Thousands of sparks

Chapter 183 The Power of the People

On August [-]th, the streets of Olin were buzzing—no one knew exactly what was going on.But everyone's heart is full of anger.

In Olin, the price of coal has soared to 270p a pound.The price increase of coal in one day even exceeds the total amount of money that most families can earn in a month.

The price of coal is skyrocketing, and the rise is so fierce that people can't see the end at all.What makes people even more desperate is that many newspapers of Olin have published editorials at length, and the content of the comments has only one core point: the low price of coal in the past was caused by insufficient market competition, but now it is fully active in the market. After that, the price of coal will drive up the prices of other commodities.

After the prices of other commodities rise, labor income will naturally rise, and the market will complete this transmission process—it may take a little longer. After about two years, labor wages will be able to rise to a level that can fully match the price of commodities. level.

At least, from the eyes of the reviewers who wrote the manuscript, the expectation that the average salary in society can rise to an "appropriate level" after two years is completely acceptable.There may be some difficult days in the middle, but this kind of difficulty must be completely bearable with a little patience.If it doesn't work, the poor family can still send their children who can't support them after many births to work as servants in noble manors—or send them to other factories in Olin to work as handymen.

They may not be able to earn any wages, but at least they can reduce the burden on the family after going out to work, right?
Such remarks do not irritate the poor who read the newspapers, because they have more serious matters to attend to.

The church began to distribute cooked food on the streets for relief.Most of these foods come from the church's own farmland, and the fuel is the by-products of the growth of agricultural products-hay and wheat straw.But these fuels are also limited. The church will collect these by-products in previous years, and then mix them with cow dung and other animal manure to compost them.

The church itself also has a great demand for by-products. If it does this now, it means that the church has given up the harvest of their fields this year-it would rather fail the harvest and give priority to helping the poor.

The actions of the church moved countless poor people, but in contrast...the response of the Forestry Bureau was almost provocative.The Imperial Forestry Bureau sent a large number of heavily armed investigators to the slum settlements. They directly kicked open the door of every poor house they could see, and then ransacked the boxes to search whether the poor had stolen wood for cooking.

Anyone who fells a tree without the authorization of the Forestry Department shall be fined eighty pounds per tree.If the diameter of the tree exceeds one yoel, the fine shall be the diameter of the tree at its widest point multiplied by eighty gold pounds per yoel.

According to this regulation, any pauper who has a branch in his house shall be divided by a fine of at least eighty gold pounds.If they can’t pay, the head of the household will be taken away by the Forestry Bureau, and then he will work as a slave laborer to plant trees to pay back the fine.The wages given by the Forestry Bureau are - for every ten trees planted, the slave labor can get three pennies.

The extremely meager salary is enough to make people angry, and what is even more unacceptable is that in an environment where prices are so high, taking the head of a poor family away as a slave is tantamount to directly condemning all the family members of the head to death—— It is impossible for them to afford such a high cost of living after the breadwinners of the family are taken away.

In many poor families, wives who lost their husbands choose to commit suicide with their children in despair.And there are more and more such people, and family suicide in the slums has almost become a large-scale epidemic.Every family in the slums has completely lost hope. They are just waiting numbly to be the next poor person to be taken away or commit suicide.

Rebellion was quietly born in this extremely depressing situation.

No one knows exactly what happened, maybe a desperate woman found the explosives her husband left at home, maybe a child who didn't want to be suffocated by his mother chose to use his life to accuse injustice.In short, it all happened extremely quickly, and at the same time, the impact was huge.In just one day, the office building of the Olin Forestry Bureau was attacked several times.From explosions to arson, to shootings and even stabbings with knives... Within a day, more than a dozen staff members of the Forestry Bureau of Agriculture were killed in the attack, and the office building of the Forestry Bureau was also damaged.

As one of the two major political forces within the empire, the Forest Service responded very quickly after the attack.They began to use violence to drive away the angry crowd who came to watch, thus ensuring the safety of the building.And directly warned these poor people-the Forestry Bureau will definitely find the attackers and make them pay a painful enough price for their actions.

In the crowd, a shrill voice suddenly asked, "We have already paid the price with the lives of hundreds of families—what about you? What are you going to use to pay back the lives of these dead people?"

"You would rather watch us starve to death than let the poor burn a few branches that fell on the ground to cook food!" Another male voice shouted angrily, "Those nobles and gangsters who sell wood can make money smoothly , only we have to pay the price with the lives of our whole family? Then what is the use of us wanting the Forestry Bureau!"

Angry questioning turned into crowd rage seconds later, and after Forest Service officials attempted to disperse the crowd by announcing that "everyone present is a vandal, the Forest Service will hold those present accountable." In an instant, it was transformed into practical action.In less than 10 minutes, the crowd directly broke through the isolation defense line established by the armed personnel of the Forestry Bureau.And trampled those terrified Forestry Bureau staff into flesh.

The people who rushed into the Forestry Bureau began to vent their anger and destroyed everything they could see.Every wooden window was pried down, the expensive blown glass was directly smashed, and the wood was taken into their arms for fuel.

About an hour later, all that remained of the Forest Service building was the brick structure.And the crowd began to flock to the street, heading towards the building of the mining complex.

While the person in charge of the mining complex was still happy because his old opponent was "connected", angry crowds rushed into the building of the mining complex, and larger-scale destruction began.

By the time Olin's armed forces finally came to their senses and began to send men into Regent Street in large numbers to drive out the "thugs", the destruction had been going on for about an hour.Almost all imperial government institutions located on Regent Street were severely damaged, at least thirty staff members were directly killed, and countless others were injured.

The worse impact is yet to come. The thugs who broke into the government agency found a large number of unbelievable evidence from the agency's archives.

After the Niusal rebellion, the empire provided Niusal with various material support of more than 3000 million pounds in just a few months.Regardless of technical support, the empire paid more than [-] million gold pounds just to pay the "transaction third party" for transportation costs and commissions.

When the inhabitants of the empire were so poor that they could only choose between starving to death or being taken away for hard labor, how could the empire pay so much money to the rebels?

The angry voice quickly turned into action again.Faced with the drive of the imperial armed forces, these ordinary people who have been honest for generations, who dare not resist or dissatisfaction, suddenly burst out with jaw-dropping strength.

Those beautiful and inaccessible government office buildings were dismantled piece by piece, and then transported continuously to the surrounding streets.Countless pairs of callused hands built them into a thick wall.

The weapons discarded by the armed guards were reassembled. Several veterans who had participated in the Imperial Army and then survived and retired took up their weapons again, and taught other poor people how to use simple weapons.None of them thought about what to do next. Perhaps in a few hours, the Imperial Army would drive the steam knights to disperse their positions.

Maybe in a few hours, everyone here will be killed.

But it doesn't matter, anyway, they have no possibility of surviving.That being the case, before he and his family died, it would not be a loss if he fired two shots at these dog legs.

When people are no longer afraid of death, they can do some earth-shattering things.

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When Olin broke out, which may be the largest demonstration conflict in the history of the empire, Central Teco was confused and nervous.

Strikes and mobilization of the people are a great science, and the deployment of materials, communication in various links, and confrontation with the armed forces of the empire all require great efforts to solve them.

The Central Special Branch has the ability to launch a large-scale demonstration, but it cannot guarantee that all participants will return home safely during the entire demonstration.There is no guarantee that after the demonstrations, the relevant departments of the empire will not settle accounts after the fall.

According to Dusand's instructions, when Central Teco launches such an operation, it must ensure the safety of ordinary people participating.The members of the Special Branch can sacrifice themselves with a fearless spirit, but they must not let the people take these risks instead of the Central Special Branch.

It comes from the people, relies on the people, and at the same time must protect the people for the people.Only in this way can the people become a strong supporter of the Central Special Branch.

This time the large-scale protests and violent conflicts in Olin were not planned by Central Teco.In fact, after learning that there was a direct violent conflict between the people and Olin's government agencies, the Central Special Branch first sent a large number of personnel to try to evacuate the people.

However, all three evacuations ended in failure.The violent conflict with the Olin government agency has not only not been resolved, but has even intensified.

After determining that it was impossible for the Central Special Section to bring the demonstrations to a peaceful end, Lorraine quickly adjusted the direction of the Central Special Section's work—from dissuading and evacuating the crowd to supporting the occupation confrontation.

Since it cannot be resolved peacefully, the empire must be feared by the power of the poor.Only by making those nobles and high-ranking officials realize how powerful the people are, can they make concessions.

After the wall known as the "People's Castle" began to be built, the first large-scale operation of the Central Special Branch officially kicked off.The first supplies of medical supplies, weapons, food and water began pouring down Regent Street through Orin's sewers.

At the same time, Lorraine also wrote a letter to her fiancé in Newsail.There was no greeting or intimate content in the letter. Lorraine, as the top person in charge of the Central Special Branch, proposed to Du Sande-to advance the second phase of the operation, and let the empire focus all its energy through larger-scale disturbances. Concentrate on domestic affairs and economics.

She wants to let the empire consume all its energy on its weakest link, and try to capture the empire from within.

(End of this chapter)