The first batch of immigrants to the Red Sea region were officially organized immigrants, and they were exempted from any fees. The official even provided many subsidies such as agricultural tools, seeds, and rations.
As long as you sign up for this kind of official immigration, you don't have to spend a dime from the time you leave your hometown. Food and accommodation on the way are all included by the official, and the ferry tickets are more useful. When you get to the destination, in addition to the regular free land allocation operation
In addition, the government will also provide simple temporary houses, farm tools, grain seeds, etc., and even provide food rations for at least half a year or even more than a year (depending on the harvest time of local crops).
Moreover, they will also get more land than ordinary immigrants. If free immigrants can get thirty acres of land from the United States, they can get fifty acres or even one hundred acres.
Although it cannot be said that it is completely free, because these fees will need to be paid back by the immigrants after they cultivate the land and produce crops, the actual total number is not much. Even if these fees need to be repaid in the end, it is still much cheaper than self-funded immigration.
With so many preferential conditions, there are naturally limitations, that is, the location for immigration can only be chosen among a few officially restricted places.
At least in the Americas, don't count on it, whether it's North or South America. There are a lot of free immigrants in those places, and the officials have long stopped organizing large-scale immigration.
The places where official immigration is organized are generally areas to be developed or places with strategic positions.
For example, some Datang territories such as West Asia, India, and Africa, and some areas in Southeast Asia also have this treatment.
All in all, they are places that are not very friendly to new immigrants and places that free immigrants are not willing to go to.
Otherwise, the officials would not spend so much effort to attract immigrants.
The Red Sea region has always been an area for official immigration. The empire had previously conducted immigration in several overseas territories such as the Gulf of Aden and the Persian Gulf, but the scale was not large.
After all, the overseas territories that Datang occupied before were not large in scale, and were generally dominated by coastal ports. The purpose of occupying these places at that time was not to expand the territory, but purely to obtain a supply port.
This is also the reason why Datang built so many colonial ports around the world. Most of the time, it was not to expand its territory or do business locally, but more just to provide supplies for ships...
Today, the entire Pacific, Indian Ocean and even the Atlantic coast are full of coastal ports under the control of the Tang Dynasty. Many coastal ports are very small in scale and do not have many people.
Most of the previous empire's ports along the Red Sea were similar to the more important Port of Suez. That place was owned by the Ottomans before, and the Tang Dynasty only had an embassy district there.
But now, after taking over the entire Northeast Africa and the West Asian Peninsula, especially the Nile Delta plain, large-scale immigration has become a reality.
This piece of land is only over 20,000 square kilometers. Although it is not very large, it is very fertile and is very suitable for agricultural development.
Even if you just mess around, you can feed millions of people.
Of course, according to Datang's rules for developing overseas territories, it was impossible to really immigrate millions of people. On the one hand, immigrating so many people was time-consuming and laborious.
On the other hand, there must be room for survival for the descendants of immigrants.
Of course, what is more important is that the Tang Dynasty has abundant arable land like the Nile Delta and is not lacking in this.
Therefore, according to the plan of the Immigration and Reclamation Department, the short-term immigration target is 50,000 people. If 50,000 people immigrate, they can barely lay a foundation in the local area.
In the future, like other successfully developed overseas territories, there will be no need for official large-scale immigration organization, but it will attract local immigrants on their own.
By then a rapid increase in population will be inevitable.
The first batch of immigrants who arrived were not many, only more than 3,000 people. This number was not even as large as the local garrison.
However, when these immigrants had just disembarked and were preparing to head to the Nile Delta area under official organization, a small group of people had already set foot on the Nile Delta plain before them and began to staking their claim.
They were the first immigrants to land in Alexandria, and they were free immigrants.
These people were actually people who lived in the Tang embassy area in Ceuta and other Mediterranean coasts. There were not only Tang people there, but also a considerable number of temporary residents.
These people knew how fertile the Nile River plain in Egypt was.
While the local immigrants still looked down upon the Nile Plain, the Tang people in Ceuta and other places, especially the Tang people and some temporary residents who did not get along well in the local area, were already eagerly looking forward to going to the Nile Plain.
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John is one of these new immigrants!
Of course, now his name is not John, but John!
Since his brother George took him to Ceuta and became a glorious Tang Dynasty man, Qiao Han even changed his name completely. Because they are brothers, his brother George directly used the transliteration of Qiao as his surname.
John followed his brother, took Joe as his surname, and named him John.
Unfortunately, unlike his brother who was prosperous in Ceuta, John's life in Ceuta was not that good.
In fact, he is not stupid, and his learning ability is not bad, but after all, he is not smart enough, treats others poorly, and has difficulty finding a job. In the end, he works in the business firm where his uncle belongs.
But that was just the lowest handyman. After a long time, he finally went to night school, got a Grade C cultural certificate, and found a job as a store clerk, and he was able to get rid of this embarrassment.
But life was still not going well, and it was difficult to even have enough to eat.
On the other hand, his brother George is doing very well in the European Hotel in Ceuta. He has been upgraded from an ordinary doorman to a customer service manager, and his monthly income has reached more than 20 yuan.
This income can be considered high-income among a large number of temporary residents in Ceuta.
Seeing that his brother George was getting better and better, even though George was as good to him as ever, and he paid off his debts on his own, and even often supported him.
But George Han is also a man with backbone. He wants to live a better life and live a better life on his own.
Even though he was still young, he knew that he would have no future if he continued to mess around like this.
He only earns a salary of 2.5 Tang Yuan a month. This income is naturally very high among Spanish people.
But in Ceuta, this is a real low-income group.
Everything is expensive in this shabby place like Ceuta, including food and accommodation.
Just for food and accommodation, he would have to spend all his salary. Without the support of his brother George, he would not even have clothes to wear!
He also thought about struggling and finding a better job.
However, Ceuta is a paradise for some people, such as his brother George.
But for other people, Ceuta is a hell, such as him, John.