Empire of Shadows

Andy looked at Albert, his lips trembling slightly. ”I...”

He opened his mouth, but didn’t know what to say.

He couldn’t go back.

Coming here was already the result of him and his father ”burning out.” Just like Sidney, for his secretary, who was also his biological son, he had burned himself out.

He had used up all the personal connections he could, to get Owen a relatively high starting point: a state representative in the House of Representatives.

With such a starting level, it wouldn’t be too difficult for him to either continue as a representative or run for mayor of a certain district.

Andy’s father was also an old politician, but his rank wasn’t very high. However, he also knew high-ranking officials and friends.

He had burned all his personal connections to arrange for Andy to work in this unofficial international human rights investigation agency, and even to be sent to Rapa.

The effort he had put in behind the scenes was definitely not just a little bit; it was the accumulation of a lifetime.

So Andy couldn’t leave this place. This was also one of the reasons why he had always emphasized obeying Congress’s decisions. He wanted to perform well.But it was precisely the idea he wanted to express, matched with an inappropriate attitude, that had made everything a mess.

Albert was a very typical politician. He stared at Andy for a while. ”To Lance, you are just a minor character.”

He clearly knew more. ”What you need to do now is to get Lance’s forgiveness, and let him know that you have realized your mistake.”

Andy nodded. The feeling of immense panic in his chest disappeared. He looked at Albert with gratitude. ”I’ll go and apologize to him later.”

Albert nodded. He had only given him a hint. If Andy continued to do stupid things, then he wouldn’t show any mercy at all.

”The tasks Lance has given you, get them done as soon as possible. You need to show your attitude.”

”I’m not sure why you wanted to come to Rapa. This is not a simple job; it requires more flexibility.”

”You are very lacking in this aspect, so the best thing for you to do now is to treat yourself as a tool. Don’t think, don’t question, just execute, and don’t do other things you shouldn’t be doing.”

At this point, Albert stood up. ”Alright, that’s it.”

”I have to get back to work too.”

Soon, Lance saw Andy again. When Andy came, his attitude had become much better. He apologized for his recklessness with lowered brows and submissive eyes.

Lance knew this must be Albert’s idea. Of course, he didn’t intend to pursue it further.

After all, what he wanted was just a tool person. At the same time, the matter of supporting the Rapa civil anti-government forces would never fall into his hands anyway.

On the one hand, Congress needed to have complete and precise control over this matter. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have needed to arrange another visiting delegation to come over and do this specifically; they could have just let Lance do it.

Arranging for special people to do it meant that they wanted to keep records, to ensure that they could trace the specific content of a certain transaction at any time. Even the content of the conversation had to be available.

Lance couldn’t possibly be that meticulous.

Secondly, Lance actually wasn’t too willing to get involved in this kind of thing. This practice of funding certain organizations to subvert their country’s regime was something that would be spat upon in any country.

Even in the Federation, if this matter was exposed, people would also spit on the person who had formulated the plan, and the person who had executed it.

He didn’t want to become the ”mastermind,” nor did he want to become the ”executioner.” He was now an invisible man. His influence was at play in almost all links, but his shadow was nowhere to be found, which was very good.

So Lance forgave him, and Andy also left quickly.

It would take three days for these things to be transferred from the Federation. By the time they reached Pedro’s hands, it might be a week later.

A little later in the day, Roger took the initiative to come and find Lance.

During this period, Roger had been busy with the matter of building the factory. For 70% of his life, he had been the one who was exploited and oppressed.

Now, having turned into a rich man, he had naturally become the one who exploited and oppressed others.

Although he had rich experience in being exploited and oppressed, to want to smoothly transform this into the experience of exploiting and oppressing others might still require a process.

”There’s a little trouble at the factory.”

Lance gave him a cigarette. ”What trouble?”

”Is someone deliberately finding trouble with you, or are the officials finding trouble with you?”

In Lance’s opinion, the trouble a factory encountered was only of these two kinds.

Someone was envious of their factory, so some locals had gathered together to find trouble with the factory. This kind of situation, let alone in a place like Rapa, even existed in the Federation.

They would say that because of the toxic air emitted by the factory, they couldn’t breathe, their family couldn’t breathe, their dog couldn’t breathe, and they needed compensation.

Even if this factory was just a manual factory that didn’t discharge any pollution, they would still say so.

What they wanted was compensation, or extra job opportunities.

There was also another situation, which was that the officials were meddling. The industries that Lance and the Empire Chamber of Commerce had invested in were all real money.

The value produced by this cheap labor was not small. It was possible that it would be targeted by some officials, who would then find trouble, and then try to get a stake.

This was also relatively common.

A prototype could also be found in the Federation, and this was also one of the reasons why the collusion between capital and politics was very deep.

On the one hand, investing in politics could bring more returns to capital, and at the same time, it also increased one’s own political risk resistance.

Roger and his group had not yet formally come into contact with the local management, the ruling group, so it was possible that someone had come to force him, to allow those people to have a stake.

It was just that his guess was wrong, because none of these constituted trouble.

What constituted trouble was, on the contrary, the ordinary workers!

”Some of the workers... their work attitude is very bad. They are always trying to find ways to slack off.”

”At first, it was just a small group of people, but soon, more and more people started to do this. This kind of behavior will ’infect’ others.”

”I had originally thought that these workers, having obtained a high-paying job, would work very hard.”

”But after a short period of novelty, their work efficiency has clearly dropped a lot.”

”I asked them to speed up their work, and they would deliberately damage some raw materials, forcing me to have to slow down the production speed.”

”I’m a little unsure of what to do now, or whether I should fire them?”

”The proportion of locals in the factory is too large. I’m a little worried if they will make trouble, so I haven’t done so for the time being. I want to hear your thoughts and opinions.”

To say that he wanted to hear Lance’s thoughts and opinions, in the end, was to ask for help.

”Is it a certain factory, or a general phenomenon?”

Roger replied, ”At present, the situation is more serious in the cigar factory. Other factories have also begun to show such signs. It’s not easy to handle in terms of management.”

”We can’t keep staring at a certain person. As long as our attention is not on them, they will immediately slack off.”

Lance had built a cigar factory here. Because of the special climate of the Yalan continent, this place had become a natural paradise for plants!

There were many of the world’s top plant-producing areas here, and they were widely distributed, and the area was not small.

Rapa had a large piece of land that was very suitable for growing tobacco leaves, and now it was also planted with tobacco leaves.

Lance had bought a large piece of land, and then had shoveled away the ordinary tobacco leaves on it. He had bought some of the top tobacco from other places and had transplanted them here.

This would require waiting until after July before the first harvest could be carried out.

But a brand cannot only have top-quality tobacco. Not everyone can afford to smoke a cigar that costs a few dollars, a dozen or so, or even more.

So Lance was also, from the hands of the local tobacco farmers, buying some tobacco to make cigars.

Tobacco and alcohol will never be separated, and the profit from tobacco is also very large. The cost of a single cigar may only be a few cents.

But as long as it is packaged well, and a good story is told, and it is placed in an exquisite box that costs far more than it, and is placed in the most conspicuous position on the counter, its price will be flipped by several hundred, several thousand times!

A cigar with a production cost of about twenty or thirty cents, after being crowned with the title of ”top-grade,” it’s not difficult to sell it for a dozen or so.

Even if it’s sold for more than a hundred, I’m afraid it’s not impossible.

The world is never short of some top rich people, who are willing to take out a wealth that is incredible in the eyes of ordinary people, to improve their personal enjoyment.

This is a realm, a realm that ordinary people can never reach in their lifetime.

It’s not that ordinary people’s ideological awareness is not enough, but simply that they don’t have the money.

The federal mainland also has top-grade tobacco-producing areas, and the area is not small, but this part of the place is firmly controlled by the federal tobacco groups, and outsiders can’t get in.

Rapa just so happens to have excellent soil and an environment, and all the necessary conditions for the growth of top-grade tobacco leaves, which is why Lance had such an idea.

The cost of trial and error is very low.

First, to produce some low-end cigars to increase the proficiency of the workers, and at the same time, to test the market situation.

Lance had a strong confidence in the sales of cigars, because the sales of Gold Label Whiskey were very good. They could be bundled together for sale, and then with some operational means, it was just a matter of time to open up the market.

The plan was good, but the workers didn’t seem to be very cooperative. At least, the fact that the production was affected by the workers’ slacking was not among the many ”possibilities” he had considered before.

This was an unforgivable problem. It wasn’t that he had any dissatisfied views on the workers, but that they had taken this money, and they should have done their own share of the work well!

His fingers tapped on the desk. ”Then let’s change the ’transaction’ method. Change to a piece-rate system for remuneration.”

”In our current production plan, how many cigars do they need to make every day?”

Roger said almost immediately, ”Our plan is for each person to produce a hundred, but in fact, they can only produce thirty or forty.”

”Then let’s stipulate that to produce a full 100 a day, you can get a remuneration of forty cents (Federal Sols).”

”If the number of production does not meet 100, the number of production will be accumulated to the next day.”

”If 100 are produced in two days, then 40 cents will be paid. If it’s still not enough, then it will continue to be accumulated.”

”If you don’t meet the standard for a month, and you don’t reach a certain number, then let them get lost.”

Listening to these changes of Lance’s, Roger asked in a low voice, ”What if they make trouble...”

Lance glanced at him. ”The whips that were given to the foremen are not for them to look good. Have the foremen swing their whips. In addition, I will have the factory’s security guards cooperate with you.”

Roger nodded and agreed.

The piece-rate wage system did exist in the Federation, but its scope of application was not large, because of the existence of the union in the Federation.

A portion of the unions believed that the piece-rate wage system was a more cruel way of exploiting the labor force, so most of the formal employees in the factories did not participate in the piece-rate wage system. Only some temporary workers would participate.

For example, the common pickers in an orchard. They need to, in a short period of time, to pick the ripe fruits, and to process them centrally.

Maybe an orchard only has one picking opportunity a year. Usually they don’t need so many pickers, so these workers are all temporary.

The orchard will, according to the different varieties of the fruit, give them a piece-rate wage. For example, some of the fruits are relatively small, and it is more troublesome to pick them, so it may be a little more.

For example, two cents a pound.

For example, some of the fruits are relatively large, and are easy to pick. It may be two or three pounds or even more for one cent. There are also those that are calculated by the number of fruits.

Among the formal workers, there are very few such calculation methods.

In Lance’s factory, on the assembly line, the workers’ movements all looked very slow. A single process would take a long time.

A few of the workers would, from time to time, wink at each other, with a smile on their faces.

This was indeed a good job. The salary was high enough, and it was not hard, nor did it require being exposed to the wind and rain. There was only one thing that was not good—it was too easy to get sleepy!

The workers began to pack up the things on their desks. They would sort out the different tobacco leaves and put them in their proper place, and after packing them into a special bag and tying it up, they would leave.

As for the cigars that had already been made, someone would come in a while to collect them from the cigar rack.

The workers left in groups. When they had arrived at the factory entrance, they had found that many people were gathered here, in front of the bulletin board.

To watch the fun has always been a hobby that is in people’s bones. More and a more people had gathered around. Soon, under the promotion of some of the busybodies, more and more people had known what had happened.

The factory was about to change the company’s calculation method.

The wages they had worked for so far would be settled according to the monthly salary system.

From tomorrow on, the factory would adopt a piece-rate wage system. When the number of 100 a day was read out, the faces of many of the workers had changed!

Now, for most of the workers, it would take about seven or eight minutes to make a cigar. Some of the ones with a flexible mind, and whose hands could also cooperate, could make one in six, or even five minutes.

But even so, in an hour, at most, they could only make seven or eight. After working for ten hours without a break, they could only make seventy or eighty.

To be able to make 100, it would take at least twelve hours or more, and that was the kind of continuous work!

Just to think about it, it had made people feel that it was unbearable!

Immediately, some of the workers had shouted ”this is not reasonable,” and had hoped that the factory’s side could give them an explanation.

The local manager was standing in front of the bulletin board, telling them loudly that this was the company’s decision!

At least 2,500 cigars had to be made every month. If it was less than this number, you would be fired.

The people became even more dissatisfied. They had originally thought that they had found a job for their old age, but suddenly it had turned into ”hell mode.” How could they possibly accept it?