Early the next morning, after asking his fifth senior brother An Zichun to help him guard the mountain gate for a day, Shu Guan left Shanji Guan early.
Today he specially wore a suit. The suit was borrowed from Sixth Senior Brother last night.
Last night, Sixth Senior Brother Sang Liren, who had been away from Shan Si Guan for several days, finally came back. When he came back to watch, he looked tired and went directly to the top of the cliff to find Li Zhixia.
But the second senior brother did not come back.
When Shu Guan went to the Sixth Senior Brother to borrow a suit, he couldn't help but ask.
"There's something wrong with that place, but we haven't figured it out yet. The second senior brother is still guarding there... Things may be more troublesome this time."
The Sangli man who had just come down from the master at the top of the cliff replied with a sigh, then picked out a black suit and gave it to Shu Guan.
As for the reason why Shu Guan went to Sang Liren to borrow a suit, it was because he understood very well how people depend on their clothes. If he wore his ordinary clothes to help the women in the village find jobs, he would inevitably be noticed at the first glance.
And I have to say that when Shu Guan put on a suit, he looked completely different.
Shuguan and Sangliren are about the same height, but Sangliren has a slender figure and is a bit thin. Wearing this suit on him will make him look very elegant.
But Shuguan has a body type with extremely perfect muscle lines, which cannot be seen in the loose Taoist robes. However, once he puts on a suit, his powerful figure is fully displayed. In fact, Shuguan is much better than Sangli. People can hold up this suit better. At this time, coupled with his slightly ordinary face, Geng has a masculine charm.
After getting off Guishan, Shuguan did not go back to Xintaoyuan Village, but went straight to the pier.
Because the factories he was going to visit today were all in Jiangyang District.
There are three towns in Jingcheng. Yingcheng District is the political center of Chuzhou, Jiangkou District is a commercial district, and Jiangyang District is not only garrisoned by a large number of troops, it is also an industrial district. Most of the factories in Jingcheng are concentrated in Jiangyang District. And they are basically concentrated on the riverside, facing the riverside concessions and commercial streets in Jiangkou District.
At the pier, Shu Guan bought a ferry ticket for two cents and boarded the passenger ferry. This was an old-fashioned steamship from decades ago. Each boat could seat fifty or sixty people.
Of course, there are newer steamships now, which are much more comfortable to ride than steamships, but the tickets are also three times more expensive.
The ferry was soon crowded with passengers. This small steamer could only seat more than fifty people, but Shu Guan counted at this time, and there were probably nearly a hundred people on board. They were so crowded that the outermost passengers had to He grabbed the handrail beside the string of the boat and leaned half of his body out of the boat.
It looked like the scene of Shu Guan squeezing the morning subway in his previous life, but it also gave Shu Guan a lot of intimacy.
It was early in the morning, and those driving the steamboat across the river were mostly workers working in the factories on the opposite side of the river.
Shu Guan carefully observed these workers in this world and this era, there were men and women, most of them were wearing old clothes, their eyes were numb, and there was a deep tiredness coming out of their bodies, but compared to what he had seen in Xiushui In the back alleys behind the streets, the conditions of the city's lowest-class residents who were seen in scanty clothing were slightly better. Although their clothes were old, they were at least enough to keep them warm. There was no color on their faces, which meant they were well fed.
In other words, most of these workers have no problem with food and clothing.
Shu Guan knew that letting the women in the village go to work in the factory was not the best choice, but it was the only option now. However, he would not let them work in the factory for the rest of their lives. Things had to be done step by step.
The wind and waves on the river were a bit strong today, and the small steamer, which was overloaded with nearly half of its passenger capacity, finally reached the other side after bumping on the river for more than ten minutes.
If you start from Xintaoyuan Village, walk to the pier, and then take a small train to the other side, it will take half an hour.
When getting off the boat, Shu Guan silently calculated.
When he selected the factory yesterday, the first condition was that the factory should not be too far away from Xintaoyuan Village. It was best to be within an hour, so that a two-hour round trip would not be too tiring.
Shuguan was not prepared to let the women in the village live in the factory. It was too unsafe. He was worried about a group of women who had never left Taoyuan Village living outside now.
After getting off the ferry and walking out of the pier here, Shu Guan bought a road map of the city from a stall outside the pier, and then followed the map towards the first factory he selected yesterday.
There are many man-powered rickshaws parked outside the pier, and the prices are actually not expensive. However, Shuguan had planned to walk along the route today to see how long it would take. From now on, when people in the village come to work, it is impossible to take a rickshaw every day. .
After walking for twenty minutes, Shuguan finally found the first factory he wanted to see today.
Yesterday, Shu Guan selected a total of four factories on the advertising page of "Dajiang Evening News". In addition to being close enough to his home, his second condition is that there must be enough workers. He also does not want to scatter the people in the village. Work in several factories, because the risk of accidents will also increase.
The factory opposite where he was standing now seemed to occupy quite a large area, and beside the iron gate outside the wall, on the whitewashed wall, there were seven characters "Jiang Yangming Match Factory" written on it.
Yes, the first store Shuguan visited was a match factory.
The main reason is that he actually doesn't have much choice. In addition to being close to home and having a large number of jobs, the other thing is that the women in Taoyuan Village have never left Taoyuan Village in their lives, and except for Zhang Yadan, Not one of them could read, so there weren't many jobs suitable for them at the beginning.
Lake Matchbox, the simplest job, is one of them.
Then Shuguan walked towards the "Jiang Yangming Match Factory".
Thanks to the suit he is wearing today, to be honest, Shu Guan, who came from time travel, actually has much better control over suits than many Chinese people who occasionally wear suits. His movements are extremely natural. In the eyes of ordinary Chinese people, it is full of style.
So the man standing outside the iron gate politely asked him what he was doing.
And when he heard that Shu Guan wanted to introduce more than a hundred female workers to work in the factory, he quickly opened the iron door and welcomed him in.
Then a fat middle-aged man in his early forties came to receive him.
The middle-aged man is also wearing a suit and glasses. According to his introduction, he is a first-level steward of the Match Chief Public Works Department, and his surname is Liu.
Manager Liu looked Shu Guan up and down, then asked him to make tea, and then politely asked Shu Guan how many people he could introduce to the factory.
"A hundred or so people."
This is Shu Guan's answer.
There are now more than 700 people in Taoyuan Village, of which more than 260 are women. There are only more than 100 people who can go out to work, including the elderly, the weak, the young, and the children who have to be taken care of at home. .
When Shu Guan reported the number of people, a hint of joy could clearly be seen in Manager Liu's eyes, but he still cautiously asked about the origin of the female worker introduced by Shu Guan.
"There was a disaster in the countryside at home. People in the village couldn't survive, so they had to come to the city to see if there was any work."
Shuguan smiled and gave the answer he had prepared.
What he said was actually not a lie. The original Taoyuan Village was indeed hit by a disaster, but it was caused by monsters. Manager Liu in front of him would never have imagined it.
"But now they have registered as household registration in Jingcheng."
Seeing that Manager Liu was still looking at him with some suspicion, Shu Guan added this sentence.
Manager Liu was relieved, as long as she wasn't the kind of woman who was trafficked.
Manager Liu's attitude also made Shu Guan feel relieved. At least this was not a shady factory.
Finding factory jobs for the villagers was not an impromptu idea he had made yesterday. He had spent some time in the past few days to find out about it. In particular, after asking Meng Huibao about it, he learned that there were many black-hearted factories in Jiangyang that specialized in forcing those who were Trafficked women and children, or some refugees who have lived here from other places, are locked up in the factory to work all day long, and are only provided with some simple food, squeezing the labor of those bonded workers every day and night, sometimes exhausting people to death. , just wrap it in a straw mat and throw it into the river.
Behind such black-hearted factories, there are often high-ranking officials or people with foreign backgrounds, so no one dares to take care of them.
After confirming that this was not a black-hearted factory, Shu Guan and Manager Liu entered the stage of discussing the details of the negotiation.
"Do you want to live in the factory? If you live in the factory, the monthly room and board fee will be one yuan, which will be deducted from your salary."
"Need not."
"Then a lunch is included every day? The cost is one hundred cents a month, which is also deducted from the salary."
"Can."
"We are recruiting female workers from Huhuo Box. It costs thirty cents per piece for one thousand boxes."
"How many matchboxes can a skilled female worker in your factory produce in a day?"
"If it's fast, it's five thousand, if it's slower, it's four thousand. If you're a novice, you can only get one thousand in a day. But this job is easy to get started. If you work for half a month, you will be considered a skilled worker. .”
...Well, based on the average of 3,000 at the beginning, that’s 90 cents a day. After deducting the 40 cents for the daily ferry fee, and then deducting the food expenses, you can earn about 80 cents a day, which is 240 cents a month. According to the exchange price of 1:180 silver dollars and copper horns in the City of Thorns, that is about one and a half silver dollars.
An ordinary family of four in Jingcheng spends about three or four silver dollars a month.
If the woman in the family can earn one and a half silver dollars a month, plus the young men in the village working on the dock, they can also earn two or three silver dollars a month. If this is added up, although the income will not save much money, it can still maintain Daily life is enough.
"What about working hours?"
"I arrive at the factory at seven in the morning and leave at five in the afternoon. I take a ten-minute break for lunch. I can take one day off every month."
Ten hours of work a day, plus two hours of traveling back and forth, which means it takes about twelve hours.
Hard work is certainly very hard, but who doesn’t live hard?
Even in the era he traveled to, there were still many people working overtime at 996 every day, or delivering food all day long, and they could only make ends meet.
What's more, in this era, those who can live a life of food and clothing are considered lucky.
Moreover, when the villagers of Taoyuan Village were in the mountains, they also had to get up early and go home late every day to work in the fields, which was not much easier than working in a factory.
"no problem."
Shu Dian nodded.
"If that's okay, when will we sign the contract?"
Manager Liu said with a smile.
"Tomorrow, I'll go back and discuss it first. It's okay to come see Manager Liu tomorrow so you can sign the contract."
…
After saying goodbye to Manager Liu, Shu Guan left the match factory, walked out of the big iron gate, then walked in a circle to the wall behind the factory area. He took out an invisibility charm he had received from Senior Brother An yesterday and stuck it on it. on his chest, and then stepped into the wall.
Although I heard from Manager Liu that there should be nothing wrong with this factory, I still had to go in and see for myself.
