Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology-Chapter 958: Economic Crisis 3

Setting off to the factory, Vishal had a very bad feeling in his heart.

"I don’t know if I can keep my job," he said to his coworker, who had joined him in the carriage.

"I don’t think I can either," the coworker replied, his expression listless as if he had lost a lot of sleep over the matter.

Vishal looked at his coworker in surprise, "But you are in the engineering department, how can you be removed? You are essential to the factory."

The coworker shook his head with a deep sense of loss. "In normal times, you would be right, but..."

He stopped mid-sentence and looked at Vishal.

"You already know the answer, don’t you? Half a year ago, our company had orders to produce over 200,000 sets of kitchen knives. But after that order was completed, we barely got orders for 50,000 sets."

"Now, a few months later, we are not getting any orders at all. It looks like the boss can no longer afford to pay wages, and he has already sold factories 14 to 25 and fired all the employees working in them."

"In this situation, no matter the department, everyone is at risk of losing their jobs."

Vishal felt heavy in his heart, but unfortunately, there was nothing he could do. He and his colleague finally reached the company, Channa Patna Blademakers, a medium-scale kitchen utensils manufacturing company located on the banks of the Godavari River.

The company used to be one of the busiest and most profitable companies in the Godavari River Bank industrial zone, but now, much like other companies in the zone, Channa Patna Blademakers are in a slump without any sales.

Getting down from the carriage, Vishal was momentarily stunned when he saw that the water wheels were not spinning and the sound of machinery was absent. His bad feeling intensified because even if there was no work at this time of day, the water wheels and machinery would usually be undergoing maintenance. Yet, no such sounds could be heard. Instead, he vaguely heard the noise of a crowd talking inside, and from the tone of their voices, the situation did not seem like anything good.

He let out a deep and turbulent breath and went inside, preparing for the worst.

Stepping in, he was taken aback, all the machinery was being disassembled and put into large wooden crates, and at the loading bay of the company, it was no longer the products they made with so much care that were being shipped to the customers, but it was the machine tools themselves that were being packaged and sent away.

With his heart racing, Vishal found a familiar junior worker and called him over. "Are we relocating?" he asked.

In fact, he already knew what the answer was going to be, but still, he wanted to hear the bitter truth from someone else. Maybe in this way it would snap him out of his own denial, denial about the indisputable collapse of the company which he cared so much for.

Unfortunately, his worries came true.

The junior looked a little lost, but he replied, "No, senior, the manager said all the Machine tools are being sold to a company in the industrial zone."

Vishal felt a tightness in his heart and a pang of pain, but in the end, he went to the corner where he usually drinks his coffee and sat down in the chair as the machines were being emptied out right before his eyes. Memories of the past came flooding in.

Vishal really likes the company. It had provided him and his family with a livelihood for nearly a decade. It was this company that had given him the opportunity to lift his family out of poverty and turn them into one of the well-off families in the village, owning more than 50 acres of land and becoming a family that everyone wanted to be close to. He was a very loyal person, so he couldn’t help but be very sad looking at the factory floor, which he had worked in for nearly a decade, being emptied outright before his eyes.

It wouldn’t be too much to say that Channa Patna Blademakers was as much a part of his life as his father was.

Soon, the factory manager arrived, and Vishal looked at him with the last bit of hope, but it was futile. The disappointed and nostalgic expression on the manager’s face told him everything he needed to know.

His last shred of hope crumbled. He leaned back, covered his face with his hands, and tears glistened between his fingers. Vishal only opened his eyes an hour later.

To his surprise, all the fellow workers had disappeared; only the machine tools that were yet to be packed and shipped were left. Suddenly, he heard a sound from his side.

"Manager!"

Vishal reflexively stood up and did a respectful namaskar.

The manager looked at his best worker with a complicated gaze, but in the end, he could only shake his head and stretch out the contract termination letter along with the settlement papers.

"We are bankrupt, Vishal. You’ll need to find another job. But don’t worry, with your experience here, those large companies in the industrial zones will definitely hire you for a good wage."

Vishal took the letter reflexively, but his hand froze as he heard what it was. In the end, he still tucked the letter away and kept it on his person.

"Manager, couldn’t the boss persist a little more? Maybe if we could order the steam engine the next time it is sold, everything may recover."

The manager shook his head with a bitter smile. "You already know the ambition of the young boss, Vishal. He wanted to turn the company into a large-scale enterprise, and for this reason, he took large loans from the bank and expanded the factory several times. Unfortunately, in his intent to expand, he completely ignored the steam engine that had been released. Now, we are no longer competitive in the market, and our losses are no longer recoverable."

Vishal felt sad for the boss, but suddenly he remembered the recent news and asked hesitantly, "Is the young boss okay then?" He knew that a few bankrupt company owners had committed suicide. Although he didn’t think the young boss would do it, he couldn’t be sure about anything at this point.

"The young boss is devastated, but when I saw him today, he was in good spirits. Unlike those people in the newspapers, our boss hasn’t lost everything."

"He had already diversified his investments into agriculture, which hasn’t been affected by the economic crash. And even though the factories are no longer viable for manufacturing, he’s planning to convert them all into warehouse spaces."

"Moreover, he sold the complete trademark, copyright, and patents the company had accumulated to an up-and-coming manufacturer in Gangapuri. Since our company had priority raw material procurement contracts with top iron and steel companies, the sale fetched a very good price. In the end, apart from losing the company he built since graduation, the boss lost nothing else. He still has a chance to restart after some accumulation."

Vishal was relieved. "That’s good."

After stepping out the door, he took one final look at the company and quietly knelt down. "For providing me and my family a way to live and putting food on the table, I wholeheartedly thank you."

---

As the days went by, the situation continued to devolve, more companies went bankrupt, and more people faced unemployment; millions of people were suddenly on the streets looking for jobs.

And it is at this time that Vijay finally set foot on the mainland after his trip to the United States of the Philippines.

Vijay was tired, but he knew he had important work to do, so he set off to the capital directly without any stop in the middle. And when he got to the Simhasana Bhavana, all the ministers swarmed him, asking him what to do.

Without delay, he organised a cabinet meeting and gave out a series of orders.

"Immediately arrange all the low-skilled labour force to be employed by the canal construction and railway construction projects that are taking place in the northern part of the empire."

"For the high-skilled labour, have the factories in the industrial zones and the factories having the steam engines absorb as many as they can, and direct the rest to work in the overseas territory and see if they are willing to emigrate permanently. Even if they are not initially fond of the idea, simply have them work there one or two years, and they will be more or less willing to stay there permanently."

"More importantly, no help can be provided to those who have gone bankrupt. What is happening now is simply the will of the market; weaker companies fail, and stronger ones survive. It’s the survival of the fittest. The government cannot intervene in this matter. The best we can do is strengthen regulations so that the next economic crisis causes less devastation."

No one thought that His Majesty would be so determined and his decision would be so ruthless, but in the end, no one voiced out against him, and everyone unanimously agreed to his orders. Nirmal, Minister of Transportation, came up with a question, "Your Majesty, even the lowest-skilled labourer working in the manufacturing companies is used to getting over 500 Varaha per month as salary."

"Should we match this salary for the construction of the canal because the lowest wage provided for the labourers working in construction, who are the vast majority of the people, is only over 350 or 400 Varaha?"

"No," Vijay immediately denied, "like I said, government should not meddle in the affairs of the free market."

"You can’t artificially raise the base salary without any further considerations. If you increase the salary of the labourers, the cost of construction will rise immensely, and when the cost of construction rises, the price asked by the construction companies will increase, and if this increases, the burden will ultimately fall on the government, and when the burden is felt by the government, the people paying the taxes will feel it as well."

"So let nature take its course."

"If the low-skilled industrial labourers are unwilling to work for a low price, overseas jobs are readily available to provide them with higher salaries and better opportunities; all they have to do is take a chance."

"In fact, have the government publicise the opportunities present in the overseas territories. Millions of Chinese have already flooded our overseas territories, and it is time for the overseas territories to receive some fresh blood from the mainland."

Nirmal asks yet another question, "But Your Majesty, by doing this, we cannot find over 10 million people to work on the construction project."

"Hmm"

"What do you think will be the shortfall?"

Nirmal thought about it and made an educated guess, "It may be around one to three million, Your Majesty."

"Right"

"In that case, we can employ the Africans, they are strong, cheap and hardworking, don’t we have three frontiers in Africa, let them be responsible for this matter."

Suddenly, Vijay got an idea on how to retaliate against the Spanish for their actions in Hawaii, but he kept the matter to himself.

"Is there anything else?"

No one responded,

"In that case, this meeting is dismissed."

P.S. Thank you, Sudhanva_SH, for the IceCola x 2

P.S. Thank you, vhvuvi, for the IceCola

P.S Thank you, Lucifer_6671, for the Massage chair freeweɓnovel~cѳm