The Red Era: Starting from a Truck Driver

Chapter 218 Shen Li Recruits Workers
In a day, in a place like Hong Kong, many things can be easily solved as long as you pay the money.

Jiang Cheng rented a 160-foot cold storage for more than 2,000 yuan a month. He also paid a deposit of more than 1,000 yuan. If he did not rent it, the deposit would not be refunded without prior notice.

If you fail to pay the rent in the second month, you will be given about a week to raise the money, but if you still cannot, your deposit will be deducted and the property will be moved away.

Then Jiang Cheng found an agent to rent two houses, one of which was an ordinary building, an older residential building, similar to the buildings in domestic companies.

The house is a one-bedroom, relatively small, only about 260 square feet. It has a bathroom and a balcony, where you can cook. The conditions are not much different from the previous one, after all, it only costs 200 yuan a month.

But Shen Li was very satisfied. At least this was the house where she and Jiang Cheng lived alone, and it was a bit like he was supporting her.

In Hong Kong, it was very easy to support a woman in this era. You just needed to have a separate house and some money to spend. It was not as advanced as in later times, where you had to wear good clothes, eat good food, and have a car to go out.

In addition to the house he lived in, Jiang Cheng also rented a house of more than 300 square feet, which was cheap at only 150 dollars a month. It was just a basement with no sunlight, so Jiang Cheng used it as a warehouse.

Jiang Cheng planned to use the place he rented as a place to process fish balls. He started with a small workshop, as there were not many requirements for production even in Hong Kong these days.

On the same day, the three of them also went to the market and bought a lot of plastic baskets, stoves, large iron pots, hand mixers, etc.

In the evening, in the rental house.

A very hearty dish with meat and shrimp.

"Ali, starting tonight, you will live here alone. There will be a lot of things piled up here, so you can also keep an eye on it. Also, we are doing a legitimate business, you will follow me, and we will talk about the wages first."

Jiang Cheng said to Ali that he would definitely take care of the first batch of people who followed him, but the wages could not be too high or too low. However, when he was talking, Shen Li picked up a dish for him, which made him pause for a moment.

What a little devil. She can take care of a man at such a young age and even knows how to pick up vegetables and peel shrimps for Jiang Cheng.

"Brother Cheng, how much salary can you give me?" Ali replied a little awkwardly.

Ali also knew that following Jiang Cheng was a serious matter, and he would not follow Zhang Hao and his gang in their underworld ways. If they kept saying "give as much as you think you can give", he would not necessarily follow them if they gave him less.

"How about this? The management level salaries in some factories in Hong Kong must be over a thousand. I'll start with a thousand dollars a month, but you have a lot of work to do right now. When we make money in the future, we'll arrange easier work for you, and your salary will definitely be higher," Jiang Cheng said.

Ali was very satisfied to hear that he was paid 1,000 yuan a month. Working at the dock and moving things is really hard. If you are introduced by the foreman, the wages will not be too high. If you go to the dock to take the job yourself, you still have to pay a "share of money".

Anyway, I work so hard at the dock with no time to rest, and I earn less than a thousand yuan a month.

Seeing that Ali had no objection, Jiang Cheng began to assign him work. He was to move the fish balls to be processed later to the cold storage, and the same was true for the processed fish. If there was a need for fish, he would go to the cold storage to get it.

Jiang Cheng certainly couldn't offer a salary of 1,000 yuan for a simple porter. After all, in addition to wages, he also provided food and accommodation. He also had to recruit people like Shen Li, and first of all, he had to recruit someone to prepare employee meals. He also had to recruit someone to help Ali move things. It was impossible for Ali to move things all by himself.

Ali naturally had no objection to Jiang Cheng's arrangement. It was much easier than working at the dock, and the wages were only 1,000 yuan. He could earn 10,000 yuan a year, and in two or three years he could buy a small house in Hong Kong.

The key is that as long as the job is stable, Ali can find a wife in Hong Kong and work with her to earn money. It will be easier and faster to buy a house.

Ali's salary issue was resolved. After the three of them finished their meal, Shen Li washed the dishes and followed Jiang Cheng away.

When Shen Li lived here, Ali could wash his face and feet with hot water. Now that she doesn't live here anymore, he is too lazy to move. He just uses cold water.

The basement and the residential building we rented today were not far away, and we could get there in a short while. But Shen Li took Jiang Cheng for a stroll outside, and even wanted to imitate some couples to go to the movies.

I didn't go to see the movie, I just took a walk outside and came back.

After washing up and going to bed at night, Jiang Cheng had a dream that he went home and slept with Zhou Lingying. But she was still pregnant, so he had to do it, but he felt that Zhou Lingying was very strange.

The next day, Jiang Cheng woke up early again and asked Shen Li to get up quickly. "Go to Ali first and go with him to the bridge or the wooden house area to recruit people. I'll contact people to deliver the goods, and when we recruit people, you can arrange the work. The wages will be based on what we agreed on yesterday." Jiang Cheng said.

"Brother Cheng, I understand."

After hearing Jiang Cheng's instructions, Shen Li got up immediately. She didn't want to be a useless woman, although she didn't know much. But she had learned how to make fish balls, and she knew who in the neighborhood could make them and didn't have a job.

Now Jiang Cheng wants her and Ali to recruit workers to kill fish, cook, and run errands for Ali.

Shen Li left immediately after getting dressed, and Jiang Cheng left right after her. He went to the rented basement, where there were many plastic baskets that could be used to hold fish.

One basket can hold more than 100 kilograms of fish. I bought twenty baskets yesterday.

Jiang Cheng planned to load 20 baskets of fish in the morning, do it again in the afternoon, and then let Shen Li and the others produce slowly. In addition to fish, Jiang Cheng also wanted to get some eggs, and other things had to be bought in Xiangjiang.

Making fish balls does not only require fish meat. For Jiang Cheng, the cost is not much except for the labor cost.

But whether it is freshwater fish or marine fish, they all have a strong fishy smell. According to the method Shen Li learned, it is necessary to boil ginger and green onion in water, and then add egg white, salt and starch to the green onion and ginger water.

As long as the fish balls are boiled in the pot for a few minutes, you can take them out of the pot and soak them in cold water. The fish balls will then be chewy and bouncy.

So in Hong Kong, although fish is not expensive, the price of a pound of fish balls in the market is only slightly cheaper than meat, and a pound of fish balls costs about three dollars.

Hong Kong people eat fish balls and shrimp balls more often, and the production of fish balls and the like is mainly for volume. The wholesale price is not much cheaper than the retail price, and the wholesale price is around 2.40 yuan.

After the fish balls are made, Jiang Cheng plans to start with wholesale to accumulate capital, then upgrade the site, create a brand, etc., and then do retail and wholesale together.

Jiang Cheng came to the basement he rented alone, prepared the fish and eggs, and then had breakfast.

Shen Li, Ali and others also came back around seven o'clock.

It is really easy to recruit people in this era, especially female workers. The dock workers usually don't want female workers. Those women without ID cards usually wash clothes for others to supplement their family income.

They were asked to kill fish for 20 yuan a day, with two meals provided. Finally, they hired a few who paid 12 yuan, and two who paid 15 yuan.

There was no way. It wasn't that Shen Li was reluctant to spend money, but the women under the overpass took the initiative to lower the price. There were even two girls who were one year younger than Shen Li, who said that they would only pay ten yuan and promised to work hard.

Shen Li was kind-hearted and gave him 12 yuan. Ali also hired a young man who was less than 16 years old. He was a little skinny, but the salary was less than 20 yuan.

When Shen Li and her men found Jiang Cheng, Jiang Cheng was overwhelmed. Although it was normal for Hong Kong to use child labor, there was actually an Employment Ordinance that prohibited those under the age of sixteen from working.

Fortunately, this regulation is basically ignored in Hong Kong at present, but if it happens in the future, among the people brought by Shen Li, three are about her age. If they are reported, they will be punished to death.

Jiang Cheng couldn't care less, so he asked people to go to the basement to carry some of the fish to where Ali lived. Then each person was given a fish-killing knife and a pair of scissors.

Let them all kill the fish, leaving the head and tail intact, and also remove the fish bones, skin and red fish.

Because grass carp have roe in July and August, Jiang Cheng caught a lot of fish at that time. Fish roe is actually a good thing, and many restaurants in Hong Kong also want it.

Jiang Cheng also likes to eat this, so he asked the fish killer to sort out the fish bubbles and fish roe and pack them.

As for the fish heads, tails, bones, etc., they would definitely be cooked for these people as a working meal. Each person would get half a fish head or a fish tail, and those who performed well at work would be given a fish head or a fish tail to take home.

Anyway, I'm not a permanent worker, so I eat fish and rice every day, which is pretty good. At most, I can have a big bowl of stir-fried vegetables, and that's enough.

(End of this chapter)