Darkstone Code-Chapter 690 - 0687 Hiring

"What’s the situation on the Gafura side now?" Lynch turned from the window and walked back to sit by the chair. Here, unlike the Federation’s style of furnishing, it was filled mostly with chairs with the occasional standalone sofa.

It is said that the Gafura people criticized the Federation’s trend of indulgence, and sofas became one of the Federation’s many sins.

Absurd!

The local people who had defected spoke softly, "They’ve been frequently hosting various events recently, gathering to discuss competing with Federation businessmen."

The policy changes in Amelia have already reached the ears of the merchants, which is indeed a big deal for the merchants of Gafura.

The nobles no longer meddle with capital, which means they no longer have to envy or be jealous of the freedom of Federation capital, although this freedom is limited to Amelie Province.

Yet, this is a substantial progress. If some changes in Amelia are proved valuable, it might gradually feed back to the mainland, eventually altering the capital environment there too.

However, there’s a minor issue within it, which is how to restrain the unscrupulous expansion of the Federation people while keeping some profits. So, they have been discussing some countermeasures during this period.

To Lynch, these discussions seem ridiculous.

Because no matter what those Gafura merchants do, they are not his or any other Federation merchant’s match. They have a trump card!

Those cheap laborers are the trump card, and this advantage is difficult to erase in a short time. More importantly, even if the locals do not side with the Federation people, they absolutely won’t side with the Gafura people.

Lynch handed over the captured criminals to the Gafura people instead of letting Darkstone Security handle them.

Not long ago, the Gafura people suffered from the "persecution" of local resistance groups, facing assassinations or horrific armed attacks. Only bad news arrived each day, and many Gafura people lay in eternal rest here.

This hatred cannot be completely dismantled with a few words or an administrative order. To the Gafura people, the locals are undoubtedly the group they hate the most.

So they were very willing to take charge of the most crucial part of the entire plan, the execution phase. Governor Sedel intended for the Gafura people to do this, aiming to re-establish the inviolable dignity and image of the Gafura people in the region.

As for some not very important issues arising because of this, he believes they are basically not issues at all.

It’s like a farmer who wouldn’t care if the pigs in their pen were satisfied with their daily meals, their living environment, or their owner.

They only care about the pigs’ weight, fatness, and the price of pork.

Ethnic hostility and class opposition make it very difficult for them to catch up with Federation businessmen.

Lynch sat in the chair for a while, contemplating, and gave his first move in orchestrating the "big picture" here, "From tomorrow morning, start recruiting workers in key areas of Zulis."

The local person who had defected was a bit shocked, "Mr. Lynch, do you mean ’recruit workers’?"

He reiterated with more detailed phrasing, thinking he might have misheard.

Most of the original middle and upper classes in Amelie have made choices, either siding with the Gafura people or aligning with the newly arrived Lynch, but more locals sided with the Gafura.

Most of these people are opportunists. Before their motherland completely rented this place to the Gafura as a concession, they had time to leave, but they didn’t. They wanted to take a chance, to gamble.

Once they latch onto the leg of the Gafura people with their already prominent status or prestige, they can easily become "one super tribe, above ten thousand people," perhaps even more important than ordinary Gafura people.

Only those who thought all their decisions were foolish and were utterly disappointed with the Gafura people turned to the Federation’s camp.

These people are few, like the person in front of Lynch who defected, thinking the immediate task is to seize the market from the Gafura people.

The construction of infrastructure is one aspect, very important, but can’t be rushed. The real urgency lies in the whole market. The Amelie Province has less than twenty million people, a market which can be said to be completely blank so far.

Whoever can snatch these markets first can reap wealth continuously in the foreseeable future.

He thought Lynch would use a lot of methods to make this fight very beautiful but never expected him to recruit workers.

"Want to know why?" Lynch, sitting behind the desk, looked at the middle-aged man standing in front of the desk. A confident smile appeared on his face, "Because of compassion. You may not understand, but it doesn’t matter. Do as I say, let’s recruit two thousand people in Zulis first, with wages aligned with Nagariel..."

He pointed at the head-leaning middle-aged man, "Do as I say!"

The next morning, after half a month of bloody suppression, Zulis experienced a nice day with clear skies, and the slightly heated sun shone on the earth, carrying the smell of summer arriving in the air.

There were still not many people on the streets, slightly more than in the past days, but only by a bit, with not much substantial change.

On such a morning at half-past nine, two locals appeared on what used to be the busiest street in Zulis.

The shattered bricks on the ground and the bullet holes remaining on the walls seemed to record the atrocities of some people. The once lively street wasn’t as lively as before.

Some fearless old men squatted and sat under the corners of the walls, covering their faces with a duckbill cap as if resting.

Behind the windows of the houses by the roadside, shadows flickered as some curious onlookers watched the two people holding signs.

The sign was hung by a lamppost with a broken bulb, and from a distance, people saw it read "Recruiting factory workers, daily payment, one dollar (Federation Sol)," followed by a contact address.

Simple and crude, but the effect... doesn’t seem very good.

Not just here, but in several once-busy places, similar signs were posted. The wages offered weren’t high, but they certainly weren’t low.

Especially at a time when almost everything in Julie’s has come to a standstill, having a job with daily pay is very tempting to people!

The sunlight shifted from the eastern sky to the southern sky, growing hotter and more intense.

Some elderly folks slumped by the roadside moved to cooler places, their vacant eyes aimlessly scanning everything around.

"Do we need... to send someone to make it look good?" someone suggested to a local who had joined them, and the person shook his head.

Lynch hadn’t given any further instructions, and he dared not act recklessly.

Meanwhile, another group of people was equally curious.

"What do you think... is his purpose for doing this?"

At a window, merchants from Gafura looked at the recruitment sign under the scorching sun, unable to understand Lynch’s madness.

For the locals, they instinctively looked down upon and even despised them. Even if their factories needed manpower, they would directly have the locals who sided with them bring suitable workers.

But recruitment... is it necessary?

Bear in mind, Lynch still had access to the abundant cheap labor of Nagariel; there was no need for him to recruit workers locally, especially since here were mostly rioters.

"Maybe he wants to please the locals!" a merchant offered his opinion.

"Please?" someone immediately disagreed, "Is it necessary?"

This was everyone’s confusion—is it necessary to please these humble locals?

They couldn’t figure it out, but they treated it as a joke, sitting in the shade, drinking iced spirits, enjoying the best pure colors from the Federation, and discussing their aspirations for the future.

This time, without the constraints of the nobility, they will surely create miracles!

As noon was about to pass, a lackey standing by the window suddenly called out while pouring drinks or arranging ashtrays for everyone, "Someone’s applying!"

Several Gafura tycoons immediately stood up, gathering at the window to watch a frail-looking young man inquire about something under the sign not far away.

Not only their eyes but many others’ were also fixed on the young man.

Some were locals, some were from the Governor’s Mansion, some were Federation merchants, but notably absent were Lynch’s eyes.

He wasn’t interested in anything here because he knew this move was bound to succeed!

Actually, his purpose was simple: to cultivate a market for impulse buying.

Someone in the Federation once conducted a survey, and not only in this world, but in another world, a similar survey had been conducted.

The subjects of these surveys were workers in some daily necessities factories, and the content was to ask about their preferences when selecting daily goods.

Interestingly, most workers would choose the products of their own work brand as their first choice, even though no one asked them to do so, but they did.

They would also spontaneously discredit other brand’s products as if they held shares in the factory.

This somewhat strange consumer choice and impulse can drive more things; Darkstone Capital has already demonstrated its powerful side here, and now comes the soft strategy.

Moreover, as non-intruding Federation people, they are more easily accepted by the locals than the Gafura people, and coupled with a series of measures in the future, Gafura merchants simply can’t compete with Federation people.

At least not against Lynch!

After the first person successfully registered, there was a second one stepping out of the shadows, then a third, a fourth...

More and more people gathered around, their lifeless faces gaining some color from the successful registration, and the expressions of the Gafura merchants had already begun to change.

At this moment, Lynch wasn’t paying any attention to the situation here; he was on a call.

The person on the other end of the line was Mark, the nephew of the former mayor of Sabin City. Lynch invited him to work in Amelia because Lynch had a job he was very familiar with, and he could use his experience to accomplish these tasks better.