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Chapter 1229: The Capitalists' Alliance

Several days later.

In front of the gates of the Donbas United Coal Company, hundreds of workers were shouting chaotically: "My children are starving!"

"We need bread..."

"Our wages are too low, they must be raised to 10 rubles a month!"

"Exactly! No raise, no work!"

From a second-story window of the company's office building, constructed from old wooden planks, Viscount Olivier watched the protesting workers with a frown. He shook his head and said to his assistant beside him, "Haven't they ever seen a strike before?"

"They aren't even holding signs, and their shouts are so disorganized!"

"Christophe, you'll have to teach them properly tonight. Oh, and get more people. Good heavens, my coal mine has over a thousand workers, why are so few here?"

The assistant quickly replied, "You know, these Russians all think they'll get a lashing, so they're afraid to come..."

"Understood, sir. I guarantee the number will double tomorrow, no, triple."

Under Christophe's orchestration, the Donbas United Coal Company's strike grew steadily larger, quickly spreading from the coal mines to the iron mines and even the ironworks. The entire company ground to a halt.

The Russian police in Yekaterinoslav came twice, but after secretly accepting bribes from the "worker representatives" and the coal company's stingy boss refusing to pay "service fees," they stopped showing up.

News quickly reached Krasnoyarsk, where several shareholders of the John Coal Company immediately launched into mockery: "Poor Frenchmen, I hear even their foremen have joined the strike."

"Those Tatars actually want 10 rubles a month, it's madness!"

"Now Olivier is in big trouble, haha. They say his production this month has dropped by 60%."

"Perhaps we'll have a chance to buy his mine cheaply."

More than ten days later, Viscount Olivier, in a terrible fix and pressured by orders, reluctantly agreed to the workers' demand for higher wages, and only then did the company resume operations.

This drew another round of ridicule from his British counterparts to the south.

However, the good times didn't last. The workers of the Donbas United Coal Company seemed to have acquired a taste for striking, and just a month and a half after resuming work, they launched an even larger and more impactful strike.

Indeed, seeing that strikes actually worked and didn't result in beatings, the downtrodden Russians this time voluntarily participated without much incitement from Christophe.

Over 1,300 workers marched grandly back and forth between the company and the town, complete with banners and speeches.

It's worth noting that at this time, the entire Yekaterinoslav region only had eighty to ninety thousand residents, making the scale of this strike absolutely terrifying.

This time, Olivier compromised very quickly, agreeing to raise wages to 13 rubles a few days later.

But the British in Krasnoyarsk weren't laughing anymore.

Their workers, hearing how effective the Donbas United Coal Company's strike had been, began to follow suit, organizing a strike of over a hundred people.

However, the British bosses didn't humor them. They immediately paid off the local police, and together with their own foremen, severely beat the striking workers. Several ringleaders were even thrown into prison.

Yet, the matter didn't end there.

Workers at the John Coal Company and several other British firms discovered they were earning only 7 rubles a month, while those in Yekaterinoslav were making 13 rubles.

Almost double.

'Of course, we should go work for Donbas United Coal!' And Olivier, for his part, welcomed everyone.

The British bosses finally began to panic. They had no choice but to negotiate with Olivier, and after paying a "vetting fee" of 10,000 rubles, they received the Donbas United Coal Company's assurance that it "would not accept their workers."

Then, workers from the British companies started resigning in droves. No one could reconcile such a disparity, and they preferred to change their names and go to the French company, or even face unemployment, rather than endure low wages any longer.

The British bosses had no choice but to raise wages as well, pushing them up to 11 rubles. The skyrocketing costs made them hesitant to raise them any further—they were already operating on the break-even line.

It was at this point that Olivier, putting aside past grievances, proactively approached his British counterparts to discuss a countermeasure.

"You cannot compromise with these laborers!" Riley, a major shareholder of the John Coal Company, angrily declared to the Frenchman. "You just need to give the police a little something, and they'll solve all your troubles."

"That would shut down my company for two or three months. Those workers are serious," Olivier retorted. "They even threatened to burn down my warehouses."

The capitalists immediately burst into curses.

"So what do we do?" Riley exclaimed. "We can't operate at a loss, can we?"

Viscount Olivier immediately replied, "I came here precisely to solve the problem of losses."

Everyone looked at him.

"As long as we raise our selling prices together, we can maintain our profits."

Riley shook his head. "That will make us lose our competitive edge. The mine owners in the Urals will quickly devour our market."

"No, they won't be able to," Olivier said, a smile appearing on his face. "Donbas produces twice as much coal and iron as the Urals, and the shipping costs from here to the sea are only a fraction of what they are from the Urals."

"After buyers exhaust their supply, they'll still have to come here to purchase."

"Therefore, the mine owners in the Urals will soon follow our price increase."

The eyes of the other capitalists began to light up. Perhaps the strike incident was actually an opportunity, uniting all the mine owners in Donbas.

In just half a day, Olivier reached a price alliance with the British bosses, deciding to raise the prices of their coal and iron by 25%.

Of course, even with this increase, the prices of coal and iron ore produced here were still lower than in European regions.

Just as Olivier had predicted, little over a month later, the prices of coal and iron in Russia's Urals region also rose by 25%.

Only a fool would leave money on the table!

Together, Donbas and the Urals accounted for over 90% of all coal and iron produced in Russia.

The first to feel the pinch was the Royal Cannon Foundry in Moscow.

The soaring cost of raw materials increased the production cost of their cannon carriages, ammunition wagons, and even cannon shells by nearly one-sixth.

Consequently, they had to inform the military commission that their procurement budget needed to be increased.

Immediately afterward, the prices of ships, farm tools, carriages, and even axes across Russia all rose sharply.

Truth be told, as an agricultural nation, Russia's consumption of coal and iron wasn't particularly high.

At the same time, however, Russia's economic structure was very fragile. The widespread price increase of iron products quickly pushed up the overall inflation rate.

As January 1799 began, a strange scene unfolded: due to the increased prices of coal and iron, the price of bread in Saint Petersburg rose by 1 kopek.

While seemingly a small increase, for the working-class Russian populace, it was almost an unbearable burden.