1635 Han style rises again

Chapter 964 Workers
On May 5, Daxing.

"It's off work, it's off work!"

Following the yelling of the factory manager, the extremely exhausted workers immediately left their positions and walked outside.

The night had already darkened, and a row of gas lamps hanging under the eaves emitted dazzling light, forming pillars of halos one after another in the dark factory area.

Liang Yixiang followed the workers out of the workshop gate, stood still for a while, stretched his waist, and loosened his stiff limbs and back.

"Bah, bah, bah..." Sun Xibin next to him took a deep breath, but spit again and again, "Damn, eat a mouthful of soot! Xiangzi, have a supper and have another drink?"

"It's time, it's time to go back to sleep." Liang Yixiang said, the day's high-intensity work had squeezed out the last bit of his energy, and he felt soft all over his body. At this moment, he wished he could lie on the bed immediately and sleep Have a good night's sleep.

Oh, it seems that I can't sleep for too long. I have to come to work on time at seven o'clock tomorrow morning. If I am late, my wages will be deducted.

Oh, the damn factory!

"It's only past eight o'clock, how can anyone go to bed so early?" Sun Xibin twisted his neck vigorously, and said weakly: "The dinner provided by this host is getting worse and worse. There is no oil or water at all. That's not an extra day. Yes, I'm hungry again. Let's go and have a drink, maybe I can sleep more solidly at night."

"That's right, go out for a drink and relax." Geng Daming behind him also echoed: "Xiao Sun doesn't say anything, I don't feel hungry yet. Just mentioning it this way, my stomach just keeps growling. Tell me, This boss is not only getting more and more stingy, the meals provided are not oily, and now the daily working hours have been extended by more than two hours. Damn, the gas lamps are free of money?"

"Cut!" Sun Xibin sneered and said, "How much does this gas lamp cost? There are 60 of us, [-] people, and we work for more than two hours a day. I don't know how much money we have created for the owner! Hmph, I don't know how to steal it behind my back." Joy! Hey, tell me, who the hell made this gas lamp?"

The gas lamp was manufactured by the Heishan Industrial Research Institute five years ago, and it was immediately welcomed when it was launched on the market.Compared with the previous whale oil lamps, this kind of gas lamp has better lighting effect, and because it is a by-product of coal chemical production, it is cheaper than candles and whale oil.

At the earliest, this kind of gas lamp was accepted by municipal departments around the country to replace the previous street lamps made of whale oil.Later, some factories gradually introduced gas lamps, which not only improved the lighting environment, but also extended the working hours of the factories to 13-14 hours.

This means that the length of working hours is completely controlled by people, well, to be precise, by the vicious capitalists and factory owners, and is no longer limited by the sunrise and sunset.

A European visiting scholar once said sympathetically after visiting some of the factories in Qi State: "When the machine turns, countless workers, including men and women, as well as some young child laborers, are bound by iron and steam. People who are together have to be put into operation immediately. From the twilight of the sky to the deep night, it seems that there is no consciousness, and they work mechanically without pain and fatigue."

The use of steam power has enabled countless factories to start larger-scale production, and the factories have developed into new multi-storey buildings.Cotton textile factories, machinery processing factories, hardware factories, food factories and many other manufacturing enterprises established near towns or in big cities realized the agglomeration of enterprises and thus "overcame the cost disadvantage of scattered production".

In Daxing City, hundreds of five or six-story factory buildings can be seen, and each factory building has a tall chimney on one side, emitting black soot.Its factory has complete internal facilities, including residential dormitories for workers, dedicated office locations and production workshops.

The dense workshop roared all day long, and the pistons of the steam engine moved back and forth, like a giant elephant in rage.Countless workers, starting and leaving at about the same time, doing almost the same work.For them, today is no different from yesterday or tomorrow, and this year is the same as last year.Everyone seems to be the most humble screw in front of each factory and each machine. Driven by the machines, they will never tirelessly be polished and destroyed.

During the development of Qi State for more than 40 years, from manual workshops to large machine factories, the traditional laissez-faire has been replaced by extremely strict rules.Workers enter the factory, leave the factory, and eat and drink in an orderly manner according to the arrangement of the clock.Everyone has strict position restrictions and task indicators in the factory.

Factory stewards or foremen managed workers through surveillance, fines or firing, or even more brutal coercive measures.Although this kind of discipline also existed in some manual workshops before, it was only in the machine age that it became generalized and strict.

In a very short period of time, big machines broke down the labor process barriers built by workers' skills, and machines replaced traditional technology and labor.The factory system of mass production has eliminated the traditional family workshops, industry is like the military, and factories are like barracks.Relentless mechanization can subjugate workers to the maximum and ensure discipline on the factory floor.

In front of the machine industry, many immigrants and migrant workers became its captives and slaves, and their technology (if any) was deprived.Because in the eyes of some ruthless factory owners, a real worker does not need skills, all he needs is absolute obedience to the machine.

Many factory owners only need to invest in machines, own machines, and use machines to obtain absolute control over the production process, while workers become extensions of the machine arms and slaves in the labor process controlled by capital.

With the popularization of compulsory education in Qi State, the national literacy rate has been greatly improved. Nearly 60% of the people can read various newspapers and write simple characters, and can accurately calculate their monthly income.However, the more and more complex machines in the factory have made people's intelligence more and more suppressed, and human labor has become more and more boring and boring.

Machines are becoming more and more like people, and people are becoming more and more like machines.Machines are engaged in complex work, while human work is becoming more and more mechanical and monotonous.

"Have you heard?" He took a sip of beer, which contained a bit of bitter liquid. It was actually not as comfortable as honey wine, but Sun Xibin felt a kind of transparent refreshment, "That cloud who was greedy for 10,000+ yuan The prefect of Yang was hanged! From my point of view, he shouldn’t have left his whole body. If he was greedy for so much money, he should be hacked to death. Or, learn from the old Ming Dynasty who peeled the real grass!”

"If you are an official, you must be decent, right?" Geng Daming swallowed a bowl of noodles and burped comfortably, "Even if he is cut into pieces, what does it have to do with us?" ? He won’t give us a single bit of the money he’s greedy for! … Damn it, 10,000+, I can’t finish it in a few lifetimes!”

"You said, these officials, and they are still a magistrate, after a year, all kinds of messy gray income, no matter what, there are more than 1000 yuan, which is enough to live a luxurious life. Why do they still want to be greedy for so much money? "Liang Yixiang gnawed on a piece of scallion pancake, a little aggrieved.

"Greedy enough!" Sun Xibin curled his lips, seeing the scallion pancakes in Liang Yixiang's hand, he was so greedy that he beckoned the vendor to bake one for him too, "We work day and night like this, and we can't earn 100 yuan all year round. Yuan, how can I understand the thoughts of those rich masters?"

"That's right!" Geng Daming took a sip of beer while holding his wine glass, "We little people can only suffer. I just hope that I can save more money every year, buy a house, marry a wife, and make a lot of money. My son, the day is almost over."

"Speaking of saving money, what do you think of the establishment of workers' pension insurance announced by the government recently?" Sun Xibin suddenly thought of something.

"Pay fifty cents to one yuan to the government every month for 30 to [-] years, and then when you get old, you can receive a monthly pension from the government?...Why do I think it's not so reliable? Could it be the government? Do you want to collect the money of our little people? You said, if you pay for a few years and accidentally belched to see the King of Hades, wouldn’t the money be paid for nothing?”

"You guys didn't understand!" Liang Yixiang said with a smile: "If you pay the fee, you will burp. The government will refund your money to your wife and children. Oh, yes, the premise is that you First of all, you must have a daughter-in-law. In addition, besides us workers, the owner of the factory also has to pay the other half of the pension fund."

"Will the owner of this factory be willing to pay us an extra sum of money for our workers?" Geng Daming still doubted himself, "The two meals that are provided to us every day are all picked and searched, just like pig food. The increase in wages is also a dime. It’s like a goat’s shit. If you want him to suddenly take out a sum of money to pay pension insurance for our workers, it’s like gouging out his flesh!”

"This is stipulated by the government, so he can't help but not pay!" Liang Yixiang said: "I heard that this is an order issued by His Majesty the Emperor, requiring all factories and commercial companies in our country to pay pension funds for workers and associates. This is a big deal. Good governance, in the future we will all be old and frail, and have no livelihood, and we will still have a security."

"It's still the emperor who misses us common people and gives us a lot of benefits. Unlike those stingy factory owners and money-greedy officials who only think about how to squeeze us better." Geng Daming drank the beer in the glass in one gulp, angrily Said: "I think, working in a factory all my life, I can't save much money all year round. It's better to apply to those colonial territories overseas. Even if you can't go to rich India, South Africa is also good. I heard that you can do it for a year. Earn 200 yuan!"

"Although the overseas territories are easy to earn money, there are also many dangers." Liang Yixiang said with concern: "There are savages and savages everywhere, and we need to fight them, and the geographical environment and climate are also different from ours. It's completely different here. If you can't get used to it, you might lose your life there."

"What's more terrible is that I heard that there are not many women in those overseas colonial territories." Sun Xibin said with a smile: "It's impossible to attack those savages like chimpanzees, right? So, you have to marry a wife in the local area first." , take it with you, and you can live a decent life."

"Come on!" Geng Daming retorted: "If you really have a wife and children, how can you take them to overseas colonial territories to make a living? The big deal is to return to the mainland after making money. Marry a beautiful woman, drink tea, listen to music, and live a happy life only for gods!"

"Hahaha..." After hearing this, several people laughed out loud, which attracted the attention of many workers who were eating supper on the street.

After countless people got rich in overseas colonial territories, they returned to the mainland of Hanzhou. They all appeared to be extremely wealthy and spend money like water, which aroused the influence of many people.Regardless of the difficulties and obstacles, they took the risk to accept the recruitment of overseas trading companies, or become sailors, or armed guards, or agricultural workers stationed overseas, plundering various resources from colonial territories, conducting various unequal trades, and grabbing a fortune. A bloody fortune.

Of course, the people who stayed in the local area did not live a precarious life, at least they could live comfortably, and countless factory owners and business owners also built a large number of houses to win people's hearts or to exploit better. Workers' dormitories provide nearby living conditions to save work time.

In addition, the vigorous industrial revolution, the greatest achievement, apart from creating a huge amount of goods and wealth, the most rare thing is that it also allowed the ever-growing population of Qi to live a life of ever-increasing standards.With the development of economy and industry, especially in the past 20 years, although the population of Qi has almost doubled to nearly 1000 million, the standard of living has been steadily improving, and people's life expectancy and living comfort have also greatly improved.

Of course, workers' wages did not rise as much as the economy grew, which seemed slower, but the revolution in transportation and the mass production of machines kept the price of food and most consumer goods falling.The common laborer of Qi can live in considerable comfort if he saves.Even, compared to the people of Qin, it can be said that they can live a quite luxurious life.

The vast pastures in Qi State raised millions of cattle and sheep, and the rich fishery resources along the coast provided a large amount of fishery products.In Qin, North Korea, and even Annan and other countries, cattle are still a very important agricultural tool.But in Qi State, beef, pork, mutton, and fish have become a rich "nutritious meal" on the tables of the people of Qi State.

It can be said that many ordinary families in big cities in the Qi State can already consume a certain amount of meat every month or even every week, which is comparable to the standard of living of middle-class landlord families on the mainland of China.

Nothing can best prove the living conditions of the working class in Qi State than wage income and savings statistics. In 1660, the Qi State Savings Bank was established. By 1670, the deposits had reached 1000 and 1679 million Hanzhou silver dollars, and in 100 it had reached 140 million yuan. The number of depositors reached 3000 million. Among the [-] million deposits, the vast majority Most are working-class savings.

And in the Imperial Central Bank (formerly Hanzhou Daqianzhuang), Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Development Bank, Lianzhong Bank, Southeast Bank, and other large and small banks, the amount of savings of workers is not a minority.

Since the first year of Hanxing (1670), when His Majesty the Emperor ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, the economic growth of Qi State suddenly began to surge and entered the prosperous "Hanxing period".During the 1670 years from 1679 to 10, the growth rate of Qi’s cotton spinning industry even surpassed that of the previous 30 years. The number of cotton spinning mills increased from more than 480 to more than 1600, and the number of spindles increased from 600 million to 2600 million. The number of wool textile mills also increased from more than 270 to more than 1300, and the number of spindles increased from 40 to 380 million.

The rapid development of the railway has also provided a huge impetus for the economy. A large amount of investment has driven many industries such as steel, machinery manufacturing, and construction engineering, creating unprecedented employment opportunities and maintaining a small increase in workers' wages.

In the past 10 years, the total industrial and agricultural production value of Qi increased from 5.2 million yuan to 9.1 million yuan, an increase of 75%, and the total industrial output value increased by 95%, almost doubling.

Therefore, people who venture overseas to seek overnight wealth are not the mainstream group. The vast majority of ordinary people in Qi are still satisfied with the status quo of the steady improvement in living standards brought about by domestic economic growth, rather than trying to use their own lives as their own. At the price, fight for a prosperous future.

"Actually, if you venture to overseas colonial territories to make a fortune, it is better to go to the Jindu area of ​​Linzi Prefecture (now Bathurst, Australia) to pan for gold. Maybe outside the gold mining area controlled by the government, you can dig out several large gold mines. You can get rich overnight with a lump of gold." Throwing a few dimes to the shop, the slightly drunken three staggered towards the factory dormitory.

(End of this chapter)