I want to be emperor

Chapter 1100 Taylor’s Pursuit

In East London, in front of a three-storey Down's modern office building, a large number of people in professional attire were waiting in line.

Although these people are all wearing the professional attire of Chu State, and at first glance they all seem to be from Chu State, but if you look closer, you will find that most of these people have pale faces, most of them have red hair, and some of them have red hair. Even people with black hair have blue or brown eyes and hooked noses.

Just by looking at their faces, one could tell that these people were not from Chu, but a group of Europeans. Most of them were natives of the Kingdom of England, but there were also some natives from other European countries in the team.

Among the people queuing up, John Taylor, who was wearing a business suit made of woolen material, a round black hat, and a pair of leather shoes, looked at the queue in front of him and saw that there were still at least a hundred people. Looking back, there were at least a hundred people behind him. The above teams.

He couldn't help but show a trace of worry on his face!

This time, more people came to apply for jobs than he thought...

Doesn’t it mean that this recruitment requires a second-class Chinese certificate... How come there are so many people with second-class Chinese certificates?

This second-class Chinese language certificate is not something that anyone can have.

The Chinese language proficiency certificate is actually not something officially produced. At least the Chu Empire never produced anything similar to these in the early decades... because there was basically no such thing in the early external expansion of the Chu people. There was no problem of language barrier, and there was no situation of hiring indigenous people to work... Because at that time, Chu State was engaged in a set of things that wanted land but not people!

However, starting from the late 1930s, the Dachu Empire adjusted its expansion policy and adopted an expansion policy centered on plundering labor surplus value... Well, it must be clear that the current colonial policy of the Dachu Empire, although on the surface it is import Mainly raw materials such as various agricultural and livestock products and mineral products, this seems to be the core of plundering resources...

But this is not the case... Resources and so on. The Great Chu Empire, which has a global presence, has a lot of natural resources. Even these resources in the colonies of vassal states in various places essentially belong to the Great Chu Empire. , as long as the Great Chu Empire wants, it can directly occupy these places and pocket these so-called cultivated land and mineral resources!

Even now, although the Chu Empire did not adopt a direct occupation model, it still used semi-coercive commercial methods to obtain the mining rights for almost all valuable minerals in India, Europe and West Asia... In many areas, European countries have signed various mineral mining agreements with the companies of the Great Chu Empire, and have transferred the mineral surveying and mining rights to Chu State companies. After Chu State companies mine minerals, they do not pay according to their revenue. Those who pay taxes usually pay a small amount in one lump sum and then pay a fixed small amount every year.

In other words, after the Chu people obtained these mineral mining rights at a very small price, they only had to pay a small fee every year. As for how many minerals they could dig out, how much they sold for, and how much money they could make, they were not comparable to those of these vassal countries. What does it have to do with... On the contrary, it has something to do with the taxation agency of the Great Chu Empire... because the taxation agency of the Great Chu Empire will still tax these Chu enterprises established in the vassal states.

It sounds nonsense at first, but in fact it is not... Not to mention the tax principles of the Da Chu Empire that implement the personal and territorial tax principle. If you are a Chu national registered in the Da Chu Empire and open an enterprise, it will be in a vassal state. If you conduct business in this vassal country, the revenue in this vassal country will naturally be included and then taxed!

What's the matter, you still expect to open a business in Chu State, and then go abroad to conduct business without having to pay taxes... How can there be such a good thing in the world?

Of course, if you are a company registered in a vassal country and carry out business in a vassal country, the tax structure of the Dachu Empire will naturally not ask you to collect taxes... Although the taxation agency of the Dachu Empire is overbearing, it is also reasonable... It's just that if you register in the vassal state and start business in the vassal state, although you don't need to pay taxes to the Chu State, you still have to pay taxes to the vassal state...Then the most important thing comes...as a Chu State person, you , no matter where you are or what you do to make money, you need to declare taxes to the Dachu Empire tax authorities and pay taxes...

Even if you are engaged in murder and arson in Africa, you still have to pay taxes to the tax authorities of the Great Chu Empire if you make money...

This is the principle of personal and territorial taxation.

Under this tax principle, when the people of the Chu State mine minerals in a vassal state, they do not pay no taxes. They just pay taxes to the Chu State. However, what they pay to the local vassal state is only an initial one-time fee and a subsequent annual fixed fee. The cost is often not large.

Through this commercial method, the merchants of the Chu Empire almost controlled the mineral exploration and mining rights in almost all colonial areas.

It has even rapidly expanded to cultivated land resources... Nowadays, a lot of cultivated land in Europe has actually been acquired by various agricultural development companies in Chu State and then used to develop farms... But it actually makes no difference to local farmers. Anyway, they didn't have land before, and those lands basically belonged to the nobles.

The main way for agricultural development companies in Chu State to obtain land is mainly from various nobles, and they generally do not engage in normal commercial acquisitions of land. Most of them are actually auctioned from Chu State officials... During the expansion of the Chu Empire in Europe, it encountered countless resisters, including kings and various nobles... After killing these kings and nobles, they naturally accepted a large amount of land...

The Dachu Empire did not want the sovereignty of these lands, and often handed over the sovereignty to its newly supported agents, but the ownership would still be retained and sold to agricultural development companies through resale... Although the land in these vassal states also It’s not worth much, but you can get a lot of money back if you sell it in large quantities.

This is also the reason why the Chu Empire did not have a large financial burden when it was fighting in Europe. In addition to the regular seizure of spoils and war compensation, it also recovered some rents by confiscating a large amount of land and reselling it.

As a result, a large amount of cultivated land in Europe fell into the hands of various agricultural development companies in Chu State.

For example, in contemporary northwest France, at least 30% of the arable land in this area is controlled by the Chu State's agricultural development company.

Of course, this is not the case in all places...the land in most areas is still controlled by the local nobles.

However, these great nobles are basically agents of the Chu Empire. They obey the orders of the Chu Empire, not that they can grow whatever they want... As for disobedience... they have been exterminated long ago.

Important natural resources such as cultivated land and mineral products in Europe are actually still controlled by the Chu people, but the methods adopted are slightly milder and not as bloody as in the past when they wanted land but not people.

The resources are in hand, but how to develop them is a problem... let the Chu people come to farm and mine by themselves?

Don't count on it... In today's Great Chu Empire, even the development of the Americas is seriously underdeveloped... Eastern Europe is full of endless fertile wilderness, but not many people are willing to farm now, so the Chu people in Eastern Europe Agricultural development mainly uses mechanization and horse farming...

How to develop various resources in the colony?

In Africa, the Chu people used the local indigenous people as free labor. However, the Chu people found that this was too inefficient. At the same time, these free laborers were basically primitive people and could only do some basic manual labor, which was slightly complicated. I can’t even do some tasks...

Then the Chu people discovered that the already civilized indigenous populations in India, West Asia, and Europe could not only undertake these basic labor tasks, but also undertake some complex tasks and bring more labor value.

As a result, the Chu people quickly changed their minds and started a relatively mild colonial rule... The core goal of this kind of colonial rule was not to plunder resources... The resources were placed wherever they were. If there was no need to plunder, they belonged to the Chu State. of.

The core purpose of the current series of colonial policies is to plunder the labor surplus value of the local indigenous people!

After adopting such an expansion policy, the Chu Empire began to establish a large number of farms, minerals, and some low-end processing industries with little technical content in these places that were not subject to technological blockade.

And this also requires hiring a large amount of labor... As for why it is hiring, rather than directly forcing the local indigenous people to work for free... That is because many businessmen in the Dachu Empire have discovered that hired workers are more useful than slaves and can make more money. many.

Especially after using the piece-rate wage model... profits will increase significantly, because those employees can screw themselves to death, in the true sense of the word.

In order to earn a little more money to support their families, many indigenous workers died of exhaustion in mines and farmlands... and after death, the Chu people threw the bodies outside, which at most gave their families some symbolic meaning. Solatium payment, and then turned around to recruit workers again. There were a lot of indigenous laborers waiting to go mining outside!

It does not require large-scale investment in the early stage, is extremely cost-effective, has stronger work initiative, lower management costs, and brings higher profits... These factors directly caused Chu businessmen to give up the use of free labor in the vassal areas, and It is the employment system. Of course, this method can only be used in civilized indigenous countries, such as India, West Asia, and Europe... If you switch to Africa, this method will not work. The local indigenous people are basically still in the state of primitive barbarians. , you can't use the labor system, you can only use the most primitive one to barely rob them of the surplus value of their labor.

In Africa, if you dare to open your shackles and say to the local indigenous people that we are now starting to use the hired labor model, the more you work, the more you will get... then all these African indigenous people will dare to run away.

This situation has also made many agricultural development companies that have opened large farms in Africa envious of their counterparts in India, West Asia, and Europe... They also want to use the hired labor model, but unfortunately, this kind of thing is It’s determined by the quality of the labor force, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

As for slowly civilizing the local African indigenous people, and then wait a few decades before establishing a labor-employed model... Those Chu capitalists will have to slap you in the face, I am here to make money, not charity. .

Therefore, although we know that this is not efficient, local agricultural development companies in Africa can only continue to use the free labor model... Of course, there are some relatively powerful agricultural development companies, and there are also some long-term agricultural development companies that will start from Europe, West Asia and other places organize immigrants to come and work... But this kind of thing is relatively expensive, at least for the time being, so there are relatively few people doing it, at least it has not become mainstream yet.

On the contrary, that weirdo in the West African Kingdom often does this kind of thing... But the West African Kingdom is different from ordinary agricultural development companies. It is a country and cares about some long-term things. In fact, it does not take simple money too seriously.

But ordinary agricultural development companies are not like this. Everything they do is to make money... If they don't make money, shareholders will be very dissatisfied, and then the management will lose their jobs.

Not to mention Africa, let's talk about Europe. Because of the Chu people's development of Europe, they opened up a large number of plantations, mines, and pastures, and cooperated with local indigenous nobles and businessmen.

At the same time, the Chu people also opened some low-level factories within the scope of policies allowed in the concessions and administrative territories in Europe, such as some wood processing plants, spinning mills and the like.

These economic activities also mean that a large amount of cheap indigenous labor is needed... not only some of the lowest-end manual workers, but also some low-level technical personnel and clerical personnel.

It's easy to deal with the ordinary labor force, but it's not easy for low-level technicians and clerical staff...at least they need to understand Chinese, otherwise they won't be able to communicate with the Chu people's management and engineers.

Because of this demand, the European governor established a Chinese proficiency test a few years ago at the request of many local companies to facilitate recruitment by companies.

The Chinese proficiency test is divided into four levels: A, B, C and D. Level B is not so easy to pass. It requires mastering common Chinese characters, proficiency in using Chinese to communicate, and proficiency in reading and writing vernacular articles... As for classical Chinese, there is no requirement. That is the category of first-class Chinese.

And second-class Chinese is also the hard threshold for many Chu companies to recruit indigenous civilian and technical employees... It's not that Chu companies are very demanding, but if it is any lower, they are really not qualified for the job.

Even so, except for those who have received local school education or specialized studies for indigenous children in various concessions and administrative territories, there are actually very few indigenous people who can obtain this second-class Chinese proficiency certificate.

But in the city of East London, this is quite special... Mainly because this place is too closely connected with the Chu people. At the same time, there are also some schools teaching Chinese here, and a few of them are expensive schools opened by the Chu people. Most of them are schools run by indigenous schools themselves.

Then there are people from all over the world who come here to seek opportunities and pursue hope... Just like John Taylor, he was sponsored by his father to come to East London when he was sixteen years old, and he attended a school run by an English nobleman here. After four years of study in a Chinese school, I finally obtained a second-class Chinese certificate. In addition, I also learned some work skills for clerical jobs.

After completing his studies, he found a job in a local company in East London... It was a trading company run by an English businessman. He worked as an ordinary clerical worker. Although his income was better than that of many people, it took one month's total. It can take about three Chu Yuan.

But that's not his goal... What is his goal?

In fact, just like the more than 300 people present, they all want to work and live in Chu State Enterprises in the concession area!

This not only means higher income, but also means a better living environment, a higher social status, and even a better growing environment for future children... For an ordinary Englishman, being able to enter the concession is a great opportunity for the Chu Kingdom. Working in an enterprise is the best way to achieve a class jump... or even the only way!

After all... this is England in the seventeenth century. Although the Chu people came, they were not interested in changing some of the local aboriginal ecology. In contemporary Europe, the nobles are still the dominant ones. Ordinary civilians want to To get ahead... To be honest, apart from working for the Chu people, there is almost no other way!

And even this path is actually very difficult... because there are too many people who think this way, and the competition is extremely fierce.

Just like today, a Chu trading company in the concession entrusted a human resources company in East London to recruit two civilian personnel... but it attracted more than 300 people to apply...

This shows how fierce the competition is!

And this still has the restriction of second-class Chinese... And people with a second-class Chinese certificate can actually find a very good job in East London and even the entire Kingdom of England, and even enter the official institutions of the kingdom. .

And John estimated that the people present here probably already had jobs like him, and then found various reasons to take leave, or even miners came here to apply for jobs.

Just for the opportunity to work in the Chu State Concession, and once you can work in it, you will be eligible to apply for a work and residence permit. With the work and residence permit, you can buy a house and settle in the concession...even shamelessly He said that from now on he can always say that he is from Chu.

Of course, just say this in the circle of indigenous people for your own entertainment. After all, everyone knows in their hearts that Chu people are Chu people, and indigenous people are indigenous people... It does not mean that you live in a concession or administrative territory. If you have a work and residence permit, you will become a native of Chu.

Not to mention anything else, it’s not even legal!

Otherwise, you try to get your children to sign up for the exclusive school for Chu children and see if they will accept you... Not only will they not accept you, they may even call for a patrol to take you away, saying that you are causing trouble and disrupting the teaching order.

But no matter what, the opportunity to work in a Chu State enterprise and enter the concession is very rare for ordinary civilians in England. This is an opportunity that can truly change their lives!

The same goes for John Taylor.

For this reason, he even agreed in advance to apply for an interview during the holidays... Because there were so many people, he had to wait in line for almost an hour.

When it was his turn, he couldn't help but become nervous!