Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 903 Labor Workers ([-])

At two o'clock in the afternoon, after Shao Yuanyi woke up from a nap, he rushed to his field without haste.His wife, Natasia, was tying straws in the field. Shao Yuanyi sighed. She is a lady who can't be idle. The assets of the family are now several thousand yuan, and she can't be idle in the field when she is busy. Go to work, alas, what a loss.

His two older sons are also following behind their mother at this time, carefully picking up the missing ears of wheat in the field. It is said that this is a task given by the school, and all students have to wait until they are harvesting when they come home from school. Pick up wheat ears in the field, and return the grains to the warehouse.And at this time, no matter whether it is their own children picking wheat ears in the field, the adults will show a tolerant smile. The grain price on the east bank is cheap, and some grains left in the field are picked up by others, and not many people care.

Their family has a total of [-] mu of land ([-] mu for each person). When they are busy, they invite two Italian hired workers to come over to help, mainly raising grain, spreading the sun, and storing.Shao Yuanyi is a well-known doctor and also a private money lender. He earns a lot every year, and he no longer needs to dig food from the ground.Just out of some deep-rooted habits, their family's [-] acres of land are still being cultivated, but they need to hire people to help them throughout the process.

The people hired are generally some labor groups controlled by labor brokers (the ownership of these people has not been transferred to the east bank government). They usually "move bricks" on various labor sites, and are attracted by high wages during busy farming periods. Going to the countryside to do part-time jobs, that is, mainly responsible for harvesting wheat (not all places have harvesters), threshing, drying, and subsequent packaging and selling of grain. It is all hard work and earns hard money.

Of Shao Yuanyi's [-] mu of land, [-] mu are planted with wheat, and the other [-] mu of fallow land are full of alfalfa.At this time, the wheat in the field was almost finished. Shao Yuanyi didn't want to look any further, so he was about to go back home, but he ran into Gao Jinzhong who came to buy wheat by the grove at the entrance of the village.

Gao Jinzhong is one of the main partners of the Rabbit Hole Flour Mill, which is getting bigger and bigger. Over the years, they have "struggled from east to west", not only unified the flour market in Zhenhai County in one fell swoop, but now they have begun to expand to neighboring Zhongshan County, Xihu County entered and competed fiercely with local enterprises.As an important part of the competition, the rush to buy wheat as a raw material has entered a feverish stage from the very beginning.

This year is no exception. From the beginning of the harvest season, Gao Jinzhong and others have come to Mucaoling Township where several comrades-in-arms (all township cadres) work, and they plan to take advantage of their convenience to purchase grain—they mainly need their help to contact the transport ship The lease of these inland water transport ships is quite tight in today's East Coast Republic. The ships of the state-run inland water transport company generally undertake bulk transportation tasks such as ore, rails, machinery, construction materials, coal, etc., and there is no spare capacity at all. ; and the work schedule of inland river transport ships purchased with private funds is also full, and people who have nothing to do with each other rashly come to the door, but they may not be able to rent a ship.

As a private lender, Shao Yuanyi often has farmers who are in urgent need of money pawning grain to him at low prices, so his family built a special grain depot to store all kinds of pawned grain.Over time, Gao Jinzhong also knew that his family had a lot of food in storage, so he often came to buy food, and the two of them became friends after going back and forth.

When we met outside at this moment, we naturally wanted to say hello, so I saw Shao Yuanyi waved to Gao Jinzhong, and said with a smile: "This year is really urgent, the grain has just been harvested, and you are here. Now the business So prosperous? It seems that the number of people in the country has really increased a lot in the past two years, and fortunately, the grain production has increased year after year, otherwise, it may not be able to support so many mouths to eat."

"No way! This business is more difficult than before." Gao Jinzhong lamented as soon as we met, and then explained: "The Linhu Flour Mill in Xihu Town, Guixian County is now competing fiercely with us. I heard that Dafeng Food Company now buys the flour for making biscuits from them. In addition, several branches of the National Development Bureau along the Yakui River also order flour from them. Damn, it has climbed a high branch, and now it is too Very, the momentum is about to pick up."

"Biscuits from Dafeng Food Company?" As soon as Shao Yuanyi heard Gao Jinzhong's words, the biscuits his son ate this morning immediately appeared in Shao Yuanyi's mind - a biscuit made of high-quality flour, butter and sugar.This kind of biscuit has only been on the market for a few months now, and the price is still relatively expensive. Families with average income still regard this kind of fresh food as a luxury, and even local tyrants like Shao Yuanyi who are not short of money will buy it for their children. Eat as a snack.Of course, he himself also loves this sweet and crispy food, especially the "Fu" character series (there are four series of East Coast biscuits, namely the "Fu Lu Shou Xi" series, with the characters engraved on the biscuits as the symbol. quasi), is his favourite.

"Don't be discouraged, your factory is not bad. There are so many people in the third and fourth construction teams of the Jiaotong Construction Bureau who have been buying your flour. This business is not small, so let's be content. Other small milling workshops are still I envy you." Shao Yuanyi said with a laugh.

"It's incomparable." Shao Yuanyi didn't say anything, but Gao Jinzhong was even more distressed when he said it, and he said: "The Linhu Flour Factory sells second- and third-class flour, and sells it to Dafeng. The food company even sells first-class and extra-grade flour, and the profits here are too great. As for us, most of the flour sold to the construction team is fourth-grade flour (mixed with a lot of bran, and the color is black), and occasionally there is a little second-grade flour , Third-class flour, the profit margin is not at the same level at all."

When Gao Jinzhong said this, Shao Yuanyi finally understood. The cadres of the Third and Fourth Bureaus of the Communication and Construction Bureau did not regard the construction workers under their banners as human beings at all. In other words, this so-called fourth-grade flour is no worse than what these Italian, Scottish, and Polish migrant workers ate in their hometowns—as for the little second-grade and third-grade flour purchased, it is estimated that they are still for the black foremen and themselves For food, this profit margin really cannot be compared with that of Linhu Flour Mill.

But it's normal to think about it. With the increasing scale of domestic infrastructure on the east coast, the number of foreign "non-citizens" is also increasing, and their daily expenses have gradually become a big burden.Although employers such as the State Development Administration, the Railway Company, and the Construction Bureaus of the Ministry of Communications have been trying their best to squeeze their labor force and enjoy the benefits brought by these cheap labor forces, if it is specific about what kind of treatment they are given, They have to think about the lack of sufficient funds. After all, the money of the people on the east coast is not blown by strong winds, so they must be used sparingly.

Fourth-grade flour, a little meat and fish (whale meat, salted fish, cured ham) and some vegetables are already the greatest sincerity these employers can show. If there is more, their balance of payments will not be maintained.Anyway, this kind of treatment is quite good compared to the daily life of laborers in the old continent. They are indentured slaves bought by the East Coast government, so there is nothing to complain about—perhaps, the only thing they can complain about is labor protection. Supplies are insufficient, work-related injury and death rates are too high, the work is too heavy, and the black foremen are too vicious and rough.

"If the quality is not enough, make up for the quantity..." Shao Yuanyi picked a fruit from the tree beside him, wiped it with his sleeve, and ate it, and comforted Gao Jinzhong while eating, "The profit margin of your products is not high enough. High, but the fan rate is high! The fan rate of selling first-class and second-class fans is only a little over 8%, which is much worse than yours. Besides, the number of domestic laborers may have exceeded 10,000 Yes, the market will be [-]+ yuan in a month. Can the machine flour milling line of the state-owned Dafeng Food Factory alone fill this hole? It’s impossible! So, it’s right for you to go the way of the construction team , the extension of Highway No. [-] is still under construction, you must hold on to this line and not let it go."

It is said that after several years of "accumulation", especially in the past two years, large quantities of Polish prisoners of war sold by the Crimean Tatars (including Poles and German mercenary prisoners of war, most of which have been sent to the Far East) and their Looted ordinary Polish and Ukrainian people; at the end of last year and early this year, Europe bought thousands of Cossacks and rebel serfs who were about to be executed from Khmelnytsky.Adding the two together, and counting the Italians and Scots who came to the east coast through labor brokers, the number of these white indentured slaves has exceeded 5000, and more than [-] of them were assigned to New Zealand. In China’s “death” (in fact, tropical pioneering), [-] people were “borrowed” to the South Railway subsidiary, Hezhong County in South Africa, and two strongholds in Australia, and as many as [-] remained in the mainland.

These people, together with almost the same number of Indians and about [-] Xhosa blacks, constitute the main body of "non-citizens" in the East Coast.These non-citizens are active on various construction fronts, helping the people on the east coast to build reservoirs, dredge sections of rivers, build houses, build roads, and complete wharves. People can hold their own.

But since you are a contract slave, then you have to take care of their food and drink. The daily expenditure for the food and drink of these 8 people is extremely huge, and the consumption of flour alone is not a small number.Apart from the flour milling line of the state-owned Dafeng Food Factory, most of the supply is made up by privately invested flour mills.And this huge market has always been a great attraction to the increasingly rich private capital. A lot of social capital has been attracted to this industry. While intensifying competition in the industry, it has also forced the operators of this industry to Continuously improve the management mechanism, continuously reduce costs, continuously improve new technologies, and constantly develop new markets to cope with the fierce and breathless competition.

The private industrial capital on the east coast unexpectedly exploded from the light industry of machine milling.

(End of this chapter)