Chapter 876: Fire

Everyone yearns for big cities; not only do foreigners yearn for the big cities of the Federation, but people in small cities in the Federation also yearn for big cities.

Many people's dream for a lifetime is to live in a big city, to have a small nest of their own in a big city, and to be able to call themselves big-city people; this is the goal they struggle for all their lives.

So one can see that many small cities are being affected by the population siphon effect produced by the surrounding big cities, sucking the cities dry of young people.

Xigu City in the past was like this; next to it is New Jincheng, a city full of opportunities and wealth; almost every young person with a little ability would go to New Jincheng to look for opportunities after graduating from high school.

If Xigu City hadn't become a "City of Movies" now, its population loss problem would become more and more serious.

Before, Xigu City officials were worried about these things; some experts claimed that in less than fifty years, Xigu City's population would fall below the 100,000 mark, and eventually it would gradually die out.

Fortunately, the movie industry saved Xigu City; now young people from all over the country who hope to make a name for themselves in the movie industry have come to Xigu City, which has provided Xigu City with a lot of fresh blood.

The city where Jinbiao Wine Industry is located is not a particularly big city, nor is it the capital of Denuozhou; for many labor-intensive enterprises, big cities may not be their best choice for building a factory.

Because big cities have relatively good innate conditions, their policy support for these enterprises is not strong, and land prices are expensive, and various extended costs are also very expensive.

The cost of living in big cities is relatively high, so workers' wages are also higher.

On the contrary, choosing some small and medium-sized cities with not-too-bad industrial supporting facilities and convenient logistics is more conducive to the development of these enterprises.

The local government's policy support will also be very in place; they will encourage people to start businesses, build factories, and give various conveniences, such as lower loans, or free provision of venues.

This is very attractive to labor-intensive enterprises; of course, the most critical point is that the cost of living in small and medium-sized cities is low, so labor costs are low, which is the big head.

But there are not all advantages; there are also disadvantages, such as difficulty in hiring young people.

Because young people yearn for the wonderful life of big cities, those who can leave have gone to big cities, so many factories can only hire middle-aged people.

Just like the winery of Jinbiao Wine Industry now, they actually also want to hire young people.

Young people are energetic, and their social experience is insufficient, which allows them to do more work and is also relatively convenient to manage.

Those middle-aged people are not so easy to manage; they often bring up the union, or know how to deal with exploitation, which is not easy to manage.

In the past few days, the new workshop of the factory has been assembled, and the rest is to recruit workers to enter the factory and start working; no matter when, the problem of labor and capital is always on the table.

Outside the factory, the guy responsible for recruiting stands on a platform piled up with a few wooden boxes, loudly reading their work policy to the workers around who came to participate in the recruitment activities—

"Our assembly line is now rotating in three shifts, eight hours per shift, resting one day a week."

"We only provide accidental work injury insurance, thirty-two dollars per month, and wages are paid on the 10th of every month..."

Many workers around are asking this guy about some other benefits in the factory, such as whether they provide work clothes, and whether they charge for work clothes.

And whether the meals are brought by the people themselves from home, or whether the factory will provide food.

If the factory does not provide food, will they provide food subsidies, and whether there are transportation subsidies.

In fact, from here, one can see that the working class is relatively simple and poor; for them, a transportation subsidy of one dollar per month, and a food subsidy of one or two dollars per month are an important part of their income.

However, most of the time their demands are not met; for example, this factory does not provide food; although they cannot avoid the time to eat, they do not provide free work meals.

People who have never opened a factory don't know that if free work meals are provided, the things these workers eat every day are also a large sum of money!

An ordinary person eating half a pound of whole wheat bread for a meal can already be very full, but for these workers doing physical labor, they can finish two pounds of bread, plus side dishes!

The price of food is rising fast; now these two pounds of bread plus side dishes might cost about twenty to twenty-five cents.

They will work here for twenty-five days a month; if averaged, each person has to spend an extra four or five dollars on work meals.

So simply don't provide it, give a meal subsidy of one dollar and fifty cents to let them solve it themselves, so the cost is compressed.

There is also transportation subsidy; here it is also pressed very low; they are only willing to provide a transportation subsidy of sixty cents per month, which is far worse than New Jincheng.

Workers constantly tear up the recruitment information in their hands, throw it on the ground, and stomp on it a few times before leaving while cursing.

But there are also those who urgently need money now, or who are no longer qualified to pick a good job, who walk toward the factory after signing the contract on the side.

Phil takes a few subordinates to the place where workers are recruited; they specially changed into a set of clothes, and messed up their hair, and wore a pair of ordinary shoes, which looked no different from the young people in this city.

Seeing these young people walk over, the person recruiting enthusiastically introduces the situation here to them, "Believe me, working here is definitely much more comfortable than working in other places."

"Although our wages may not look very high, and the subsidies are not much, but guys, you only need to work eight hours a day!"

"Other jobs have a few more dollars than us, but they often have to work eleven hours or even twelve hours; I was also young once, and I also came from your age."

"Don't you want to have time and energy to date and flirt with girls after work at night?"

"Listen to me, this is definitely the most suitable job for you; at least you can come and try it..."

Phil and the others didn't consider for too long before deciding to join the company.

This made the guy recruiting happy; he arranges for Phil and these people to leave here and enter the factory; join today, start working today.

Only he doesn't know what kind of guys he recruited!

Phil and the others walked in from the factory gate swaggeringly; he had already discussed it with Aierwen; the security force here is strict, and directly impacting the factory would require paying a great price.

The newly appointed State Police Chief doesn't like the Lansi family either; he checks their cars when he has nothing to do; if they arrange a large number of people to impact this factory in the central region of Denuozhou, they might lose a lot of people.

So Phil's final task is to sneak into the factory and then commit arson; this is a very suitable plan.

There is alcohol everywhere in the winery, because whiskey actually also needs to be distilled and purified, so there will be a large amount of whiskey with higher alcohol content in some workshops.

They just need to find these warehouses and then set a fire; the rest doesn't really need them to worry about.

Phil has never been to the Lawrence winery, but he has also heard of some; following a group of newly recruited workers, they came to an old workshop that was not a new-style workshop.

The new-style workshop uses new-style equipment; the operation difficulty of these equipment is more complex than the old-style equipment, so these novices are here to fill the old workshop.

Once entering the workshop, one can feel waves of heat coming, smelling the fermentation smell and alcohol smell in the air, Phil's eyes narrowed with a smile.

They joined the job very smoothly, mainly because the work is not complex; there are veterans specially leading them, and they don't need to be responsible for every process, just responsible for one process.

Repetitive mechanical labor, this is actually the most torturous, the work that can kill a person's spirit.

Eight hours of time, never had these young people felt so long!

They didn't leave immediately after leaving the workshop, but wandered around their workshop.

Because they were wearing the winery's work clothes, no one stopped them, and soon they roughly figured out the layout inside the winery...

Just entering July, Jinbiao Wine Industry privately claimed to the outside world that the wholesale price of copper-labeled whiskey would be lowered by another dollar, which also made the wine dealers in Denuozhou look forward to the competition between Jinbiao Wine Industry and Golden Lion Wine Industry.

Some people guessed that the wholesale price of copper-labeled whiskey might eventually drop to twenty dollars, or even within twenty dollars!

This price actually has no big profit for Jinbiao Wine Industry, and can only ensure that they don't lose money selling this wine.

There are also people who think that Jinbiao Wine Industry puts the focus of profit on the two grades of silver-labeled and gold-labeled wine, using low-end wine to impact the market, gain huge market share, and then profit from high-end wine.

Only those big smugglers know clearly that the struggle between the two big factories has actually entered a white-hot stage; if there are no accidents, the winner will soon be decided.

Price wars are like this; as long as one family doesn't keep up, the market reaction will be very rapid; don't look at just a one-dollar difference, it is enough to make large-scale smugglers abandon Golden Lion Wine.

They smuggle thousands of bottles at a time, which is an extra profit of thousands or even several thousand dollars; how to choose, does this still need to be said?

Sense of identity, sense of belonging, these are worthless; no matter how good the Lansi family's wine is, as long as the price cannot catch up, it will gradually lose the market!

Once a winery is squeezed out, the next step is crazy price increases.

They also know that the operating cost of Golden Lion Wine Industry is far higher than that of Jinbiao Wine Industry, so almost everyone is not optimistic that Golden Lion Wine Industry can persist in Denuozhou.

Perhaps they can stably sell in some cities, but it is difficult to be as competitive as they are now.

Once the market is lost, it will only constantly shrink and eventually disappear.

Some big smuggling groups began to hoard copper-labeled whiskey, this lowest-end whiskey with appropriate market price and astonishing sales.

They are certain that the winner will be decided within two or three months; by then, once the Lansi family retreats to Likaizhou, the wholesale price of copper-labeled whiskey will skyrocket!

Hoarding a batch now, a large batch, will also earn a huge price difference by then!

Facing Jinbiao Wine Industry's continuous price-cutting strategy, this time the Lansi family seems not to intend to continue to fight a price war with them on price, but maintains silence.

Many people think that the current price has touched the bottom line of the Lansi family's wine cost; after all, the money they earn has to be split with the mayor, and they have to support Mayor Wei De to run for Governor.

Their expenses here are actually very large; if they lower the price of wine again, and have to ensure the mayor's income, then they can only sell at a loss.

Not fighting a price war proves this point.

Mayor Wei De quickly called Lansi; he is actually also very worried that Lansi will not be able to persist.

"I've heard a lot of rumors recently, Lansi.", Mayor Wei De said very tactfully, "They think your operating costs are relatively high, and you lack competitiveness in the fiercely competitive market of Denuozhou."

"I'm thinking, is it possible for Golden Lion Wine to build a factory locally? We will give you some tax rebate subsidies to lower your production costs."

He doesn't mention himself, nor his political allies splitting the accounts from Lansi's sales, which is the biggest extra cost, because he knows very well that this is a necessary means to maintain his having more supporters in the election.

If he opens his mouth to mention lowering the mayors' share, it is very likely to trigger some chain reactions he doesn't want to see.

People are like this; you can only give more each time, not less.

If you give more, he will feel you are a good person, but if you give less, no matter what reason you have, he will feel you are not a thing.

Of course, Mayor Wei De will also have some worries, worried that Lansi really can't hold on; if he runs away, Mayor Wei De will definitely be greatly affected.

For the things Mayor Wei De is worried about, Lansi doesn't think there is anything wrong; everyone is essentially an egoist, and will only do things that are beneficial to themselves, not things that will harm their own interests.

"Don't worry, Mayor Wei De, everything is under control."

"At most in a week, you will see the results."

Hearing Lansi's words so definitely, Mayor Wei De didn't continue to ask, "That's best, but you can still consider my suggestion."

"If you can build a factory locally, I can give you some preferential policies in terms of tax rebates, which can also lower part of your operating costs."

Lansi didn't refuse flatly either, "I will consider it."

Seeing this, Mayor Wei De didn't persuade again, "As long as you have a count in your heart, Lansi, although the time we have been in contact is not long, it is not like the tacit cooperation between you and Williams."

"But what I want to say is that we can also become good friends, good partners."

"If there is a problem, you don't need to face it alone; we can face it together!"

Lansi agreed with a smile; it sounds very touching, but touching is built on the interest network maintained by money.

Mayor Wei De's allies have obtained a lot of money through Lansi's wine sales in the past few months, which is wealth they couldn't imagine before!

And Lansi has a mature interest transmission channel here; this is thanks to Bandi (the deceased head of the Koda family), who left Lansi a whole set of interest transmission chains.

Not only can it be transmitted upward, transmitting interests to the Assembly, but it can also be transmitted horizontally.

One by one, poor mayors suddenly obtained a large sum of money because of precise investment, and their living conditions were immediately improved; having lived a hard life, they will want to continue to maintain their current life more than Mayor Wei De and Lansi.

Just like Ambassador Cassia, he began to accept and get used to his current life, and it is difficult for him to leave this kind of life.

He will go from passive acceptance to active demand, and even try every possible way to maintain it; this is the most terrible thing about corruption erosion.

You can't leave it!

In the next few days, some young people joined the factory of Jinbiao Wine Industry, and the Lansi family always didn't give any positive response to the market, and Aierwen always maintained silence.

They are losing market share!

The mayor of New Birmingham talked to Aierwen privately about the impact that the constant loss of market share might have; he used a way that was not so obvious to tell Aierwen that he had to do something.

Aierwen and Lansi's statement were the same, asking him to wait a while.

The more there was no movement, the more Mr. Licha thought Lansi and the others couldn't lower the price; this was exciting, and after urgent consultation and discussion with the board of directors, they lowered the wholesale price of wine by another fifty cents!

The orders for Jinbiao Wine Industry have been lined up until October, and the factory is producing crazily at full power, but it still cannot meet the demand for orders!

A few days later, Phil and the others had mixed with the people in the factory, including the security guards.

They didn't leave immediately after work, but looked around to see if there was any place they could help; this is also the reason why capitalists like these simple young people.

Even if they walk around now, the security guards won't stop them, but turn a blind eye.

Today they are on the night shift, and came over a bit early, because it was late, and the security guards didn't notice that they all carried some things.

In fact, not only tonight, they have been secretly bringing things into the factory these past few days—explosives.

And tonight, it is time for their action.

They have figured out which important equipment in the production workshop there is; some people will go to blow up these equipment, destroy production, and other people will go to commit arson everywhere.

Seeing that the time for shift change has arrived, the factory is also in the most chaotic moment; some workers who can no longer endure repetitive labor have left their posts in advance, but some workers on shift have not yet arrived.

There are people everywhere; line leaders, group leaders, are all shouting and calling the names of some people.

It is also at this moment that a raging fire suddenly ignited in the warehouse, the fire was very fierce, and the fire alarm in the factory rang in an instant...

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 877 =====