Volume 1 Chapter 132 Year end bonus

This public auction in Banta City that attracted countless people’s attention and several large and small companies of the Lampuri Kingdom was actually just a play Xu Yi coordinated with the royal family to put on.

The Frestech Chamber of Commerce certainly couldn’t take out an exaggerated amount as two million and it was like everyone had thought, they didn’t have the qualifications to apply for a large five million gold coin loan from the Chimera Chamber of Commerce.

This five million gold coin loan was actually taken by the king, using the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s name on the application.

The two million gold coins used to buy the first mine would naturally return into the king’s hands. The three million that wasn’t spent in the end would directly be given back to the Chimera Chamber of Commerce.

In this auction, when it came to settling accounts, Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t spend a single cent. The interest the king had to pay for this short term loan of five million was twenty thousand which wasn’t even worth mentioning.

Compared to the income of two million and three hundred thousand gold coins earned from selling the second mine, it really wasn’t worth mentioning.

Of course, according to Xu Yi’s agreement with the king, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce should have received two iron mines. Although now one of the mines ended in the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s hands, the other mine was still auctioned off to the Falcao Chamber of Commerce.

But Seveni and Xu Yi’s plans had already thought of that.

If Xu Yi could have bought the second mine at a suitable price, it would have been good. But chairman Morgan threw those rough words at the auction, so Xu Yi chose to give it up after careful consideration.

Seveni had given Xu Yi two choices in this situation.

One was according to the one million and three hundred gold coin value in the contract. The king would directly give one million and three hundred thousand gold coins to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, which would be considered payment for the order of agricultural magic machines.

The second was to find a suitable iron mine in the kingdom to give Xu Yi. That way, it would be no different from the contract from before.

But Xu Yi gave Seveni another option. That was to let the Frestech Chamber of Commerce rent some land from the royal family, using the payment as rent for the land.

As for the size of the land, Xu Yi’s first request was around ten times the size of Banta City.

But Seveni’s response to this was.....

“Chairman Xu, are you crazy?”

Of course Xu Yi wasn’t crazy, he was actually very sane.

Because he was very sane, he proposed the plan of renting land from the royal family. He no longer wanted to obtain territory like before.

This was because Xu Yi had studied up on the history of the Lampuri Kingdom. Since the kingdom had been founded, although the Lampuri Kingdom royal family had conferred new noble titles, they had never given out an inch of land.

It could be seen that the Lampuri Kingdom’s royal family felt the land was quite important.

Xu Yi didn’t think he was qualified to have the royal family give him land, so after considering it, he chose the next best option to rent land from the royal family.

It was renting, but it was completely different from renting land in the hands of the nobles.

First the royal family controlled the Lampuri Kingdom. Putting aside the land in the hands of the nobility, over 70% of the land belonged to the kingdom.

If one rented from the royal family, they could get more and request to rent a large piece of land.

If he rented from the nobles, even if it was the Stagg Family with the most land, Xu Yi couldn’t find an area that would satisfy him.

Secondly, the royal family was much more stable compared to the nobles.

If one rented land from the nobles, with a single idea from the nobles, there could be many changes against the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.

As the royal family was in control of the kingdom, they cared more about their prestige and about the general situation. In a normal circumstance, they wouldn’t easily change their policies.

The main reason why Xu Yi wanted territory that belonged to him was mainly because of the latter reason.

Right now the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was renting land from Viscount Leslie. Although Xu Yi’s relation with Viscount Leslie was good and Viscount Leslie was a major shareholder of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, so there normally weren’t any problems, Xu Yi didn’t have much expectation to this kind of relationship.

This point could be seen by the three hundred slaves Viscount Leslie had sent into the household magic machine workshop.

It was clear that these three hundred slaves didn’t belong to Viscount Leslie and Viscount Leslie himself was dissatisfied with the plans for the three hundred slaves. He even secretly warned Xu Yi not to treat these slaves are real workers and not to let them learn all the technology in the workshop.

But even if Viscount Leslie wasn’t willing, once those three hundred slaves entered the workshop and learned for a month, a large part of the slaves had mastered the techniques required.

Xu Yi was very clear that these three hundred slaves should be from the Stagg Family behind Viscount Leslie.

And from this point, he knew that Viscount Leslie is influenced by the family behind him.

So no matter how good his relationship was with Xu Yi and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, that didn’t decide everything.

So Xu Yi wanted to avoid situations he couldn’t control and of course he wanted his own territory.

So even if there were limitations in renting from the royal family, no matter what, it was better than his current situation.

So even though Seveni couldn’t help calling Xu Yi crazy, Xu Yi still insisted on this request.

Under Xu Yi’s persistence, Seveni decided to report Xu Yi’s plan to the king in the end.

As for whether Xu Yi’s request could be satisfied, Seveni didn’t dare promise anything.

It took quite a bit of time for Xu Yi to clean up after the auction. When he finished everything and succeeded in registering the iron mines in the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s name, it was already close to the end of December.

The Sines Continent also celebrated New Years and of course there would be vacation for New Years.

Even if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce hadn’t finished most of the order, no matter what, Xu Yi couldn’t have the workers keep working overtime during the New Years period.

After discussing it with Heinz, Camby, and the others, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce decided to start their vacation on the twenty fifth and it would go all the way until the seventh of January.

On the twentieth, there was a cheer that filled both the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s workshops.

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This was because the vacation Xu Yi announced was longer than most of the other Banta City companies. Once it was announced, it naturally obtained the support of all the workers.

What made the workers even happiers that was Xu Yi announced that other than the Frestech Chamber of Commerce paying their wages while they were off for New Years, each person would also receive one month’s salary as a year end bonus!

Before this, no one had ever heard of a year end bonus before!

After they heard Xu Yi personally announce this, all the workers almost went wild with happiness!

This was because according to Xu Yi’s announcement, not only would the workers receive last month’s pay, with the first half of this month’s pay added in, they would also receive a bonus of one month’s base pay!

Counting it all, even the most normal worker would receive a salary of over thirty gold coins before New Years!

As for the workers with higher wages and the workers who worked more overtime, their wage could surpass forty gold coins or even reach fifty gold coins!

To these workers that would at most receive three-four gold coins per month before coming to work for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, this was a giant amount!

With this money, the workers that were rather poor didn’t need to worry about their family’s livelihood when it came to celebrating New Years this year.

Thinking of them bringing home a large amount of gold coins, letting their parents and wives have a rich celebration for New Years, the workers all looked at Xu Yi with gazes of gratitude.

In that moment, Xu Yi’s image in their minds was incomparably large.

However, not all the workers showed this same display of excitement. The biggest exception to this were the three hundred slaves brought by Viscount Leslie.

They were different than the hundred slaves under Xu Yi’s name. Viscount Leslie had specially said that these three hundred slaves couldn’t receive any special treatment, so even if Xu Yi felt sorry for them, he still couldn’t pay them wages.

Even buying some material compensation for them was greatly discouraged. In the end, Xu Yi could only helplessly buy them some small things they could use for New Years as a sign of recognition for their work.

But even though these were small things that cost less than gold coin, these slaves treated them like things that could burn their hands. If it wasn’t for Xu Yi ordering them to take it, no one would have dared to take it.

Other than the three hundred slaves, the nine magicians in charge of drawing the Magic Arrays weren’t as excited as the other workers.

One was because these magicians hadn’t been at the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for more than a month, so they didn’t have any feelings for this place, so naturally they weren’t excited as the other workers.

Second, the magicians had more experience than these workers, so how could they become excited so easily.

But of course it was false to say that they weren’t happy at all.

Even though they worked for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for less than a month, because they had a higher efficiency than those students, their salary was over twenty gold coins each month when counting it all!

If they had worked a complete month, their salary might have even come close to more than thirty gold coins!

To these magicians who were at most Second Grade Magicians, this was a high wage that filled them with joy.

The Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t have a normal day of work today. Thy finished working at the end of the morning and tidied up the two workshops.

They came together for a meal at noon and after they finished eating, wages were given.

After all this fuss, the day had ended like this.

After they finished taking care of the workers’ year end arrangements with difficulty, Xu Yi along with Heinz, Camby, and the others headed back to Banta City together. He had them go find a few places in a restaurant first before he headed to the research lab Evita and Akali lived in.