Quantum Leap Vol 8 Harris Treaty July 29, 1858

C020 Time To Take Control Of The Town

After lunch, I discussed with Hiko-sama and Kayu-San which department in the business district and government sector that he finds it redundant. "Write down the department and report to me before dinner."

I explained that we need to squeeze down the manpower and if need be, give them na early retirement just like the Samurai did. No other ways to negotiate...this is the Hitokiri with a reed pen now.

=*=

Hiko-sama, Kayu-San and the ex-Mayor went to the government building and made a roll call. Those who were not present had their names cancelled before releasing them back to their respective departments.

Kayu-San explained that certain departments require just on a person each as it could be merged onto one such as the Department for Plot and Land, Public Utilities, Sanitation, Conservation and Disposal, Buildings and Constructions, Blueprints and National Statistics Office. These 7 departments could be closed down and became a single department called Public Internal Affairs.

6 persons would be able to handle every single task and that alone would result in a major layoff of more than 32 government staffs.

Next, they went to the business district and since the Imports and Exports Tax had been abolished, its high time to lay off 10 of the staffs. All individual Tax Offices could be merged as one from being Housing Property Tax, Business Income Tax, Personal Income Tax, Business Locale Tax, Savings Tax, Corporate Savings Tax, Agricultural Tax and other taxes.

The only tax that would still be in effect would be Housing Property Tax and Personal Income Tax. The rest would be recommended to be axed and disbanded. The new office would be called General Tax Office and 2 staffs would able to run that.

The total number layoffs were at 35 personnel.

Business Registration, Corporate Department, Commercial Affairs Department, Patent and Trademarks and other related would be closed down and merge to become one single department which would be called Commercial Internal Affairs and would be run by 3 persons.

This section alone would lay off 29 staffs.

After they had accessed everything and made their conclusion of a restructuring of just the following departments:

[Public Internal Affairs.]

In:6 / Out:32

[General Tax Office]

In:2 / Out: 35

[Commercial Internal Affairs]

In: 3 / Out: 29

Checking against those who failed to turn up for their roll call earlier, 75% had left their jobs, 24 personnel remains and only 11 were needed. So a total of just 13 would be compensated and the 11 staffs would have their salaries axed accordingly.

After compiling their data, the trio returns and explained the whole situation. I didn't expect the ex-Mayor would be involved and pointing out which department would be scrapped but I discovered that he knew this all along and took its advantage.

Kayu-San recognises those names left and circled those who find it trustworthy. He would be glad to take up his position once again under the Head for Building and Construction.

"Alright... Kayu-San and Sensei, tomorrow morning after morning tea, please do another roll call and inform those who had been struck off to return here to receive their compensation. If the circled ones did not appear for work, quickly replaces it with another. Here, take my sketchpad and please update accordingly."

"The 4 Execom and ex-Mayor would be here to point out our transparency in dealing with matters. The loss of their main source of income is never the end of their lives."

"They may work with Fasuto Japan KabushikiGaisha in whichever positions they deem fit since our 3 buildings are currently up and running. I want them to be more assertive so the I could probe into their minds and know what the hell they are thinking about."

"As for the compensation, we are willing to pay them a flat rate of 20 gold coins per month at 3 months per person. There are 13 laid off staffs now so we pay them 780 gold coins altogether. Love it or leave it..."

The offscreen crews suddenly broke into another song and dance, complete with beatboxing and everything:

Bum rush the speaker that booms,

I'm killin' your brain like a poisonous mushroom,

Deadly, when I play a dope melody,

Anything less, that the best, is a felony,

Love it or leave it, You better gain way,

You better hit bull's eye, the kid don't play,

If there was a problem, Yo, I'll solve it,

Check out the hook while my DJ revolves it

Hahahaha... f**k those crews were bad... Really bad, man... The catch the phrase at the last moment and turn it into Vanilla Ice hit song, you guys rock...!!

.....

I decided to write a letter to His Majesty and either in Shibata or Tokyo and informed him that Yours Truly, Harune Yokoso, the newly elected Mayor of Kitakata, Hiko Seiko and Asuwaipu Itsumo would be allowed an audience with His Majesty, Tokugawa Iemochi.

I stopped a Messenger and he bowed to me as I told him this the letter is for His Majesty and he immediately went down on his knees and raised his palms over his head.

"Oi...please stand up and not stand ceremoniously can or not? Even if I lied to you that this letter is meant for my father and I said this is for His Majesty, you'd do that meeehh?"

"No, Yours Exce... I mean Yours Truly. It is an honour to serve you."

"Haiya... I'm just like you, no? I was a housekeeper before I became this bright character. Hahahaha. Don't believe me you go and ask Sensei, or Hide-sama, Toshi-sama, Hoshi-sama and Kami-sama. They can testify if you don't ask them I take your salary for the month ok?"

"Eeeeehhhhh.....??? Sensei is what Yours Truly says is true? He being a housekeeper and washes houses and laundry and stuff? I don't believe it... You are a highly ranked official but you started off doing than humble and lowly job?"

"It is true... And you can keep your salary, boy."

"Who said its a lowly job, messenger? A job for as long if it is not immoral of value, like robbing, stealing, cheating, misappropriation of others' property, is of high value to me. Is that right Kayu-San. The money that you received at the end of the day is the most precious thing you could receive because you do your best, put in the most effort and greatly rewarded through it."

"Take a look at Bato-san. He does his paving of bricks alone by himself, under the hot sun alone. After he sets the porous sand, he places each brick with care and love because of one day, when people start asking, who laid this lovely brick road."

"It's not going to Your Truly name, but it's going to 'Bato-san is the one that laid this brick for us to safely travel on it' and credit is the one who makes the effort, not to the one who directs using his hands and mouth."

"A leader is someone who leads, respects others and never forget where his humble beginnings were. A leader is someone who knows not everyone but significant others who contributed something to make people's lives better."

"A leader also must have the compassion and empathy to make others survive yet another day. A leader must have a heart so that he would feel what others feel. A leader must not be afraid of changes and making the change for other benefits."

"A leader always put the interest of others before himself and of right now, the employees of Fasuto Japan KabushikiGaisha are the main backbone of this corporation and without them, we won't be here talking to each other like this at all."

I placed a tender hand on the messenger's shoulder and it quivered slightly. When he raised his face at me, tears had already pooled on his lap and it was streaming down the sides of this face. The crew offscreen had reminded to all side characters to stuff their noses with bits of tissue to prevent snot from coming out and he did just that.

I glanced around and saw the ex-Mayor had stuffed the whole roll up his nostril that made him look like Gloria from Madagascar. It's either he felt remorse or emotionally affected by my speech or SIMPLY IN PAIN...!!!

HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHA... laugh la weeeiiii... Makes you younger and rids of those crow's feet...

=*=

The next few days businesses had been bustling and we are nearing the 3rd week of the month, which means we would accumulate the data of those new families that had moved in, get them to work, pay them accordingly, check on existing records recipients for all those who are in need and compile everything before we go ahead and purchase the rice for distribution.

The laid-off employees from the business district all don't wish to have their livelihood to be disrupted after receiving 60 gold pieces as compensation and wished to part their skills to those who would refine themselves culturally like the arts and so on.

They were called teachers to guide those in the public community building to learn origami, calligraphy, learn about the fine traditional ways of preparing tea, even learning the arts of noh mai or Jintai mai traditional dances. I organised a class before and taught them callisthenics and all slumped to the floor due to the sudden overwork of leaps, squats, low kicks, high kicks, claps and spin-outs and slowly each one dropped to the floor.

Riffnut and Zikyl had changed their Viking wear into the traditional ladies kimono and hakama while Zikyl preferred the short sleeve gi and loose hakama. They loved wearing zori and the tabi and ended up with making Frisbee with their zori at each other.

Without those 2 dimwits and bickering, the place would be almost quiet. Nekoyasha had stopped (almost) his incessant bickering with Kaneko since one day, Kaneko confessed that he looked at Nekoyasha and regarded him as his older brother. Kaneko also made a few caricatures of Nekoyasha and had hung it on the public community building for display.

The orders for the Refined Steel came from near and afar, and on that particular week alone, we had made a sale of 309,000 pieces of Refined Steel Plates and deposited a total of 6,180,000 just for them alone.

The presentation of the cosmetics, food, beauty and health products were well executed by the 4 Execom members and they had achieved repeat orders for the following week, even when the sales had not been put upon their wagons.

The sales alone for that week on a single day had hit 15,185,088 altogether. This was only about 120+ Cosmetic shop owners and the coming 3 days were filled with a total of reserved 120 seats as well.

The Fasuto Japan Airways had done pretty well. Since there were only an initial 15 flights per day, more Tanuki had signed up for the programme and by the 3 days of flights, another 56 joined us making a total of 71 flights per day.

The Tanuki were paid according to flight distance and rotate of one take a short distance today, it would take a longer flight the next day. Haruto is the one responsible for making this happen.

The rest preferred to go by sea from Shibata and Ibaraki since their Prefecture was across the seas like Hokkaido and Kagoshima.

In just 3 days alone, we had deposited 21,365,058 on top of our past account of 18,000,000 that makes a total of 39,384,741 with the profit gained. Hiko-sama and the 4 Execom members assisted to withdraw 1,384,741 to round off the figure as 38,000,000.

Our float cash is currently riding on a high of 1,763,010 after the payout of the 'retrenchment' salaries of the 13 business district staffs.

The new compilation for the outermost districts that still needs the monthly assistance was at 1742 household and that required 1.8 tonnes of rice only. Nearly everyone had just started working so it would require them at least one month to stabilise their income. From the statistics given, each household comprises of a minimum 2 or more working members and their median salary would be at around 8-14 gold coins per month.