Shadow Empire

Chapter 874 Fire
Everyone yearns for big cities. Not only foreigners, but people in small cities within the Federation also yearn for big cities.

The lifelong dream of many people is to live in a big city, to have their own little home in a big city, and to be able to consider themselves as a big city dweller. This is their lifelong goal.

So we can see that many small cities are being affected by the population siphon effect created by the surrounding big cities, and there are few young people in the cities.

This was the case with Xigu City in the past. Next to it was Jingang City, a city full of opportunities and wealth. Almost all young people with a little ability would go to Jingang City in groups to look for opportunities after graduating from high school.

If Valley City hadn't become a "movie city," its population loss problem would become more and more serious.

The officials of Valley City had worried about these things before. Some experts said that within fifty years, the population of Valley City would fall below 100,000 and would eventually gradually disappear.

Fortunately, the film industry saved Valley City. Now young people from all over the country who hope to make a name for themselves in the film industry have come to Valley City, which provides a lot of fresh blood for Valley City.

The city where Gold Label Wines is located is not a particularly big city, nor is it the capital of Inderno. For many labor-intensive enterprises, big cities may not be their best choice for building factories.

Because big cities have better inherent conditions, they do not provide much policy support for these enterprises, and land prices are expensive, and various resulting costs are also expensive.

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

On the contrary, choosing some small and medium-sized cities with relatively good industrial supporting facilities and convenient logistics will be more conducive to the development of these enterprises.

The local government's policy support will also be in place. They will encourage people to start businesses and build factories by providing various conveniences, such as lower loans or free venues.

This is very attractive to labor-intensive enterprises. Of course, the most crucial point is that the cost of living in small and medium-sized cities is low, and the labor cost is low, which is the big part.

But it's not all advantages, there are also disadvantages, such as it's difficult to hire young people.

Because young people yearn for the exciting life in big cities, those who can move go to big cities, so many factories can only employ middle-aged people.

Just like the winery of Gold Label Wines at this moment, they actually also want to hire young people.

Young people are full of energy but lack social experience, so they can do more work and are easier to manage.

Those middle-aged people are not so easy to manage. They will easily leave the union or know how to deal with exploitation, so they are not easy to manage.

The new workshop of the factory has been assembled in the past few days. What remains is to recruit workers to start work. No matter when, the issue of labor and capital is always on the table.

Outside the factory, the guy in charge of recruiting stood on a platform made of several wooden boxes and loudly read out their work policies to the workers who came to participate in the recruitment activities.

"Our assembly line now operates in three shifts, each shift is eight hours, with one day off per week."

"We only provide accidental work injury insurance, 32 yuan per month, and salary is paid on the 10th of each month..."

There were many workers surrounding this guy, asking him about other benefits in the factory, such as whether they provided work uniforms, whether they had to pay for them, etc.

Also, do people bring their own food from home, or does the factory provide food?

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

In fact, it can be seen from here that the working class is relatively simple and poor. For them, a one-dollar transportation allowance per month and a one or two-dollar food allowance 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 meals. Although they cannot stagger their meals, they do not provide free work meals.

People who have never run a factory don’t know that if meals are provided for free, the food these workers eat every day also costs a lot of money!
An average person can feel full after eating half a pound of whole wheat bread for a meal, but for these manual laborers, they can finish two pounds of bread, plus side dishes!

The price of food is rising rapidly, and now these two pounds of bread plus the side dishes may cost about twenty to twenty-five cents.

They work here twenty-five days a month, and on average each person will have to spend an extra four or five dollars on work meals.

So we simply don’t provide it, and just give them a meal allowance of 1.5 yuan and let them solve the problem themselves, so that the cost can be reduced.

As for transportation subsidies, they are also very low here. They are only willing to provide 60 cents of transportation subsidies per month, which is far less than Jingang City.

Workers kept tearing up the recruitment information in their hands and throwing it on the ground, then stomping on it a few times and leaving cursing.

But there were also people who were in urgent need of money or were no longer qualified to be picky about a good job. They signed the contract and walked towards the factory.

Phil brought a few of his men to the recruitment site. They changed into new clothes, messed up their hair, and wore a pair of ordinary shoes. They looked no different from the young people in the city.

Seeing these young people coming over, the recruiter immediately introduced the situation here to them enthusiastically, "Believe me, working here is definitely much more comfortable than working anywhere else."

“Although our salary may not seem very high and the subsidies are not much, guys, you only need to work eight hours a day and that’s enough!”

"Other jobs pay a few dollars more than ours, but they often have to work eleven or even twelve hours. I was young once, and I was your age, too."

"Don't you want to have the time and energy to date and flirt with girls after get off work in the evening?"

"Listen to me, this is definitely the most suitable job for you. At least you can give it a try..."

Phil and his friends didn't think too long before deciding to join the company.

This made the recruiting guy very happy. He arranged for Phil and others to leave here and enter the factory. They could start work today.

But he didn't know what kind of guys he had recruited!
Phil and his men swaggered in through the factory gate. He had already discussed with Alvin that the security here was tight and it would cost a huge price to directly attack the factory.

The newly appointed chief of the state police force doesn't like the Lance family very much and will check their cars for no reason. If they arrange a large number of people to attack the factory in the central part of Indenno State, they may lose a lot of people.

So ultimately Phil's mission is to sneak into the factory and set it on fire, which is a very suitable plan.

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

All they have to do is find these warehouses and set them on fire, and they don't have to worry about the rest.

Phil had never been to the Lawrence Winery, but he had heard about it. He followed a group of new workers to an old workshop that was not a new one.

The new workshops use new equipment, which is a little more complicated to operate than the old equipment, so these newcomers are here to fill the old workshops.

As soon as you enter the workshop, you can feel the heat waves coming. Smelling the fermentation and alcohol in the air, Phil's eyes narrowed with a smile.

They joined the company smoothly, mainly because the work was not complicated, there were experienced people to guide them, and they did not need to be responsible for every process but only one.

Repetitive mechanical labor is actually the most torturous job that can most destroy a person's spirit.

Eight hours had never felt so long to these young people!
After they left the workshop, they did not leave immediately, but walked around their workshop.

Because they were wearing winery uniforms, no one stopped them, and they soon figured out the general layout of the winery...

Just as July began, Gold Label Wines privately announced that the wholesale price of Copper Label Whisky would be reduced by another dollar, which made the wine dealers in Inderno more excited about the competition between Gold Label Wines and Golden Lion Wines.

Some people speculate that the wholesale price of Copper Label Whiskey may eventually drop to twenty dollars, or even less than twenty dollars!
This price actually does not bring much profit to Gold Label Wines, it can only ensure that they do not lose money by selling this wine.

Some people also believe that the Gold Label Wine Industry focuses its profit on the Silver Label and Gold Label wines, using low-end wines to impact the market, gain a huge market share, and then make profits with high-end wines. Only the big smugglers know that the struggle between the two big manufacturers has actually entered a white-hot stage, and if nothing unexpected happens, the winner will soon be decided.

This is how price wars work. As long as one company fails to keep up, the market will react very quickly. Even though the difference is only one dollar, it is enough to make large-scale smugglers abandon Golden Lion Liquor.

If they sell thousands of bottles at a time, that means an extra profit of thousands or even tens of thousands of yuan. Is there any need to say what to choose?

A sense of identity and belonging are worthless. No matter how good the wine of the Lans family is, if the price cannot catch up, it will gradually lose the market!
Once a winery is squeezed out, what follows is a crazy price increase.

They also know that the current operating costs of Golden Lion Wine are much higher than those of Golden Label Wine, so almost everyone is not optimistic that Golden Lion Wine can survive in Inderno.

Maybe they can sell stably in some cities, but it will be difficult for them to be as competitive as they are now.

Once you lose the market, you will continue to shrink and eventually disappear.

Some large smuggling groups began to hoard Copper Label Whisky, the lowest-end whiskey on the market with a reasonable price and astonishing sales.

They are certain that the winner will be decided within two or three months. By then, once the Lance family retreats back to Likalai State, the wholesale price of Copper Label Whiskey will skyrocket!

Stock up on a batch or a large batch now, and you can make a huge profit from the price difference later!

Faced with Gold Label Wines' continued price reduction strategy, this time the Lans family did not seem to intend to continue the price war with them, but remained silent.

Many people believe that the current price has already reached the bottom line of the Lance family's alcohol costs. After all, they have to share the money they earn with the mayor and support Mayor Wade's campaign for governor.

Their expenses here are actually very high. If they lower the price of alcohol further and ensure the mayor's profits, they can only sell at a loss.

The fact that we don’t engage in price wars proves this point.

Mayor Wade called Lance quickly. He was actually worried that Lance would not be able to hold on.

"I've heard a lot of rumors recently, Lance," Mayor Wade said politely. "They think your wine business costs are high and lack competitiveness in the fiercely competitive market in Indeno State."

"I'm wondering if it's possible for Golden Lion Wine to build a factory in Inderno. We can give you some tax rebates to reduce your production costs."

He kept silent about the fact that the biggest additional cost was that he and his political allies would share in the revenue from the sales of the Lancer because he knew it was necessary to maintain more support for his campaign.

If he proposed reducing the mayors' shares, it would likely trigger a chain reaction that he would not want to see.

This is how people are. You can only give more each time, not less.

If you give a lot, he will think you are a good person, but if you give too little, no matter what your reasons are, he will think you are nothing.

Of course, Mayor Wade would also have some concerns, worried that Lance really couldn't hold on. If he ran away, Mayor Wade would definitely be greatly affected.

Lance didn't think there was anything wrong with what Mayor Wade was worried about. Everyone is essentially an egoist and will only do things that are beneficial to themselves, rather than things that will harm their own interests.

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

“You’ll see results in a week at most.”

Hearing Lance's affirmative words, Mayor Wade did not continue to ask, "That's the best, but you can still consider my suggestion."

"If you can build a factory locally, I can give you some preferential tax rebates, which can also reduce some of your operating costs."

Lance didn't refuse outright, "I'll consider it."

Mayor Wade saw this and did not persuade him any further. "Just keep it in mind, Lance. Although we haven't known each other for a long time, we don't have the tacit cooperation like you and Williams."

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

"You don't have to face your problems alone, we can face them together!"

Lance agreed with a smile. It sounded touching, but the touching feeling was based on a network of interests maintained by money.

Mayor Wade's allies have made a lot of money through Lance's alcohol sales in the past few months, which is wealth they could never have imagined before!

Moreover, Lance has a mature channel for transferring benefits, thanks to Bandy (the late head of the Kodak family), who left Lance a complete chain of benefits transfer.

Not only can it transfer benefits upward to Congress, it can also transfer benefits horizontally.

One by one, the poor mayors suddenly received a large sum of money because of precise investment, and their living conditions immediately improved. They were used to living a hard life and wanted to continue maintaining their current life more than Mayor Wade and Lance.

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

He will go from passive acceptance to active demand, and even try every possible means to maintain it. This is the most terrifying aspect of corruption.

You can't live without it!
In the next few days, some more young people joined the Gold Label Wines factory, and the Lans family never gave any positive response to the market, and Alvin remained silent.

They are losing market share!

The mayor of New Bern had a private conversation with Irving about the potential impact of the continued loss of market share, and in a not-so-obvious way, he told Irving that he had to do something.

Erwin said the same thing as Lance, asking him to wait a little longer.

The more there was no movement, the more Mr. Richard thought that Lance and the others could not lower the price. This was exciting, and after urgent consultations and discussions with the board of directors, they reduced the wholesale price of the alcohol by another 50 cents!

Jinbiao Wine Industry’s orders have been scheduled until October, and the factory is running at full capacity but still cannot meet the demand for orders!
After a few days, Phil and his team had become familiar with everyone in the factory, including the security guards.

After finishing their work, they did not leave immediately, but looked around to see if they could help. This is why capitalists like these innocent young people.

Even if they are walking around now, the security guards will not stop them if they see them, but will turn a blind eye.

They were on the night shift today and came a little early in the evening. As it was late, the security guards did not notice that they were carrying some things.

In fact, it's not just tonight. They have been secretly smuggling things into the factory these past few days - explosives.

And tonight is the time for them to take action.

They have already figured out what the important equipment is in the production workshops. Some of them will blow up the equipment and disrupt production, while others will set fires everywhere.

As the time for shift change approached, the factory fell into the most chaotic moment. Some workers who could no longer bear the repetitive work had left their jobs early, but some workers on shift had not yet arrived.

There were people everywhere, line leaders, group leaders, all shouting and calling out certain people's names.

At this moment, a raging fire suddenly broke out in the warehouse. The fire spread so fast that the fire alarm in the factory rang in an instant...

(End of this chapter)