For half a month, from the Olin to the small colonies, all the national and local newspapers were paying attention to the crazy September coal futures prices. Everyone is asking the same question – what exactly should be the reasonable price of Olin's coal.

In the eyes of these newspaper media, the traders involved in trading in the market are very sensible. These traders bought and inflated the price of coal, which means that they must have confirmed that the price of coal in Oilon was grossly undervalued through some kind of "calculation".

No one would wonder if a trader who can shell out more than 10 million gold pounds to buy coal futures has something wrong with his brain, after all...... Rich people should be intelligent, sensible, well-educated, and full of all kinds of brilliance.

The wealthy must be vastly different from the most numerous commoners in the empire, otherwise their success becomes unjustified.

There has always been a rule in the "public opinion" circles of the empire that can be called "rules" - do not question all the decisions made by a wealthy gentleman.

Wealthy gentlemen have far more resources at their disposal than reporters and editors who are so poor that they can only dip their pens in their pen, and when they question the decisions of wealthy gentlemen, these newspapers often end up with a slap in the face and a public apology on the pages of their own newspapers.

Sometimes, though, the apology is not due to the contrary to the report, but because these wealthy gentlemen are determined to protect their reputations – no one wants to be fooled out by their social circles, especially after the newspapers have predicted that such an act will fail.

Over time, newspaper editors and reporters in the empire learned a trick to reduce risk – never to question the actions of a wealthy gentleman, even if his actions seemed stupid and bubbling. And it is not enough not to question, but to find some way to find some reasonable explanation for the behavior of these rich gentlemen. If the other party succeeds, it shows that the newspaper has an accurate eye. If the other party fails, then at least there is a favor to say good things.

However, the editors of more than a dozen newspapers began to scratch their heads about the huge amount of money spent by the Olin Development Bank on September coal futures, which really doesn't make sense.

According to the economic theory of the empire, goods in the market will form a balance in the game of supply and demand, and this balance is fair value. The value of goods fluctuates only when supply and demand fluctuate, and it tends to be stable in itself.

This theory simply does not explain the logic of the crazy rise in coal prices, because the production of coal throughout the empire has not been greatly affected, and there is no new demand in the market that requires the consumption of large quantities of coal. But the price of coal is just going up – the streets of the Imperial City are already popping up with small vendors selling straw, and the hottest commodity in the black market is firewood.

Eventually, the newspaper simply came up with an initiative – a joint initiative of sixteen Olin newspapers – suggesting that economics professors at Imperial University study the sharp fluctuations in coal prices and come up with a theory that could explain the skyrocketing price of coal.

Lorraine looked at the newspapers and didn't know for a moment whether she should be happy or angry.

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The skyrocketing price of fuel has a huge impact on the entire imperial society. One of the most influential areas was the transportation industry between the colonies and Olin.

The jump requires the use of fuel to heat the Yin Puxi Long Mine. The Empire's shuttles use coal to heat the Yin Pu Si Long mine - and the amount used is not small. Against the backdrop of skyrocketing coal prices, transportation costs have also begun to rise rapidly. In order to supply Orin with enough coal to make a profit, mines on other colonies began to increase their productivity, and reduced or even eliminated plans to sell coal to the local area. A large amount of coal was loaded onto the shuttle ship and flew towards Olin.

Coal began to crowd out the transportation space of other goods, and as other goods to Oilon began to decrease, the prices of other commodities on Oilon began to rise.

Previously, a civilian family with decent work could support a wife, three children and a dog while the husband worked alone. You can also go to a paid club once a week to maintain your social level. Now, with both husband and wife working, the family is still limited to two meals a day to reduce expenses – not for dogs, and the price of pet feed is now more expensive than what people eat. These pet dogs can either only lick the plate on which the owner has finished eating, or they can only become a dish on the plate.

As a result, Orin's town has improved considerably – the poor have begun to hunt rats, stray dogs, and wild cats.

Prices are rising, while people's wages have not changed at all. Those "decent people" who have savings in the Oilon Development Bank can use their savings to top up a little, while others ...... They have to make a painful choice.

The choice is whether to start starving in this environment until you can't stand it anymore or die, or choose to ask your employer for a raise.

A pay rise is not an easy deal to negotiate, and in the past, employees who tried to get a raise often got a "you've been fired" letter. But in August, in addition to the skyrocketing prices, there is another thing that ordinary people throughout Orin are concerned about.

On the sixteenth day of the strike at the Russel Gear Factory, angry workers cordoned off the entire gear factory and locked the director, the Marquis's treasurer, and their management relatives in the office building.

For sixteen days, Yuri, his father-in-law, and other relatives did not receive any food supplies. At first, they insisted that there was no room for adjustment in wages, and that they would have to wait for the new owner of the factory to make arrangements. And after the sixth day, Yuri began to change his tune and said that he could give out 30% first.

On the eighth day, half of it was paid, on the tenth day it was eighty percent, and on the fourteenth day, Yuri stood at the window and shouted desperately that he could pay all the workers' wages, and that he could give one more percent.

Almost everything he could eat in the office had been eaten - Yuri still had three cans in his hand. In two days, he will have to start catching rats and even flies to fill his stomach.

But his bribery had no effect, and the organizers from the Central Special Branch had roughly calculated the assets that Yuri had embezzled during his long tenure as factory director - the total value of which was at least 250,000 gold pounds. And that's just the part he directly embezzled and embezzled, and if you count the losses caused by him, the treasurer, and other relatives by various means, the total value should be about one million gold pounds.

The workers now demanded that Yuri spit out all the misappropriated property and return it to the workers. At the same time, Yuri and his "relatives" have to sell all their assets to make up for the long-term losses of the factory.

The workers, of course, found this request very reasonable, even magnanimous—they did not demand a return of Yuri's wages, nor did they demand any more serious consequences from Yuri and his relatives. As long as the money is returned to everyone, everything is negotiable.

But in Yuri's eyes, these poor ghosts are literally asking for their own lives. What a good thing that money, all those flowery gold pounds, how can it be wasted by these poor devils!

"These things that don't know what to do are all Diao people!" Even though he was too hungry to shout, Yuri was still extremely angry. He tried to resolve his current predicament by other means – such as contacting the police or the heraldic office. But several relatives who risked their lives to report the news were picked up by angry workers, and two of them were hanged from street lamps.

Fortunately, the newspaper knew something about what was happening at the Russell Gear Factory, and no matter how lazy the powerful departments of the Imperial City were, it was time to make some "responses".

With the last glimmer of hope, Yuri stood behind the window and looked at the fence in the distance - since this morning, there have been more than a dozen gas-burning automatic cars parked outside, and judging by the color of those cars, it must have been sent by the Imperial City Police Department.

In fact, the Imperial City Police Force reacted far more quickly than Yuri had imagined. On the day the strike began, the Imperial City Police Department had already sent someone to inquire about the situation.

Schultz, on the other hand, produced a series of documents to prove that he had become the owner of the gear factory, and also directly "persuaded" the officers of the police department in the name of Archduke Hall. And the reason for "persuading him to leave" is also very strong - Schultz produced a pile of evidence to prove that the director of the factory had long embezzled the assets of the Russell Gear Factory, and the seriousness of his behavior had caused the entire factory to continue to operate normally. In order to defend their interests, the workers went on strike with Scholz's permission.

The strike was at the behest of the factory owner, and in the process the rights of the factory owner were not violated in any way.

In that case, there was no reason for the officers of the police to continue to stay in the Russell gear factory. Not only that, but when they left, they kindly reminded Schultz that if the director of Yuri was needed to spit out all the money he had embezzled, perhaps Mr. Schultz should choose to cooperate with the police. After all, the Imperial City Police Force has a lot of experience in dealing with "greedy untouchables".

In the eyes of the police officer, Yuri, who climbed step by step from a worker's family to the position of factory director, is still just a pariah.

And this time, the officers of the Imperial City Police Department went out again because the order was directly issued from above.

The Minister of Police issued a direct order to the Police Force, asking them to immediately settle the strike at the Russell Gear Factory. The Minister of Police had such an order because of the request of the Grand Duke Hall, and after a series of meticulous investigations and studies, the Imperial Finance Minister and his staff determined that the root cause of the skyrocketing coal prices was the strike at the Russell gear factory. The strike must be stopped immediately before coal prices can return to normal levels.

Seeing the police officer for the second time in half a month, Scholz's attitude also changed very clearly. He invited the officers to sit in his makeshift office and serve them with good black tea and desserts. Schultz was happy to respond to the officers' requests, telling them that the workers' strike should end this afternoon. As soon as the strike is over, he will begin to resume factory production.

"Why does it smell like smoke?" After drinking a few cups of black tea in the office, the officers suddenly sniffled and wondered, "Is something burning?" ”

Just as Schultz and they were patrolling the office to eliminate possible fires, there was a sudden loud knock on the door. The policeman guarding outside shouted at his boss in the office, "Sir, you'd better get out of here, there's a fire in the factory!" ”

When Schultz and the two senior police officers walked out of the office, they realized that the office building of the Russel Gear Factory had been completely engulfed in flames. At the same time, the fire also spread to the nearby warehouse and boiler workshop.

"Let's go!" Before the officers could react, Schultz yelled and dragged several officers out of the factory. Less than a minute after they walked out of the factory confines, a violent explosion broke out in the boiler shop. The more than 5,000-pound boiler flew into the sky like a doll tired of being played with by a noble young master.

Schultz then gave several officers a demonstration of what a "grief-stricken" should look like. He sat on the ground with no regard for his image and began to cry and curse Yuri desperately. Based on the content of his swearing, it is not difficult for the officers to come to a conclusion that the director of the Yuri plant refused to return the embezzled funds, so he committed suicide by arson. His suicide also ignited the expensive coal burning in the boiler workshop, and the boiler in the factory, which was responsible for driving the hydraulic press, was blown into the sky.

In short, when the police officers who "picked up a life" reported to the Minister of Police, they invariably mentioned a desperate fact.

In the smoothest case, the repair and installation of the boiler will also take three months. This means that in the next three months, the Russell Gear Plant will completely lose its production capacity.