PFC Chapter 348 From Labor Documents to Contract of Indenture
Chapter 348 From Labor Documents to Contract of Indenture
The doctor led his young apprentice out as well. The apprentice had wanted to join in the fun, but his master grabbed him by the ear and dragged him out.
"Everyone's gone now. What did you go through? You can tell me everything now."
Jia Hu said.
Erniu opened his mouth, tears welling up in his eyes.
"Thank you, young master. Let me tell you from the beginning. My family was originally from a nearby village. We had a few acres of land. During the busy farming season, we farmed, and during the off-season, we would go to the city to find odd jobs, which was enough to support ourselves."
That was a few years ago. Suddenly, a salt factory came to our area to recruit workers. We live by the sea, and everyone knows that salt production is hard work.
But we didn't have any other skills, so we could only do manual labor. Salt production was hard work, but the pay was good! If we worked for two months during the off-season, we could afford to buy some meat.
After discussing it, most of the able-bodied men in our village signed the papers to do manual labor.
At first, things were fine, and the wages were paid on time. Life in the village improved a lot.
Later, the saltworks said they needed to hire more people, this time even women, because making salt by sun-drying was too slow, and they needed to boil the salt.
This is even better! With a large family, there are several able-bodied people, meaning they can earn even more money in a year.
At this point, Erniu's tears fell again.
Jia Hu handed him a handkerchief, but Er Niu looked at the exquisite handkerchief in front of him and did not take it. Instead, he wiped away his tears with his sleeve.
Hearing that his voice was hoarse, Jia Hu had a guard bring him a cup of water. Er Niu took the water, poured it out, and thanked him. After drinking the water, Er Niu continued.
"At first we were happy, thinking we had struck gold, but who knew that the salt-making process would take longer and longer and the food would get worse and worse."
At first, we were divided into day and night shifts, but later we were pulled into work as soon as we opened our eyes. We were so tired that we couldn't take it anymore, so we discussed quitting after that month.
After finally getting through that month, we went to the manager to tell him we were quitting. The manager showed us the documents we had signed and said that what we had signed wasn't an employment contract, but a contract of servitude.
"What? That's outrageous! Didn't you read it carefully when you signed it?"
Jia Zhen couldn't help but feel indignant. Back when he was at home, his mother would sometimes read some documents and tell him about their importance.
“Who in our village can read? Our salt fields all belong to the imperial court, so we just assumed that the court was hiring laborers. We never thought we would encounter something like this.”
Erniu had no way to express his bitterness. There wasn't a single person in their village who could read or write, except for the old village chief who knew a few characters. The old village chief was quite old, so they signed the documents without hesitation and never thought to have him take a look.
"We were all dumbfounded and panicked. How did a perfectly good work document turn into a contract of servitude?"
We went to report it to the authorities, to the county magistrate, but it was no use. The magistrate said that since we had signed the indenture, we were now their people.
We were at our wits' end, and then those people, citing the excuse that servants couldn't have their own private property, confiscated our land and houses, and drove us all to the salt fields. From then on, every day we opened our eyes to work.
Erniu wiped away his tears and continued:
“We did the hardest work all day long, but we ate worse than livestock. Our village chief stood up for us and was beaten to death by those people. We didn’t dare to resist. Later, our village was gone, and we all became slaves of this salt field.”
Erniu couldn't help but cry; it was just too painful.
They were all law-abiding citizens, but they were forced to become people without household registration and could only do the hardest and most tiring work in the salt fields.
"Many people couldn't hold on any longer, they were all gone. We were so exhausted that we lost all feeling. But when we heard that the Emperor was coming, we had hope again. We thought about going to the Emperor to file a complaint, and we were willing to fight to the death so that our descendants could leave."
We could be exhausted, but the children are still young. We can't keep living like this generation after generation.
Who knew? Before we could even exchange two words, we were beaten again. The saltworks manager cursed at us, saying we were delusional.
They say the Zhen family is like God here, even more powerful than the Emperor, and it's no use complaining to anyone.
They even said that Master Zhen was the Emperor's father-in-law, and the Emperor had to give Master Zhen face, so it didn't matter if we died.
We were indignant, so we were beaten again and our food was cut off.
We originally lived in the village; the house was dilapidated, but it was still a place to stay.
When we heard that the Emperor had arrived, the people at the saltworks locked us up and wouldn't let us go out. We had to stay at home all day. At first, we were glad that we didn't have to work and could finally rest.
Although we weren't getting enough to eat, we managed to survive.