Chapter 342: The New Elders

“What are we here for?” Dr. Zhong spoke passionately. “Everyone’s ideals are not the same, but the goal is the same—to establish our own empire. The empire hasn’t even taken shape yet, and we’re already talking about ethnic cleansing?!”

A wave of discussion swept through the venue. Ma Jia had to repeatedly bang his gavel to ask everyone to be quiet. At this time, Bei Wei asked to speak.

“I oppose the idea of controlled use,” Bei Wei said. “If you trust someone, use them. If you don’t trust them, don’t use them. Although the two ATF agents did not come to our group voluntarily, they work very hard—they can be called dedicated, and their professional skills are what we need.”

Then several other people expressed that there was no need to create such artificial tension and conflict. The heads of the Guangzhou station, the navy, and the original internal affairs department all expressed their support for Xiao Zishan’s motion. Everyone stated that most of these 8 people were professionals who were very helpful to the Transmigration Group, and giving them official status was a necessary measure to strengthen the internal unity of the Transmigration Group.

Next, everyone raised questions about Li Mei’s women’s cooperative. According to the current economic policy, no transmigrator could operate their own industry—Liu San’s participation in the Runshitang in his personal name was essentially the Transmigration Group holding shares, with him just being the frontman. But Li Mei’s enterprise, which was completely private shareholding in nature, clearly violated the regulations, and there was also suspicion of official profiteering. In the past, her whole family did not have the status of transmigrators, so it was barely justifiable. Now that they were given status and shares, it was unreasonable to retain this unique private industry.

Everyone’s unanimous opinion was that if Li Mei was to be given the official rights and shares of a transmigrator, then this cooperative must have an explanation, and there could be no exceptions.

Although the radicals demanded the immediate forced confiscation of this industry, some people also believed that the cooperative had been running well for more than a year and had played a role in enriching the lives of the masses and invigorating the economy to a certain extent. Li Mei’s personal efforts were in it, and using forced confiscation would have a very bad impact on the protection of the private property of the elders in the future.

Wu Nanhai proposed a motion: Li Mei had the right to choose. Either she gave up her shares in the cooperative and handed it over to the public completely; or she kept the cooperative but lost her status as an elder and the basic shares allocated to her.

No matter what choice she made, the private shares of other elders in the cooperative must be returned.

“Even so, isn’t the Ming family getting too good a deal?!” someone raised an objection. “A family of four, the Ming family has four hundred thousand basic shares alone! And four elder votes! Won’t they become a formidable force in the Senate in the future? I propose they should only get half.”

According to the articles of association passed at the first general assembly, every transmigrator, regardless of whether they were an adult or a child, occupied one seat in the Senate. Currently, the family with the most seats was Qian Shuiting’s family from the North American branch, with a wife and daughter, a total of three seats. Now the Ming family was going to break this record and have four votes, and all four votes were valid—Qian Shuiting’s daughter was only 10 years old and had no right to vote at all.

Dong Shiye expressed his opposition to the so-called “reduce by half” proposal. First, it violated the concept of “all transmigrators are equal”; second, to reduce their votes by half just because the Ming family was large violated the principle of seat recognition passed at the first general assembly.

Since everyone had agreed to give them equal treatment, there was no need to create such a purely unpleasant difference. As for the so-called excessive power of the Ming family in the Senate, this was even more untenable—having 4 votes out of 521 could not be considered a major influence in any case.

“…finally, please note that the inheritance of the elder’s seat is by their children—Ming Lang and Mu Min already have elder seats, so it is obviously impossible for them to inherit the seats of Ming Qiu and Li Mei again. In the long run, the number of votes of the Ming family is still less than the number of votes of Qian Shuiting’s family. As for the shares, there are also people who hold several million basic shares. A mere four hundred thousand shares is nothing.”

Wu Nanhai’s motion was passed, and a staff member was sent to consult her opinion.

The four members of the Ming family, because they did not have elder seats, were sitting bored in a house outside the venue with the other four people, waiting for the second general assembly to decide their fate.

The four members of the Ming family sat together. Old man Ming was wearing a collarless and insignia-less Type 87 naval winter uniform, sitting upright. Ming Lang looked bored and was constantly playing games on his useless 3G mobile phone. Mu Min was very diligent, writing some documents at the table. And Li Mei was pacing around anxiously—the rumors about the “struggle” against the cooperative were spreading fiercely outside, which made Li Mei, who had been through political movements, very worried. The occasional noise from the distant venue and the indistinct shouting from the loudspeakers intensified this feeling. She really wanted to talk to the other few people and sound them out, but the young man with strange long hair obviously didn’t want to talk to her about anything. It was difficult to communicate with the two foreign women, and the strong man was busy fawning over a foreign woman.

Guo Yi remained completely silent, without even an expression. This trip back to Lingao for the meeting was obviously about his final fate within the Transmigration Group—whether he would become a full-fledged elder or be reduced to a “controlled use object” all depended on how his colleagues at the Guangzhou station fought for him. He was very grateful to Yan Maoda and the others for this.

According to Yan Maoda’s estimation, Guo Yi’s “regularization” was almost certain. After the physical examination, Yan Maoda and the others went out to be active. Guo Yi did not know who he went to see or what they talked about, nor did he ask. But Xiao Guo could more or less guess. The people Yan Maoda went to see must be people with great prestige among the transmigrators. He guessed that it was very likely Ran Yao—he was a colleague, and he was in charge of a part of the intelligence work, so he had to rely on the intelligence sources of the dispatched stations; secondly, there might also be the main leaders of the industrial side, the head of the propaganda department…

Although he knew the final result, Guo Yi still maintained a low profile and waited quietly for the announcement of the result. The more critical the moment, the more he had to keep his cool, he reminded himself.

The reunion with Salina made his eyes light up—he hadn’t seen this American woman, with whom he had once shared life and death, for more than a year. Salina, due to the change in her diet, had lost a lot of weight in both her face and figure. Her figure was more well-proportioned and tall, and she had become charming. And Salina’s smile when she saw him made Guo Yi’s heart flutter.

Guo Yi was not an innocent man who had never been in love. He was very clear about the affection in Salina’s eyes. But his future was at stake. When Salina took the initiative to greet him, he only responded very politely and rejected her with a coldness that he himself found regrettable.

Seeing the disappointment and confusion in Salina’s eyes, and Xue Xiangjiao proudly wrapping his arm around the foreign woman’s waist, his palm kneading the full buttocks tightly wrapped in jeans, Guo Yi felt his heart was about to bleed—what a good opportunity he had lost for nothing!

But he still had to hold on, to keep his cool. The banana would never understand the threshold here. Let him go and have a good time with the foreign woman, play with guns, and be a commando. A better future was waiting for him, Guo Yi.

At this time, An Xi came to the room as the messenger of the general assembly and announced to the people present that the general assembly had granted them the official status of elders. The three foreigners did not quite understand the meaning of this elder, and did not show much excitement. But the Ming family and Guo Yi were very clear that this was a crucial change—they finally had the status of “official workers”! People who were not Chinese would probably find it difficult to understand the mystery here.

Guo Yi expressed his gratitude to the Senate with a very restrained attitude. At this time, An Xi announced the content of Wu Nanhai’s motion to Li Mei and asked her to make a decision.

In the end, Li Mei decided to give up the cooperative. Although she felt lost to give up the cooperative she had worked so hard to build, she was very clear about what the seat of an elder meant. However, she made one request—she hoped that the cooperative would continue to be managed by her in the future. An Xi said that he could not make a decision on this matter and that it would be decided by the new leadership.

The eight new elders then entered the venue and took their seats. At Ma Jia’s suggestion, the whole venue stood up and applauded to welcome the 8 newcomers to show the unity of the Transmigration Group.

Then began the final topic of the general assembly: the election of the new leadership.

As Ma Jia had estimated—not many people registered to run for the 10 committee members, it could even be said to be scarce. Most of the committee members had only one candidate.

Although the new committee members had high positions and great power, the professional skills required also deterred many people. The responsibility of a committee member was also too great. Many people just wanted to be a cadre and get good treatment, and did not intend to work so hard to steer the transmigrator state.

After one round of elections, the second Executive Committee was successfully formed. Although the transmigrators had many opinions on the first Executive Committee, they were generally satisfied. Most of the members of the original Executive Committee were re-elected.

Wen Desi, as expected, continued to serve as the Chairman of the Executive Committee; Ma Qianzhu was elected as the Secretary of State—although he had originally intended to be the President of the Planning Council, he accepted someone’s advice before running for election—not to be this renamed People’s Commissar for Planning anymore; Zhan Wuya was elected as the Chief Manufacturing Officer; and Cheng Dong naturally became the Chief Financial Officer; Xiao Zishan, without any suspense, continued to be the Director of the General Office.

The biggest gain belonged to Ma Jia. He went from being the President of the Maritime Court who could only attend the Executive Committee meetings when needed, to the Representative of the Arbitration Tribunal, ranking last among the 9 committee members. A shining new star had risen in the political arena of the Transmigration Empire, and the members of the Law Club were all overjoyed.