Chai Dongliang leaned on the window to see that four workers in Kaji cloth overalls jumped off the rickshaw proudly and swaggered into the restaurant. It seems that they should be regular customers, and the shopkeeper is quite familiar with them.

"The four masters are here? Is it the old rule of eating cabbage, or do you order a la carte? ”

"The old rules."

"Okay, a few masters, please go upstairs!" The shopkeeper dragged them up to the second floor with a long voice.

The clothes of the four people were printed with words, Chai Dongliang took a look, two were from the printing and dyeing factory, and the remaining two were from the machinery factory. The shopkeeper made them gardenia tea and served four fruit plates of melon seeds, peanuts, red dates, and candied fruits. Then he shouted at the top of his voice: "The four masters eat cabbage, four cold and four hot, one sweet and one salty and two soups!" ”

Chai Dongliang just saw the water card, eight dishes and two soup cabbage, and he had to charge one dollar. These workers apparently come to the restaurant regularly, and it has become an old rule to eat cabbage for one dollar. It seems that he is doing very well!

The price of goods in Anqing is very low, rice is three cents a catty, fat pork is nine cents a catty, locally produced black goat meat is seven cents a catty, five catties of big carp is a dime, the old rooster that the locals like to eat is six cents a catty, eggs are two cents and three, three yuan is enough for a poor family to spend a month!

It is undoubtedly quite a luxury for these workers to eat a dollar.

A worker with thick eyebrows said angrily: "Lao Fu, how is your organization there?" Our machinery factory will start to close tomorrow! ”

"No problem, let's take a break! Look at that old slammer, dare not raise wages. ”

Chai Dongliang's heart suddenly chuckled, and the workers began to strike? Is the boss being too mean?

"Last month, I called a break, and it rose by two dollars, and this month I called a break, at least I have to rise by two yuan, otherwise Lao Tzu will not go to work, our factory, only two people will open Heidelberg's printing machine, and the one who is on the opposite class with me has also been negotiated, and we will stop together tomorrow. As long as the two of us don't do it, the whole factory will have to stare dryly! The worker, nicknamed Lao Fu, said triumphantly.

"That's it, those proprietors take advantage of the gold ten thousand taels at home, and they see that their faces are longer than donkeys, this time according to me, if they don't rise by three yuan, they will not start work, and in the future, we will be able to raise a few dollars to drink and find a bitch to be happy!" The thick eyebrows and smiling eyes are gone.

It just rose by two dollars last month, and there is still a strike this month? Some greed is not enough!

Chai Dongliang turned his face and asked with a smile: "A few big brothers, take the liberty of asking, how much do you get every month?" ”

The thick eyebrows slanted at Chai Dongliang: "You eat official meals in the yamen, right?" ”

Chai Dongliang said with a smile: "Yes, little clerk, I get six yuan a month, which is enough to eat and spend." Not as good as a few of you. ”

Lao Fu said proudly: "Then you must not be as good as me, I will take nine and a half yuan." The factory also takes care of the rice. Fifteen days of official leave a year, two sets of clothes in winter and summer. ”

Chai Dongliang was surprised: "Nine and a half? So high! ”

The thick eyebrows smiled coldly: "Nine and a half yuan is considered high?" Lao Tzu takes 12 yuan, and I will work for you in the yamen for two months a month. ”

Lao Fu spit out the peanuts in his mouth and scolded: "Damn, you take twelve pieces?" Two and a half pieces taller than Lao Tzu? Why! ”

Thick eyebrows smiled and said: "You are all over Anqing City to inquire, how many people will open this Citigroup water press?" If our machinery factory takes more than your dyeing factory, then there is still a reason? ”

Lao Fu scolded and scolded: "No, you have to let the owner level it, Lao Tzu also drives a German machine, why do you take less than you." ”

Chai Dongliang asked quietly: "Do our workers in Anqing take such a high salary from you?" ”

Thick eyebrows smiled: "We are not high, the highest in the arsenal gets fifteen yuan, the steamship company is really good at driving a small steamer, the boiler is at least fifteen yuan, and the helm is thirty bottoms!" ”

Chai Dongliang originally thought that the boss was too mean, and it caused the dissatisfaction of the workers by knocking on the bones and sucking the marrow of the workers, but it seems that this is not the case.

"Big brothers, can the workers in your factory get such a high? Listening to what you said, I want to quit my errand and learn to drive a machine with you! ”

As the saying goes, thousands of people wear sycophants, and the workers heard that the people in the yamen also envied them, and they were even more proud, and said with a smile on their thick eyebrows: "This factory is the same as your yamen, and it is also divided into three, six, nine, and so on. ”

Chai Dongliang nodded, and he was relieved to think in his heart. Anhui Province has a population of more than 30 million, with less than 60,000 workers, and most of them are absorbed by the newly built Wuhu Industrial Park. Recently, I saw that the businessmen who invested in the Wuhu Industrial Park have made a fortune, and other people's minds have also become active, and they have begun to set up factories. But the lack of skilled workers is the biggest bottleneck. Scarcity is expensive, and wages will naturally rise, but rising to such a high level is indeed unexpected by Chai Dongliang, and I didn't expect the workers to be so rude, they just raised their wages last month, and they plan to start making trouble again this month. Chai Dongliang vaguely remembers that when the Wuhu Industrial Park was just built, the technicians' wages of six yuan were already very satisfactory. It's only been half a year!

It is estimated that Wu Jintang and others were also helpless by these dissatisfied workers, so they moved the idea of asking the army to suppress it. The three-day two-end strike march to block the factory gate is indeed enough to make them feel bad!

After a while, the wine and food were served, and Lao Fu suddenly lost his interest in chatting with Chai Dongliang, and urged: "Hurry up and eat, eat well and have fun, I have to go to block the factory door early tomorrow morning!" This time, it will have to rise by at least five yuan, otherwise Lao Tzu will not go to work and let the whole factory stop cooking! ”

Chai Dongliang has always had deep sympathy for the poor, instinctively thinking that the poor have a more moral sense than the rich, and now he always feels weird. In this era, the manufacturing industry is an emerging industry, and it is natural that the income is higher than the social average, even the lowest-income small workers, who eat and live for five a month, are much stronger than those who farm in the countryside and pull rickshaws on the street. Just like in China in later generations, when the IT industry was just emerging, the wages of programmers were several times higher than that of ordinary people.

The businessmen in Wuhu Industrial Park rely on the information provided by Chai Dongliang to produce extremely high value-added goods, and the wages of workers are higher, and they can afford it, but the textile factories and garment factories that can really absorb labor on a large scale do not have such high profits.

At present, China's biggest problem is still the problem of too many peasants and too little land, and the cities must build labor-intensive enterprises on a large scale to absorb the surplus labor force, otherwise it is impossible for the economy and industry to develop. However, the profits of labor-intensive enterprises are generally not very high, and if the wages of workers are too high, the enterprises will face a huge existential crisis. Although the quality of the goods dumped in large quantities into China is not high, the advantage lies in the low price, and if the cost of Chinese enterprises cannot be reduced, there will be no market.

When bosses cannot afford to use regular workers who are protected by the law, the most brutal and bloody forms of exploitation, such as bonded labor, will prevail, and workers will be pushed from the high-income class to the lowest level of society. If the interests of the workers were not protected, then Chai Dongliang's ruling area would not be able to avoid the outbreak of a large-scale workers' revolution, and if the interests of the workers were strictly protected, then the factory owners would sell the factories and go back to the old road of recovering the rents and eating the tiles and lending usury. Chai Dongliang's construction achievements will also be ruined.

If the wages of the workers are too high, the entrepreneurs will use extraordinary means, and then the workers will make trouble, and then the entrepreneurs will drag the political axe in, and finally either the enterprises will be closed, or the workers will be suppressed??? It's a cycle of evil surnames!

After eating a few bites of food tastelessly, Chai Dongliang looked at the passing crowd at the window for a while, and there were really a lot of workers in work clothes. Seeing that it was getting late, Chai Dongliang went downstairs and called a rickshaw to prepare to go home. The coachman was a middle-aged man in his forties, with rough hands and feet and a weathered face, and he looked like an honest countryman. The thick eyebrows and the old wilt also finished eating, and went in groups to find prostitutes.

The rickshaw driver spat at their backs and scolded in a low voice: "If there are two people who have lost money, they can make it hard!" ”

Chai Dongliang listened sincerely, and asked with a smile: "Where are you from?" ”

"Lu'an."

"Lu'an has already divided the land, why don't you farm at home?"

"The whole family of eight people has divided more than 20 acres of dry land, and it is enough to survive half a year of hunger and half fullness in a good year, and half a year of melons and vegetables and half a year of grain in a famine year, and the dolls are still young, so I went to the city to pull a foreign cart and look for a few oil and salt money."

Chai Dongliang asked casually, "Has the doll read?" ”

"How can a countryman's child afford to read!" The driver pulls the car on the side.

Chai Dongliang was surprised: "Now that you don't need money to study, why don't you let your children study?" How can a doll be productive if it doesn't read? ”

The coachman smiled and said, "I see that you grew up in the city, and this country child can herd cattle and plant rice at the age of six or seven, and if you want to send it to the school to study, the family will have less labor." The first reading of the school is six years, and we really can't afford to delay that effort! We are all governors in Anhui with good hearts, we don't need money to study, and we don't need to have a lunch, of course the dolls in the city go to study, and we countrymen can't do it??? This is life, digging in the soil is the life of our countrymen! ”

Chai Dongliang muttered secretly in his heart, people like the coachman are probably in the vast majority in Anhui, right? There are 2,000 primary schools in Anhui Province, with an average of 200 students in each school, and the total number of people who can read and write in the province is less than 500,000, which means that only these 500,000 people have the ability to learn to read drawings and have the qualifications to be workers. Besides, most of the people who have studied would rather go to the shop to be a guy than be a worker, after all, they are covered in stinky sweat and sludge in the factory, and the scholars feel ashamed.

As for the university-educated people, those who have died for various reasons are also dug out of the grave, and the full count is only about 3,000. Most of them are still studying abroad, and many of these people can't even speak, let alone learn anything.

The Manchu Qing Dynasty abolished the imperial examination education, but did not establish a new education system, and the entire society formed a fault line. Especially for the most helpful industrial talents in the country, it is extremely scarce.

This situation cannot be reversed, large-scale industrial construction will certainly not be effective, and social contradictions will accumulate.

Chai Dongliang had an idea: "Fellow, what if there is a school to teach dolls to drive machines?" You can work as a big worker in two years, will you let your child go to school? ”

The coachman wiped his sweat with the towel on his shoulder and said: "That's a good dare, the big worker is at least six yuan a month, and I can't earn two yuan every day when I pull a foreign car." If I can earn six yuan in two years, I would rather go home and farm and let the doll come out to support the family. It's a pity, which school teaches those things? Then he pointed to the people who came out to shop in work clothes on the street: "These people, who are stingy and ruthless, are afraid that they have taught their apprentices to starve to death to their masters??? Six dollars a month, I've never seen what six dollars look like together in my life, if there is a school that can teach dolls to drive machines, and let them get six yuan of wages, I just tie my neck and let them go to school! ”

There was still a street away from Chai Dongliang's mansion, he stopped the rickshaw, and then got out of the car and gave a silver dollar, and the driver said in embarrassment: "A dime is enough, we can't find it!" ”

Chai Dongliang said with a smile: "The rest will be rewarded to you, buy a piece of cloth for the doll to make a dress, and then make a schoolbag for the doll, maybe soon there will be a school in Lu'an to teach the doll to drive a machine, don't forget what you said!" ”

The coachman thanked him for his kindness, then carefully took a piece of silver dollar into his arms and pulled the rickshaw away.

Chai Dongliang walked to the door of the house, but saw two wire rickshaws with lights at the door. When the porter saw him coming back, he hurriedly replied: "Governor, Mr. Wu Xingzhou and Mr. Wu Jintang from Wuhu are here, and they have been waiting for you in the hall for more than two hours!" ”

"Oh, then I'll go see them now!"

Chai Dongliang knew in his heart that they must have come for Wu Meiqi's matter, and he was indeed too impulsive, and he hurt this girl's heart a lot.

When I walked to the door of the living room, I heard the old man Wu Xingzhou reprimanding his son: "You bastard, who is the governor?" How many things do you have to worry about? You still use some trivial things to annoy him, and let your sister get involved, I won't be able to hate you for killing you! ”

"The son is wrong, please punish the father, just don't be angry!"

"What's so tight about my body? If your sister had three long and two short, I wouldn't want this old life! Wu Xingzhou said angrily.

Chai Dongliang smiled from the outside: "The old gentleman is here, why don't you send a telegram in advance, I'll pick you up at the dock!" ”

(To be continued)