Back to Ming Dynasty with Industrial Revolution System

Chapter 1012 Labor Contradictions
Seven days ago, when the Zhili Fleet and the Fourth Fleet were preparing for war, a large-scale incident of textile workers smashing machines occurred in the affluent city of Suzhou, and the scale expanded to the entire Jiangnan area. It once appeared in the Jiangnan area where the commodity trade is the most prosperous!
A private textile factory in Suzhou City was billowing with black smoke, and the raging fire was extinguished only after the rescue of Suzhou City officers, soldiers and residents.The burning private textile factory also affected several surrounding houses.

The former Suzhou general Lu Zhiyu was promoted to Jiangxi general because of the investigation of the assassination of the Yizhou envoy.

Fortunately, the private textile factory caught fire during the day, and the government was able to put out the fire and evacuate the people in time, with limited losses.If a textile factory with a lot of fabrics catches fire at night, half of Suzhou City may be burned to ashes, and the number of casualties is unknown.

Although the flames have been extinguished, the private textile factory was maliciously burned. This is a very serious security incident!The General Soldier of Suzhou is the magistrate of Suzhou. If there is a serious security incident under his jurisdiction, it will affect his year-end assessment and future promotion. This incident may become a stain on his official career file.

"My lord, the arsonist has been caught. He was the original worker of this textile factory. After being fired, he led other workers to break into the textile factory. They cut the fabric, damaged the textile machine and steam engine, and finally set fire to the textile factory. They were burned. When the treasurer of the textile factory led people to stop them, they were seriously injured by them!" The head catcher led the catchers to escort a group of textile workers over.

These textile workers were in disgrace, obviously smoked by the thick smoke when the textile factory was burned.

Because they set fire in broad daylight, they were identified by local residents and arrested soon.

"Master Zongbing wants to help the little one to make the decision. All the belongings of the little one have been used to invest in this textile factory. Now the whole textile factory has been burned down. What should I do in the future?! Please, Mr. Zongbing, help me decide Let these unruly people compensate for small losses!" The owner of the textile factory had a bruised nose and a swollen face, and he was indeed injured in a conflict with the workers.

"Master Chief Soldier, please also decide for us. Our house was affected by the fire. It's fine if these people set fire to the textile factory. Who would have thought that the fire would burn the houses around us? Our house and furniture are all on fire. The house is gone, we have no place to live, so we have to sleep on the street!" The residents around whose houses were burnt down said angrily.

Wu Zhicai, the newly appointed general in Suzhou, looked at the former textile factory workers who had been arrested. These workers were wearing tattered and patched sackcloth, and most of them could not compensate for the loss of burning textile factories and houses.

"Why did you set fire to the textile factory? Do you know that this is a serious crime involving beheading?" Wu Zhicai asked with a sullen face.

"My lord, I'm a poor family. If you die, you will die. We people don't have any skills, we only know how to weave. Originally, we worked in this textile factory, and the wages were not bad. We can basically To solve food and clothing. However, the shopkeeper gave us less and less wages, and required us to work longer and longer, and we had to continue to work when the kerosene lamps were lit at night. We thought that the deducted wages could barely survive , so I didn’t complain much. Later, the shopkeeper bought new textile machines and machines called steam engines. These machines can produce more fabric than our manpower without paying wages. The shopkeeper doesn’t need to be so There are too many workers, and they don’t deal with us in normal times, so they insult us all day long and drive us away. We have become unemployed and can’t find other jobs. We have wives and children to support at home, so we have no jobs Do you want to starve to death? The more we thought about it, the more we got angry, so we set fire to the textile factory together, and now we are relieved! We admit that we set the fire, and you can punish the crime as you want, my lord." The leader The workers in the textile factory look like dead pigs who are not afraid of boiling water.

Wu Zhicai looked at these textile workers and couldn't decide how to execute them.

First of all, these textile workers must have broken the law by setting fire to the textile factory, but how to confirm their charges?To what extent can the punishment satisfy the public?The second is who should compensate for the loss of the burned textile mills and houses. This group of textile factory workers will definitely not be able to compensate.

This incident is really difficult to handle!Wu Zhicai knew that he had encountered a problem this time.

"Put all the prisoners in prison and hand them over to the local court set up by the Ministry of Criminal Justice in Suzhou City for trial. The Suzhou government and our security forces will conduct a three-party trial!" Wu Zhicai had no choice but to go through the formal litigation process. A lawsuit was filed against several textile workers.

In the newly established litigation system, local courts are responsible for the trial of local cases, and at the same time, government offices and security forces are also involved in the trial.

The news that several textile factory workers smashed the machines and set fire to the textile factory quickly spread in Suzhou City and even the entire Jiangnan area.No one thought that the trial of several textile factory workers would trigger an unprecedented earthquake in the Jiangnan area.

The folks in Jiangnan are divided into two factions, one of which is employers represented by textile factory owners and handicraft workshop owners. They are afraid that such things will happen to them, and their property will be burned by employees, so they seek the government to protect their private property. Property, demanding severe punishment for those who set fire.There is also a group of employees represented by textile workers. They sympathize with the experience of several arson workers, and are also afraid that they will be replaced by machines. They began to oppose the popularization of machines. Workers even protested in Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places.

This kind of labor-capital conflict centered on the textile industry in Suzhou City and spread to surrounding cities and other industries. Another serious labor-capital conflict is the mining industry.Workers in the coal mining and mining industry are labor-intensive and their wages are low, especially in privately established coal mining and mining farms, which are poorly managed and cause fatalities.

Workers' awareness of rights protection spread rapidly following the case of the Suzhou City Textile Factory. They also sought protection from the government, demanding more wages, lower labor intensity, and guarantees that they would not be fired under the "invasion" of steam engines.

The sudden large-scale outbreak of labor conflicts in the Jiangnan area not only put the local government in a dilemma, but also affected Chu Yun's plan to enter Dongying this winter, making Chu Yun have to stabilize the domestic situation first.

　A lot of things have happened suddenly recently, and unless there is a manuscript saved in the future, I will never dare to talk about it and add updates.Do your best.Thanks to the book friends, hi, and other book friends for their support.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)