Chapter 1354 Work F Commitment!
"Governor Murong, in accordance with your request, our Fengchang Company has signed employment contracts with all the workers in our factories and companies, a total of 3,751 people. We have clearly promised in the contract that all of them will not be paid less than five taels of silver per year."

"In addition, our Ruifengchang Company will set new regulations. They will have two days of paid rest every month and work four hours a day. If overtime is required, our Ruifengchang Company will pay extra wages!"

"Third, our Ruifengchang Company solemnly promises that if an unexpected disability occurs while working for our company, our company will pay compensation. The amount of compensation will be calculated based on the number of years the person has worked at Ruifengchang, the severity of the injury, and other factors!"

"Governor Murong, this is our Ruifengchang Company's letter of commitment. It has the signatures and handprints of all our Ruifengchang Company's shareholders and managers. If our company breaks its promise, we will allow you to punish us!"

After saying this, under Murong Yuliang's gaze, Hu Wenjie handed Murong Yuliang a letter of commitment with his signature and handprint.

Murong Yuliang took the letter of commitment, looked at the red handprints of Hu Wenjie and others on it, and nodded secretly in his heart.

This Hu Wenjie is indeed a Jiangnan tycoon. After decades of ups and downs in the business world, he can still lead the Hu family to stand firm. He is indeed not an ordinary person...
A few days ago, Murong Yuliang heard that Hu Wenjie was going to prepare a letter of commitment for him.

However, although the Hu family is the founder of Ruifengchang Company and is also the current major shareholder of the company, holding 70% of the shares, the company also has other small shareholders. Things like the signing of the commitment letter will increase costs and affect the profits of the company, so a shareholders' meeting must be held to explain the situation to all shareholders and gain their support and understanding.

So three days ago, Hu Wenjie convened an impromptu shareholders' meeting of Ruifengchang Company and explained to the 31 shareholders of Ruifengchang, big and small, that he was going to sign this letter of commitment.

Most of these 31 shareholders did not support Hu Wenjie's signing of the letter of commitment, and some even held opposing ideas. Hu Wenjie did a lot of work for this and persuaded most of the shareholders to agree, but there were still three shareholders who disagreed.

So Hu Wenjie had no choice but to process the withdrawal of shares for the three shareholders who disagreed. The three shareholders together held half of the shares. Hu Wenjie gave these three people a total of 38,000 taels of silver to redeem the shares of Ruifengchang Bank in their hands.

This incident caused quite a stir in Jiangnan. Although Lin'an had implemented Work F before, none of the big businesses took the initiative to respond to the call.

What Hu Wenjie has done now can be said to have set a precedent. For this, Hu Wenjie has also taken on a lot of pressure. Some of his friends in the business community are also advising him to consider carefully.

However, in order to obtain Murong Yuliang's protection, Hu Wenjie had no choice but to sign the letter of commitment with great pain.

After putting away this hard-earned letter of commitment, Murong Yuliang smiled and praised Hu Wenjie:
"Boss Hu, your letter of commitment is a great feat and a model for the Jiangnan business community! Looking across the entire Jiangnan region, there are many people who have a conscience like you. I will commend you to His Majesty!"

Listening to Murong Yuliang's praise, although Hu Wenjie felt very bitter in his heart, he pretended to be happy on the surface and said:

"Thank you Governor Murong for your praise. It is an honor for our Hu family to be able to serve you, sir!"

Murong Yuliang nodded upon hearing this and said:
"As a businessman with a conscience like you, I believe the court will definitely protect you. Don't worry too much about Hu Ming's problem!"

Feeling the deep meaning in Murong Yuliang's words, Hu Wenjie's tense mood couldn't help but ease a little. He had paid so much just for Murong Yuliang to say this.

As long as Murong Yuliang nods, and with some other connections of their Hu family, Hu Wenjie believes that their Hu family can successfully overcome this difficulty.

Before Hu Wenjie could relax for long, Murong Yuliang's words made him tense again.

"Boss Hu, do you have any plans to go to the north to do business recently?"

Looking at the smiling Murong Yuliang, Hu Wenjie started thinking quickly. Their Hu family originally started out in the tea-horse business, selling tea from the south to the grasslands in the north, and then selling horses from the north back to the Great Zhou.

But later, due to the unstable situation in Da Zhou, frequent wars, and the rise of overseas trade, the Hu family shifted their business focus to overseas. However, overseas money is not so easy to make, so as early as when Ye Mingsheng just unified the world, Hu Wenjie, as the head of the Hu family, had the idea of ​​​​opening up the entire Daqian market...

At that time, because Hu Ming was the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Revenue, the confident Hu Wenjie even had a grand plan, which was to obtain a banknote exchange license through Hu Ming's operation, and then form a dream situation driven by the dual cores of Daqian and the overseas markets.

For this reason, Hu Wenjie also made a lot of investments in the north through Hu Ming. However, this time because Hu Ming got into trouble, these investments were seized or suspended because they were related to Hu Ming.

In view of this situation, Hu Wenjie now only wants to stabilize the Hu family's foundation, get through the current difficulties, and then develop. However, after hearing the meaning of Murong Yuliang's words, Hu Wenjie couldn't refuse him intuitively, so he could only tentatively say:
"Is there anything wrong with Governor Murong?"

Murong Yuliang said calmly after hearing this:
"It's nothing serious. A few days ago, Zhao Wanxian, the governor of Hebei and Henan, wrote me a letter, telling me that he plans to repair the road from Yujing to Yecheng, so as to strengthen the commercial ties between Yujing and Yecheng, and promote the common development of the two cities and even the entire Hebei and Henan!"

After hearing Murong Yuliang's words, Hu Wenjie understood his implicit meaning and his heart sank.

As expected, Murong Yuliang continued:

“This idea of ​​Governor Zhao is a good one. Yujing is located in the heart of the Central Plains and is the largest city in Hebei and Henan. Yecheng is the second largest city. Both cities and their surrounding areas have a population of over one million, and have huge potential for economic development!” “The road connecting the two cities was built during the reign of Emperor Xuan of the previous dynasty, and it has a history of nearly two hundred years. Due to years of disrepair, many sections of the road are now bumpy and no different from dirt roads in the countryside, which seriously hinders the connection between Yujing and Yecheng…”

"Governor Zhao intends to repair this road this time. The entire project is expected to take three years and cost 380,000 taels of silver. The Hebei-Henan Provincial Government will invest 180,000 taels of silver itself, and the remaining 200,000 taels of silver will be raised by issuing bonds."

"After the road is built, the Hebei-Henan Provincial Government will collect tolls from people who use the road, and the tolls will be used as collateral for the bonds. The interest on the two hundred thousand taels of silver is five percent per year. The tolls after the road is built will be split 50-50 between the Hebei-Henan Provincial Government and the creditors every year until the principal and interest are paid off!"

Listening to Murong Yuliang's introduction, Hu Wenjie also started to calculate secretly in his heart. Murong Yuliang looked at Hu Wenjie who was lost in thought, and he couldn't help but sigh in his heart. The reason why he knew Zhao Wanxian's plan so well was actually very simple. This was his plan when he was in the Hebei-Henan Provincial Government.

When he was the governor of Hebei and Henan, he realized that if Hebei and Henan wanted to develop, building roads was inevitable.

Murong Yuliang not only planned to repair the road from Yujing to Yecheng, but also planned to build a road connecting Yecheng to Jixian. In this way, the roads between Yijing and Yujing will become smoother, which will also promote economic and cultural exchanges between Youyan and Jiyu.

However, road construction is a very expensive job, and Jiyu had just been rebuilt from the ruins, and had to support Ye Mingsheng in his fight for supremacy. There was no spare energy to complete such a big project. So Murong Yuliang could only put the road construction plan on hold temporarily, quietly accumulating strength and waiting for an opportunity...

When Murong Yuliang finally got the chance, he was transferred to Huainan by Ye Mingsheng, so building the road became a regret for Murong Yuliang.

Originally, Murong Yuliang thought that he would not be able to see the successful road repair in his lifetime, but he never expected that the new Hebei-Henan Governor Zhao Wanxian would share the same heroic idea as him and restart his plan to repair the road.

However, compared with Murong Yuliang, Zhao Wanxian believed that it would be too much of a burden for Ji and Yu to repair the road without the support of the court, so Zhao Wanxian proposed to borrow 200,000 taels of silver and then use the tolls to repay the loan.

In order to raise the 200,000 taels of silver, Zhao Wanxian also wrote a letter to Murong Yuliang. In the letter, Zhao Wanxian's words were very sincere. He said that Murong Yuliang was the former governor of Ji and Henan, and the people of Ji and Henan had deep feelings for Governor Murong who led them to revival.

Repairing this road was originally Murong Yuliang's idea, so Zhao Wanxian hoped that at this moment, Murong Yuliang, who was in charge of the richest place in Daqian, could help Jiyu and attract investment for Jiyu. Zhao Wanxian would be very grateful for this!

After seeing the letter, Murong Yuliang thought about it for a moment, and then wrote a reply to Zhao Wanxian, saying that he had been a member of the G team in Jiyu for many years, and he also had deep feelings for Jiyu. Therefore, now that you, Zhao Buzhengshi, want to repair this road, he, Murong Yuliang, is also obliged to provide some help...

As a political figure, Murong Yuliang not only pursues power, he also enjoys the satisfaction brought by political achievements!
Not being able to repair that road in Hebei and Henan back then was one of the few regrets that Murong Yuliang had during his tenure as the governor of Hebei and Henan. So even though he is not the governor of Hebei and Henan now, he still has the opportunity to make up for this regret. Murong Yuliang would be very pleased to see this road being repaired.

In addition to making up for his own regrets, Zhao Wanxian was also one of the important factors why Murong Yuliang agreed so readily!

When Ye Mingsheng promoted Zhao Wanxian out of turn, it caused quite a stir in the Yijing court. Many people were not optimistic about Zhao Wanxian's future as the governor of Liaoyang.

Among them was Murong Yuliang, who was the governor of Hebei and Henan at that time. However, facts proved that Ye Mingsheng's decision was correct. Many people, including Murong Yuliang, had misjudged Zhao Wanxian.

After this incident, Zhao Wanxian became one of Ye Mingsheng's most valued ministers and was transferred to a very critical place like Hebei and Henan.

Based on Murong Yuliang's understanding of Ye Mingsheng, he knew that as long as Zhao Wanxian made achievements in his post as the governor of Hebei and Henan, then in three to five years, Zhao Wanxian would most likely be promoted to the rank of Taige and become one of the cabinet elders of Daqian, standing at the top of the power pyramid of Daqian.

Therefore, for such a rising star, Murong Yuliang was very happy to establish a friendly relationship with him. So now that Zhao Wanxian has come to him for help, Murong Yuliang is also willing to help him and establish this incense relationship...

Although Murong Yuliang was willing to help Zhao Wanxian, it was impossible for him to lend the money of the Jiangnan Provincial Government to Zhao Wanxian!
All he could do was to help contact some big businessmen in Jiangnan and ask them to go to Hebei and Henan to investigate Zhao Wanxian's plan.

However, to be realistic, although Zhao Wanxian's plan to repair the road is very helpful to the economic development of Hebei and Henan, once the road is completed, it will promote the commercial ties between Yujing and Yecheng.

But from a business perspective, borrowing 200,000 taels of silver with an annual interest rate of 5%, and not knowing when the principal and interest can be recovered, is not a good deal for the creditor.

Therefore, Murong Yuliang knew very well that even if he introduced this matter to those big businessmen, those big businessmen would send people to Hebei and Henan to investigate for the sake of his position as governor, but in the end this matter would most likely come to nothing.

After all, this is a business worth two hundred thousand taels of silver, which is not a small amount!

Even if Zhao Wanxian could borrow some silver from Ji and Yu, the amount he needed would not be small. It would have to be at least 100,000 taels of silver, otherwise he would not have written to me specifically to ask for help!
Each family would receive a loan of 30,000 taels of silver, which was a considerable expense for those businesses.

If he invested a few thousand taels of silver to build a brick factory or a textile factory, people might invest for the sake of his status as the Governor of Jianghuai, but thirty thousand taels of silver would require careful consideration!
So Murong Yuliang has been thinking about who to introduce this matter to these days. After much thought, he finally thought that Hu Wenjie was a good candidate.

At this time, Murong Yuliang looked at Hu Wenjie who was lost in thought. He knew that this old fox must be secretly weighing the pros and cons in his mind. He then smiled and said:

"Mr. Hu, I am kindly reminding you that this is Zhao Wanxian's idea to find the governor. This Governor Zhao is not an ordinary person..."