Cracking Down on Black Intermediaries

The textile factory had been running stably for nearly a month.

In less than a month, naturally there would be quite a few problems with work coordination.

Running a factory and organizing large-scale personnel coordination was never a simple matter.

On the second day of training at the textile factory, a small portion of people were screened out.

Those with extremely poor learning ability, low cooperation, and insufficient obedience were directly sent home.

The subsequent second and third batches had much the same situation.

Although the textile factory could now operate normally and stably, production capacity was still far from maximized.

The finished clothing and fabric currently produced were all stored in warehouses, waiting for the right opportunity to be released to the market.

Since Li Yuanzhao had helped secure part of the construction land, storage costs weren't too high.

During this month, Fang Zheng hadn't been idle either. Although there were no major problems inside the textile factory.

But quite a few problems had emerged outside the factory.

Those women who went home on leave or were dismissed inevitably told their families and neighbors about the textile factory's generous benefits.

Word spread from one to ten, ten to a hundred, and the textile factory work became the envy of countless women.

Even many men were secretly eager to try.

In this environment, factory recruitment became much smoother.

However, during this process, some women actually entered the textile factory through intermediaries from brokerage houses.

These brokerage houses were equivalent to intermediary agencies, and these brokers were naturally intermediaries.

Brokerage houses in this era had an extremely wide scope of work, covering almost everything!

But the problem was that Fang Zheng had never commissioned brokerage houses to recruit female workers.

So the problem arose!

He was actually being targeted by damn black intermediaries!

These intermediaries were bold enough to meddle in any business!

Women wanting to enter the textile factory went directly to brokers asking about work. The brokers dared to say anything, directly telling them the textile factory paid one and a half taels of silver per month and guaranteed factory entry!

However, half a tael of monthly wages needed to be handed over to the brokerage house as an intermediary fee.

Those women were already poor and uneducated, lacking opinions, so naturally they believed whatever others told them!

When signing contracts with the brokerage house, they couldn't understand what was written, but under the temptation of the textile factory's generous benefits and guaranteed factory entry, they hastily pressed their fingerprints.

After signing the contract, the brokers directly had these women go to interview points for recruitment interviews.

If the interview failed, the contract would naturally become waste paper.

If successful, it was equivalent to gaining automatic monthly income of half a tael.

With contracts in hand, even if taken to court, these women had no grounds for complaint.

What's worse, some directly deceived ignorant women, saying they needed to buy specific bedding from the brokerage house to enter the factory, as the factory no longer provided bedding.

Those who passed interviews had to come back and pay another sum of money for bedding.

The anxious ones bought bedding before interviews, getting fleeced again for nothing.

This matter had been brewing for only a few days before being reported to Li Yuanzhao and Fang Zheng by subordinates.

Both were immediately furious!

Damn it, daring to disturb the soil on Tai Sui's head. They really didn't know how many eyes the Horse King had!

So for the latter half of this month, Fang Zheng and Li Yuanzhao would take sanitation team members to the streets whenever they had time, cracking down on black intermediaries.

As for how to crack down, naturally with fists!

When they found black intermediaries, the two would charge in, drag people out without a word, and give them a beating!

The so-called "carriage, boat, shop, foot, tooth; innocent or not, all should be killed!"

Fang Zheng had no ill feelings toward intermediaries in general. After all, intermediaries were very necessary in any era.

It could be said that intermediaries greatly enhanced information flow and increased price transparency.

But currently, brokerage houses were obviously very unregulated, with strong gangster characteristics. Many even moonlighted as human traffickers.

A gathering place for scoundrels that would skin even poor people down to their bones.

Seeing his female workers suffer this grievance, Fang Zheng naturally chose to take the initiative!

After practicing fists and feet for half a month, his physical strength had increased considerably.

Although the beaten brokers were ruthless enough in secret, they obviously couldn't be more ruthless than Fang Zheng, who had power and influence. After a thorough beating, they also pitifully claimed they would report to officials.

But before Fang Zheng and his group could reveal their identities, the biggest gang and hooligan organization north of the capital, the Inferno Gang, directly took up residence in the brokerage house!

They promptly announced the creation of a Broker Committee, requiring all future brokerage house activities to be reported in advance for supervision.

Any broker daring to break laws, deceive superiors and subordinates would immediately experience the brutal nature of the Broker Committee...

Besides dealing with black intermediaries.

After daily physical exercise, Fang Zheng had to run to the rear palace to give the princess simple "reports."

The report content was naturally romantic moonlight, affectionate gazes, flirtatious glances, sweet talk, and wandering hands...

Of course, there was some real business too.

The textile factory could now begin production, but production was production and sales were sales.

In fact, these were completely different trades.

Winning over all the cloth merchants in the city and rapidly distributing goods in winter was the top priority for Fang Zheng.

They were the existing sales channels in the capital.

Not counting small businesses, merchants who could establish themselves in the capital were almost all capable individuals, or survived by relying on aristocratic families.

Besides the capital, their influence even extended to cloth shop branches nationwide.

If he could achieve good cooperation with these merchants, then promoting new textile machines and low-priced fabric would be much smoother.

On this day, almost all the well-known cloth merchants in the capital were invited to the gates of Banshan Textile Factory.

Many were actually in a state of confusion.

They had simply received Fang Zheng's invitation and come looking.

Although news of the textile factory had caused quite a stir in the market, many of them actually looked down on it.

Everyone was in the same industry. Although Fang Zheng's status wasn't low, he was ultimately an outsider.

Outsiders watch the excitement, insiders see the details.

After watching the market for so long, they still hadn't seen any goods from Banshan Textile Factory.

That meant the textile factory was unreliable!

It had been almost a month, and they hadn't seen even a single bolt of fabric, never mind finished clothing.

Why summon us here? To ask us to share some experience?

The merchants discussed heatedly outside the textile factory while exchanging industry experience. Soon Fang Zheng arrived by carriage, fashionably late.

Li Yuanzhao didn't accompany him this time. Recently he had become quite addicted to fighting and was still tirelessly leading his subordinates to find black intermediaries to beat...

Seeing Fang Zheng get off the carriage, the merchants hurried to pay respects.

His reputation among merchants was still quite high. The relaxed business environment of Banshan District was already well-known to everyone.

Many of these people had even opened branch stores in Banshan District, so they knew Fang Zheng fairly well.

Fang Zheng waved his hand and smiled. "Hello everyone, no need to be formal. Since everyone's here, let's go inside."

He then waved to the gate guards, who immediately opened the gate.

Following behind Fang Zheng, the merchants surged in like fish.