Chapter 1480: Take the Green Card and Get Out Fast!

"Centurion Li, I'm already 26 this year, and I look even older than I am. They probably won't want me, will they?"

Niu Laoliu really was an honest man. Though he very much wanted to become a personal guard for that so-called Prince of Huai, the moment he thought about the age limit of 25, he started to panic inside.

Centurion Li knew the inside story of this matter — what 25 or 26? They didn't care at all. Besides, Niu Laoliu's family still had five children! Pack them all off together to Xinzhou, raise them for a few years, and they'd all become "eastern cowboys." How wonderful. So the Centurion had his son help Niu Laoliu drive the horses while he himself dragged Niu Laoliu toward the Centurion Office inside the Centurion Fort.

As they walked, he also taught Niu Laoliu how to lie and deceive. "Laoliu, you remember this: when you meet the Prince of Huai's household retainer, you must not tell the truth. If they ask your age, say you're 24!"

"But, but with this face of mine, if I say I'm 24, will they believe it?" Niu Laoliu asked as he walked.

"They'll believe it — why wouldn't they?" Centurion Li said. "The Prince of Huai's household retainer is a Huizhou man, surnamed Wang, muddle-headed as can be. Can we Shanxi folk not fool him?"

This Centurion Li had originally been a Shanxi merchant. Because he had lent money to the "Loan Prince" Zhu Cijiong and rendered service, he had in the end obtained the office of Centurion. Though he had become an official, in his heart he still thought of himself as a Shanxi merchant of high cunning.

"This, this..." Although Niu Laoliu was not of merchant stock, he had still heard of the great name of the Huizhou merchants! Huizhou people were no worse at business than Shanxi people!

Bawanghe West Fort was a hundred-household fort, very small, and Centurion Li had soon dragged Niu Laoliu over to the office. Niu Laoliu's wife and five children had also followed along. When they reached the office, they found that several households had already arrived. Niu Laoliu took one look — everyone else was younger than him and not burdened with so many children!

It seemed this troop selection was surely going to come to nothing!

Though he knew he wouldn't be picked, Niu Laoliu still had to steel himself and go through with it — his elder brother Niu Da still owed Centurion Li a huge sum in usurious loans! Principal and interest together came to more than 80 taels. How could he not obey Centurion Li?

The man in charge of troop selection was an officer in his thirties named Wang Shaohua. His family were Yangzhou salt merchants, and when Zhu Cilang passed through Yangzhou he had "absorbed" the family, so his father took a post in the Royal Merchant Guild. First he managed rent collection (Zhu Cilang had a great many shops on his hands!), then he managed the Liguo Iron Mountain in Xuzhou — the old Wang family had once run a salt works, which counted as workshop handicraft industry, and they had some handicraft management experience, so after Zhu Cilang brought the Liguo Iron Mountain in Xuzhou under the Royal Merchant Guild, he sent him to manage it. Wang Shaohua had grown up with his father in Xuzhou, back when Xuzhou was a military governorship. Wang Shaohua mixed with a crowd of second-generation Gao family army men (Gao Jie's), and his nature grew wild; he was unwilling to go into trade, and when he grew up he passed the examination for the Military Academy.

After graduation he served in the Great Ming Army for over ten years, but unfortunately had no luck in officialdom; after reaching the rank of Vice Chiliarch he could rise no further. And now this business of two unlucky "cowboy princes" forming a nomadic Ten Thousand Household seemed to him his last chance to advance — the retirement system for military officers differed from that for civil officials; an officer at the Vice Chiliarch level had to retire by age 40.

Because officers of these two ranks, when sent down to the troops, were basically battalion commanders, and had to lead troops in "996" training; past 40 they basically couldn't keep up. If they couldn't get promoted, they had to retire. And to cross the threshold of Chiliarch and enter the ranks of senior officers — for an officer of Wang Shaohua's background (he was not of Yingtian Army noble stock, nor of the Boy Scouts; he belonged to neither side), it truly was not easy!

Fortunately he had a Royal Merchant Guild background — in later-market terms, he was of bourgeois origin, good at management and administration, and he understood conditions in the New World. So he easily caught the eye of the "Big Cowboy Prince" Zhu Hekun (in truth, not many people were willing to go raise cattle in America with him), and became a Chiliarch under the Huai Prefecture Ten Thousand Household.

The Chiliarch rank Zhu Hekun could confer, but the thousand heads under it — Chiliarch Wang had to go round them up himself!

So these past days, Chiliarch Wang had been in charge of recruiting troops. Good soldiers were hard to find; all he got were a bunch of crooked melons and split dates — oh, and also Mongols who couldn't even speak Chinese clearly. A nomadic Ten Thousand Household, after all, had to pull in a few Mongols for appearances.

Today his harvest at Bawanghe West Fort was not bad; he had already issued nine "green cards" — that is, the household registers of the United States of Xinzhou, with green covers, one register per household.

When rounding up heads for Xinzhou, of course one had to strike while the iron was hot: take the money in one hand, and with the other cancel the household registration with the Jining Guard of the Great Ming's Anbei Garrison, while at the same time processing the household register of the United States of Xinzhou. From then on they would no longer be subjects of the Great Ming Empire, but citizens of the United States of Xinzhou!

Too late for regrets even if they wanted them!

"Old man, you've come to enlist too?" Wang Shaohua frowned the moment he saw Centurion Li dragging over a dark, skinny old fellow. Wasn't this age a bit too much? Coming to the Xinzhou continent to retire?

"I'm not old, I'm only, only 24..." Niu Laoliu was so guilty his voice trembled as he spoke.

"Chiliarch Wang, he just looks old — he's really only 24!" Centurion Li also spoke up for Niu Laoliu — Niu Da's usurious debt to him depended on selling Niu Laoliu's whole family as cowboys to repay it.

"That's right, my husband really is only 24. Please, be kind and take him!" Yang Erniang had also come along, dragging a brood of children, so pitiful it truly broke one's heart.

Wang Shaohua was not about to fall for that act.

Compassion cannot command troops; righteousness cannot manage wealth — he, a capitalist officer, had both fully covered.

"Get lost—" Chiliarch Wang had just waved his hand, the word "lost" barely out of his mouth, when he caught sight of the three girls who had come with Yang Erniang.

Yang Erniang had first married at 15. Her eldest daughter — the little tagalong — was now 11, already a grown girl, and good-looking at that: fair and tender, and quite tall. After she remarried Niu Laoliu, her first two births had also been daughters, now one 9 and one 8, not as pretty as their elder sister but still passable. These three daughters were none of them small anymore. Here in Great Ming they counted for nothing, but on the Xinzhou continent they would be something else entirely!

Three daughters, all pure-blooded Han. If they all married gold prospectors, Niu Laoliu could truly retire in comfort!

"Those three are all your daughters?" Chiliarch Wang asked hurriedly.

"They're my daughters." Yang Erniang felt something was off. What did Chiliarch Wang mean by this? Had he taken a fancy to her daughters?

"Fine." Chiliarch Wang pointed at Niu Laoliu. "You — 24 years old, so it's 24! Are you Han?"

"Han, I'm Han. Me and my wife are both Han!"

Chiliarch Wang nodded. "Good, good — Han is good!" He turned to a clerk beside him and said, "Bring a contract!"

With that, he took out a pouch and placed it on the table before him, then pulled open the mouth of the pouch to reveal the gleaming silver coins inside.

"This is one hundred one-tael coins. Count them." As Wang Shaohua spoke, the clerk he had brought had already taken out the contract and laid it on the table as well.

Wang Shaohua said, "This is the Prince of Huai's personal guard employment contract. Your whole family must sign and put their marks — if you can't write, press a thumbprint! Once signed and marked, I will immediately process your Xinzhou household register! From this day forward, you are people of the Prince of Huai's household. The whole family, every one of you — grain issued by headcount! While in Great Ming, you'll be fed your fill; once in Xinzhou, there'll be meat at every meal!"

The Prince of Huai's personal guard employment contract was a "standard form contract," drafted with the help of Barrister Ji's litigation firm. Once the thumbprints were pressed, Niu Laoliu's family would have to bid farewell forever to their old home in Jining.

Centurion Li was no good man either; he had long since had someone fetch the household register from the Niu home, and the base register in the Centurion Office had also been brought over — the cancellation could be processed on the spot.

Canceled here, registered as citizens of the United States of Xinzhou there, green card issued on the spot. The speed of this immigration processing was unmatched.

And it wasn't just the immigration processing that was fast — the speed of departure was too! Right now at Tianjin Harbor there were Pacific sailing ships of the Pacific Steamship Company, chartered by the Prince of Huai's household and the Prince of De's household, standing by at all times. "Cowboys" who had completed their paperwork could board as soon as they arrived, and the ships set sail once full.

If all went smoothly, in three or four months, Niu Laoliu's whole family would be able to set foot on the soil of the United States of Xinzhou.

(End of Chapter)