At the end of April, Shanghai Business Zone.

The spring cold has long passed, and now Shanghai is in the early summer, and the rain has begun to increase, and a rain explosion has just made the business district a huge mud pool.

In recent years, the business zone has been a huge construction site, thanks to the unique political and business environment of the business zone, and at the same time, the population of many southern Jiangsu areas has poured into Shanghai, especially in the business zone, which has caused the population of the trade zone to skyrocket.

The explosion of the population has also brought with it an abundant labor force, and it is easy to recruit enough workers for various jobs at very low wages.

In the initial development stage of a city, there are naturally the most various infrastructure projects, including many roads and bridges invested and built by the government of the business district, and the area around these roads and bridges is set off a lot of construction!

All kinds of residential buildings and factories have risen from the ground, turning the entire business district into a huge construction site!

And yesterday's rainstorm turned the business district full of construction sites into a huge mud pool!

Lin Shen frowned as he covered his nose and stepped out of the carriage, and as soon as he got off his feet, the pair of valuable leather shoes were stained with mud, which made his brows furrow even tighter.

After walking dozens of meters in the muddy field, he entered a huge factory, and then entered a small two-story building next to the factory with his entourage.

As soon as I entered the small building, there was a person about forty years old, wearing a suit and carrying an inch of hair, and he greeted him, and before he came out, the voice came out first: "General Manager Qin, you are here!" ”

Lin Shenbian immediately said: "There was a delay on the way ahead!" As he spoke, he looked around and found that there were already more than a dozen people waiting!

"Take me to see, Director Zhang, how strict are things?" Lin Shenbian didn't say too much nonsense, and just asked.

Director Zhang, the head of the factory, said with a cautious face: "The situation is not very good, yesterday's rainstorm was too sudden, and almost all of the No. 3 plant collapsed, not only most of the equipment inside was blistered, but also smashed a lot!" ”

Lin Shen listened, and then said, "Let's go, go to the scene and have a look!" ”

After a while, they walked into a huge factory, which could be seen to have collapsed, bricks, stones, and wood everywhere, and there were still a lot of buried equipment inside!

"Alas, it's all because we were too anxious to install these devices in advance, otherwise this wouldn't have happened!" Director Zhang said words of self-reproach.

Lin Shenbian also frowned more and more as he looked, he knew what was going on here before he came.

This is the fifth branch of Shanghai Textile Company, the construction of which began at the beginning of the year, was originally able to be completed in May, but the equipment ordered in advance last year arrived early, in order to speed up the construction and the progress of equipment commissioning, so not waiting for the plant to be completely completed, it was to move these equipment into it and start to install, but yesterday's heavy rain washed away the foundation of the unfinished water tower next to it, and the huge water tower smashed directly on the No. 3 plant.

The No. 3 factory building, which was also not completed, collapsed, and the plant collapsed, but the key is that the new equipment inside was blistered, not to mention, and it was smashed a lot, causing extremely heavy losses.

Lin Shenbian and the person in charge of the No. 5 branch watched while doing a damage assessment, and at the same time considered how much money it would take to repair the equipment and how much money it would take to repair the No. 3 plant.

An hour later, he left with his entourage, Lin Shen sat in the carriage and pondered, now that there is such a big accident on the side of the fifth branch, it is impossible not to give a major punishment to several main persons in charge of the fifth branch, and even the heads of several departments in the company's headquarters are also punished.

Hmph, let them know that my Lin Shenbian's methods are not much worse than that Qin Shenyun!

Lin Shenbian, like many big shopkeepers of Lin's firm, he Lin Shenbian was also a buddy in Lin's firm when he was a teenager, and slowly became a manager, successively serving as the chief shopkeeper of Lin's Huzhou branch and the chief shopkeeper of Ningbo branch.

After 1853, the industrial focus of the Lin firm moved to Shanghai, and Pan Lixuan, who was the chief shopkeeper of the Shanghai branch at that time, also became more and more powerful, and became the chief shopkeeper of the Lin firm in 1855.

And Qin Shenyun is also rising, first concurrently serving as the general manager of Linde Machinery Qì Factory, and then concurrently serving as the chief treasurer of the Shanghai branch of Lin's Commercial Bank.

At the beginning of this year, the entire Lin firm was incorporated into the finance department of the palace affairs department, and the Lin firm was split as a whole, and many of the businesses of its Shanghai branch became independent, Qin Shenyun became the general manager of Lin Deji Qì Factory, and Lin Shenbian was appointed as the general manager of Shanghai Textile Company.

Before Qin Shenyun, as the chief shopkeeper of the Shanghai branch of Lin's firm, not only took care of the Linde Machinery factory, but also the silk reeling factories and the Shanghai shipyard were also under his care, and his management style was strongly influenced by Western-style enterprises, and the means were very strict, and he had a great reputation within the Lin firm.

Now Lin Shenbian is independently in charge of all the raw silk industry in the Lin family firm and serves as the general manager of the Shanghai Textile Company, and he is not willing to let the people below think that he is a person with weak means, much worse than Qin Shenyun before.

While thinking about how to deal with the people below and handling the aftermath, he was thinking about how to explain to the palace affairs department. The direct loss of this accident is as high as nearly 10,000 taels of silver, and the indirect loss is even more, so it is not good to explain it to the people in the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department at that time!

He can deal with the person in charge below, but for the Finance Department of the Palace Affairs Department, why is he not the person in charge of this accident!

Frowning back to the company headquarters, the carriage curtains were lifted on the road, and people on the street were still coming and going, in one of the alleys, hundreds of people could be seen lining up there, and at the end of the line was the gate of a factory, and there was a table outside the gate, and several people were drinking something.

It is obvious that they are recruiting workers, and those workers in line are the workers who came to recruit, and looking at the clothes of these people, Lin Shenbian knows that these people should have just fled from southern Anhui, or they crossed the river from Jiangbei to beg for a living.

There are hundreds of thousands of these people in the entire Greater Shanghai area!

Lin Shen sat in the carriage, and although he was worried, the problems he faced were not at the same level as those who were queuing up for work.

Because these people will starve to death if they can't find a job!

Not long after Lin Shenbian's carriage passed, the door of the factory slowly closed, and a person who seemed to be in charge shouted loudly: "It's all scattered, scattered, it's enough!" ”

More than 100 people lined up outside the gate listened, all of them showed disappointed expressions, and then left one after another, including a man about 30 years old and only about 1.6 meters tall looked at the closed door, with a deep disappointed expression on his face.

This person's name is Feng Baocai, a native of Yangzhou, Jiangsu, who just arrived at the beginning of this year and fled to Shanghai with a large family, and before coming to Shanghai, his family had just suffered a military disaster, and a group of Qing troops who came out of nowhere passed by their village, robbed them of all their grain, seized their last copper plate, and even plundered more than a dozen handsome daughters, and many young people in the village were killed because of resistance.

Although no one in Feng Baocai's family was killed, not only did there be no food and money left in the family, but even the house was burned down, and if they continued to stay, they would probably starve to death.

So he, like everyone else in the same village, began to flee, begging for food along the way, and then tossing for half a month before coming to Shanghai.

When he was on the road, he heard that Shanghai is a holy place for countless refugees, and as long as he arrives in Shanghai, as long as he is willing to work hard and is not afraid of being tired, then he can fight for a bite to eat.

As long as there is a bite of food to eat these years, what strength is there to give up.

But when he arrived in Shanghai, he realized that Shanghai was not the paradise he imagined, and it was not much easier to feed his family here than it was to farm in his hometown.

Feng Bao is a farmer, although he is not tall, but he has strength, but if he is just himself, even if he finds a construction site to work or simply goes to the dock to resist the contract, it is not a problem to support himself, but the problem is that he still has a family.

His old father suffered from a cold when he fled, and Feng Baocai, who had no money to buy medicine, could only watch his old father die of illness on the road.

After he took his mother, daughter-in-law and three children to Shanghai, life was also extremely difficult, although his wife had found an errand to help people wash clothes, but the salary was extremely meager, and the old mother was sick and weak, only at home with three children, the youngest of whom was only a little more than a year old, and the eldest was only seven years old.

When he first arrived in Shanghai, he had no choice but to follow other people around to do odd jobs to work on various construction sites, but not to mention that he didn't earn much, and more importantly, he was unstable, and he often couldn't find a job to do, and if he didn't work, he would have to go hungry.

It is naturally extremely difficult to support a family in this way, and whenever he goes back at night and looks at the expectant eyes of his wife and children, Feng Baocai is full of helplessness in his heart.

In order to obtain a more stable income to support his family, he also wanted to work as a worker in the factory, but although there are many factories in Shanghai now, to be honest, a considerable number of small factory owners are very black-hearted, and the salary is extremely low, and they cannot support their families at all.

Feng Baocai naturally didn't want to go to this kind of factory, but wanted to go to some large-scale regular factories with better treatment, but every time those big factories with better treatment released rumors to recruit people, I don't know how many people risked their heads to drill into it.

For example, the Anfeng silk reeling factory in front of you is said to be among the top ten in Shanghai, employing thousands of workers, and the labor system is relatively formal, and the salary is relatively generous, and it will not deduct the salary casually.

A few days ago, when he heard that this big factory was recruiting new workers, he came over early this morning, but he didn't expect that when he came early in the morning, he saw hundreds of people queuing up in front of him.

What's even more tragic is that it's almost his turn, but it says that enough people have been recruited, and Feng Baocai is blocked out of the door as soon as the door is closed.

With deep helplessness, he dragged his heavy steps and continued to walk, he couldn't go home yet, he had to go to a few odd jobs in front of him to see if he could find a temporary job, he needed to earn money to buy rice and go home, otherwise the whole family would be hungry tonight. (To be continued.) )