Chapter 111 The Correct Way to Ask for Salary

Spain was the world's first empire on which the sun never set. At its peak, its land area reached 3150 million square kilometers. In the process of overseas colonization, Spanish colonists used brutal means to plunder wealth unprecedented in human history.

During that hundred years, gold and silver were like blessings from God, intoxicating the Spaniards. From kings to civilians, from officials to adventurers, everyone was crazy about them.

By the end of the 16th century, 83% of the world's precious metals belonged to Spain, and it could buy anything it wanted around the world.

However, wealth is a double-edged sword. With the continuous influx of wealth into Spain, the government felt that the investment cycle in industry and commerce was too long and the profits were too low, and it was not worth paying attention to at all.

Spain's domestic industry and commerce did not progress and could not produce abundant goods to supply the market, so the Spaniards had to bring precious metals such as gold and silver to buy goods from Britain, France and the Netherlands.

So, beneath the splendor of gold and silver in the Americas, Spain was actually in a tragic situation of raging fire.

As time went on, inflation dealt a devastating blow to Spain's underdeveloped industry and commerce.

Because rising prices cause rising prices of raw materials and labor, which further increases the cost of handicraft products, the selling price entering the market will inevitably increase as well.

The result is that no one is interested in Spanish products.

Later, Portugal, the Netherlands, and now the United Kingdom followed suit.

This may be the curse of a powerful country.

The share of industrial output in the British Empire gradually decreased, and technological development began to lag behind Germany and the United States.

Today, even the financial hegemony has suffered a devastating blow and challenge, and the military advantage has been narrowed by other powers with the decline of industry and economy.

In 1919, the British War Cabinet stipulated: "As part of the economic austerity campaign, the military departments should prepare their budgets on the assumption that the British Empire will not engage in any major wars in the next ten years, that there will be no need to send expeditionary forces, and that there will be no major wars for ten years.

It was still in effect until 1932 because the ruling authorities insisted that "financial and economic dangers are the most serious and urgent dangers that the country must deal with, and other dangers must give way and wait"; they even felt that Britain's existing military strength, especially the world's most powerful navy, was enough to cope with any scale of war. Therefore, the military has been satisfied with "the technology of 1918", and military spending has dropped to "a serious situation that cannot fulfill Britain's defense obligations."

It is conceivable that the severe economic difficulties have dealt a heavy blow to military strength. The disguised deployment of focusing on economy and neglecting military by Britain not only failed to change the economic difficulties through "saving", but also caused domestic political turmoil, domestic resistance struggles one after another, and a surging wave of strikes. At the same time, it also caused frequent changes in the cabinet. In the less than 15 years before Chamberlain came to power, there was a strange phenomenon of a series of revolving door-like regime changes, which made it difficult to expect the government to implement a continuous and firm policy in the face of fascism. On the contrary, they refused to seriously consider the issue of war in any way.

British Public Party leader Attlee once declared: "We will never agree to use force as a means of enforcing policy."

This undoubtedly meant that Germany's future threats of force could only be dealt with through "peace and quiet" and "compromise and concession", which was also one of the reasons for the subsequent implementation of the appeasement policy.

On the other hand, there was a social trend of anti-war and peace-seeking. In World War I, 600 million British people directly participated in the war, with 244 million casualties. Both sides of the war spent $1800 billion, countless towns were reduced to ruins, and the finances of various countries were in a depression.

The terrible war massacre affected almost every family in the country, and it had a huge impact on the British people's traditional social psychology of peace of mind and security.

People expressed great disgust and weariness towards war, and went on to express fear of the disasters that war brought, forming a powerful social trend of anti-war and peace-seeking.

In 1936, a British pacifist organization conducted a public opinion poll, which showed that 90% of people refused to participate in the war. The anti-war and peace-seeking ideas were deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

Faced with the anti-war and peace-seeking trend of "social peace", the British government had to adjust its foreign policy. They believed that "war is meaningless". Regarding the Munich tragedy, British Prime Minister Chamberlain even believed that "allowing Germany to recover its territory can maintain long-term friendly, peaceful and stable relations between Britain and Germany, leading to the conclusion of a wide range of agreements, appeasing dissatisfied countries, and thus achieving long-term peace", and declared that "this is the peace of our time".

The social trend of "anti-war and seeking peace" was the breeding ground for the British ruling class to pursue appeasement.

That is why great men say that imperialism is a paper tiger. On the one hand, they are very rich, so they are afraid of war and only want to protect their existing interests. They will compromise and give in to slightly tougher enemies.

On the one hand, they were addicted to luxurious and decadent life, lacked the will to fight, were not enterprising in science and technology, and gradually lost their advantage in weapons and equipment.

By seeing the strengths and weaknesses of these colonial powers, we can constantly test their bottom line. Since we can implement a policy of appeasement towards Germany, Longhan Kingdom can also use this method to gain part of the benefits of its own rise.

As long as it is not a core interest, Longhan Kingdom can take the opportunity to take it first. In the eyes of people of this era, many lands are nothing but useless and will also drag down the local economy.

Didn't the British Empire give up almost all of its colonies after World War II in order to restore its domestic economy as quickly as possible, although there were other reasons as well.

But Zhang Feng understood that only with vast land and a large population could they become a force that could not be ignored in the post-war world.

Although it is a bit late at this point, we should take what we can get, and we also have to consider whether we can afford it.

The whole country of Longhan is busy now, and everyone is contributing his or her own part to the country.

However, how much benefit they can finally get from it depends on the will of the upper class, because they control the distribution of all the benefits of this country. Normally, as long as you work hard, you can get rich through hard work, and this is also what Longhan State promotes.

Newspapers, movies, banners and slogans on the walls of various factory workshops, etc., undoubtedly tell these hardworking and kind-hearted ordinary people that their efforts will definitely be rewarded as they wish.

Then is this actually the case?
First of all, the Zhang family, with more than 20 people, has obtained at least half of the benefits of the entire country.

Government officials, wealthy businessmen, scientific and technological talents, and corporate executives gain the remaining nine levels of benefits.

Ordinary people who actually produce almost all the benefits can only get a meager salary that is barely enough to support their families.

When the country is in a period of rapid development and is enjoying dividends, they cannot enjoy the dividends. When the economy is experiencing a downturn, they need to hand over their remaining meager profits to support the upper class.

It is naturally impossible for Zhang Feng to cut himself in vain. The vested interests are very disgusted with any form of reform. Anyway, he will not be able to be president for long, so let his successor worry about it.

Moreover, the time when he took office happened to be the beginning of the development of the times. There would be no crisis in the next ten years or so. He was destined to be the founding father and wise ruler.

"Starting today, our factory will extend the working hours by 2 hours every day. Of course, there will be overtime pay. Everyone should go home and adjust well so as not to affect the company's production work."

A factory manager of Raytheon Military Industries was informed.

"Is there going to be another war?" a worker said to his colleagues.

"I think so. Otherwise, why would we have to work overtime?"

"Over the years, we have been invincible, expanding our territory every time, and our country has become more and more powerful." Someone said proudly.

"Yes, our lives will definitely get better and better. If we work overtime now, we will get more wages," said another worker with a smile.

In fact, it was not just Raytheon Military Industries that started working overtime to expand production. Almost all factories in Longhan were notified to prepare for war and produce more supplies.

Zhang Feng's company will make large acquisitions without worrying about not being able to sell them. This is certainly not because of the Mozambique plan, but to make some money from trade in the upcoming war.

From now on, Longhan Kingdom has entered a wartime economy, so as to avoid waiting until the war breaks out and not having enough time to expand production, and having to watch helplessly as others make more money.

Watching others make money is more heartbreaking than losing money yourself.

The wartime economy also allowed the Longhan Kingdom, which had already begun large-scale development, construction, and growth, to directly add rockets, with a new one almost every day.

If calculated based on the GPS growth rate, it would probably grow by several hundred percent in the next few years.

Everyone was immersed in this joy, and the government also ordered all companies to strictly implement the labor law. Overtime hours must not exceed 3 hours, overtime pay must be based on the standards of each industry, and wages must not be delayed.

The Longhan Federation of Trade Unions needs to strengthen its supervision of enterprises in each state and handle labor disputes promptly and fairly to avoid armed conflicts.

On the one hand, this is a legal requirement of Longhan Kingdom, and on the other hand, an incident with extremely bad impact occurred half a month ago.

In the Liangzhou project of Meihua Construction Company No. 5, workers' wages were not paid on time because the project manager embezzled and misappropriated public funds.

The construction workers were all strong and had hot tempers. They didn't tolerate him at all and just broke into the manager's office with rifles produced by Thor Military Industries.

The manager had actually made preparations to appease the workers and had also asked the company's security guards to stand guard at the door of their office.

But they didn't expect that they all came with guns, so the security guard had no choice but to let all the workers in. Seeing this, the manager wanted to fool them a little.

Then these workers didn't waste any time talking to him. They pointed guns at his head and told him: Either give me the money now, or your head will explode. It's your choice. I give you three seconds.

The manager had to call the head office to confess his crime after wetting his pants and then ask for help from the headquarters.

Finally, the manager was sent to the police station by the company and prosecuted. He was then ordered to return all company funds, sentenced to five years in prison, and banned from management work for life.

As for the workers' wages, Meihua Company also obtained the money from the local bank and made the payment in a timely manner, so the matter was resolved efficiently and perfectly.

(End of this chapter)