Volume 4 Chapter 53 Withdrawing from the city public transport system
On the final day of year 3783, the «Banta Times» published a conspicuous piece of news on the second page of their paper.
“The Frestech Chamber of Commerce, the Mirando Duchy, and the Rudson Kingdom have signed a three way cooperation contract. According to this contract, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce will provide some technological support to the Mirando Duchy and the Rudson Kingdom. They will be constructing jointly owned household magic machine factories in these two countries and the Mirando and the Rudson Kingdom will be granting mineral rights to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.”
Although many people saw this news in the «Banta Times», to most people, this news didn’t create that big of a stir in Banta City.
In the end, because of the department’s ban, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce hadn’t been producing magic machines in the Lampuri Kingdom. Then with the new rules from the business department, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce sold fewer magic machines in the Lampuri Kingdom.
For the people of Banta City and the Lampuri Kingdom, the Frestech Chamber of Commerce had disappeared from their world for half a year.
Although the Frestech Chamber of Commerce still operated their service centers in most of the cities, as well as keeping a canned fruit factories and a few research facilities open in Banta City, the only part of the Frestech Chamber of Commerce that was left in the lives of most people was the remaining household magic machines they had bought before.
People had bad memories and after half a year, most people in the Lampuri Kingdom had gradually forgotten the company that had created countless waves in their kingdom.
It was only in Banta City that many people would occasionally remember them, feeling fondly about the Frestech Chamber of Commerce.
The Fersen Carriage Company’s chairman Pompeii was one of the people who missed the Frestech Chamber of Commerce the most.
Although he was very unhappy being forced by the City Lord Manor to buy the Magic Cars that the Lafaye Chamber of Commerce produced, since they still made a profit from operating the public transportation system and keeping it open helped with the prestige of the Fersen Carriage Company, chairman Pompeii didn’t choose to give it up in the end after considering it. He followed the rules of the City Lord Manor and changed everything to the Lafaye Chamber of Commerce’s Magic Cars.
But less than four months after changing, chairman Pompeii found that not only had he not made any money from running the public transport system, rather he had lost over fifty thousand gold coins.
Before this, although the Fersen Carriage Company followed the idea of her highness Seveni and listened to Xu Yi’s advice of keeping the prices low, they were still able to make a profit.
The profit wasn’t much, it was at least ten to twenty thousand gold coins a month.
But now that there was a loss and this loss wasn’t small, after the Fersen Carriage Company checked everything, they found that this loss was all because of one reason. It was because the Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had problems with their quality.
Just last month, the Fersen Carriage Company’s three hundred and seventy four Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had been damaged one hundred and seventy six times. In order to maintain them, they had invested twenty three thousand six hundred and twenty five gold coins.
Because of this high rate of damage, it had seriously affected the public transport system. There were situations where they had to make replacements.
The Fersen Carriage Company had to pay at least three thousand gold coins in operation costs.
Other than this, there were cases of big damages. If it was serious enough, it caused rather serious accidents.
The most serious one was when one of the Lafaye Brand Magic Cars had suddenly lost control in the new part of the city, crashing right into a store.
Although it hadn’t been driving fast, so no one was killed, it had seriously injured thirteen people and lightly injured twenty four people.
The Fersen Carriage Company had to pay over five thousand gold coins in medical fees and compensation.
Adding this together, just last month, the Fersen Carriage Company had to pay an extra forty thousand gold coins to manage the public transport system.
Putting aside profit, they had lost over twenty thousand gold coins.
It had been like this for several months and now chairman Pompeii felt that operating the public transport system was a burden for his company.
But maintaining the public transport system not only helped the Fersen Carriage Company’s fame in Banta City, they also received preferential treatment from the City Lord Manor, earning a lot of care from them. Even if he lost money, chairman Pompeii still wasn’t determined to give it up and kept trying to maintain it.
However, there was a new rule from the City Lord manor in the past few days that forced him to make his mind.
The Fersen Carriage Company couldn’t continue the public transport system.
The rules were very simple, starting from tomorrow, Banta City would cancel the special subsidies for running the public transport system.
The City Lord Manor’s reasons were righteous. They said that to promote fair business compet.i.tion in Banta City, they couldn’t give any company special subsidies.
But how could chairman Pompeii not know that this was all just the City Lord Manor not being willing to take out money anymore.
The reason why they didn’t change the rule this time was because the subsidies for the public transport system was decided at the beginning of the year, it was decided by the City Lord then, her highness Seveni.
If they changed it this year, it would be without a doubt disrespecting her highness Seveni.
But now that it was the new year, if the City Lord Manor changed this policy, it was a natural matter. Even her highness Seveni couldn’t say a thing about this.
It was very clear that chairman Pompeii also couldn’t say anything, so he could only silently accept it.
And after several days of calculations, chairman Pompeii realized that if they lost the special subsidy of the City Lord Manor, the Fersen Carriage Company’s net loss from the public transport system would be two hundred thousand gold coins or even three hundred thousand gold coins.
If it was like the past two years and the Fersen Carriage Company had over a million gold coins in yearly profit, they could accept this loss for the prestige and the City Lord Manor’s support.
But now the City Lord Manor clearly didn’t support the Fersen Carriage Company and the ten companies lowered the price of transport, causing the Fersen Carriage Company’s profits to drop. If counting their finances this year, their total profit didn’t even surpa.s.s five hundred thousand gold coins.
Not to mention that this profit included the high profit margin from the first half of the year.
If it was just the second half, their profits were less than two hundred thousand gold coins.
In this situation, the Fersen Carriage Company couldn’t take the huge loss of the public transport system.
Feeling hopeless, even if chairman Pompeii didn’t want to disappoint her highness Seveni and Xu Yi’s hope in him, he had no choice but to announce that he was giving it up.
So on the final day of year 3783, on the final issue of the «Banta Times». Before anything that had to do with the Frestech Chamber of Commerce would be on the front page, but today it was pushed to the second page.
Because on the front page was a shocking piece of news from the Fersen Carriage Company.
The Fersen Carriage Company announced that starting next year, the Fersen Carriage Company would be withdrawing from Banta City’s public transport system!
In just a single morning, this news had already all over Banta City.
Everyone who received this news was stunned.
The Fersen Carriage Company pulling out, did that mean that there would be no more public transport Magic Cars to ride?
But the people of Banta City were already used to riding the convenient and quick Magic Cars to wherever they wanted to go. If it was suddenly gone, if they wanted to go somewhere, how would they do it?
There was no problem for rich people, most of them had already purchased Magic Sedans from the Frestech Chamber of Commerce. But what about the people who couldn’t afford them? Would they have to rely on bicycles?
Banta City’s people had been used to the public transport system in these two years and for it to be gone suddenly, these people were stunned.
After being stunned, many people became angry.
When the Fersen Carriage Company took the public transport system with the support of her highness Seveni and chairman Xu, they made money off it. Now that her highness Seveni and chairman Xu were gone from Banta City, they suddenly didn’t want to do it?
What did they take Banta City’s people for!
But after calming down, these people realized a crucial problem.
Why did the Fersen Carriage Company withdraw?
To merchants, earning money definitely came first.
If they could earn money from operating the public transport system, even if someone held a blade to chairman Pompeii’s neck, he definitely wouldn’t announce he was giving it up.
Because of this question, people began reading the report in the «Banta Times» on this.
Although the «Banta Times» report didn’t go into details, it laid out two important points. First was that the City Lord Manor was taking away the subsidies for the public transport system and the second was the Lafaye Chamber of Commerce’s monopoly on the Magic Cars used for that system.
As long as some smart people say this and thought for a bit, they would roughly understand the problem.
It was very clear that the City Lord Manor was protecting one of the ten companies and suppressing the Fersen Carriage Company who was close to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce before.
If one thought about all the things the City Lord Manor did to the Frestech Chamber of Commerce in the second half of the year and the actions of the ten company, comparing it to when her highness Seveni was the City Lord and when the Frestech Chamber of Commerce was still in Banta City, the people of Banta City would have a strong resentment in their heart.
On the final day of year 3873, Banta City seemed calm on the surface.
But on the first day of the new year, Banta City wasn’t happy at all, rather there were was hidden currents under the calm surface.