Don’t raise unruly people in extreme cold weather

Chapter 407: Observing People's Livelihood
The inspection of the underground city lasted for three full days. During these three days, Perfect not only walked through every underground city and every underground street in Chenoberg, but also stayed in an ordinary civilian house in the underground city for one night, carefully experiencing the feelings of ordinary people living in the underground city so that he could make improvements.

Through this personal experience, Perfectcot also gained a deeper understanding of the situation in the underground city and made more adjustments on some policy details.

"For ordinary people, the living conditions in the underground city are already very good, but there is still room for improvement in the supply of daily necessities and the collection of various municipal service fees." Sitting in front of an ordinary and narrow-looking desk, Perfectot is writing down his thoughts.

She was still in the underground city at this time, and in an ordinary citizen's residence on the second floor of the underground city. Most of the people living around her were lower-class people of Chernobog.

This was already her second day living here, and Perfect had indeed gained a lot from the experience of living in this ordinary house.

Apart from anything else, just the issue of heating made Perfect feel firsthand the gap between the policies he formulated and the lives of ordinary people.

She also promoted honeycomb coal in Chernobyl. This economical and easy-to-use fuel is indeed a blessing for ordinary people. It is not complicated to make and the cost is very low. It is indeed a good thing that benefits the people.

In a house like this, you only need to light a stove and put a few pieces of honeycomb coal in it to ensure that the room is warm all night.

This was exactly what Perfectcot had designed considering people's heating problems, but on the first night living here, Perfectcot noticed that not everyone was willing to light the stove.

It sounds difficult to understand. The weather is very cold and there are conditions to light a stove, so why not light the stove to keep warm?
The answer is simple: I can’t bear to do so.

Perfect has carefully learned that the average monthly income of each household living in this area is about 2-5 gold pounds, which is considered a good life.

Generally speaking, the weekly income of men living here is about 20 shillings, which is about 1 pound, while women only earn half of that.

That is to say, if both husband and wife have jobs, they can earn about 2 pounds a week on average, and 5-8 pounds a month, which is already a relatively good situation.

After all, the middle class in Langton only earns 100-200 pounds a year, and slightly wealthier families only have 300-500 pounds.

If the women in the family don't have a job, then a large portion of their income will be lost. If the men don't have a job, then the family may have a hard time living.

Although many children from many families would work as child laborers to supplement their family income, after Perfecto enacted the Child Labor Act, the North had strict control in this regard, which in some ways reduced the income of these families.

In this case, even if the price of a piece of honeycomb coal was one penny, one shilling could buy 5 pieces, which was enough for a family to use for a day. For these ordinary people, it was still a considerable expense.

After all, they may only earn 3-5 shillings a day, and spending one-third of their total income on buying beehives is undoubtedly a heavy burden for a family.

In such circumstances they naturally want to save as much as possible.

There is no other way but to make a fire and cook. In such cold weather, everyone wants to have a steaming hot meal and a bowl of hot soup to warm the stomach, body and mind.

So the part of making fire for cooking cannot be saved, so what can be saved? Naturally, it is heating at night.

The temperature in the underground city was basically above zero, so although it was a little cold, it was not unbearable. Therefore, most ordinary people would cover themselves with thicker quilts and wear more clothes at night, so that they would not need to light a stove when sleeping.

By using this method, almost half of the honeycomb coal can be saved in a day, greatly reducing the burden of expenses.

This fact made Perfect feel a little hurt, but at the same time it also made her fully realize that she was often a bit of a pig.

Before she traveled through time, she came from an era of great material abundance, and even the most ordinary daily food, clothing and daily necessities in this era were incomparable to those of the imperial nobles.

After all, even the imperial nobles of this era could not have fruits and vegetables available all year round, seafood and delicacies to eat as much as they wanted, and a variety of fresh seasonal vegetables to change the taste. As for meat, they would never get tired of it.

To put it bluntly, even eating out-of-season fruits and vegetables like watermelon in winter was something that ordinary people could do without before Perfect traveled through time.

But in this era, sorry, even the nobles don’t have that luxury.

There are off-season vegetables and fruits in the greenhouse, but they are so rare that even the nobles can only eat them occasionally, and even the royal family cannot eat them every day.

Therefore, this also resulted in Perfecto's lack of understanding of the lives of ordinary people. After all, although she was not a great noble after traveling through time, as a noble with territories and manors, at least she had no problem with food and clothing.

Besides, since she made money later, the old housekeeper couldn't treat her daughter harshly. Although Perfect couldn't eat whatever she wanted, she didn't feel that there was anything missing in her life.

This also resulted in Perfecto's lack of understanding of the living conditions of ordinary people.

She had already thought these people's lives were miserable enough, but the result was far worse than she had imagined.

She felt that honeycomb briquettes at one penny a piece were cheap enough, but many people still could not afford them.

She felt that burning honeycomb coal at night to get through the winter was a very common thing, but for ordinary people it was still a luxury and only families that were wealthy enough could do so.

"The government should consider raising the income level of the grassroots people and improving their quality of life. Only when people have enough food and clothing will they know etiquette; only when they have enough food and clothing will they know honor and disgrace. Only when people are well fed and well clothed and do not have to worry about life can we better improve their comprehensive quality and improve the basic conditions of the city." Perfect rubbed his hands and wrote down a passage on paper.

In order to experience the life of ordinary people as much as possible, she did not light the stove tonight, and the clothes she wore were no different from those of ordinary people.

It has to be said that this really made her feel very cold, and it made her unconsciously recall her childhood before she traveled through time, when she also experienced frostbite on her hands.

"It's really an experience I haven't had in a long time! It seems that there is one more thing to add, which is the treatment of various diseases caused by low temperature." Perfect laughed at himself and devoted himself to his work again.

(End of this chapter)