diskusbooks Chapter 176 Differentiation
Chapter 176 Differentiation
Elra never imagined that the first people to come knocking on his door would be not the Halvin gang, but a government lobbyist. He himself was a nobleman in his early years, but he had disappeared from public view for a long time after the usurper came to power.
Unlike the Halvin gang, his noble fiefdom was on the coast of Le Mans, a fine piece of land, but he had few subjects because it was new territory.
Even though the government used bayonets to push through land reform and his fiefdom was converted into private commercial land, it is still vacant now. He still has a lot of wealth, but he doesn't know what to do with it.
“Mr. Elra, ah, it’s an honor to meet you. Carmela, I’m a representative of Fantasy Foods Company, and I would like to have a word with you.”
"Are you from the North?"
When Elra asked the question, Carmela paused for a moment, but immediately smiled and replied: You can think that way, but I am representing Fantasy Foods Company today.
Elra nodded. He had heard of the company. They made all the fruit-flavored sodas on the market and rivaled Coca-Cola. Now they controlled half of the beverage industry in America.
Fruits, they have to come from the South.
"I'm here to suggest you cooperate with the company. After all... well, I've heard you're sitting on a gold mine, how enviable! But the question is how to expand that gold mine."
"Of course~"
“You’re a smart man, aren’t you? We… have investigated Le Mans. You know, the National Railway Group just opened a railway last month, and now it goes directly to Calais or Versailles. Without a doubt, that’s a good place.”
"But instead of planting something on that land and exchanging it for a pittance of gold coins, I suggest you—open a soda factory, what do you say?"
Opening a soft drink factory?
Ella remained noncommittal, listening as the business representative across from her continued: if he agreed to cooperate, the company would provide the technology and machinery, while he would provide the land and capital to establish the first Fantasy Soft Drinks factory in the South.
The advantage is that if a soft drink factory is built, the commercial land under his name can immediately be transformed into tax-free industrial land. At the same time, the government can provide a loan with an incredibly low interest rate, and the government will guarantee the losses for the first three years, and provide subsidies if there are any losses!
But losses? That's impossible. First of all, if the factory is built, he will be one of the designated soft drink suppliers for Fantasy Company in the south. You know, products produced in the north are aimed at the common people. In the past, they made money from the rich. Northern products are all about small profits and quick turnover, making money from everyone.
A two-yuan drink doesn't seem to make much profit, and the bottle itself looks like it costs more than two yuan, but the business representative told him that once the factory is built and mass production is underway, the drink can be sold for two yuan and still make a profit.
They earn a few cents or a dollar per bottle of beverage, but their daily output is more than ten thousand.
After seeing off the business representative, Elra thought it over and over, and finally signed the contract with the representative. There was no other reason than that it was a proposal that he could not refuse.
The northerners acted even faster; the day after signing the contract, the factory began laying its foundation, and a company representative invited him to visit the Fantasy General Bottling Plant in Port Hilla.
He witnessed the beverage production process for the first time and learned about industry for the first time. He suddenly thought of the Halvin Gang. In the upper class of Versailles, the existence of the Halvin Gang was an open secret. Many nobles wanted to join them and regarded the Halvin Gang as their last line of defense.
But when he arrived in the north and saw the towering skyscrapers and the endless stream of cars, he exclaimed – only a fool would think of fighting against that vampire president.
He knew many people, and he wondered what would happen if he invited some of them to invest in industry together.
Little did he know that his idea was exactly what Alice wanted: to replace the landed aristocracy with industrial capitalists and the old economy with an industrial economy.
A few days after returning from the north, Halvin's gang found him. The messenger spoke at length about the glory of the old nobility, but he had already lost interest.
He had come into contact with the so-called commercial capitalists in the North, who had plenty of money and factories, each one unimaginably large, producing goods that could bury these old aristocrats alive.
Putting all that aside, he had no desire to confront the terrifying steel fleet outside Hilla Harbor.
He politely declined the envoy from the Harvin Gang, who then left. He glanced at his steward and instructed him to visit some of his former colleagues who had not yet joined the Harvin Gang.
As the Harvin Gang grew stronger, some nobles began to transform into industrial capitalists. Alice soon saw reports of newly established private enterprises in the South. Without exception, these private enterprises were invested in by the old nobles, and most of them were light industries, from soft drinks to canned goods to textile factories.
The factory absorbed a large workforce from the very beginning of its construction, recruiting construction workers locally, which revitalized the local economy. However, despite this, Alice did not want the region to develop large-scale public industry.
Although large state-owned enterprises will strengthen state-owned enterprises in the south, the problem is that the situation in the south is not good to begin with, and the foundation is not stable. If the local regional governments develop industry and have their own slush funds, will they still listen to the central government?
Finances must be controlled by the central government; only when local governments are short of funds will they listen to the central government.
Therefore, Alice firmly refused, only allowing each region to set up small cement plants and small machinery factories, both to facilitate the people and to train skilled workers.
After discussing with the tax bureau, Alice felt that allocating 80% of the tax revenue from local private enterprises to the national treasury and only giving the remainder to local governments would offend people, since local governments would react if the source of revenue decreased.
But Alice insisted on this decision, and with a stroke of her pen, she declared: local financial deficits could be reported to the central government of the Federal Republic, and then the central government would allocate funds.
After all, although it carried the title of a so-called federal republic, Alice knew that this was just a facade, and she had no intention of giving the local areas too much power.
Prior to this, the Halvin Gang had already infiltrated the management of a certain region in the south. Now, with the order issued, the region's revenue sources have been greatly reduced. Without income, the Halvin Gang realized that the other side could not do anything and had to give up. After all, TICAC's reputation was there, and the risk was very high.