I became a witch, but I started the industrial revolution

"Please come in!"

Seeing that Shirleya had hidden aside, Medea invited the person outside to come in.

Anna opened the door and walked in with a happy smile on her face, and placed an inconspicuous crop on her table: "Look! Is this the potato you mentioned?"

"Fuck!"

Medea cursed and quickly picked up the fruit on the table and examined it carefully. It did resemble the potatoes from his previous life.

"Have you planted it? Have you tried to eat it? How many seeds did its roots have when you found it? Have you counted them?"

Medea threw a series of questions at Anna, and Anna didn't know where to start answering for a moment.

You can't blame the Middle East for being too excited. Potatoes are so important. Only with them can we feed a larger population.

"You can eat it, but it's a little toxic and you can't eat too much. And... it tastes terrible."

Medea retorted, "How bad can it be?"

“…”

"vomit....."

“Pooh, pooh, pooh…”

Medea looked at the thing on the plate with suspicion. Is this really a potato?

It tasted bitter, astringent and sour, and when she first took a bite she even suspected she had bitten into a car tire!

After retching, Xueliya pushed the plate away with a horrified look on her face:

"Oh my god! I'd rather starve to death or jump off here than eat another bite of this!!!"

Chapter 67: A meeting? It's a fight!

Mitia swallowed it with difficulty and put down the silver fork in her hand and stopped eating. "It really doesn't taste good, but its yield proves its strategic value. We need to find a way to cultivate it well."

"Should we leave this to the grain breeding team?"

"No, it's enough for them to do their own job well. We need to gather a new team to study this potato."

"If there is no other choice, we can use the stupid method. Plant more test fields to select the good ones to expand the family line, and select the best from the best step by step!"

Mitia couldn't help rubbing his brows. The research team, knowledge talents, education, population, all the problems seemed to have returned to the starting point.

The population problem is relatively easy to solve. The key to population growth is a stable environment and relatively fair food distribution.

As long as a country's regime can maintain these two basic issues, most of the civilians under its control will have the desire to have children.

Moreover, they are a new country that has just gone through war and famine. The distribution of land resources is now relatively abundant and fair, and the people's desire to have children is very strong.

The people are very traditional in their thinking, but also have their own little shrewdness.

Families with more children will have more labor, can be allocated more land, and can have suitable ways out even if they don't farm. The cost of raising children is low and the rate of return is high. There is no more cost-effective deal than this.

She can also appropriately increase policy support, such as birth incentive subsidies, and shape a sense of honor such as heroic mothers.

However, if too many children are born, the pressure of raising children will increase, and girls who are in a relatively disadvantaged position in their childhood will be intentionally or unintentionally ignored and mistreated.

But both men and women belong to the labor force she needs, and she does not allow prejudice to exist.

Putting aside the magician class, the status of ordinary women in this world is still relatively low.

In other words, as long as the society is in the agricultural stage, because the resources created are insufficient, women who are physically weaker will inevitably have a lower status and have to devote their own value to make up for the deficit.

The good thing about Seris is that their current emperor is a female emperor.

Moreover, since the beginning of its prosperity, Medea has always stood on the people's side to deal with and view issues, and has invisibly influenced the views of the grassroots people on women at all times.

Whether it was disaster relief or distribution of arable land, or giving slaves new ways out and turning tenant farmers into free people, she presented a very good image to the outside world.

But this may not be enough. Farming women cannot compete with young and middle-aged men, so they need to be assigned different jobs, such as working in factories to do delicate work.

She needs to provide some temporary support to the first group of women leaving the fields.

There is no need to worry about the birth of a boy, as continuing the family line is an eternal issue that cannot be avoided.

Girls need Medea to give them some initial survival guarantees, so among all the guarantees, the attraction brought by a good job is undoubtedly the highest.

Therefore, she will set up gender priority thresholds for employees in the textile industry, and increase the salary and benefits by 20% from the percentage of fiscal subsidies at the same level, offsetting the high income with the middle income in exchange for a balanced status.

It's not that Medea is insisting on giving priority to women. Her goal is to give those shrewd illiterate elders an anchor point to calculate the cost of raising a daughter.

As long as the future income is substantial and stable, they will most likely not be stingy in giving their daughter a bowl of rice to eat.

Before they become independent, their economic labor remuneration increases, accounting for a significant proportion of the family's total income, and finally, with the guidance of publicity, they undergo continuous and subtle changes.

The textile industry is a labor-intensive industry and will inevitably be transferred out in the future, so this seemingly safe and secure iron rice bowl will actually not last for many years and will disappear.

This is a temporary benefit. After all, to create something from scratch, we must start with a drastic measure and come up with slogans that are deeply rooted in people's hearts, such as "Women Hold Up Half the Sky".

By the time a large number of textile industries lose their value in the country, I believe that Seres will have left the era of relying on the land for food, and the theory of gender disadvantage will naturally be out of the question.

But high welfare is not so easy to get. In other industries, the work intensity standards are the same for both parties regardless of gender, and you should get what you deserve.

Among the industries with high livelihood thresholds, only the textile category and the food category offer special preferential treatment to women. For other industries, allocation is still based on personal ability and conditions.

in the afternoon

Medea attended the parliament jointly convened by the upper and lower houses, which was also the first congress after the founding and reorganization of the country.

If nothing unexpected happens, this meeting will also be the overall development plan guideline for Seris in the future.

The proposals put forward by Mitia, such as the population incentive plan and policy support for women, were passed by the representatives. The bill will officially come into effect after the two-month public notice period.

These are not actually the problems. The key point is the subsequent voting, nomination and selection of the state-level ruling team after the redivision.

This means that the previous acting officials will be reclassified and their formal classification authority will be reclassified, which will affect the distribution of benefits.

Seris was once a military-transformed junta, and finally transitioned to the current normal government parliament.

Everyone in this meeting is a former military officer, and none of them are not loud and aggressive. They have all received military training from Medea, so why should you be able to do it but I am not?

As the Prime Minister, the Speaker could only sweat profusely and mediate fights everywhere, and had to take a punch from time to time. The group of workers' representatives in the House of Commons were so dazzled by the scene that they almost had to eat melon seeds.

Medea had been sitting in the main seat, watching them quarreling with interest, and when she saw several old men representing the farmers looking over, she responded with a smile.

She was quite extreme in selecting representatives. Representatives of the peasant group were randomly selected. Sergeants from foreign troops selected elderly people over 70 years old from other provinces and escorted them to the capital.

The time of selection is uncertain, the exact number of people is uncertain and will be different every time, and the same is true for worker representatives, but in turn it is the youth group that is randomly selected.

The elderly have lived enough and are open-minded. They have basically experienced the pros and cons of various policies and can draw a conclusion.

Young people are full of energy and have just entered society. They are the only ones who dare to speak out about the difficulties and injustices they are facing. These two groups are the most suitable to represent ordinary people.

As for why the army was selected, it is because the bond between the military and civilians in Seris is the strongest. If the problems in this bond cannot be eliminated, there will be no chance for others.

As for the middle-aged people...they have no control over what they do or say at this stage.

It would be better if factory and company employee committees and trade unions spoke up on their behalf and fought for their interests.

The trade union controls the employees' insurance funds, such as medical, pension, accident and other insurances, and has an obligation to speak for the workers and negotiate terms with the company. Only when the workers' income is high can they obtain more profits.

Mitia acts as the union's terminal for supervision, and she can also obtain dividends from the managers' funds, which in turn serves as a talisman for the union.

The employee committee is the proxy holder of the workers’ virtual shares and is a community of interests that stands on the same line as the workers.

This is also the reason why Medea is watching the show from above. I have tried my best to do the internal foundation. The rest depends on how you perform.

Chapter 68: Being born in a humble family is not a shame.

The noisy parliament hall and the quarreling and even fistfighting lawmakers made Medea feel like he was watching a comedy.

Medea even saw Graf being jumped up by a dwarf and grabbed by his proud beard, causing his whole face to be distorted by the pain.

The noise continued until midnight, when Medea held a grand dinner.

The ministers who had been mingling together in the parliament in the afternoon were now chatting and laughing together, as if nothing had happened.

But soon they stopped laughing.

The maids lined up neatly, holding trays in their hands, and walked in front of the dining tables. As the lid on the tray was opened, a round steamed "potato" appeared in front of everyone.

Medea said loudly: "Everyone, dinner is on me!"

Everyone looked at each other. Although they had no idea what the Queen was up to, they all followed her lead and picked up their knives and forks to start cutting.

"What do you think?"

Medea's rose-purple pupils scanned the people present with interest, taking in everyone's expressions and reactions.

Graf, who was sitting at the main table, swallowed the mashed potatoes in his mouth, looked at Medea and said, "It's bitter and astringent."

Anna at the side said at the right time: "Your Majesty, the food in the village during the famine was much worse than this."

An old man among the farmer representatives in the distance said with a smile: "In fact, even in a bumper year, these potatoes are quite delicious compared to the rations we eat."

"At least, there are no stones, shells or dirt..."

The speaker cut a piece and put it in his mouth. He chewed it and his face became a little stiff. Then he chewed it quickly for a few times and wanted to swallow it in one gulp.

"puff!"

"cough cough..."

The maid behind him hurried forward to help the choked Speaker by patting his chest and back to help him breathe easier.

Medea, who had been smiling all the time, turned around and saw this scene, her eyes narrowed slightly, and her gentle temperament suddenly became dangerous.

Golitsyn, who had finally calmed down after being choked, was stared at by Medea's sharp eyes. He slipped off the chair and knelt on the ground:

"I...I am guilty!"

"Prime Minister Golitsyn, you have the best chef in the Kingdom of Ovinia at home. Your dinner is always sumptuous, and you deserve it."

Listening to what Medea said, Golitsyn's face became paler and paler, and his body couldn't stop shaking slightly.

"You should be the one who can best understand the hardships of the lower classes, am I right, Golitsyn?"

'Yes, Your Majesty, I...'

"From now on, you can only eat vegetarian meals for the whole year."

After saying this, Medea stood up and walked out of the banquet hall, leaving the ministers looking at each other in bewilderment. Many of them couldn't help shaking their heads when they looked at Golitsyn who was kneeling on the ground.