Seven days ago, while the Zhili Fleet and the Fourth Fleet were preparing for war, a large-scale incident of textile workers smashing machines occurred in the prosperous Suzhou City, and the scale expanded to the entire Jiangnan region. The conflict between "man and machine" appeared for the first time in the Jiangnan region where commodity trade was the most prosperous!

A private textile factory in Suzhou City was emitting black smoke. The raging fire was extinguished by the rescue of the officers and soldiers of Suzhou City and residents. The fired private textile factory also affected several surrounding residential houses.

The former Suzhou General Lu Zhiyan was promoted to Jiangxi General for investigating the assassination of the envoy of Yizhou. Wu Zhikui, the new Suzhou General Wu Zhikui, who had just taken office for the time being, had a gloomy face, like a pot of burning fire.

Fortunately, the fire broke out in a private textile mill during the day, and the government can extinguish the fire and evacuate the people in time, and the losses are limited. If a textile mill with more fabrics catches fire at night, half of Suzhou City may be burned to ashes, and even the number of casualties will be unknown.

Although the flames have been extinguished, the private textile factory was maliciously burned, which is a very serious public security incident! The General of Suzhou is the Sheriff of Suzhou. If there are serious public security incidents under his jurisdiction, it will affect his assessment at the end of the year and his future promotion. This incident may become a stain on his career archives.

"Sir General, the arsonist has been caught. It was the original worker of this textile factory. After being fired, he led other workers to the textile factory. They cut off the fabric, damaged the textile machine and steam engine, and finally set the fire to burn the textile factory. When the shopkeeper of the textile factory led people to stop them, they were seriously injured!" The head arrested the constable and took a group of textile workers over.

These textile workers were obviously smoked by the thick smoke at that time when they were burning the textile factory.

Because they set fires in broad daylight, they were identified by local residents and were quickly arrested.

"The General Manager has to help the young people make the decision. The young people spend all their money investing in this textile factory. Now the entire textile factory has been burned. What should the young people do in the future?! Please help the general manager make the decision and let these troublemakers compensate for the small losses!" The owner of the textile factory was bruised and swollen. As expected, he was injured in a conflict with the workers.

"Please ask the General to make the decision for us. Our houses were affected by the fire. It would be fine if these people set fire to the textile factory. Who would have expected that the fire would burn the houses around us? Our houses and furniture were gone in the fire, and we had no place to live. Could it be that we would have to sleep on the streets!" The residents around who were burned down the houses said angrily.

The newly appointed Suzhou general Wu Zhicai looked at the arrested workers of the original textile factory. These workers were wearing shabby patched scrubs, most of whom could not compensate for the losses of the incineration textile factory and private houses.

"Why do you want to burn the textile factory? Do you know that this is a serious crime to behead you?" Wu Zhicai asked with a calm face.

"Sir, the young are poor families, and they will be a waste of life if they die. We have no ability, so we only know the craft of textiles. We originally worked in this textile factory, and our wages were still good, and we could basically solve the problem of food and clothing. However, the shopkeeper gave us less and less wages, and we had to work longer and longer. When we lit a kerosene lamp at night, we had to continue to start work. We thought that we could barely survive the deducted wages, so we didn't complain much. Later, the shopkeeper bought a new textile machine, and a machine called a steam engine, which was not the case.

We need to pay wages to produce more fabrics than our manpower. The shopkeeper didn't need so many workers. He usually didn't deal with us, so he insulted us all day long and drove us away. We became unemployed vagrants and could not find any other jobs. We had wives and children to raise them at home, and they didn't have to starve to death after working without work. The more we thought about it, we became more angry, so we joined forces to set fire to the textile factory. Now we are relieved! We admit that it was the fire we set. You can punish us as you want." The leading textile factory workers looked like they were not afraid of boiling water.

Wu Zhicai looked at these textile workers and it was difficult to judge how to execute them.

First of all, these textile workers must have committed the law when setting fire to the textile mill, but how do they confirm their crimes? How to punish them to satisfy the people? Secondly, who should compensate for the losses of the burned textile mills and houses? This group of textile mill workers will definitely not be able to compensate.

This incident is really difficult to deal with! Wu Zhicai knew that he had encountered a difficult problem this time.

"All the prisoners were taken to prison and handed over to the local court set up by the Ministry of Justice in Suzhou City for trial. The Suzhou government and our public security forces will conduct a tripartite trial!" Wu Zhicai had to go through the formal litigation process, and he, the Suzhou general, filed a lawsuit against several textile workers.

The newly established litigation system includes local courts responsible for the trial of local proposals, and government offices and public security forces participating in the trial at the same time.

The incident of several textile mill workers smashing the machines and burning the textile mills quickly spread in Suzhou City and the entire Jiangnan region. No one expected that the trial of several textile mill workers had not yet begun, and this incident caused an unprecedented earthquake in the Jiangnan region.

The people in Jiangnan were divided into two factions. One was the owner of textile factories and other factories, and the employers represented by handicraft workshop owners. They were afraid that such things would happen to them and that their industries would be burned by employees, so they sought the government to protect their private property and demanded severe punishment for those who set fire. Another was the employee represented by textile workers. They sympathized with the experience of several fire workers, and were afraid that they would be replaced by machines, so they began to oppose the popularity of machines. Even workers protested in Songhu, Hangzhou and other places.

This labor-management conflict is centered on Suzhou City's textile industry and expands to surrounding cities and other industries. Another serious labor-management conflict is the mining industry. The workers in the coal mining and mining industries have high labor intensity and low wage levels. Especially privately established coal mining yards and mining yards are poorly managed, and even deaths occur.

Workers' awareness of rights protection spread rapidly with the Suzhou City Textile Factory case. They also sought protection from the government, demanding more wages, lower labor intensity, and ensuring that they are not fired under the "invasion" of the steam engine.

The sudden large-scale labor-management conflict in the Jiangnan region not only caused the local government to slump, but also affected Chu Yun's plan to march into Japan this winter, forcing Chu Yun to stabilize the domestic situation first.
Chapter completed!