Volume 2 Chapter 138 Worker issue
By noon of the next day, the caravan finally reached the Voller wolfmen tribe.
Not knowing if it was a mistake, Xu YI felt that chief Leiming Voller was treating him much more seriously this time.
Especially when facing Xu Yi, his attitude had clearly changed.
Last time chief Voller looked at Xu YI with disdain, but this time, he actually revealed a smile.
Although his wolf head smile was very ugly and even scary looking, it was enough to show his friendliness towards Xu Yi.
Of course, this was probably because he had received five hundred thousand gold coins from Xu Yi.
Even beastmen also had to live their lives.
With five hundred thousand gold coins, the Voller tribe could buy many goods they needed from humans and improve the lives of their clansmen. It would also consolidate his position as the tribe chief, so of course he was much more friendly to Xu Yi’s group.
The caravan rested at the Voller Tribe for a bit and after eating lunch, the guards and the caravans headed to the non-ferrous lodes by the Voller Tribe.
Opening a mine was not something that could be done in a day or two. According to their plans, the three companies would be building a living area by this mine and letting the workers live there.
Later when the equipment and people were transported over, the mine would be able to start operating.
According to their estimates, this would take around three to four months.
But compared to opening the mine, the real problem was with the logistics.
This mine was in the Black Rice Wasteland after all, even the Samara Town was quite a distance away. It would be difficult to send all kinds of supplies over.
For this, the three of them had come to a decision. First the Amrit Chamber of Commerce would send out a construction team who would create a road leading to the Voller Tribe from Samara Town.
Like this, they could reduce the transport time from Samara Town to the Voller tribe by half a day, avoiding the robbery attempts of the beastmen.
As for the transport of supplies, the three companies would first store them in Samara Town and transport them when they needed them.
To solve this initial problem, the Amrit Chamber of Commerce would quickly build a road between Banta City and Samara Town.
When they reached this suggestion, Xu Yi said that it was better to build a road from the Falling Rain Valley’s road to Samara Town instead.
Although it would still be quite a bit of a detour, with the total distance being increased by over ten kilometers, with the existence of the Falling Rain Road, the Amrit Chamber of Commerce wouldn’t have to build a road that was over a hundred kilometers long at once. They just needed to build a sixty to seventy kilometer road between the Falling Rain Road and Samara Town, which would without a doubt save quite a bit of money and time.
Other than supplies, the other thing troubling them was the problem with workers.
The Black Rice Wasteland was the territory of the beastmen and to most humans, beastmen were repulsive and fierce, as well they weren’t friendly to humans. So if there wasn’t a need, there would be no humans who would go to beastmen territory.
To mine this lode, they had to send many workers in the end.
But to request humans to work in beastmen territory for a long period of time, this really was forcing people.
When the three companies were recruiting workers, they even promised a high wage that was close to thirty gold coins a month.
Even like this, there were far from enough human workers who were willing to come.
The three discussed this issue and each time they discussed it, they felt like there was no way forward.
The three of them could only take their time and under the enticement of the high wages, recruit enough human workers.
But arriving at the Voller Tribe and seeing the change in attitude of chief Leiming Voller, Xu Yi immediately thought of a new possibility.
After having lunch, Xu Yi met with chief Voller and gave him his request.
“You want our clansmen to work for you?” Chief Voller’s wolf eyes opened wide as he looked at Xu Yi in surprise. Could it be that this human was crazy?
The relationship between humans and beastmen was just taking what each side needed. They just did some superficial deals and then there was mutual slaughter, no further relationship.
These humans opening a mine near their tribe and even paying them five hundred thousand gold coins was already enough to surprise him.
Now this human actually wanted to hire his clansmen to work for their company, this really was too strange.
“Is there a problem?” Xu Yi revealed a smile, like he couldn’t see chief Voller surprise at all, “I think that chief Voller should know that in our Frestech Chamber of Commerce, there aren’t just human workers, there are also dwarf and elf workers. If there are some more beastmen workers, do you think it would be strange?”
Chief Voller did know about this, but he still felt it was a bit strange.
“Why are those dwarves and even those hateful elves willing to work for you? Did you give them some kind of benefit?” Chief Voller asked in a curious voice.
“It’s nothing special. I just gave them work and treated them like human workers, giving them wages and benefits.” Xu Yi spread his hands as he said this.
“It’s that simple? Then those fellows are actually honestly working for your company?” Chief Voller clearly didn’t believe it.
“It’s just that simple.” Xu Yi nodded, “If you feel that you can’t accept it, whether it is the dwarves or the elves, they still need to be able to live right? Right now they can earn a stable income by working for our company and then they can buy the things they need with that wage, what isn’t good about that?”
“You’re saying…..they can use gold coins to buy what they need?” Chief Voller immediately asked.
“That’s right. This is because I have applied for labour cards for them with the Royal Parliament and when these labour cards come into effect, whether they are dwarves or elves, they will receive the same treatment as the normal human residents of the kingdom. So of course they can buy what they need.” After pausing, Xu Yi added, “Of course, there are some things that even humans can’t easily buy, so they can’t buy it either.”
“Labour card? It’s that powerful?” Chief Voller had a deep interest in this “labour card”. He had Xu Yi explain it to him for a while before he finally understood what it was.
“This means that…..if our clansmen work for your company and you apply for labour cards for us, we can use gold coins to buy things from your human world? You guarantee that we’ll be paying exactly the same as humans when we buy things?” Chief Voller asked.
“I can’t guarantee this.” Xu Yi shook his head, “But I can guarantee that if the product has a price tag of one gold coin and humans pay one gold coin when buying it, beastmen with labour cards can also buy it for one gold coin. Merchants won’t charge you extra just because you’re beastmen.”
“That is enough!” Chief Voller slapped the table and his wolf face filled with joy, “You damn human merchants…..Oh, sorry chairman Xu, I’m not talking about you. In short, when we went to your human world to buy things, we could only use items to exchange for items and couldn’t use money at all. There were many times that we used things that we knew were worth a lot in your human world, but we had no other choice. If we didn’t exchange them, the human merchants wouldn’t trade with us. If there is this labour card, that would be much better.”
Xu Yi revealed a faint smile, “Chief Voller, you’re worried about your five hundred thousand gold coins?”
Chief Voller opened his large mouth and laughed into the sky.
Although Xu Yi’s group had paid them five hundred thousand gold coins for this non-ferrous lode, as a wolfman, chief Voller knew that if he wanted to use this five hundred thousand to buy things that the tribe needed, he would be taken advantage of, so he was worried that this five hundred thousand gold coins wasn’t enough.
But now that Xu Yi had mentioned this labour card thing, he began to see hope.
“Chairman Xu, if you can help me, I can agree to your request and have the clansmen work for you.” Chief Voller said.
Xu Yi smiled. Seeing the look of hope on chief Voller’s face, he didn’t need to guess what he needed help with.
“I’m afraid I really can’t help you with this, you should discuss this with chairman Renersa.”
“Renersa?” Chief Voller blasted out steam from his nose as he gave a cold snort, “That despicable human has already tricked us for long enough, could it be you want me to believe in him?”
“There’s no other way.” Xu Yi spread his hands and helplessly said, “Chairman Renersa and I are partners, I can’t hide the fact that I reached an agreement with you from him. The Renekton Chamber of Commerce is in charge of trade between beastmen and humans, so if I agree to this, there might not be the possibility of cooperating between chairman Renersa and me.”
“But if you don’t agree to this, there’s no possibility of cooperation between us.” Chief Voller said without any politeness.
“No, chief Voller, things are not this absolute.” Xu Yi was unmoved as he said with the same smile, “Although I can’t promise to solve this problem for you, I can discuss this with chairman Renersa for you and make him meet your needs. What do you think?”
Chief Voller looked at Xu Yi doubtfully, “You really want to help me?”
“To be more accurate, I want to help everyone on the premise of achieving my goal. I named this win-win before, but now it is winning for everyone.”
Chief Voller thought about it before giving a slow nod.