
The hordes of merchants flooding in from France had completely shattered their monopoly ecosystem.
"Potatoes? You expect us to eat this crap?"
"If potatoes don't suit you, how about flour? It's twenty times pricier than potatoes, though."
"Honey, should we try potatoes? They look tasty enough."
French merchants dumped the massive stockpiles Louis XVI had mass-produced, flooding Nice like a torrent.
"Hey! Don't sell! I said don't sell! Gatekeeper! Did you charge these guys customs duties?"
The old merchants tried to resist the invasion of outsiders any way they could, but...
"Customs between fellow French territories? Kinda feels off, doesn't it?"
...it was pointless.
"It's not 'kinda'—customs are the law!"
They tried to block French merchants using Sardinian-era laws.
"As of January 1, 1780, inter-city customs duties in France have been fully abolished under the tax reforms."
But Nice was now France. In the end, Nice's merchants had to unload goods bought cheap from the Italian peninsula at French prices. Judging they could no longer conduct proper trade, they sold off their shops and fixtures to French merchants. Thus, Nice's local bosses were liquidated.
Finally, agriculture.
"Hiring! Strong, skilled workers who churned out ten sacks of flour per acre back in France!"
As agricultural output exploded in France, crop prices plummeted, forcing self-farming households to lay off workers to break even. Most of those laid-off laborers didn't flock to cities; instead, they toured France, learning regional climates and crop cultivation methods.
"Could you work my land? My back's acting up..."
"Ah, sharecroppers welcome too."
They poured into Nice and Savoy, becoming laborers or sharecroppers and spreading advanced French farming techniques.
"Ah, this is called the four-field rotation."
They plowed up inefficient fallow lands and forcibly introduced the French four-field system.
"Remember that fall a couple years back? Those academy students showed up with big shots, and we were shocked."
"Yeah, when the police rounded up the villagers in the square, I thought we'd been marked for rebellion."
The workers and farmers uprooted every field planted with cabbage and carrots, sowing hairy vetch and wheat across all the land.
"Aigoo, harvest's just two days away!"
"Pardon? This is the harvest? I thought it was dead crops..."
A few accidents occurred as side effects of the advanced methods, but nothing major.
"Anyway, we couldn't sell this stuff, so let's plow it under. Time to plant this hairy vetch now."
"Hairy vetch? Isn't that a weed?"
"The academy bigwigs said planting it with wheat restores soil fertility. Don't know the details."
They swiftly swept away Sardinia's remnants.
"Look at this soil. It's turned to rags. So red, we could supply it to Lorraine's ironworks as ore."
"Fine, you handle it all. I'll lie down for a bit... Just pay the sharecrop on time, and we're good."
"Sharecrop! Right. What rate are you thinking?"
"Eh, about half? Gotta be that much for me to eat."
Sometimes, there were holdouts who couldn't shake their Sardinian ways.
"Put that fist away. Police! Police! Save me!"
"Now, now, young man. Calm down. What seems to be the problem?"
"This old geezer's demanding half as sharecrop rent!"
"No, that's what I need to eat!"
"Easy now, both of you. And sir, that kind of greed won't do. That's an unfair contract."
Under France's order, it was quickly sorted.
"The state's only taking 15% in taxes—how can you demand 50%?"
Nice was Frenchified to French standards.
This kind of "Frenchification" inevitably produced victims.
"Damn it. The family business, passed down for generations, ruined in my hands. I have no face left for my ancestors."
Most were merchants and small-scale artisans. Unable to withstand the onslaught of cheap French goods, they had to liquidate everything they owned. With no debts or assets left, they idled at home or wandered the streets.
"You look idle. Care to join our army?"
Right on cue, the Marseille garrison arrived in Nice. They were soldiers ordered by Louis XVI to garrison the border regions.
"I'm just a plain carpenter..."
"Perfect—we need talents like you!"
To carry out Louis XVI's "border blockade" mission, they hired them.
"Timber? Ah, you know Alpine lumber!"
"Stone? Forget stone—how about lime?"
"Nah, screw it. Do I look like a sucker?"
The fallen merchants took army cash and scoured for materials.
"Tch, then the finest spruce lumber..."
"Cut the crap. Spruce is just firewood, isn't it?"
Fallen or not, they were still merchants. Knowing local prices and specialties well, the soldiers avoided scams and got proper supplies, while the merchants could keep their livelihoods. They bought decent materials at fair prices and delivered to the border.
"Alright, artisan. Carve this into posts and fence off over there."
"Here? Isn't this the border?"
"His Majesty wants the border sealed."
"Tsk... Fine, if you're ordering it, I'll do it. But if there's trouble, I'm washing my hands of it."
The artisans hired by the army shaped materials into stone walls and wooden fences, sealing the border.
"Is this... really okay? We have to do it, but will it even work..."
The fences showed dramatic effects immediately upon installation.
"How are we supposed to get through here..."
Because the refugees hadn't come empty-handed. They'd dragged their entire fortunes in carts into France. Even a fence a bit taller than man-height left them stumped.
"Hey, bring a shovel."
Some tough ones piled up dirt ramps to climb over, but...
"Hold it."
...they were spotted by the French border garrison.
"They said France's a land of milk and honey—you can't pass? Screw it all! Half a year working there, and this junk'll be trash!"
The persistent ones ditched their carts and hopped the fence. The garrison couldn't catch them all.
"New face, huh."
"Haha, just moved here recently."
But the locals were different.
"Officer, that guy's looking suspicious, no?"
"Hm. Let's have a chat."
They didn't welcome foreigners either. Already losing jobs to Frenchmen, there was no reason to accept unskilled outsiders. Frenchmen were mostly advanced farmers, overwhelming capital, and skilled laborers—bosses at worst, not competitors. But foreigners? High chance of direct rivals.
"Good call, sir. That's why foreigners stealing our French share."
The French felt the same. They proudly shared Paris's hot topic—the foreigner debate—with Nice folk.
"We've gotta protect our own slice. Right?"
Not Louis XVI's intent, but Frenchmen were slowly embracing a sense of "us French" versus "not French."
While the southeast was thoroughly Frenchified, the northeast border towns were adapting more flexibly.
"Captain, do we really need to block Alsace?"
The north had the Saar River as a barrier, and the east had Alsace. Lorraine's border was easy yet hard to seal. Unlike the natural northern border of the Saar, the eastern one had no clear way to block.
"Refugees!"
"Damn, breached again."
If the southeast border was easy to block thanks to the Alps, the northeast was harder due to forests. Armies couldn't pass through woods, but refugees could.
The biggest reason for this flexible Frenchification lay with the army.
"Eh, it'll be ours soon enough anyway. Can't just barge into Alsace suddenly, though..."
The northeast garrison had no intention of stopping refugees. Especially with Louis XVI's refugee resettlement policy blurring lines between internal drifters, Italian POWs, and illegal entrants. They only blocked blatant crossers, logged daytime breaches, but didn't aggressively seal the border.
"Foreigners!"
"Sigh, just keep pouring concrete."
Thankfully, Lorraine overflowed with jobs thanks to Louis XVI's foresight. Daily wages for concrete finishing—room and board plus 1 franc—had dropped to 1 sol with board, but refugees were grateful for the work.
Infinite jobs, wide borders, unmotivated army. This perfect storm made Lorraine France's most lenient region.