Chapter 131 Year end meeting
As the year was coming to an end, the weather became even colder.
But for the people of Banta City, this winter was much better compared to before.
This was because with higher incomes, most families that could only look at the Variable Magic Air Conditioner last year could actually reach out for it this year.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s new generation Variable Temperature Magic Air Conditioner had a new function, being able to deliver bursts of warm air in set intervals, the price hadn’t changed. It was still thirty gold coins just like last year.
So after entering winter, many families took out several months of saved wages and gritted their teeth as they purchased one or even more Variable Temperature Magic Air Conditioner from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
After these Variable Temperature Magic Air Conditioners were installed in their homes, they could enjoy the warm air blown out of the air conditioner. After feeling that their homes were no longer as cold as previous years, everyone’s pain from buying the Magic Air Conditioners disappeared without a trace.
After getting home from work and feeling the warm air after entering their home, this was considered a large comfort for many people/
If they wanted to take a bath after eating dinner, they could enjoy the convenience of enough warm water using the Frestech Brand Magic Water Heater. It chased away the fatigue of the day and they slept quite well at night.
Last year, many people just regarded the magic machines from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce as novel things. In just a single year, many people were used to living with their various kinds of magic machines and they could no longer live without them.
If there was a family that was still using firewood to heat water or bake bread, it meant that your family had fallen behind. They wouldn’t be able to raise their heads in front of their relatives and friends at all.
When young people got married in Banta City, the men would have to just prepare some daily necessities and guarantee that the couple will have a normal life after getting married.
But now when young people got married, if there weren’t several magic machines prepared already, the girls wouldn’t be willing to get married.
Of course, there were differences in magic machines.
Compared to small things like Magic Water Kettles, Automatic Magic Rice Cookers, and Magic Lamps, it was clear that Magic Air Conditioners and Magic Water Heaters were more popular.
Even if there was no use for a Magic Refrigerator during winter, it was still popular.
To buy a Magic Refrigerator during winter, at least it would mean that you’re prepared to spend summer with your wife, right?
Similarly, other than differences between different kinds of magic machines, there were differences among the same kind of magic machines.
For example, when it came to Magic Bread Makers, if you bought a Frestech Brand Magic Bread Maker, it would prove your sincerity.
If you bought a Magic Bread Maker of another brand, it would mean that you were stingy.
Although the Frestech Brand Bread Maker was a bit expensive, it wasn’t that much more expensive compared to the other brands. Moreover, the quality of the Frestech Brand was better and it was more beautifully designed, so why wouldn’t you spend a bit more to buy the Frestech Brand?
So with the increase in requests from girls, not only in Banta City, even in the other cities, people gradually came to an agreement.
For a better life, you have to have magic machines.
For better magic machines, you had to go with the Frestech Brand.
“So that means that in a year, our Frestech Chamber of Commerce has had great success. Not only do people in Banta City and the surrounding cities approve of our Frestech Brand magic machines, the people in other parts of the kingdom are gradually accepting the existence of magic machines and are starting to recognize our Frestech Chamber of Commerce.” Xu Yi said all this in a loud voice before raising his wine cup, “Come, let’s make a toast to our efforts and successes this year!”
“Cheers!”
Countless hands came up and countless wine cups clinked against each other before they filled countless mouths.
This was the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s year end meeting.
According to the traditions of last year, when every year came to an end, Xu Yi would bring all the workers and the management of the company together for a meal and to summarize the year for their company.
Because the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had an extra Falling Rain Valley production bass, meaning that the company now had over four thousand workers, even if Xu Yi wanted it, they couldn’t gather all the workers together at once.
So for the year end banquet held at the Sandton Manor tonight, only all the human workers of the company were gathered.
As for the year end banquet for dwarves and elves, it would have to wait until Xu Yi headed to the Falling Rain Valley to host it.
Even like this, there were close to three thousand people at this year end banquet.; Sandton Manor’s biggest open space was completely filled up.
For this year end banquet, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had invited over a hundred chefs to man several kitchens to fill their requests. They had spent close to ten thousand gold coins on this.
But this was worth it for Xu Yi because this event helped train the cohesiveness of his workers, enhancing their loyalty to the company.
Now that Banta City was lacking in manpower all over, because these people worked at the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, they were welcomed by all the other magic machine companies.
Just from the beginning of winter, there had been over a hundred Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s workers who had been poached with promises of higher wages.
There were some companies that were wild enough to poach a Frestech Chamber of Commerce worker with a shockingly high wage of over thirty gold coins a month.
Even if they were warned by Banta City’s Magic Machine Business Union and obediently returned the workers, this was not a good start and it made Xu Yi vigilant.
He could use his identity as the Banta City’s Magic Machine Business Union president to punish companies that went overboard, but if they didn’t go overboard and just offered slightly higher wages, he didn’t have a good reason to issue a punishment.
Not to mention that this was limited to Banta City. If there were companies outside of Banta City that wanted to poach the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s workers with a wage of thirty gold coins or higher, Xu Yi couldn’t stop them.
Moreover, the workers weren’t that important, the more important ones were the research staff.
Evita had mentioned to Xu Yi a few days ago that there was an Anvilmar City company that had secretly contacted her, giving her a starting wage of fifty gold coins a month with a year end bonus of no less than two hundred gold coins. They wanted her to come over to their company.
Although Evita had rejected this, Xu Yi didn’t dare guarantee that the other researchers would reject this.
So holding this year end banquet, it was not just to increase the loyalty and cohesiveness of the workers, it was also to use this chance to tell the workers that they would be gradually receiving better treatment.
As expected, as soon as Xu Yi finished announcing this, it created deafening waves of cheers.
As long as anyone had worked for the Frestech Chamber of Commerce for three months, they would know that the chairman wouldn’t easily make promises to workers.
But as long as he made a promise, he had never failed to deliver. 𝙗𝙚𝙙𝒏𝙤𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝒎
Now that he had declared that everyone would gradually receive better treatment, it would definitely become better.
Seeing Xu Yi sit down while everyone was cheering, Heinz on the side said with a sigh, “Xu Yi, our Frestech Chamber of Commerce is already giving people a high enough wage, if we raise it again, although we can bear it, it isn’t the right way if we keep going. Don’t you think so, Sebas?”
Sebas gave a slight nod. He didn’t need to take out his book of accounts as he said, “According to the data, the wage our company gave to our workers last month was over a hundred thousand gold coins already. This isn’t including the various bonuses and holiday benefits. If you add those in, we spent over a hundred and twenty thousand gold coins on worker wages last year.”
“See, we’re giving a hundred thousand each month in wages alone, don’t you think that’s enough?” Heinz immediately turned to look at Xu Yi with wide eyes, “Don’t forget, our company didn’t even make a hundred thousand gold coins a month last year!”
Xu Yi laughed and didn’t feel emotional that Heinz would never change how petty he was. He gave a shrug to Kennard and said, “Look, I told you that there was a lot of pressure on me as the president. Do you see this, the vice chairman and the financial manager are putting pressure on me.”
Kennard revealed a faint smile before saying to Heinz and Sebas, “Vice chairman, manager Sebas, although the wages of the workers are high, the profit of our company is also growing as well, right? Compared to last year, our company’s profit each month has grown by several times, right?”
Sebas replied with a nod, “Yes, if we do not include the money earned from selling the cement production technology, our company had a gross profit of over five hundred thousand gold coins. Taking away the various costs, our final net income was still over five hundred thousand gold coins.”
Hearing this number, Heinz’s knit brows relaxed. He drank the fine wine before saying with a sigh and a smile, “Ai, when I opened that general store at first, I just wanted to earn a hundred gold coins a year. Now I’m the vice chairman of a company that earns five hundred thousand a month. Life really is unpredictable…..”
Seeing Heinz’s appearance, the other three felt it was funny.
Kennard couldn’t help saying with a smile, “Vice chairman, you should feel gratitude towards the chairman, otherwise you wouldn’t have your current life, right?”
“Un, I have always been grateful to Xu Yi.” Heinz gave a serious nod, “If it wasn’t for him picking my store to sell his Magic Fans in, I wouldn’t have the chance to feel this emotional.”
Xu Yi shook his head with a faint smile, “If you didn’t agree to sell my Magic Fan in your general store, how could I have earned that first batch of money?”
“No, the Magic Fan is something that people will discover the benefits of regardless, so it’s all the same no matter where you put it. In the end, it’s my luck that is good, letting you pick me.” Heinz seriously said.
Xu Yi laughed, “Alright, being emotional is the same. You’re not even fifty this year, it isn’t too late for you to tell me this in another twenty years. Let’s change the topic, as for improving the treatment of workers, it doesn’t just mean giving them a higher wage. There are other methods to let them feel the benefits of staying at our company, making them unable to leave as they wish.”
“It seems like sir chairman already has his own ideas, then can you tell us about it?” Kennard said with a smile.
Xu Yi said with a nod, “First, we’ll maintain the same tiered wage system to let the employees understand that the longer they stay at the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the higher their wages. Next, I want to introduce something called a retirement pension plan……”
“Retirement pension?” Heinz, Kennard, and Sebas all looked at each other in a daze, “What is this?”
Chapter 132 Friendly noble ladies
When it came to the end of the year, it wasn’t just the Frestech Chamber of Commerce holding a year end meeting and year end banquet, Banta City was doing the same.
It was the same as last year, on the night of the twentieth day of December, the City Lord’s Manor held a grand year end banquet. It invited everyone with some form of fame in Banta City to participate.
Naturally Xu Yi was included.
Compared to last year where Xu Yi was only invited by Count Sean because of the contributions the agricultural magic machines had made to the fall harvest, this year Xu Yi participated because he had become a pivotal character in Banta City.
In the Banta City business circle, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was put on the same level as the Falcao Chamber of Commerce, the Sarank Chamber of Commerce, the Amrit Chamber of Commerce, and the Armani Chamber of Commerce, being called the five big companies.
Even if the Frestech Chamber of Commerce didn’t have the same scale or profit as the other four companies and they were lacking in history, anyone could see that with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce’s current speed of development, in just a few years, they would be able to catch up or even surpass the other four companies.
Moreover, everyone was clear on the fact that the magic machine industry was an industry with large growth potential. Other than starting to develop in the Lampuri Kingdom, even the other kingdoms had cast their gazes on it.
The deal between the Frestech Chamber of Commerce and the Rudson Kingdom and the Stantine Duchy hadn’t been hidden, so everyone knew now that the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was selling magic machines to other countries. They even knew that Stantine Duchy had invited the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to invest in building mines.
A country’s mineral veins was considered the foundation of a country. The Stantine Duchy was actually willing to use them to attract the Frestech Chamber of Commerce, it showed how much importance Duke Stantine had put on this.
Other than his success in business, the other thing that attracted people about Xu Yi was his other identity, a baron that was conferred by his majesty.
Although barons were the lowest rank among nobles, Xu Yi was a noble that the king had conferred in front of countless people. Also, the Royal Parliament didn’t protest towards Xu Yi’s identity as a merchant at all, so it was enough to show that Xu Yi was different from others.
The ones at the City Lord Manor’s year end banquet were all the large and small nobles, as well as the large and small merchants. But the only person who had a noble title and was a known merchant was Xu Yi alone.
So at the banquet, Xu Yi naturally became the center of attention for everyone.
Of course, Xu Yi didn’t want this kind of attention.
Even though he participated in countless banquets during this year and was slowly becoming used to this situation, he still didn’t like banquets.
Moreover, because Still wasn’t feeling good tonight, she didn’t come to the banquet with Xu Yi. In the end, when they saw Xu Yi appear at the banquet alone, there were countless beautiful young noble ladies who surrounded Xu Yi.
There were some noble ladies that were rather bold, actually “openly” expressing their love for Xu Yi in front of everyone. There were a few who were even bolder and invited Xu Yi to spend a wonderful night with her in front of everyone.
Even if Xu Yi had a strong mind and he rejected all the confessions and invitation of the noble ladies, he was still a bit disturbed being pestered like this by them.
After escaping the noble ladies with difficulty, Xu Yi had a chance to catch his breath. When he was drinking some fruit juice to calm down, chairman Cruise had come over.
“Hey, young and handsome chairman Xu. Being surrounded by all those beautiful and noble young ladies, do you feel very happy about yourself?” Chairman Cruise said with an exaggerated smile.
Xu Yi snappily stared at him, “What is there to be happy about? How about you let them surround you? It’s very strange, what is going on with those noble ladies today? They were never this friendly when they saw me before.”
“You don’t understand?” Chairman Cruise looked at the noble ladies staring at Xu Yi in the distance and whispering among themselves before saying with a smile, “It’s actually very simple, although you were young, handsome, and rich before, you were still a normal merchant in the end. In the eyes of the nobles, a merchant is a commoner no matter how strong they are, so even if those noble ladies loved you to death, they would never consider marrying you.”
“This means that now that I’ve become a baron and have also become a noble, it means I have the status to marry those noble ladies?” Xu Yi asked as he found this funny.
“That’s right.” Chairman Cruise pointed at some noble ladies in the distance and kept teasing him, “Look at how passionate those noble ladies are staring at you, I bet they even wish that they could swallow you up. Actually…..if I was you, I wouldn’t mind developing some closer relationships with a few of those ladies.”
Xu Yi couldn’t help rolling his eyes, “I’m not planning on marrying them, why would I develop a relationship with them?”
“No, no, no, developing a relationship with them isn’t related to marrying them.” Chairman Cruise said in an experienced manner, “The private lives of those noble ladies are even more chaotic than you think, they don’t mind these kinds of things. Rather, if you were to develop some relationship with them, it is something that they could brag about to their friends. So if you’re willing, you can choose one of them or even several of them to spend a beautiful night with.”
“Forget it, I’m not interested.” Xu YI shook his head. He took a drink and turned away from those noble ladies passionately looking at him as he said to chairman Cruise, “You came looking for me, does that mean you’ve decided on when to head out?”
Seeing that Xu Yi was talking about business, chairman Cruise revealed a serious expression as he said with a nod, “Yes, if nothing unexpected happens, I can set out by the fourth of the new year. What about you?”
“Me…..I have to go see Still’s family on the first, I have to come to the City Lord’s Manor on the second, and then I have to see various colleagues…..Un, if it’s rushed, I should be done by the fourth.” Xu Yi said.
“Alright, then let’s push it back a day and set off on the fifth.”
“That’s good. Although we’ll miss the new year’s banquet, we can’t stall this matter any longer. Anklo sent a letter to me a few days ago urging me to quickly head to the Stantine Duchy. If I don’t go, I’m worried that he’ll come to Banta City and kidnap me.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
Chairman Cruise laughed, “Of course he’s in a rush. The Stantine Duchy’s weather is different from our Lampuri Kingdom, it is indeed winter that is suited for starting businesses and all other times are too uncertain. But even if you head over now, it’s impossible to start investing this winter. Him urging you to head over is just showing his attitude.”
Xu Yi nodded, “I also understand this, but since he has already given this attitude, I have to show my sincerity. After all, it isn’t just the Stantine Duchy that wants to cooperate with my company, I also want to cooperate with them.”
Chairman Cruise thought about it before revealing a confused look.
“Xu Yi, actually I still don’t understand, why do you want to cooperate with the Stantine Duchy? That duchy’s environment isn’t that good, so even if you want large amounts of minerals, not only are there a bunch in our Lampuri Kingdom, there’s even a bunch in the Rudson Kingdom. I think that if you discussed this with chairman Newman, you might even be able to cooperate with the Rudson Kingdom.”
Xu Yi said with a faint smile, “I have already sold the cement production technology, but I don’t want to sell my other technology.”
Chairman Cruise revealed an awkward expression, “You still have to invest in the Rudson Kingdom one day, right?”
“Indeed I have to go one day, but that is not now. As for when…..it’s better to wait until me and the Frestech Chamber of Commerce are strong enough.” Xu Yi took another drink and turned his head. He didn’t look south in the direction of the Rudson Kingdom, rather he looked east, “Not only the Stantine Duchy and the Rudson Kingdom, when there is a chance, I want to go invest in every country of the continent.”
“Your ambitions are always very big.” Chairman Cruise shook his head, “I’m already almost fifty this year, I still don’t know if I can see your Frestech Chamber of Commerce develop to that stage.”
Xu Yi clinked glasses with him with a smile and teased him, “Or you can start studying magic now. As long as you become a Great Magician, you can expand your lifespan and you should have a chance to see that day.”
Chairman Cruise laughed, “I’ll leave this matter to you, I won’t mind it. Speaking of this, chairman Xu, you really are the most special chairman on the continent. Not mentioning your title as a noble, you’re actually this young and you’re a powerful magician. I keep hearing Great Magician Camilla say that it’s very likely you’ll become a Great Magician. I think that after you become a Great Magician, just based on that identity, it should make the noble young ladies send themselves to you, right?”
“Perhaps I will already be an old man when I become a Great Magician. Even if the noble ladies throw themselves at me, I might not have the energy to do anything.” Xu Yi said with a smile.
“To be honest, chairman Xi, the earlier you can become a Great Magician, the more benefits there are. So I’m the same as Great Magician Camilla, I hope that you can become a magician as soon as possible.” Chairman Cruise said with a serious face, “If you become a Great Magician, there would be much less trouble for us on the Black Rice Wasteland.”
“You also received the news of action from the beastmen tribes?” Xu Yi asked with a smile.
“That’s right, this was something chairman Renersa told me. According to his information, there are some beastmen tribes that learned of us putting up a factory at the Voller Tribe and paying them a large amount of money, so they also want to see if they can get some.” Chairman Cruise said in a somewhat worried voice, “Although those beastmen don’t dare threaten human lives, I’m worried that if they cause trouble, it will delay our progress and cause losses for us.”
“This is something that needs to be considered. How do you think we should deal with it?” Xu Yi asked.
“There’s no good method for now, we can only listen to chairman Renersa’s suggestion and have his company’s guards follow our workers into the Black Rice Wasteland to protect them.” After saying this, chairman Cruise suddenly thought of something, “That’s right, chairman Xu, it doesn’t seem like your Frestech Chamber of Commerce has any guards, right?”
“Guards?” Xu Yi knit his brows and shook his head, “The kingdom is peaceful now, so our company hasn’t needed any guards and I’ve never thought about this. Hearing you say this, could it be that I need to get some guards?”
“Definitely.” Chairman Cruise said in a natural voice, “Which company doesn’t have guards on the continent? Although the kingdom has been peaceful during these years, back in the disaster of ten years ago, there were bandits all over the kingdom. Then again, you just said that you wanted the Frestech Chamber of Commerce to do business on every part of the continent, so it’s impossible without guards. There’s no insurance that your cargo wouldn’t be stolen.”
“It’s this serious?” Xu Yi thought about it before nodding, “It seems like I neglected this before, this is indeed a problem I have to seriously consider. Alright, since we need to deal with those beastmen from the Black Rice Wasteland, I’ll use this chance to get some guards.”
Chairman Cruise was stunned, “You’re planning to construct a team of guards in such a short period of time? Where will you find all those suitable candidates?”
Xu Yi laughed, “Don’t forget, our company has many advantages that other companies don’t have.”
Chairman Cruise felt this was strange at first, but thinking about it, he instantly understood.