Chapter 216: Speculator Barton
To be fair, the Darcy family was not a particularly harsh family, and to some extent they were even generous to their subordinates.
For example, Viscount Darcy was willing to spend his own money to buy a village and give it to his family knights. Another example is that the Darcy family was willing to let the miners have enough to eat - during the normal operation of the coal mine, the supply of black bread, potatoes, corn, soybeans and seasonal vegetables was very generous, which was much more particular than those small miners who were eager to skim off a layer of profit even in terms of food.
Of course... this still cannot meet the physical needs of miners who engage in heavy physical labor .
None of the miners that Operator Barton saw was over 35 years old, and none of them had excess fat on their bodies. Their dark skin was filled with lean muscles and bulging veins.
Operator Patton did not understand nutrition and medicine, but he knew very well that people who did not consume much fat and engaged in heavy physical labor usually looked like this - these people looked stronger than their peers, but were actually not as healthy as the average person. A minor illness could take their lives and cause their seemingly lean and strong bodies to quickly collapse.
To put it bluntly, these miners are overdrawing their vitality and exchanging their future lifespan for meager wages in the present.
Operator Patton saw it clearly, but he didn't feel much emotion in his heart. He had seen too many similar miserable people... The young and strong men under him were not much better off than these miners before they were incorporated into the City Hall.
For example, those young people from the slums, if the undead summoned by the black magician Yang had not overthrown Westram, if the undead had not defeated the Bartles family, then they would probably not have lived as long as these miners who were destined to have a short life, and might have died silently of hunger and cold one winter.
After completing the registration of the miners, Agent Patton directed the young men to move according to Ms. Zhao's request.
Patton and two colleagues brought over sixty contract workers. Three agents divided the sixty strong men into three groups. Each group was led by a colleague to clean up the wooden houses where the miners lived. They cleared the garbage, replaced the hay used by the miners to make beds, and sprayed pesticides to remove lice, fleas and bedbugs.
A group led by another colleague carried a generator, two barrels of diesel, and a crawler drilling rig more than two meters high from an iron carriage, and dug a well near the groundwater outlet where the miners drew water on a daily basis.
This crawler hydraulic drilling rig, with a factory price of RMB 65,000, was purchased by Yang Qiu when he was carrying out a people-friendly project in Westham to provide running water to every household. This machine, used to drill wells in rural China, works quite well in this world as well - it is durable, lightweight, and easy to operate (after all, it is a product developed for farmers), and it has been added to Yang Qiu's repurchase list.
When the drilling machine roared, many brave miners who were relieved to know that they could keep their jobs gathered around to watch. However, they were driven away by the operators who were afraid that they would get too close and get hurt by mistake.
The team led by Operator Patton quickly cleaned the large kitchen in the mine (actually a wooden house with an underground storage room and a spacious thatched shed), and then moved boxes of food, tableware, etc. into the storage room.
"Who is in charge of the kitchen?" Operator Patton shouted to the miners.
The miners looked at each other for a while, and then the old foreman came out hesitantly: "Master Barton, it turns out that the butler of the Viscount's family is in charge of the kitchen..."
Patton slapped his head.
He was being foolish. Only Westham had the energy to pay attention to the workers' meals. For an aristocratic family's business like this, it was good enough to provide the workers with enough food. There was no reason to arrange a special cook.
"We can apply for a cook from the Logistics Department later. We will take care of it now." Operator Patton looked around and saw that everyone was busy, so he rolled up his sleeves and did it himself.
Officer Patton's wife also worked in the Logistics Department. He learned a little about kitchen work through what he had heard and seen. He asked two contract workers to help him wash potatoes, and he picked up a spoon and quickly cooked a large pot of potato instant noodles and a large pot of dumplings for the construction site.
As for instant noodles... in this alien world, they have become the main ingredient of thick soup. All stewed food relies on instant noodles for seasoning. Just throw anything that can be stewed into the pot and put the noodles in at the end.
Not to mention the dumplings at the construction site. Just boil some hot water and throw them in, and then cook until they float and you can eat them.
Following the habit he had developed in Westham, Operator Barton took out a few bottles of vinegar and asked the contract workers to distribute bowls and plates to the miners and teach them how to line up for meals.
When the aroma of the thick soup wafted out, the miners' eyes could not leave the big pot where the soup was cooked. If there were no strong guys to maintain order, these guys would definitely start to loot...
As the miners who had received their meals ate with red eyes and slurped their food, Operator Patton noticed that someone was secretly bringing a plate of dumplings from the construction site into the cabin.
Operator Patton didn't say anything, but John next to him shouted, "Hey, what are you doing? Finish your meal and hand in your plate!"
The miner who wanted to hide the dumpling plate was very embarrassed and said timidly: "I, I'll take the plate out later..."
This was not the first time John had seen someone trying to steal plates. In fact, this group of contract workers often did this in the beginning, and were often blamed by the logistics department for this. He quickly shouted, "Don't do this. Plates are for everyone to use. If you take one away, there will be one less. If everyone takes a plate, then no one will have cutlery to use in the future!"
The miner's face turned red and he murmured a few words in defense, but he always hid the plate behind him.
Operator Barton reached out and pulled John, signaling him not to rush him any further. He then said to the miner, "Are you used to eating inside the house? Then go in and eat. Remember to bring your dishes out. We'll need to clean them up later."
The miner bowed repeatedly to Operator Patton in gratitude and quickly rushed into the wooden house.
After a while, the miner came out of the cabin with an empty plate and put it back into the basket in front of everyone.
Seeing this scene, John seemed to finally react. He glanced at Operator Patton and silently turned around to do other things.
Operator Barton continued to preside over the food distribution as if nothing had happened.
The miner probably wanted to save his portion of dumplings from the construction site for his family.
Many contract workers have done this before. John, a young man from the slums, always saved his food rations and brought them home during the first few days of his work.
Even Patton himself had done something similar - before his wife joined the Logistics Department, he was the only one who had meat in his work meal side dishes, and Patton always saved the meat and brought it home to satisfy his children's cravings.
Seeing that the man who hid the dumplings from the construction site was not blamed, more and more miners only ate one or two dumplings to taste them, and put the rest into their own bamboo tubes or jars to take home.
After having their only full meal in three days, the miners became noticeably more friendly towards the people from the city hall. They took the initiative to participate in the labor and do what they were able to do without being told by the staff.
In just half a day, the living area of the mine, which was originally covered with coal dust and extremely dirty, was cleaned up.
As the sun was setting, Agent Patton gathered the miners together, distributed work clothes and work certificates with their names on them, and distributed towels and cotton socks, which were the basic welfare benefits of formal employees of the City Hall. He told the miners that the coal mine would officially start operations in two days after the machines and personnel were fully equipped. He asked them to go home in the two days before the work started, explain the situation to their families, and report back on time.
If the miners were asked to go home and wait for news right away, they would never leave. However, the people from the city hall dug wells for them, cleaned their living environment, and issued them work clothes and work certificates. These miners no longer doubted the sincerity of the city hall, and some of them couldn't wait to pack up their things on the spot.
That night, Agent Patton's team did not return to the city, but stayed overnight at the mine. The person in charge of the newly established state-owned coal company had not yet been decided, so he had to take over the coal mine and complete the handover of the machines before the candidate was finalized.
In the wooden house where the butler of the Darcy family lived, Officer Barton was writing a letter to his wife under the kerosene lamp, sitting on a small stove made of mud by the miners themselves.
He hoped that his wife, who worked in the Logistics Department , would take the initiative to apply for a logistics position in the coal company. This way, his wife could move from Westham and he could see his wife from time to time.
Unlike other operators, Operator Barton initially just followed the crowd and joined Charlie Rex and the black magician behind Rex . After all, his companions all chose to join Westram.
While Westram was busying about aimlessly, the Undead Mayor Ji Tang and Ms. Zhao would organize classes for them and explain some truths to them.
Every time he attended the class, Patton felt that those words were very correct, but when he thought about it privately, he felt that many parts of those words were wrong.
Many things are just too... unreasonable. They go against, conflict with, and are in opposition to the laws of the world that Barton knows.
Patton did not reveal his doubts because he found that his comrades around him believed what Ms. Zhao said, especially Sam Hank, the good brother who once told him privately that everything in Westram was too outrageous and could not last long. After being exiled, he seemed like a different person.
If Sam had not been chosen to accompany the Undead Engineer on field missions, Barton had no doubt that he would have had many ideological conflicts with Sam.
Patton disguised himself very well. He always faithfully completed the tasks assigned by his superiors without any compromise. He suffered a lot in the first two years after joining the city defense force. He knew that people who were different from others were easily targeted.
Although he really didn't agree with Ms. Zhao's bizarre and illogical rhetoric, deep down, Patton didn't dislike the undead's style of doing things... People at the bottom of society really had a hard life, and giving them some cheap goods, some good jobs, and allowing everyone to live a little better, this was indeed what Patton was willing to do.
Patton hid his slightly speculative mentality very well, and this feeling that he could not tell others began to waver when the territory war started.
The innocent young men who were driven to the battlefield, crying and trembling, irritated Patton.
At that time, he was standing in the Westerm camp, looking from afar at the civilians who were forced to charge helplessly under the swords, and the blood in his body seemed to be frozen.
Yes, he totally disagreed with Ms. Zhao's ridiculous idea that "the people are the masters of the country". He had seen too many idiots who made a mess of their lives. Even though he was also a commoner, he felt that Ms. Zhao's words were just wishful thinking.
Isn't it that Yang himself is unable to step to the forefront, and doesn't he have to give up the position of the lord to Charlie Rex, the illegitimate son of aristocratic blood?
The nobles and the king are the masters of the country, this is the fact!
But...it's also true that the nobles didn't treat the common people as human beings.
The masters in the city knew clearly that throwing untrained and barely-fed civilians onto the battlefield would be a death sentence, and that they would be trampled and killed without the enemy having to take action. But the masters still drove the civilians in the city onto the battlefield without hesitation.
Patton, who stood on the side of the Black Mage Yang and the Undead camp with a speculative mentality, could not imagine the desperate situation he would be forced to experience if he were a civilian in the opposite camp.
Human instinct is to seek benefits and avoid harm, and Patton is also a normal person.
He began to think that there was nothing wrong in letting his children grow up in a territory ruled by the black magician Yang and governed by the undead.
At least in the camp of the undead, Patton can see hope.
