From Chief to Ball

The original stock collection office of the Standard Oil monopoly workshop gathered many people every day, handed in silver coins according to the process, and got a stock with a name printed on it that could not be transferred within three years.

The funds raised for next year's shipping venture capital will be sold out early, and those who are not in their turn will choose to invest the money in the Standard Oil monopoly workshop. No matter how you calculate it, this is a business that is sure to make money, and Chen Jian He also made a promise that even if he didn't make any money after three years, he would return all the stocks according to [-]% of the income.

With such a promise, with boats and workshops as the pillars, and fame and reputation as the reassurance, no one is worried that their money will not be recovered.

A large amount of cash has been concentrated in Chen Jian's hands, and no one supervises how he will use the money. Anyway, he has earned money from many seemingly useless things before, and people will only think that they have no vision.

At this time, it will be the season of cotton purchase. As long as there is no continuous rain this year, it will be a bumper cotton harvest year.People in the Cotton Spinning Guild are busy preparing for this year's cotton purchase, secretly thanking Chen Jian for the cotton gin that they can make more money this year, but ignoring the fact that Chen Jian has hidden it under the name of the Standard Oil monopoly workshop. big money.

In the past two years, many people in Mincheng have experienced ups and downs, some became rich overnight, and others became hired workers overnight, but the speculative boom that was stopped in time and did not expand has not faded.

The middle-class citizens and the upper class are thinking about how to make money, how to make money faster.The ground floor is busy with everyday life.

What happened in that remote mine was a major event for the Mo party, but for Mincheng, if the situation in previous years was followed, it would not even be a splash.

However, this year is not the same as previous years. When people with good intentions contribute to the flames, especially when some people with money, pens and grassroots organizations want to contribute to the flames, everything is different.

The results of the discussion by the 13-member emergency committee of the Mexican Party were kept secret from the outside world. Even internal members only knew that a picket team of more than 60 people had been transferred from the wharf, Chen Jian's workshop, and the canal.

As Hu Lin said, the law does not punish the mind.

However, morality, public opinion, and writing have the power to punish the mind that the law does not have.

The tabloids controlled by the black elements perfectly took advantage of the loopholes in the law, and displayed everything that happened in the mine to the people of Mincheng with lightning speed and provocative writing power.

With money, people, and organization, it's much easier to stir up emotions.The lower class without money has no time and energy to safeguard their own interests and the so-called justice, but what they lack is obtained by a group of people who are full.

For a while, the streets and alleys of Mincheng were full of denunciations against the sheriff of the mining area and the mine owner Wang's family. It can indeed be said that it was unintentional and therefore not guilty according to the law. However, the direction of public opinion in the tabloids is not to pursue those people Instead, I hope that the council will allow coal mines to establish employee associations, improve the accountability mechanism, and prevent such things from happening again.

Everything is reasonable and legal, and there is neither smashing nor violence. This incident has aroused the concern of many people, including those who split off from the Holy Moral Alliance, and this time they also gave support to the party they withdrew from.

The miserable life in the mining area there was written tearfully with a single pen, and the organization of the Mexican Party in Fujian City quickly took the road of non-violent petitions.

Collecting middle and low-level signatures, giving speeches on the street, lobbying celebrities, communicating with members of the council, etc., like sparks falling into kerosene, quickly triggered an upsurge among Fujianese.

Except for those thirteen, no one knew that this was not for the mining area, nor for the alleviation of conflicts, nor for a compromise request for good-faith support, but to prepare for the intensification of conflicts.

If you want to be on the political stage in a fair manner, you must do something big, and claim responsibility for it by the way.

The seventh day of November is a normal day for most people, but it is not normal for some other people in Mincheng who really have the power to influence the situation.

This day is the season when cotton around Min County officially begins to be purchased.

The Cotton Spinning Guild did not want to provoke Chen Jian, so it knew that some cooperatives or lobbyists of the Mexican Party members had indeed grown cotton, but they did not extend their tentacles there.

Since the appearance of the cotton gin, the amount of cotton planted has also increased significantly in places where non-Mexico Party members are active.After discussing within the Cotton Spinning Guild, they decided not to provoke these lunatics. Although the profit is tempting, if there is a conflict, I am afraid that both parties will not look good.

After all, Chen Jian is not someone who only has [-] silver coins and seems to be involved in this industry, and he is not standing with three or five people, but a large group of people.

However, their retreat did not allow Chen Jian and the people in the trading company to maintain their dignity. Instead, regardless of their face and the hidden rules of the past, they extended their hands to the cotton planting areas that were monopolized by the cotton spinning guild in the past.

Both sides had weapons and did not make any moves, and the group of people in the trading company were even more shameless. They completely ignored the rules of the guild and raised the price of lint by [-]% on the same day. If there is no time for ginning, the seed cotton is purchased directly, and only a part of the processing fee is charged.

In the eyes of the people in the Cotton Spinning Guild, this is simply lawlessness. It has been like this for so many years. Before starting the acquisition, the dental dealers, middlemen, ginning workshops, speculators, etc. met together and agreed on the purchase price for this year. , share this cake and make a fortune.

It has been like this for so many years, no one dares to violate the rules, anyone who violates the rules will lose his family and die, making you untenable in Mincheng.

But this year all the rules have been disrupted, this is completely against the Cotton Spinning Guild, this is a life-and-death war.

There is only one winner, and if you win, you can take it all, and you will take it all forever.If you lose, you dare not say that you have nothing, but you will never dare to get involved in this industry in the future.

In the eyes of the people in the Cotton Spinning Guild, Chen Jian was hitting a stone with an egg.

Money is on the one hand, and on the other hand, it is the survival of various people directly related to the Cotton Spinning Association. This is also a bargaining chip. In their view, Chen Jian has no possibility of winning.

When it got to that point, the guild announced the closure of the alliance and put all the responsibility on Chen Jianjian. The weavers and yarn workers in the family workshops would not care about how many good things the business company had done, but would vent their anger and smash it to pieces.

But on the official side... how dare they make Mincheng mess up?

But this is the worst plan. Before this, it was still more profitable than the mouthful of money, but this situation has never happened before. The Cotton Spinning Guild is complicated or has a deliberative system. In terms of efficiency, it can't compare with one person A trading company that does what it says and an enthusiastic young man who declares to make more people live better.

……

On the same day, Hulin, along with sympathizers of the Mo Party and some enlightened celebrities in Fujian City, held a petition signed by many people, went to the county council, and asked the council to hold a special meeting to pass the petition. proposal.

The Mexican party has begun to extend its minions to places where the authorities have not reached, and has begun to erode slowly, but it has not touched its core interests and will not immediately attract strong opposition. After all, it is still standing on the commanding heights of public opinion and morality.

This is a situation that the various bureaucrats in Min County have never encountered. They don't know how to deal with it. Even if there were troubles in the past, there was no organization behind them to support them secretly.

The past experience seems to be invalid at this moment, and I don't know how to deal with this matter at all.

This feeling of helplessness and helplessness did not start from this day, but from the time when the orchid trend broke down. Massive riots.

Slow response, overwhelmed, shirking responsibility, looking for a scapegoat but not finding... These questions are like a bright red slap, firmly imprinted on the faces of Mincheng officials.

The previous turmoil has alarmed the higher authorities, and because there are too many legends about Mincheng, the central organization at a higher level has sent people to Minjun for investigation. They will not interfere with the normal government affairs of Minjun, just as observers.

The experience of the old era cannot guide the new era. Facing the petitions submitted by hundreds of people who were instigated, Mincheng is already in chaos and has no time to deal with the wailing of the big merchants of the Cotton Spinning Guild. Things are handled well.

"Let's leave the matter of the merchants to you merchants. Is it possible that we have to issue a decree to stipulate that cotton can only be sold to you?"

The officials of Fujian County, who were deeply disturbed by this incident, responded to the request of the Cotton Spinning Guild. Looking at the petition submitted by Hu Lin and others, their heads were as big as a bucket.

One-third of the officials in the council appoint quotas, and whether they can pass most of them depends on the attitude of the officials.

However, how could those coal mine owners agree to these requests?

If you lean towards this petition, Min County will be in chaos. Who can take responsibility for so many industries that rely on coal for their survival?Burning pottery, reeling silk, dyeing, smelting iron, forging, anchoring, daily necessities... almost all walks of life in Fujian are involved. The members of the council are basically these big workshop owners and big businessmen, and they are obviously worried For their own interests, they stand on the side of the coal mine owners and do not want any situation to arise.

In favor of coal mine owners, public opinion has completely favored those miserable miners, and public opinion has been instigated by organized and planned financial support. Who will bear the responsibility by then?The mine owner has benefited, but officials are responsible for all the blame, so what can we do?If there is a civil uprising, Mincheng is already in a bad place. Things have happened frequently in the past two years, and Nan'an next to it is like a magical cave that sucks labor and money. In contrast, once the public opinion is overwhelming It's still me.

The ruin was the oaths made when the country was first established. Although the grave of the person who established the country did not know where he died, no one dared to completely deny the oaths made at the beginning, at least it was not easy to violate it on the surface.

Ambitious people are everywhere, some people dare to violate their own will and some people pick up this thing, whether they really think so or not, but the bones can always be pulled up and used on the body.

It's a dilemma, but I can't make peace with each other.Where are you standing?A choice must be made, there is no third way.

1Chapter 17 Seventh day of November

On the seventh day of November, with Nan'an as the center, members of the labor associations of all nearby mines and mines that have established labor associations received good news.

The previous mining disaster was spread by the members of the Mexican party, and spread to these mining areas at a speed far exceeding the normal information dissemination speed of this era, especially the Nan'an mining area where the employment association was established earlier and Chen Jian spent more money.

The cognitive community formed by the same fate and the same tragic memory made these miners feel more empathy for the mining disaster in the distant Lin County than ordinary people.

In the past few days, they would gather at the Employment Association every night to listen to the progress there, and sing the song composed by the miners asking them which side you are on.

November has just arrived, and in a routine storytelling, the Employers Association talked about the riot that happened in a northern city decades ago, and learned the lessons from it.