Chapter 1499: The More Meat, the Bigger the Matter!

Guns weren't exactly a rarity in the Anbei Army Garrison, and although Niu Laoliu never became a soldier, he still knew how to shoot. His eldest brother Niu Laoda kept two "ancestral" turtledove-foot matchlocks hidden at home, and sometimes brought them out for the brothers to take onto the grasslands to hunt wolves.

But he had never imagined that guns, here on the New Continent, would be a daily necessity. The New Continent people living in the west-coast cities and farmsteads nearly all kept guns at home, and "New Continent military households" like Niu Laoliu, because they had to go to the front lines to resist the Indians and Europeans, were required to have a gun for every man!

Because North New Continent was simply too vast. The western coastal areas, where there were more Han people, were somewhat better. Head east, and it was what you'd call a land vast and sparsely peopled!

A village of two hundred households was often the only Han settlement within a radius of one or two hundred li. And those two hundred households couldn't just hole up inside the village and never leave, or else they'd have no way to carry on production or obtain supplies. But to graze livestock, to farm, to hunt, to transport goods, conflict with the natives was inevitable — an agrarian people found it very hard to live peacefully alongside hunting-and-gathering natives.

Moreover, humanity's pursuit of safety often knows no limits. In pursuit of absolute safety, these settled military households would frequently strike out on their own initiative. And once the able-bodied men of a village sortied out en masse, the task of defense fell upon the old, the weak, the women, and the children.

So the military households of the New Continent — including the women and children — all had to be issued guns and all had to learn to use them. Children too young, of course, couldn't learn, but in the military-farming households on the front line, children of six or seven began learning how to load ammunition and make paper cartridge rounds. Around ten they had to start target practice, and by thirteen or fourteen their marksmanship was quite good.

By that point, the boys among them were expected to leave the village and join the fighting, to battle the natives to the death!

This was the price of eating meat!

Meat at every meal! How could there be no price to pay?

There is no free lunch in this world, let alone great fish and great meat. And what's more, the one running the New Continent United States was a local-tyrant king sharper than a monkey — how could he possibly let people eat meat for nothing?

And in ancient China, anyone who had been a soldier and seen battle knew that if it wasn't a holiday or festival and the higher-ups gave you meat to eat, it usually meant no good — quite possibly it was your last meal!

And the more meat they gave you, the bigger the matter at hand.

Although Niu Laoliu had never been a soldier, his father had carried a gun for the "Loan King," and while "eating grass" at Jining Garrison he had heard plenty of old military households boast about their glorious days of old, so he knew the rules about eating meat in the army.

The "Loan King" lived frugally and was rather stingy with the military households under him. In the Prince of Dai's army, at New Year's and festivals you got dumplings stuffed with cabbage and pork — and even then it was mostly cabbage with very little pork, just enough to taste the meaty flavor. If you were given cabbage-and-pork dumplings on no particular holiday, it usually meant you were about to head to the front! If you got a small piece of red-braised pork, then it was certain you were going into battle to fight the Tartars to the death.

If you got a great big chunk of meat, then the matter was serious — most likely you'd be made a death-soldier and sent in the first wave. If not nine deaths and one life, then at best fifty-fifty, or at least thirty-seventy. The more timid ones would eat their meat while weeping.

If you got a whole bathtub of beef carefully cured with salt and spices — heavens! How big a matter must this be? Has the sky fallen and they need us to prop it back up, or what? That couldn't be it!

When Niu Laoliu saw the quartermaster about to issue him a full bathtub of cured beef and a small sack of flour, he was scared witless! That much meat — all the meat he'd eaten in his entire life added together wasn't even half of this, no, not even a third!

How many lives would he have to trade for this?

"What are you standing there gaping for? Never seen beef before?" The one in charge of issuing grain was a quartermaster from a second-generation garrison-soldier family, and he couldn't stand the sight of someone scared silly by meat. It was just meat! When he'd seen that much meat back in the day, he hadn't been the least bit afraid!

A real man, a true hero — not even afraid of death, and afraid of eating meat?

"Uh, uh, I've seen beef before, but never that much." Niu Laoliu's voice had changed as he spoke!

"Much ado about nothing." The quartermaster waved a hand. "Hurry up and haul it away. Take it back and eat your fill!"

Done for, done for — eat your fill!

Did that mean the whole family would be smashed to pieces?

"Sir, may this humble one ask..." Niu Laoliu asked in a trembling voice, "after we finish eating, does that mean we're off to the battlefield?"

The quartermaster nodded and said with a smile, "Of course! If you're not going to the battlefield, why did you come all this way to the New Continent United States?"

Right! If not for the battlefield, what did he come for? To eat meat?

Niu Laoliu had nothing more to say, but his wife Yang Erniang still had questions.

"Sir, may I ask — is this really all the flour for making steamed buns?"

A whole bathtub of meat, paired with just one small sack of flour. And someone actually called this field rations — it was clearly field meat! Who ever ate meat like this?

The quartermaster nodded and said seriously, "That's right, this is all there is. This isn't meant to fill your bellies — it's to regulate your digestion. Conditions in our nomadic ten-thousand-household are rather harsh, and flour is very hard to supply, so you'll have to live mainly on meat.

You need to start getting used to eating meat at every meal right now. As long as your stomach can take it, you eat meat. Only if the grease is too much and you can't take it and get diarrhea may you eat this flour to adjust, and then go back to eating meat! Once you're used to eating meat, you'll be following His Highness the Prince of Huai eastward into the Great Plains!"

In truth, North New Continent wasn't without grain to eat — the grain supply there was quite ample. The population of the New Continent United States was under one million, yet the area sown each year exceeded eight million mu. And those ten million mu of land were all located around the Gulf of America, the Great River Basin, the Bo River Valley, and the northern Flood River Valley. All of it was quite fertile, with climate and humidity well suited to farming, and yields per mu were extremely high. Planted casually, it was more than enough to supply a million people, and with a great surplus besides.

But grain produced on the western coast was very hard to transport to the Great Plains of North New Continent. There was no water transport, and along the way there was only a "military-farming line," which simply couldn't support relay transport. Without relay transport and without water transport, hauling grain a thousand li was unrealistic.

So Niu Laoliu's family would have to eat meat for the long haul from now on — mainly beef. If they wanted a change of flavor, they'd have to eat passenger pigeons or go catch fish in the Mississippi River.

Steamed buns, cornbread, millet gruel — even delicious foods like sweet potatoes and taro — who knew if they'd ever get to eat them again!

As for the feeling of hunger... they'd probably never experience it again!

Washington City, the White House.

The King of the United States, Zhu Hehao, and his two good brothers, the Prince of Huai Zhu Hekun and the Prince of De Zhu Hezhen, had finally met here on the New Continent.

The three brothers now embraced and wept bitterly at the Washington docks, and only after they finished crying did they return together to the White House, the palace of the King of the United States.

The White House had already been expanded, and was considerably larger than when Zhu Hehao first arrived. Two auxiliary buildings had been constructed, and both had now been cleared out for Zhu Hekun and Zhu Hezhen and their families to live in.

The Prince of Huai's mansion and the Prince of De's mansion in Washington City had also begun construction, but the progress was not fast — it was estimated they'd take a year or two to complete. Here in the New Continent there was plenty of meat, grain, and money, but few people, so construction projects all went slowly.

But the Prince of Huai and the Prince of De wouldn't have any use for their mansions for a while, because the two of them were nomadic princes!

The Zhu Emperor had already issued an edict: the two of them must live as nomads on the Great Plains of North New Continent, following the wild bison! Grazing and hunting at the same time, gradually reducing the bison of the Great Plains while building up and strengthening their own herds.

Alas, proper Ming princes, and they'd been turned into nomadic princes by their own father! And they were born of Noble Consort Zheng, no less! Who could they go to for justice?

Zhu Hehao looked at his two dejected brothers and could only think of ways to console them!

"Second Brother, Fifth Brother, the Great Plains really is a good place." Zhu Hehao thought for a moment. "It truly is a good place — the land is vast beyond measure, fertile and rich, and except for the especially cold winters, everything else is far better than our Central Plains. In fact, that land is very suited to farming, it's just..."

Just as he reached this point, the sound of hurried footsteps suddenly came from outside the small dining room of the White House, and then a woman's voice called out loudly: "Great King, Chief Grand Secretary Zheng of the Grand Secretariat and Commissioner-in-Chief Chen of the War Office request an audience. They say it is urgent military business!"

(End of Chapter)