Shadow Empire - Chapter 928 Gift Box and Assistance
Shadow Empire
Chapter 928 Gift Box and AssistanceChapter 928 Gift Box and Assistance
Sometimes when you want to make someone obey you, the easiest way is not to threaten him or beat him up.
Even if you threaten him, he may not be afraid.
If you beat him up, it might provoke him to rebel.
Then the best way is to "kill" the other person in front of him.
The image of Ronnie lying in a pool of blood quickly spread through word of mouth. By the afternoon, the factory had returned to calm, with people sitting at their workstations, rolling cigars diligently.
It doesn’t matter if they can’t make that much. At the end of the month, they will be paid according to how much they have produced, and those who cannot keep up with the production capacity will be fired.
"They are all just some cheap bones!"
The manager stood in the corner, bowing and nodding, reporting to Lance on the work in the factory. Lance glanced at him sideways, "But these bastards have made you passive these days."
Seeing the manager's expression change a little, Lance withdrew his gaze and his eyes fell on the packaging box in front of him.
A cigar box.
The box looks exquisite, with two lions with a red copper texture in the middle of the box, which were stamped with relief technology and transported from the federation.
The box is about one foot long and half a foot wide. It is exquisitely made and does not look like a low-end product.
He opened the cigar box, revealing six aluminum tubes.
A black double lion logo is printed on the aluminum tube, and a number that others cannot understand is printed below.
Lance knew very well how to make some products look more premium, so he created a "three-in-one".
The number on the packaging box, the number on the card inside the box, and the number on the cigar tube can be put together to verify the authenticity using the calculation method in the instruction manual.
In fact, most people would not do this. Who the hell would eat a cigar and see if it is real?
Sometimes with some brands of cigars, the fake ones taste better than the real ones!
He took one out and dumped the cigar out, and it looked to be in pretty good shape.
"Is the cigar wrapper made by a separate worker?" he asked after observing carefully for a while.
The manager nodded quickly. "Yes, according to what you said last time, all the cigar cores and cigar sleeves are one step, and the final rolling of the cigar wrapper is another step."
Lance nodded. This was also an assembly line process.
Cigar cores and cigar cases do not require relatively skilled techniques because the semi-finished products consisting of cigar cores and cigar cases have a shaping process.
Even if it is not done particularly well, it will be reshaped to look good after shaping.
Rolling the cigar wrapper is particularly important.
It’s not that these jobs can’t be done by machines, but machines are never as good as manual work. This may be one of the reasons why this industry insists on manual work most of the time.
Lance cut off the cigar cap, lit it, took a sip, felt it, and then slowly exhaled.
These tobaccos are bought from other tobacco merchants. They have been aged and then tempered.
In order to reflect the relationship between it and Golden Lion Wine Industry, Lans asked the expert in perfumery to make it taste a bit like the aftertaste of Golden Lion whiskey when you smoke it.
It will be released slowly, and by the middle of the inhalation, the taste of the whiskey will become stronger.
But this is only the lowest grade Bronze Lion cigar. Judging from the current quality, it is acceptable. Lance thinks it is pretty good.
He nodded, took another sip, and felt it again for a moment, "Bring us our whiskey."
The manager quickly brought a bottle of Golden Lion whiskey. These Golden Lion whiskeys have been aged for two years, so the flavor is still lacking.
But who can blame Lans for adding some technology into it, which helps it stabilize its style and complex taste more quickly.
From a drinking perspective alone, it is actually not much different from those three- or five-year-old whiskies.
The heat just out of the pot has completely subsided, leaving only the mellow taste.
While smoking a cigar and trying to drink whiskey, the various flavors continue to blend and change in the mouth, constantly bringing some new experiences!Especially after drinking or spitting out, the taste remaining on the oral mucosa is complex and positive.
Hiram also tried it and said, "It feels pretty good."
Lance nodded to confirm his statement, "How much do you think a box of six cigars like this would cost?"
Hiram shook his head. He didn't quite understand this. "Ten dollars?" He said a price that he thought was appropriate.
The manager next to him couldn't help but be shocked when he heard this, ten dollars?
If the cost of these six cigars is converted into federal sols, it would be at most twenty cents per cigar!This is still an optimistic idea. In fact, all of them added together would only be one dollar at most.
Including the cost of boxes, transportation, storage, staff salaries and so on, it will not exceed one dollar and fifty cents.
Lance nodded, "That's a good price, nine dollars and ninety."
He closed the box, and the cigars would not only be sold individually, but also in gift boxes.
Two bottles of whiskey and a box of cigars for seventy-nine bucks is definitely a steal.
"Just keep producing like this, and get 100,000 boxes by April."
One hundred thousand boxes in two months means an average of fifty thousand boxes need to be produced each month.
That is 300,000 cigars. Assuming each person produces at least 2,500 cigars per month, 120 workers are needed.
But this is just an ideal data. The workers in the factory now are not skilled workers, and most of them cannot achieve this number. This is also the reason why some workers are making trouble.
Because there is a high possibility that they will lose their job, and they don't want to lose it.
There are five to six hundred people in the factory now, and considering their production capacity, it is actually a bit stretched.
"Mr. Lance, three hundred thousand a month may be a stretch for the current factory."
The manager took a small step forward and said, "The workers are not very skilled. We also need to consider some defective products and rework."
Some cigar cores and cigar cases are not made to standard and will fall apart after being pressed. It is obviously impossible to remove the final cigar wrapper and they will definitely need to be redone.
This situation is actually quite common in factories. Not everyone is a skilled worker, and many of them have just completed training.
The manager didn’t know what the consequences would be if the task was not completed, but he knew that the consequences would definitely not be borne by the workers, but by him as the manager.
Lance shook his head slightly. He felt a little disappointed, but soon recovered. "If you don't have enough people, hire some. You can tell the workers that 2,500 is just an excuse, not a hard and fast target. Let them work with peace of mind."
"As long as they work hard and keep improving, they can stay even if they don't meet the requirements. We pay them according to the piece-rate system anyway."
Lance glanced at the extinguished cigar. It had gone out in the time it took to speak.
In fact, the cigarette could be reignited if he took a few more puffs, but he had no interest in this cheap cigar.
Then he talked about factory management. "Just now you said that the workers are all cheap bones..."
The manager's already bent back became even more bent, and his face was filled with a textbook fawning expression.
"Since you know they are all cheapskates, you should treat them like cheapskates."
"I'm not too familiar with the Lapa people, but I don't like lazy workers."
"The value of workers lies in their work. If they are unwilling to work or are always lazy, they have no value."
“Our factory does not employ worthless people.”
"When it's time to whip, use the whip. When it's time to stick, use the stick..." He paused and said, "If someone dies here, how much compensation will you have to pay?" The manager's face was already covered with sweat. "Twenty to thirty thousand paras... that's three hundred to four hundred federal soles, Mr. Lance."
"So little?" Lance was a little surprised, but soon he felt that it was actually reasonable, because this is Lapa, a place where human life is not valuable.
Previously, the Cassia family, one of the five major families in Jingang City, hired gunmen from Yalan, and they would work for the Cassia family for only three to five hundred yuan.
Then the lives of ordinary people who don’t have any “special skills” are obviously even less valuable.
"Then beat him hard. Don't be afraid of killing him. If you kill him, we will compensate him accordingly."
"You don't need to have any psychological burden. Morality can't fill your stomach, but this job can."
His hands touched the armrest slightly up and down, "I hope that next time I come here it's because you can bring me some good news, instead of telling me that I've encountered similar troubles again, understand?"
The manager's back bent further, "Yes, yes, I understand, Mr. Lance."
Lance was very satisfied. This was why there were always some federal people who liked to go to poor places.
Those federal people are just the lower and middle classes of society in the federation. The only difference between them and waste is that they don't need to be sent to the scrapyard.
But when they go to those poor and backward places, they can become superior people.
In Lapa, a person who earns ten dollars a month is considered a high-income group. Most people only earn four or five federal soles a month.
Then people from the Federation, even if they are just from the lower class, will become wealthy people once they arrive here.
People like those in Jingang City who have entrusted their work cards to Lance don’t have to do anything and can now earn more than 50 yuan a month.
If they came to a place like Lapa, life would be so interesting!No matter how old they are, how strong their odor is, or how ugly they look, there are some beautiful 18-year-old girls who fall passionately in love with everything about him!Lance stood up and said, "Okay, that's it. If there are any problems that can't be solved, just tell Roger."
"Go and take care of it yourself at the police station. Tell Roger how much it costs..."
The group followed Lance out of the office, and the manager followed closely behind them until he saw them get into the car.
Finally they survived the crisis, which made the manager breathe a sigh of relief.
Then the cautiousness, flattery and grievance on his face disappeared in an instant, and were replaced by an aura of majesty without anger.
The back that was bent to the point of being deformed straightened up at this moment.
He turned around and stamped his feet. His shiny leather shoes reflected a faint luster in the sun. With a majestic expression on his face that only a superior could have, he returned to the factory, this little world that belonged to him at this moment.
Sitting in the car, Hiram moved his shoulders and said, "I thought you were going to kill a few people."
Lance raised the corner of his mouth slightly, "There will always be someone who will bump into me, but for now, I will not do this. I will let these Lapa people who have come to join me do it. This is their mission and their value."
The convoy drove slowly on the empty road.
In the whole of Lapa, only the ruling class and the privileged class have cars. Ordinary people, including the middle class, the vast majority of them cannot afford a car.
Lapa itself does not have a heavy industrial base and cannot produce its own cars. All of them are imported from the federation.
After layers of price increases, you still need a quota to buy a car.
This indicator is one of the means used by the ruling class to strengthen its rule. There may be a dozen, twenty or thirty indicators that can be freely bought and sold every year.
Owning a car is no longer just a matter of increasing personal assets, but also a symbol of social class!
Either they have made outstanding contributions to the ruling group, or they are “insiders” of the ruling group.
It is said that some people are willing to give up anything just to get a quota to buy a car!Be it your own ditch, your wife, or anything else.
The pedestrians on the roadside also looked at Lance's extra-long convoy with awe, although they felt strange about these square cars, which did not look like the ministers' or the president's luxury cars with pure gold shells.
But a car is a car after all.
"There's something else we're going to do together in a few days."
Lance gave him a cigarette and said, "I bought a silver mine and an iron mine in Horseback Mountain. I'm sure there will be some obstacles when I take over."
Hiram took the cigarette and sniffed it. "It just so happens that I am itching to do it too..."
On the other hand, Andy has received weapons, guns, ammunition, and various supplies sent from the country.
What made him feel a little unbelievable was that Pedro actually took the initiative to bring people and appeared not far from Zhuolan, and he personally received the goods here.
When he saw him, Andy's expression tightened and he felt a wave of discomfort, physical discomfort.
Especially the faint smile on Pedro's face made him feel like he was being laughed at by a local dog from a poor and backward place!He particularly remembered the conversations when Pedro asked him for these things and he flatly refused. Now he must be laughing at himself in his heart, right?
There was no emotion on Andy's face, but he was constantly writing his own script in his heart.
He wanted revenge, but he had to think of a suitable way, one that would not expose himself.
"Let's check the goods," Andy said expressionlessly.
Pedro had some veterans on his side, and they walked over to the weapon boxes and opened the boxes that contained the rifles.
Inside were obsolete 1010 bolt-action rifles, but one was brand new, and the scent of gun oil made the veterans look intoxicated.
When they were serving, they had never used such good weapons. Now that they have joined the anti-government forces, their equipment has been upgraded!
The 1010 bolt-action rifle is also one of the Federation's main export products. Although its sales in the world are not very large, Lapa has quite a few, so they started testing these firearms very familiarly.
After a while, several people said that the weapons were in good condition and there were no problems. They checked other things and confirmed that there were no missing supplies. Pedro showed a sincere smile on his face.
"Thank you!" He walked over and wanted to shake hands with Andy, but Andy just looked at him and didn't extend his hand.
Andy's reaction surprised Pedro, but he wanted to laugh even more, so he laughed out loud, "Thank Mr. Lance for me."
Andy's expression finally became a little uncomfortable. "Mr. Lance asked me to tell you not to forget your agreement. He has shown his sincerity. Now it's up to you."
Pedro glanced at the boxes of weapons and ammunition and said, "Rest assured, Mr. Lance. He will hear about our deeds soon."
As he was loading these things onto the wagons, he looked at the square-shaped cars and asked, "What do I have to pay if I want these cars?"
Andy looked back at these vehicles that clearly had military characteristics. These were all armored vehicles. He shook his head slightly and said, "You should ask Mr. Lance. The price you need to pay will be at least more than what you have now."
He had read the report. Lance mentioned that arms could be provided to these anti-government forces to arm them and increase the intensity and severity of the confrontation between them and the government, thereby exacerbating the conflict and hatred between the two sides.
But Lance also mentioned that they should try to provide as little support as possible with weapons or equipment that could change the situation of the battle, such as artillery, and avoid support as much as possible.
Even if they provide support, the number of artillery shells is limited, and special personnel must be assigned to monitor their use of the artillery shells.
To avoid the possibility that a shell might fall on your head one day.
Even if armored vehicles can be given, it will definitely cost more.
Pedro pushed his glasses on his nose. One of the lenses was broken, which looked a little funny.
He nodded to Andy, then returned to the carriage and, together with the others, loaded the things onto the carriage and left.
What he wanted was not the armored vehicle, but a layer of "skin" of the Federals.
This layer of skin can help him avoid some troubles in many cases. For example, the police will search his carriage, but the police will never dare to search any car, any!
The carriage returned to their temporary camp safely, and when fifty guns and various equipment were taken out, everyone gathered around.
"10 bolts?" The eyes of the other veterans who had not followed started to light up. "This is a good thing!"
They caressed the rifles as if they had caressed their wives' delicate skin when they got married, greedily, carefully, and lovingly!
(End of this chapter)