I am a master in India

Chapter 394 Mine

Xiao Tian was so proactive in running around, and if the coal business were to succeed, he would reap a lot of benefits.

Ron has no reason not to have ulterior motives. There are plenty of people who want high-quality coal, so why should he sell it to you?

NEC's mobile phone project was what he had his eye on.

“Of course,” Xiaotian coughed, “headquarters has agreed to transfer technology to Suer Electric for some models.”

"Great, when do you expect to sign the contract?"

"Just these two months, it'll be quick."

Oda didn't really care much about this collaboration; NEC was only providing older models that were almost obsolete in Japan.

They also analyzed the Indian market and felt that it had potential, but it wasn't time for it to take off yet.

Therefore, the product they gave us was unremarkable, essentially an old-fashioned phone from the 90s.

But Ron didn't mind; as long as he could make calls and send text messages, that was fine.

If we make a Snake game or something, I guarantee the Indians will love it.

After seeing Oda off, he immediately called Ashish.

"boss?"

"We quickly reached a cooperation agreement with NEC on the mobile phone business, involving the complete technology transfer."

"Don't worry, boss. Once I get the data, I'll have the Suer Research Institute analyze it as soon as possible."

"That's not the point."

"Huh?" Ashish was a little confused.

"Send the blueprints to Huazi and ask them if they can make some upgrades based on this. Suer Electric can pay for the necessary R&D expenses, with only one requirement: NEC must not be able to find any evidence of infringement."

"Boss, they don't seem to have a mobile phone business."

"They'll have it for the sake of the dollars."

Ron hung up the phone. Since collaborating with Hua Zi, he had developed new ideas.

In terms of research and development, even their own Suer Research Institute can't catch up with the other side.

So what can we do? Pay for a good teacher.

First, they tricked Xiao Rizi into giving them the technical information, then gave it to Hua Zi so they could improve it.

Once the new plan is ready, we'll teach Suer Electric how to design a mobile phone step by step, making sure they thoroughly understand the basics.

Hmm, it seems we need to send a group of people to Hua Zi to learn from his experience.

We reimbursed them for all the R&D expenses, so we should at least help Suer Electric produce a few qualified students.

Hua Zi didn't lose out either; he not only got paid, but also gained mobile phone technology for free.

Unless Lao Ren is an idiot, he would never refuse.

Once they achieved results, Suer Electric could replicate the same approach used for televisions.

Produce your own fully self-developed mobile phones and launch them to the market at a relatively low price.

As for the NEC phones produced by the joint venture, go play with them yourselves, do whatever you want.

Ron neither suppressed nor promoted the idea, so NEC couldn't find anything to blame him for.

Expanding the mobile phone market will naturally create fertile ground for the development of Indian mobile.

The interconnected structure can simultaneously strengthen the three upstream and downstream companies of Suer Technology Group.

So here's the question: Suer Electric got what it wanted, and Huazi didn't lose out either, so who ultimately suffered the loss?

Of course, it's a frugal and simple life!

In mid-August, Ron bid farewell to Isa, whose belly was growing bigger every day, and took Oda and the others to Bihar.

Surprisingly, the people who went to inspect the goods in person were from Mitsubishi, and Oda was very polite to them.

Come to think of it, Japan's zaibatsu are also behemoths, involved in almost every industry.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is no small company, and it's normal for them to have a large demand for coal.

Danbad remained the same, gloomy and gray. When the sun rose, the entire sky was bathed in red light, like the crimson glow of embers in a coal mine.

As the first rays of sunlight appeared, the dimly lit villages surrounding the coal mine seemed to gradually come alive.

One after another, figures set off from the village, carrying bamboo baskets on their heads and holding mining picks, trudging along the rugged mountain road.

The crowd included both the old and the young. The elderly had gray hair and walked with a shaky gait. The young ones needed to be led by the hand and also walked with a shaky gait.

Most of these villagers work as a family to mine illegal coal. The coal mines that the government doesn't have time to maintain are the villagers' targets.

They would carry the coal away in bamboo baskets and sell it to private business owners to supplement their household income.

All the work was done by hand; the men toiled shirtless, sweating profusely, while the women carried large chunks of coal into bamboo baskets.

The elderly person was responsible for taking care of the children and also collected some small pieces of coal to use for cooking when they got home.

During mining operations, the mines were filled with smoke and dust, and the falling coal dust made their skin even darker, making it hard to tell whether it was their natural skin color or caused by the sludge.

There was an unpleasant smell in the air, from the sulfurous and toxic gases released by the charcoal fires burning all night in the mine.

The fires from the ground illuminated the sky, but the villagers were used to it.

There were such underground fires around their shack-like village, which often emitted large plumes of white smoke that lingered around the houses all day long.

The men had to stop and rest after a few taps; their coughs made their lungs ache, and sometimes their phlegm was tinged with blood.

Tuberculosis, pneumoconiosis, and asthma are the basic ailments of the villagers, almost a family tradition from which no one can escape. A young boy, carrying a lump of coal bigger than his head, hurried home excitedly, unaware of whether his head was aching.

From sunrise to sunset, the family's total income for the entire day is about one dollar, or forty-odd rupees.

They are probably destined to never leave this dark, cursed land, because if they go outside, they will only be able to beg, and they might not even be able to fill their stomachs.

Ron and his SUV roared past without stopping or even glancing at them.

There's just too much to keep you curious about things you see every day.

Oda and his companions kept looking out, trying to figure out what the locals were searching for in the wilderness.

The car, kicking up dust, crashed violently into the Danbad wilderness shrouded in the morning light, like a thin veil being lifted.

Huge wounds lie across the dark earth, clinging to the edges of cities and near villages.

"What are they doing?" Xiaotian pointed to a spot not far away.

There was a group of people standing in a circle with various tools, and people kept disappearing into the hills.

They first grabbed a rope and lowered themselves down, then their bodies went in, slowly revealing only their heads, and finally they disappeared completely.

These people are different from the villagers who scavenge for trash in the wilderness; they look like workers.

“Mining.” Ron glanced at it, unsurprised.

"Mining?" The children looked around curiously, but they didn't see any machinery.

Ron simply patted the front seat, and the SUV turned toward the small hill.

The guide accompanying us was a Yadav, who was now employed by the Sur Mining Company.

He would comply with his boss's requests without question.

They got off the bus and walked up the rugged mountain road. When the workers saw the well-dressed group, they just stared blankly at them, motionless, like frightened little animals.

The guide went up and exchanged a few words with the workers, who responded in hushed tones, usually just one or two short syllables, rarely in long, coherent sentences.

Ron and his men stepped forward, while the workers had already retreated a few steps away.

It was a mine shaft, only big enough for one adult and an iron bucket to go down into.

"These are called rat holes, and they usually belong to private coal mine owners."

"A mouse hole?" Xiao Tian muttered to himself, "That's quite a vivid metaphor."

“Just you wait and see.” Ron gestured with his chin.

Workers grabbed the rope at the entrance of the hole and lowered their feet down. There was a rickety wooden ladder at the edge, with no safety measures in place.

Some of the rat holes are hundreds of meters deep. Every day, miners descend to the bottom in this way and then dig coal in tunnels that are less than half a meter high.

They didn't have modern tools, so they could only use pickaxes and carry things by hand.

There were no escape routes, no water pumps, no lights, and no ventilation system in the mine. Only rickety, rickety wooden ladders allowed people to enter and exit the mine.

The only light came from the dim headlamps of the miners. Whenever they rested, the workers, wearing flip-flops and shorts, would lie on their backs on the unsupported coal seams that had been mined.

Every two tons of coal they extract is loaded into iron buckets, which are then hoisted out of the mine by ropes.

The standing miners are like dominoes; if one falls, everything will collapse, and those working below will also be doomed.

These rat-hole coal mines frequently collapse, and many people die quietly while mining coal.

Their deaths were utterly uneventful, leaving not even a ripple. Private coal mine owners could simply dig another hole and send in a different batch of miners.

Oda and his companions were horrified and deeply shocked. Coming from Japan, a country known for its mechanized mining practices, they found it hard to imagine that Danbad would employ such barbaric mining methods.

“There are too many mines here,” Ron said, leading them down the mountain as they passed groups of ragged old people and children. “Private mine owners can dig a rat hole as long as they clear away the vegetation on the surface.”

"Those are clearly children, doesn't the government care?" Xiaotian's face was still showing shock.

“There are signs everywhere in Danbad that prohibit child labor, but nobody cares,” Ron shrugged.

The villagers looked at each other, bewildered. They couldn't understand India.

"Mr. Suer, your mine..."

"You'll see when you get there," he said with a smile.

After driving about five kilometers northwest, a completely different scene appeared before us.

First came the rumbling sound, then they saw hundreds of mining machines of all kinds spread out on the black earth.

You can see that enormous mouth from afar; it's many times larger than a mouse hole.

The colossal yellow mining trucks, like tiny insects, moved in and out of the giant mouth.

Getting closer allows for a more detailed view; with each rotation of the large tunneling machine's cutting teeth, it shatters large sections of coal seam with a clang.

Dark brown coal chunks cascaded down the conveyor belt like a waterfall, then coalesced into a black torrent that rushed along the steel track toward the tunnel entrance.

“We hired an international professional team to design the mining plan. The hydraulic supports in the tunnel can support rock layers thousands of meters thick, so there are absolutely no safety issues.”

"Siguni!" The little ones nodded repeatedly.

That's more like it; the beauty of heavy industry is the right way to approach mining.

The rat hole they had just encountered had left them with some psychological trauma.

After all, no one wants their suppliers to frequently cause deaths, especially in cross-border trade, where it's easy to be sued by the local government.

“Alright, let me talk about the price now.” Ron flashed a charming smile.

(End of this chapter)