Chapter 1859 Industrial Cooperation
Allowing foreign funds to enter the country to build industries is a new thing for North Korea. If it is just a commercial activity, it may be difficult to obtain official support. After all, there are too many taboo sidesteps, and North Korea may not be happy to accept it. But Haehan tied this to the relationship between the two countries and gave North Korea's ruling class considerable benefits, thus making this seemingly unlikely cooperation a reality.
For ordinary people in North Korea, they will not be able to feel the impact of this cooperation plan personally for a while, but since this is a project brought by the Haihan people to save North Korea from the fire and water, and it is said that it will make The country has become more prosperous and powerful, and most people welcome this. Of course, the king and ministers have already agreed to this plan. Even if some people question its rationality, it will be difficult to have any impact on the current situation.
There are actually only two types of Koreans who really have a vital interest in this. One is the powerful class who can obtain considerable profits from it, and the other is the refugees who lost their homes due to the war and accepted Haihan's employment. Especially the tens of thousands of the latter have a far more urgent need for this livelihood than the ruling class that profits from it.
The refugees who originally gathered near Pyongyang to seek official relief after the war finally had a more reliable place to go. Haihan specially sent several teams to recruit these refugees near Pyongyang City. The slogan is "Everyone can have enough to eat." Although the conditions seem to be extremely limited, for the many refugees who lack food and clothing and cannot survive, , this is probably the only way out now.
Thousands of North Korean refugees gathered at the pier on the south bank of Pyongyang City, and then, organized by Haihan, lined up to board sailboats and sail down the Taedong River to save the trouble of trekking to their destinations. Many of them had already returned to the northern war zone after the war, and after confirming that their homes were completely destroyed and post-war reconstruction could not be completed in a short period of time, they had no choice but to flee south again.
North Korean officials are unable to organize and resettle these refugees to other places, and even basic food supplies have been intermittent and difficult to guarantee. If Haihan hadn't provided this solution, thousands of refugees would have been gathered together for such a long time. Big chaos is only a matter of time.
In order to ensure that these North Korean refugees could be properly resettled after arriving at the scheduled construction site, Haihan transported a large amount of food and tents from Zhejiang. In addition, we also took advantage of the good soil and water conservancy conditions here near the Datong River base to organize the reclamation of thousands of acres of fields. We first planted potatoes from the previous season and harvested them as this year's winter grain in October and November. .
It is also a big test for Haihan to organize several large construction sites to start construction while constantly recruiting and resettling North Korean refugees. Fu Li was transferred to North Korea to serve as the civil affairs director of the Datong River Base, and he was promoted again before his butt was even hot. As the two countries reached an industrial cooperation agreement and entered the implementation stage, the scope of his jurisdiction expanded from the Datong River base to the entire industrial zone designated by Haihan in the Datong River Basin, and the number of North Korean employees in the area quickly increased several times.
Fortunately, after the early warm-up, Fu Li has basically entered the state. Although the workload has increased a lot at this time, he is no longer as busy as when he first arrived in North Korea. Most of these North Korean employees are refugees. In order to keep their jobs, they are basically able to obey Haihan's management relatively well.
What really gave Fu Li a headache was not these hired workers, but the various figures sent by various parties to serve as supervisors and managers. These people are not North Korean officials. They are all errand boys working for North Korean dignitaries who have shares in these industries. Their task is to supervise Haihan's compliance with the cooperation agreement between the two countries and ensure that the bosses they work for do not benefit. damaged.
The North Korean elite's thoughts are understandable. After all, the construction progress and operating conditions of these industries are closely related to their investment and income, and it is normal to want to protect their own interests. However, these unofficial people often fail to grasp the standards of conduct, and may even interfere with the daily management of Haihan official.
Today's new situation is related to these North Korean supervisors. Fu Li received a report that a North Korean supervisor at the saltworks site personally punished someone for slacking off on work. As a result, he failed to control the situation and beat the person to death. . The North Korean supervisors who took action also aroused public anger. If it were not for the Haihan Army on duty at the scene, it would be difficult to escape from the angry people. Work at the saltworks has now been suspended, and people are demanding that the supervisor responsible for killing others be dealt with before work can be resumed.
According to the cooperation agreement between the two countries, if such serious security cases occur among North Korean workers, Haihan must negotiate with North Korean officials to handle them. The people below do not dare to handle the matter without authorization and can only report the situation to Fuli first.
Fu Li frowned as he read the briefing sent by the riders from the salt field site, and his resentment towards these North Korean supervisors increased even more. Fu Li really didn't understand how the superiors agreed to such obviously troublesome conditions when negotiating a cooperation plan with North Korea, which led to constant problems after the plan was implemented. This is not the first conflict between North Korean supervisors and hired workers in recent times, and almost every time it will lead to serious consequences, forcing him to run back and forth for these messy things.
If Fu Li had the decision-making power, he would definitely drive away all these so-called supervisors without hesitation and leave it to his own people to manage the North Korean employees. These nonsense incidents would definitely be greatly reduced.
Of course, based on the current actual situation, his wish can only stay in the idea stage, and there is basically no possibility of putting it into practice. Fort Victory's instructions to this side via the radio were very clear. In addition to managing civil affairs, his mission was to ensure that diplomatic relations with North Korea would not be affected by the personnel hired by Haihan. In other words, the above believe that the relationship between the two countries should be given priority at the moment, and other issues, including the progress of the project, can be put on the back burner.
It was not Fu Li's first day as an official. Of course he knew what was important at this time. The interests of these civilians seemed insignificant in the context of country-to-country relations. What's more, these people were not Haihan citizens. Seriously speaking, it is also an internal conflict of other countries, and there is really no need for me to intervene too much.
But the matter involved Haihan's saltworks project, which had already been shut down, so he had no choice but to make a trip in person. However, according to the rules, this matter required communication between the competent officials of the two countries before handling it, so he still went to Park Beixiu in a business-like manner and asked him to go to the salt field construction site with him to handle the matter.
"Director Fu, why bother you to go there personally for this kind of thing?" After Pu Beixiu listened to Fu Li's story, she gave him an idea: "Recall the supervisor who messed up the matter and tell him to go back to the main office." Go home and announce to the workers that this person has been punished. If the workers have family members, they will be given some pension. If there are no family members, they will simply conduct a funeral and find a place to bury them. If the strike continues, Then it will be regarded as not complying with the rules on the construction site, and he will be removed from the construction site immediately. With both kindness and power, the matter will be settled quickly. "
Fu Li thought, it's easy for you to say. After all, it's just that I'm lazy and don't want to make this trip. If Park Bek-soo's method is followed, it is indeed possible to achieve the results he said, but if one of the links is not handled properly and local migrant workers continue to go on strike and delay the construction of the saltworks, he will be the one to take the blame.
"Master Park's words make sense, but in order to avoid unnecessary complications, I think it would be more appropriate to go there in person. I have already prepared the carriages and horses, and we can set off immediately." Fu Li still insisted on inviting Park Beixiu to accompany him.
Park Beixiu rolled her eyes and found another excuse: "I caught a cold yesterday and felt a little unwell. I am afraid that the fatigue of driving and horse racing may aggravate the condition... I think it is better to let Cui Ren follow Director Fu. Fu Li said: "According to the principle of reciprocity, if we have differences in handling this matter, I should discuss it with Mr. Park. Cui Ren has no official status and he is not qualified."
Pu Beixiu said: "There is no need to discuss this matter, let's just follow Director Fu's wishes."
Fu Li saw that he was going to be lazy because of his peace of mind, so he stopped trying to persuade him. In fact, it is only twenty miles from the base of the Datong River to the salt field construction site at the mouth of the sea, and it takes less than half a day to go back and forth by horse-drawn carriage. However, there is only a tidal flat in the area, and there is no oil or water at all. Park Beixiu is naturally too lazy to go all the way for such trivial matters. trip. If Fu Li hadn't come to invite him personally, he would have kicked them out long ago.
As the industrial cooperation plan entered the implementation stage and the number of North Korean workers employed increased significantly, Park Beishiu's jurisdiction also increased like Fuli. This also led to a group of people under him to be promoted. Originally, they were just in the office. Cui In, who manages half of the North Korean labor camps in the Taedong River base, now has greater authority. He is responsible for the labor affairs at several new construction sites outside the Taedong River base. Of course, this so-called escrow is just an errand boy most of the time. He has no official official position and his authority is not as good as that of an official appointed by the court like Park Beixiu.
However, this is a rare treat for Cui Ren, who was born as a civilian. Especially Park Beixiu usually does not want to leave the base and sends him out to patrol around. This gives him more opportunities to work with Haihan officials and understand Haihan. It also broadened Han's horizons as to how he organized and constructed such a large-scale project.
After Cui Ren was notified, he immediately came to meet Fu Li and followed him to the construction site where the accident occurred. On the way, Cui Rencai got a general understanding of what happened there from Fu Li. He did not immediately give Fu Li advice like Park Beixiu did, but first asked Fu Li his opinion on the matter.
Through this period of contact, Fu Li knew that Cui Ren liked to try to figure out what he meant and flatter him, so he did not hide his thoughts at the moment: "This kind of thing has happened too frequently recently, and it gets out of hand every time. I hope that he can Find a permanent solution... If that doesn't work, then at least we have to scare the monkeys, severely punish the perpetrators, and let the construction site calm down for a while. "
Cui Rendao: "If this really happened because of sabotage, then I think that the supervisor did not do too much. He just didn't grasp the scale well and tried to mediate it as much as possible. And if there was no sabotage, it was the supervisor If there is a conflict with migrant workers for other reasons and one person dies, then the supervisor will be pulled out and severely punished to calm the public's anger. "
Fu Li shook his head and said: "Your opinions are actually similar to Mr. Park's. They both want to solve the current matter as soon as possible, but they have not considered how to avoid similar situations in the future. Think again."
Cui Ren thought for a while and then added: "The key to this kind of incident is the conflict between migrant workers and supervisors. These supervisors are not officials. At best, they are just like subordinates, just errands. It will definitely be easy for the migrant workers to lack awe of them." Conflicts arise. If we want to solve it in the long term, we must look at the root of the conflict.”
Fu Li nodded slightly and said, "Then how do you think we should solve it?"
Cui Rendao: "Of course it is impossible for the imperial court to appoint all these people as officials, so there are only two solutions, either to remove all these supervisors and supervisors, or to help them establish their authority so that workers will not dare to fight with them anymore. ”
Fu Li asked again: "Which method do you think is easier to achieve?"
Cui Ren hesitated for a moment before responding: "I heard that these supervisors and supervisors are all big shots who take orders from above. I want to remove them all. I'm afraid there are too many aspects involved and it will be a troublesome thing to deal with... So I'm afraid that I think the second method is easier to implement. ”
While Fu Li asked Cui Ren questions, he was also sorting out his thoughts in his mind. In the end, he was helpless to find that the situation was indeed as Cui Ren said. The way to control the occurrence of such incidents in the long term might be the right way. Contrary to his original intention, instead of driving back these North Korean supervisors who seemed to be a hindrance, he had to try to establish their prestige and make North Korean workers obey their instructions as much as possible.
Although this will make the situation of North Korean workers more difficult, if the goal is to improve the operational efficiency on the construction site and speed up the progress of the project, Fu Li cannot think of any more effective method at the moment.
There is no official road between the Datong River base and the salt field construction site. Even though it is only twenty miles, it is quite difficult for Fu Li and Cui Ren. Cui Ren, who rarely had the opportunity to ride in a carriage, had unsteady steps when he got out of the car. If Fu Li hadn't pulled him up, he would have been almost unsteady on his feet.
The first thing Fu Li did was to find a Haihan Army company commander who maintained security here, to learn from him the details of the incident and to confirm the division of responsibilities in the incident.
(End of chapter)