The contract was finally signed. Thank you all for your support!
"However, Your Highness, the resistance is too great. It'll be very difficult for us to win support from all sectors of society, and the government will be put in a very difficult position." Konstantin sounded hesitant.
Ferdinand nodded in agreement, then asked, "What if we break the plan into smaller parts? For example, we could start with one industry as a point of entry."
Konstantin was startled. "If it's only one industry, then the resistance we face will be much smaller. But—"
Ferdinand cut him off before he could continue. "No more 'buts'! Your government can start by investigating one industry, find the problems, gather enough evidence, then build public support and carry out the reforms!"
Konstantin pondered this. A moment later, he said, "Your Highness is wise!"
Ferdinand was pleased, though the flattery had been rather clumsy. He smiled and said, "Don't flatter me. It doesn't suit you! Anyway, you'll have plenty to keep you busy from now on. Reform is all well and good, but the Five-Year Plan mustn't be affected. The government bears a heavy responsibility!"
"Rest assured, Your Highness. The Ministry of Interior will do its job!" Konstantin promised.
After leaving the Sofia Royal Palace, Konstantin's head began to ache. He'd readily agreed just moments ago, but in truth, he had no idea where to start.
The Five-Year Plan was consuming most of the government's energy, and Konstantin opposed carrying out reforms right now. They simply had too much on their plates.
At the same time, he agreed with Ferdinand's reasoning. This was the best time for reform, when resistance would be at its weakest. The previous government had just purged the interest groups, leaving them badly weakened. Those who had survived were all clever people.
The new parliamentary elections hadn't yet begun, and all power was still concentrated in Ferdinand's hands. If the government forced through reforms, they could still be implemented. The backlash wouldn't be too severe. After all, Stam's bloody methods had already frightened the capitalists, who wouldn't dare openly defy the government in the short term.
But where to start was another thorny question. As the first target, the industry had to be representative and widely recognized by all sectors of society.
The autumn breeze was crisp, the autumn rain cool, and the weather was pleasantly mild. The earth was filled with the joyful sight of a bountiful harvest, lifting people's spirits.
Basking in the autumn breeze, Konstantin found himself walking down the street. Now and then, he heard vendors calling out. Stalls lined the entire street, from one end to the other, their colorful wares dazzling the eye. Even the air was filled with the enticing aromas of tripe soup, canned meat, cheese, roast meat, cucumber yogurt soup...
Konstantin suddenly had an inspiration. What industry could be a better choice than food?
"Food safety" was something everyone cared about. No one could object to cracking down on unscrupulous merchants and eliminating food safety hazards, could they?
Amid the bustling streets of Sofia, who could have known—aside from Konstantin—that the government would soon launch a sweeping crackdown?
Food safety had long been a problem. In the golden age of nineteenth-century capitalism, capitalists stopped at nothing to maximize profits, using all kinds of additives at will.
As for food safety, as long as eating something didn't make you sick right away, they dared to sell it. Dead cow meat and rat meat were small potatoes. Large quantities of mercury compounds were used as preservatives. It was practically murder.
On October 15, the Bulgarian government issued the Food Safety Management Regulations, ordering food-processing businesses to make improvements within a set time.
The capitalists waited a few days. When they saw the government take no further action, they decided it was a classic case of "thunder without rain." So everyone went back to business as usual. They weren't fools—who would turn their backs on money?
There was, of course, one exception: Shineway Food Group was undergoing a major overhaul. Welian, who had inside information, naturally knew that the government was serious this time.
Previously, Shineway Food Group had sold the same product under several different brands, with a huge range in prices. The cheapest ordinary goods cost more than ten times less than the top-of-the-line products reserved for nobles.
Even so, the noble-only goods sold very well. Aside from nobles who wanted to save face, the capitalists themselves were the main customers.
Why did European nobles eat food from their own estates, while newly rich capitalists were so keen on buying estates? They weren't fools. Everyone knew there were problems with the food sold on the market.
Ferdinand was clearly a competent capitalist, too. Goods sold to the public were naturally made as cheaply as possible to maximize profits. As for the noble-only products, Ferdinand could guarantee they were absolutely safe, with no chemical additives. After all, he ate them himself.
The cheaper the product, the less reliable its quality. Bulgaria was certainly keeping up with international standards—everyone was much the same. Whether the food might poison someone to death wasn't something Ferdinand considered.
Now Ferdinand was king. From the king's perspective, Bulgaria needed to increase its population, so food safety was an urgent problem to solve. Konstantin's plan could be said to have coincided perfectly with his own.
As for whether reforming the food industry would affect Ferdinand's businesses, that was simply needless worry.
No matter how much the industry was reformed, people still had to eat! Market demand wouldn't fall sharply. With technological upgrades and rising production costs, the small capitalists would be the first to suffer.
A few days later, the Bulgaria Daily reported a piece of news. A large-scale food poisoning incident had occurred at Chaote Hardware Factory in Sofia. More than eighty people had been poisoned by food and sent to Jiu Ren'ai Hospital for emergency treatment.
According to the report, the poisoning had been caused mainly by large quantities of mercury-compound preservatives added to the food they had eaten.
At the time, this sort of thing wasn't new in Bulgaria, let alone the rest of Europe—or even the world. So a group of workers had been poisoned. What of it? They weren't important people. What was the big deal?
So they'd been poisoned. What was the big deal? And they hadn't all died—not even one of them had.
Not a single person had died, and they'd even been sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. Things like this happened every day. Could that really count as big news?
All right, under normal circumstances, this kind of thing didn't count as news. In the past, when food poisoning happened, workers were left to fend for themselves. Now the capitalists had sent them to the hospital for emergency treatment, even if they'd only done so because labor laws forced them. That was still a major improvement.
The news media couldn't be bothered to report it because most workers were poor and wouldn't buy newspapers anyway. But this time, things were entirely different: the Bulgaria Daily had published the news in the most prominent spot.
Book recommendation: The new novel Balkan Overlord is about the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Interested readers can check it out.
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