New Shun 1730

There was an endless stream of children and parents applying for jobs. Ten-year-old children were led by their parents to the recruitment office in front of the train station, constantly saying good things, hoping that the recruiter would accept their children.

The best option was to work in a coal mine, where the salary was the highest.

The worst option was to make coal balls. Although this could indeed solve the family's difficulties, as they still had to burn coal for heating in winter, the money earned was still too little compared to working in a coal mine.

Just as Liu Yu added a clause in the Songsu reform, half of the salary for women working was paid by their parents or parents-in-law. This greatly alleviated the rate of abandoned babies in the Songsu area, especially the rate of abandoned female babies, and some nurseries and other places began to be run by people, after all, they could work as soon as they reached the age.

In general, the madams had to be around ten years old to buy people, grown up, and at least look decent before buying them. Otherwise, there are a lot of adults in good families, and those who buy them from childhood must be trained to become high-priced commodities, otherwise, won’t it be a loss?

The development of the textile industry in Songsu area makes it possible to make money even if you raise them from childhood and sell them as livestock when they grow up. Therefore, the rate of abandoned baby girls and the mortality rate of abandoned babies have been greatly reduced.

Capital alienates people into labor for sale, and the labor sold on behalf of others can be calculated based on market trends, food prices, wage levels, etc., whether it is a loss or profit to adopt a child.

It is similar here in Beijing.

The opening of railways, the use of coal, the mining of coal and lime mines, the expansion of iron smelting, the popularization of iron furnaces, the emergence of cement, and the popularization of chimneys have all made the originally "worthless" children have a certain value.

This place is different from Kanto. Kanto has more land. Even if children do not go to school, they go to the fields to cut grass for pigs, feed pigs, herd cattle and sheep, or pick beans and dig potatoes in autumn. The value they create for the family is generally higher than rubbing coal balls in Beijing.

However, near the capital, the rich are really rich, and the poor are really poor. The poor tenants have so little land that they can't pick beans. Even if they lick three or five acres of land, seven or eight acres of land, they can lick them up quickly, and they can't create any value at all.

It has reached the limit of small-scale peasant production - this is not an exaggeration. Dashun's per-acre yield at this time is the world's first, including the British agricultural revolution, which is said to lay the foundation for the industrial revolution. The per-acre yield is still not as good as Dashun. The data is there. To surpass Dashun, we have to wait until the Chilean saltpeter mine is developed as fertilizer - in this extreme state, increasing the labor force is useless.

Of course, this is to say that in the state of small farmers, if we organize and transform those ineffective labor into repairing water conservancy projects and irrigation, then of course we can continue to increase production. The problem is that with Dashun's fragmented organizational ability, it is a foolish dream to be able to collect taxes with such a large foundation and almost not as much as Britain.

It is better to send a child to work in a coal mine to supplement the family income than to raise him at home and feed him.

Looking at the vibrant scene in front of him, Niu Er was still very excited.

He didn't know what the future should be like.

But from the experience of Songsu and other places, the large-scale employment of child labor seems to be a sign of a new era.

After all, it is impossible for people to imagine things they have never seen. When he saw these familiar scenes he had seen in Songsu, he felt that the industry and commerce here were developing very well, and they were one step closer to the future.

After all, from the beginning to the end, what the future will look like is invisible, but only described by Liu Yu. Europe is not advanced at present, it is all based on imagination.

Since it is imagination, what characteristics should this future drawn from the perspective of pure productivity have?

From the experience of Songsu area, there must be three surface characteristics.

Black smoke.

Idle people.

Female workers and child workers.

This is a railway station, there must be black smoke.

Coal needs to be packaged and transported here, and there are of course idle people.

Add to that a large number of child laborers, and this is the vitality and development of all things in Niu Er's eyes.

Not far away is the station building built with lime and cement, black and gray in color, with a huge clock hanging on it.

The black coal mines and white lime and cement, symbolizing the industrial age, were unloaded by those strong unloading workers.

Many flatbed trucks waiting here will pull these goods to the coal yard in the city.

Under the huge clock, many children in their teens surrounded their employers, waiting to be selected like livestock.

People from the practical school with a pilgrimage mentality, mixed with those people in Beijing who wanted to go to Jingxi to burn incense and worship Buddha, lined up at the simple ticket office, waiting to take the unloaded car.

Either go to Jingxi, or just to experience the process of rumbling forward with black smoke.

The yamen runners who maintain order are driving away beggars who try to get on the car, and they directly hit their heads with sticks.

This is not a prejudice against beggars themselves.

Rather, these beggars who go to the west of Beijing are professional beggars who are looking for trouble to make a living.

Whenever they hear that a coal mine is opening, they will go to cheer.

They will definitely sing something nice.

But if they finish singing something nice and don’t pay, or don’t pay much, they will start singing some songs about “death”, “landslide”, “flooding” and the like.

Their song goes:

Once you enter the kiln factory, it’s all white, no black coal comes out, only slag comes out.

Wearing mourning clothes, they are all white, and if you go in, three of ten will be crushed to death.

Three are buried, three are carried, and three cannot get up.

The kitchen is like a coffin shop, and the storeroom is like a coffin storage.

There are four sheds of sutras in the altar, and the nun Lama is an old Taoist monk.

Those who are in deep mourning are not their own flesh and blood, pretending to cry with red eyes...

Generally speaking, killing is against the law.

This kind of beggars are the most feared group of people in the coal mine, so they simply give some money to the people at the train station and beg them to help deal with it.

After all, the mortality rate is really high, and no one wants to be called a funeral when opening a business.

If people who don’t know the specific situation come to the station here and see the yamen runners beating beggars, it is inevitable that people will think it is really cruel.

Fortunately, everyone here is from Dashun. They have seen a lot of such things and understand what they are, so they don’t think it’s strange.

Nowadays, the coal mines in the west of Beijing cannot be visited, so these professional beggars choose to howl at the train station. Whenever there is a recruitment, they go there to sing wedding songs. If they don’t give money, they won’t even go to the coal mines, and they will start to cry funeral songs directly at the recruitment place.

Some people who want to work may refuse to go after hearing such a howl. Therefore, it is not only the coal mining area in the west of Beijing that is catching beggars, but also the capital has begun to drive them away.

Since there are beggars, there are also opera singers and prostitutes from the lower nine classes, who are willing to go there to make money. When they get there, the opera singers set up a stage to perform, and the prostitutes rent a big kang there to be responsible for their own profits and losses. The management there is loose, while those in the capital have to pay donations to do this business.

People who sell vegetables near the station, sell eggs and melon seeds with baskets, or want to take some goods to sell in the mining area in the west of Beijing, also gather here.

Even though the railway has not been opened for a long time, people have become accustomed to the existence of this thing and have begun to adapt to life with it.

However, life with this thing may not be all good.

When Liu Yu and Niu Er arrived at this station, even though they had very streamlined the entourage, there were many people here who studied practical knowledge and recognized Liu Yu.

After the greeting, everything seemed normal.

However, some people in the crowd in the distance gnashed their teeth when they heard Liu Yu's name.

A middle-aged man named Xiangzi couldn't help spitting on the ground when he heard people shouting "Xingguo Gong" in the distance.

Several people next to him also cursed in a low voice: "When will this man die? Why is he still alive? Dog thief, traitor!"

There were more than a few people cursing, but many people just looked at the guns and bayonets of the guards in the distance, had to lower their heads, and continued to carry the heavy coal basket.

Before the railway was built, Xiangzi was a common camel driver in the capital.

His family didn't have much money. When he was a child, he worked with the camel team. His job was to transport coal or lime from the Jingxi Coal Mine to the city with camels.

Every worker had a dream at this time, that is, to save money and become a petty bourgeois.

Buy a camel of your own, and slowly save money with your camel driving skills and the face accumulated from selling coal over the years.

One camel becomes two, two becomes four, four becomes a bunch, a bunch becomes a string, and I will have my own camel team in the future.

The capital needs coal, lime, and even firewood, all of which must be pulled from the west of Beijing. The camel walks slowly, and it walks slowly to Fuchengmen, and then camps outside Fuchengmen. At dawn, the city gate opens, and then it goes into the city to sell coal and lime to earn two hard-earned dollars.

Xiangzi is a very hardworking person, and he can endure hardships. He started as an apprentice and survived until he was 28. He finally saved enough money to buy his first camel.

On the day he bought the camel, he went to the city to find an acquaintance and made a pair of large yellow bells for the camel. When it pulls the goods, you can feel that the bells ring, which are also crisper than others.

When the camel's bells ring, Xiangzi always calculates how much money he still needs to buy a camel. I can lead a bunch of seven or eight by myself. When I can lead a bunch of people, I will marry a wife and work hard.

However, his bell had only rung for a few days when the train was opened. Cars of coal and lime no longer needed to be transported by camels, but were directly transported to Xizhimen.

The price of camels in Beijing plummeted.

How could the camel dealers in the city miss such an opportunity? They would drag their feet and keep lowering the price.

Camels also need to eat, chewing every day. How can these people who have no work afford to feed them?

Beijing is Beijing. Even the dung collectors have guilds. Even if they change their jobs, they can't do it. The water carriers from Xizhimen push carts and sell water in the city every day. They can't squeeze in.

Seeing that the camels are getting thinner day by day, and they still need to eat every day, there is no way, so they have to beg for help and find camel dealers.

The camel dealer only said, your camel is so thin and afraid of heat. If you want to sell it, you have to go to Zhangjiakou to fatten it up and sell it in autumn.

If you want to sell it, you can go to Zhangjiakou to avoid the summer heat and graze. But Xiangzi didn't have the money to go to Zhangjiakou. Seeing that the camel was getting thinner and thinner, it would be worthless even if it was sold as a soup pot if it was not sold. He could only bear the pain and sell it for a few cents.

After selling the camel, he had to survive, so he could only go to the station he hated the most and find a job as a laborer unloading coal. This was because a large group of unemployed camel owners were doing this, and they finally recognized him and asked him to do it for face.

Xiangzi's story is not as simple as changing a career.

It was Liu Yu who destroyed their fantasy.

They had suffered and been tired before, but at least they still had hope. They had their own camels, and then one became two, two became a bunch, and they could become a big camel owner.

This was not just a matter of changing jobs, but it completely destroyed the dreams of many people who were just hired workers but had the dream of becoming small producers.

The hatred of broken dreams is much greater than simply changing jobs. What was broken in the era was the dreams of small farmers and small producers, because in the future of the practical school, it was not that there were no dreams, but that there was no room for these people to exist.

At this time, a camel bell sounded in the distance, and no one knew where it came from.

A surge of blood rushed to Xiangzi's forehead. Thinking of his broken dream, he gritted his teeth, touched a black lump of coal, and rushed out quickly.

Before the guard could react, he threw the coal in his hand towards Liu Yu.

At the moment of throwing, he knew that the guard was determined to beat him to death, so he used the greatest strength of his life to vent his despair.

"Liu Yu! I! Fuck! Your! Blind! Mother!"