1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 13 Savage Growth
Not all industries in San Francisco benefited from the gold rush.

On the contrary, some industries have fallen into depression amid the raging gold rush, and are even on the verge of bankruptcy.

The newspaper industry in San Francisco is one of them. Due to the lack of staff and readers, the newspapers in San Francisco have been closed for more than three months.

Paper media is the channel to obtain information in this era, and it is the only channel in California, where the geographical environment is relatively closed.

Liang Yao bought all the newspapers he could buy and the books he was interested in in San Francisco and brought them back to Sacramento. To Sacramento.

With sufficient funds as the backing, Liang Yao's industry began to grow rapidly and brutally centered in Sacramento.

Behind the blank market in California are countless opportunities, and what these opportunities can bring to Liang Yao is a steady stream of gold and more other things.

A series of simple wooden houses and brick houses have sprung up in the Sacramento area like mushrooms after rain, replacing the original tents and shacks.

Liang Yao's brick factory, sawmill, restaurant, hotel, tavern, brewery, and laundry room brought him far more income every day than the gold he got directly.

In addition, Liang Yao also has a black powder workshop. In view of the danger of the gunpowder workshop, Liang Yao built the black powder factory on a desolate wasteland ten miles away from Sacramento.

Limited by the current population size of Sacramento, Liang Yao's industries are not large in scale, but they can still meet the needs of Sacramento.

Liang Yao still has sufficient cash flow, but he is not in a hurry to expand production capacity to take over the larger San Francisco market.One is because he does not want to confront Brannan directly for the time being, and the other is that he has other uses for this gold.

Liang Yaoduan sat in the clean and warm study room, flipping through the newspapers he had collected at his desk.

And just three months ago, he could only read these things in a simple tent, enduring the cold wind that got into the tent from time to time.

Although the information in these old newspapers is mixed, and many of them are two or three months ago, or even last year's newspapers, there is not much timeliness at all, but they are the only channel for Liang Yao to understand the information of the outside world.

Liang Yao carefully screened out useful information from these newspapers.He is most concerned about the statehood of California and information about the surrounding areas of California.

Although there are still 11 years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, that is, the Civil War, the internal contradictions in the United States have reached a very acute level at this time.

The Mexican-American War briefly diverted domestic tensions, after swallowing up California, New Mexico, and Texas.The internal contradictions in the United States have not eased because of this, but have become increasingly acute.

California statehood is an example, last December, December 12.

The former president, Zachary Taylor, who had not died violently, asked Congress to accept California as a state in the United States, and said that once the time is right, New Mexico can also become a state and join the federation.

As for the core issue of whether these new states implement slavery, Taylor decided to let these states choose for themselves
This American hero in the Mexican-American War is not good at politics. A large part of the reason why he was elected as the twelfth president of the United States is because of his personal prestige accumulated during the Mexican-American War and his status as a national hero in the eyes of the American people. .His political ability is lackluster, and he does not have the ability to mediate the contradictions of all parties.

Zachary Taylor's idealistic proposal not only failed to pass for a long time, but also sparked fierce debate in Congress, representing the interests of all parties in the North and South. mingle.

Although at this time the north has far surpassed the south in terms of population, economic aggregate, railway mileage and even agriculture.

But the number of free states and slave states is still the same, [-], and the independent states of California, New Mexico, and Oregon will break this delicate balance.Regardless of whether these territories that have just been annexed by the United States choose to become free states or slave states.

Of course, it is the Yankees in the north who currently have the upper hand. If these quasi-states are formally established, the possibility of becoming a free state is far greater than that of a slave state.Such a result is absolutely unacceptable to those Dixie people in the south.

The slave-holding states of the South already occupied only second seats in the House of Representatives, and if these territories became free states, their status in the Senate was also in jeopardy.

Liang Yao was very happy to see this happen. The later California became a state, the better it would be for him.

If nothing else, the U.S. Congress will continue to debate this issue until September before it can barely compromise.This kind of compromise is still based on the sudden death of President Zachary Miller, and the new President Fillmore used his flexible political skills to lobby all parties to reach it.

This is the famous compromise of 1850, which won the United States at least four years of rapid economic development.During this period, the huge gold output in California made a huge contribution to the rapid development of the U.S. economy. It was the gold in the west that injected a steady stream of fresh blood into the capital market in the east and became a strong economic growth engine for the United States. .

It is now April, and Liang Yao still has five months to grow wildly in California.

"Sir, I am very sorry, but we have not been able to buy horses from the Indian tribe. Several Indian chiefs of the Pomo and Maidu tribe said that they only trade with you, only trust you, and don't trust us white people. , I'm afraid you have to go there yourself."

Liang Yao's assistant Jones reported to him anxiously.

Jones was originally a trader at the New York Securities and Exchange Commission, which later became the New York Stock Exchange.Due to the economic depression in the United States at this time, he was laid off and became one of the thousands of westward gold diggers.

It's a pity that he is not proficient in gold digging, but fortunately Jones finally found a job suitable for him with Liang Yao.

Jones cherishes his job very much, because his weekly income as an assistant to Liang Yao exceeds his annual income from working in New York.

Liang Yao also felt very troubled. After the white people flooded into California, they burned, killed, looted, raped and deceived the Indian tribes. It can be said that they did all kinds of evil.Indians would be damned if they could trust whites.

Nearly half of the ingredients for Liangyao's catering industry come from the two Indian tribes of the Pomo and Maidu in the north.

Although he himself also hired Chinese to open up wasteland and breed, and even spent a lot of money to buy the land that had just been abandoned by them from the descendants of the early white immigrants to save time.

But it takes time for crops to grow out of the ground, and it takes time and feed for livestock to grow up.

He can also go directly to the port of San Francisco to guard the passing merchant ships like Brannan, and buy food from them.

It's just that the supply of such goods is not stable, because those merchant ships are more willing to ship something more valuable than food to California.And the cost is higher than buying directly from Indians.

Liang Yao had no choice but to hire white people to do things for him.Most of the Chinese laborers who came to California to pan for gold were illiterate laborers who could only plow the land and fish.

The talented Deng Wenyu might be able to deal with the Indians instead of him, but Deng Wenyu was sent to San Francisco a month ago to assist Cai Mingsheng in managing the guest house, and he couldn't spare the Chinese workers from California.

Liang Yao thought of Deng Wenyao and Deng Wenshun, who were employed by Sartre, perhaps they could handle the job of dealing with the chiefs of Indian tribes.

It is impossible for him to run to the Indian tribe every day.

"Understood." Liang Yao replied to Jones very displeased.

Jones' ability is mediocre, neither good nor bad.The economic crisis and layoffs by the New York Securities and Exchange Commission are also being cleaned up because only the best traders are needed there.

"Have you found the mercury mine?"

After more than three months of high-intensity mining, although the gold mines in the Sacramento area have not been fully exploited, the output has been continuously decreasing and has entered a bottleneck period.

Gold production has been on the decline since peaking at 470 ounces per day in early March, yesterday they were producing 221 ounces.Not even half of the peak period.

This is when Liang Yao continues to increase manpower and buy ore washing tanks.

Even the daily gold panning volume of the Boston company next door almost surpassed them.

The ore washing tank is not a high-tech thing, and the technical threshold is very low.Other gold panning companies and teams around Sacramento have followed suit, using ore troughs to pan for gold.

Liang Yao no longer has the technical advantage over other gold panning companies and organizations, and now he urgently needs a new gold panning technology to consolidate and even monopolize his own gold panning advantages.

California was the perfect place to pan for gold, because California not only has abundant reserves of gold that is easy to mine, but also has very rich reserves of mercury!
He can't monopolize the ore washing tank, but he can monopolize the mercury mine!As long as he monopolizes the mercury mine, not to mention these small gold mining companies and small groups, even if the big eastern consortium comes, he can compete with them one or two.

There are many places in the world that have gold, but not many places that have both gold and mercury!Mercury is two hundred times rarer than silver and no less rare than gold.

Well, California has both!

Not only is there, but the reserves are also very large. To what extent, the total production of mercury in California accounts for [-]% of the entire United States!
Among them, the total output of the New Almaden area is 38000 tons, that of the New Adria area is 20000 tons, and that of the Sulfur Flats area is 4700 tons.

Moreover, these places are less than 200 kilometers away from San Francisco, and mining is also very convenient.

Of course, the premise is to explore it first.

"I'm very sorry, sir"

Before the trembling Jones could speak, Liang Yao flew into a rage.

"A bunch of trash! I didn't hire you to hear you say sorry to me. Anyone can say sorry. I'm sorry, Mr. Jones. I'll give you another week. If you haven't found the mercury mine, you're going to get out."

Liang Yao had already drawn the approximate mercury mining area on the map and narrowed down the scope of exploration. Unexpectedly, it had been almost two months and no mercury mine had been found.

"Yes, sir."

Jones had no doubts that the new boss would fire him. The young new boss seldom got angry, and it was the first time he had seen Liang Yao lose his temper.

"get out"

"Sir, there is news that you may be interested in." Jones hesitated to speak.

"Just say something."

Feeling a little depressed, Liang Yao stood up from his seat and wanted to go out for a walk to get some air and relax.

"Mr. Vanderbilt has opened a route from the east to California, and is now in Nicaragua (a small country on the isthmus of Central America). According to reliable information, Mr. Vanderbilt will go to California for a short inspection. I I think this news will be useful to you." Jones hesitated to speak, hesitated again and again, and said what he wanted to say.

"Vanderbilt? You mean the New York ship magnate Vanderbilt? Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous New York ship magnate?"

Liang Yao's eyes lit up, he was no stranger to this name.

The American business legend in the 19th century started from scratch with $100 and became an American shipping, railway, and financial tycoon. When he died, his property accounted for 1.1% of the US GDP that year, more than twice that of Bill Gates.

At this time, the other two legendary heavyweight business tycoons in the 19th century in the United States, the oil magnate Rockefeller was still an eleven-year-old kid, and the steel magnate Carnegie was still working as a messenger for a telegraph company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Already famous, only Vanderbilt has achieved fame.

"A friend of mine works for Mr. Vanderbilt, and he said that Vanderbilt is very interested in California." Jones did not leave, but continued standing where he was.

"Your news is very valuable." Liang Yao knew what Jones was waiting for, and gave Jones 50 ounces of gold as a reward.

(End of this chapter)