1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 33 Big Gold, Big Shots

"Is the collection of samples reasonable?" Liang Yao asked.

Deng Wenqi sighed: "It's all made according to the method explained by the third brother. Every barrel of ore soil is collected separately."

Hearing this, Liang Yao felt an unprecedented sense of loss. Could it be that his train of thought was wrong?
Building dams to divert the American River not only cost him a lot of manpower and material resources, but also took him a lot of time.

Such a huge investment, in the end, only increased the gold production by one-sixth, which was far from his expectations, and he could not accept this result.

Liang Yao firmly believed that his thinking was correct, there must be something wrong in some link, it must be like this.

He took off his shoes, and was about to dive into the river bed to find out why.

The Boston company also brought their samples, and Robinson came to Liang Yao with the Boston company's samples.

"I have good news and bad news to tell you. The good news is that your thinking is correct. The gold content in the river bed is indeed much higher than that on both sides of the river. A large amount of gold is deposited in the bedrock below the river bed.

The bad news is that there is a layer of hard rock under the river bed, and it is not easy to dig out this gold by hand.Building a dam to divert the American River is relatively easier than digging through the bedrock. "

"Overall it's bad news, our gold panning efficiency hasn't improved much."

It is easy to dig through a rock layer to extract samples, but if you want to pan for gold, you have to dig through all these rock layers, which is a great waste of manpower.

"Yes, the shallowest rock layer is also 1 meter thick, and the thick rock layer may be 2 meters, 3 meters or even thicker. It is not easy to obtain these because we do not have machines. These machines are only available in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. These big eastern cities have it."

Dr. Robinson spread his hands, expressing his helplessness.

Knowing where the gold is hidden and not being able to get it is worse than not knowing where it is.

Now both the Boston company and the old miners' organizations participating in the cooperation are anxious about this.

Liang Yao paced back and forth with bare feet, thinking of more efficient ways to solve this problem, and soon he had a solution.

"Since there is no machine and manpower cannot effectively mine these golds on a large scale, then use gunpowder!"

Liang Yao has a black powder workshop, and he has ready-made gunpowder.

Of course, it would be more efficient and safer to use explosives, but such highly efficient explosives were not invented until after the 20s, and now only black powder is available.

"Good idea, I'll go back and ask if anyone knows how to use this kind of explosives."

Robinson thought it was a good idea to give it a try.

California black powder is expensive, black gold, but it's worth using it for more gold.

Besides, he also knew that Liang Yao had a gunpowder workshop, which was the largest gunpowder workshop in California, and they had no shortage of gunpowder.

"No, I will use gunpowder. Let me see your gunpowder first. I need to know whether your gunpowder is suitable for mining."

Fremont was interested. He was eager to try these explosives.He was an expert in the use of gunpowder.

Liang Yao took Fremont and others to the gunpowder storage. To Fremont's surprise, the gunpowder stored by Liang Yao, except for a small amount of gunpowder that was more suitable for guns and artillery, the rest of the gunpowder was almost all It is specially formulated for mining.

Fremont was very curious about this, as if the young man had long thought of mining with gunpowder.

"The ratio of your gunpowder is very reasonable. They are all high-quality gunpowder. Do you have talents who are proficient in gunpowder?" Fremont couldn't hold back his curiosity.

Of course, Liang Yao would not tell Fremont that the gunpowder was prepared for mining gold in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in the future.

Although Sacramento has abundant gold reserves, there will always be a day when they will be exhausted, so it is right to prepare early.

"San Francisco and Sacramento are building a lot, and they need a lot of stone as building materials. The gunpowder is used to blow up mountains to get rocks."

"It seems that you intend to build Sacramento and San Francisco into a large city." Looking at the huge gunpowder reserves, Fremont said thoughtfully.

This explanation was reasonable, and he couldn't find any flaws, but his intuition told Fremont that things were not that simple.

Fremont prepared the gunpowder with ease, and calculated the equivalent to be used, so as to ensure that while the rock layer could be blasted, the explosion scale would remain within a controllable and safe range, and innocent people would not be injured.

After all the work was done, Fremont ignited the fuse, which was successfully ignited.

Everyone hid in a safe place and waited for the explosion to happen, praying to God and God that the gunpowder would successfully blast the bedrock layer.

However, an accident happened.

The gunpowder hadn't exploded for a long time, and the impatient Deng Wenkang ran forward with a box of matches to find out what caused the fuse to go out. If it went out, he would relight the extinguished fuse.

"Deng Wenkang! What are you doing! Come back quickly! It's dangerous!"

Liang Yao roared hastily.

"The second half is a quick twist! Even if you ignite the fuse, you will be killed! Don't die, little guy!"

Fremont didn't expect such a strong man, so he rushed forward and skillfully threw Deng Wenkang onto the river bed before he had time to think.

Not long after the two of them lay down on the river bed, a dull explosion sounded from the blasting point not far away, the ground trembled, and the splash of sand almost buried the two of them.

"You little guy who is not afraid of death, if you are my soldier, I will fire you now!"

Fremont picked up Wenkang Deng and said something that Wenkang Deng didn't understand very well.

Although he couldn't understand the words, he also knew that the ghost saved him just now, and said to Fremont in half-baked English: "Thank you, sir."

Fremont patted the wet mud on his body and returned to the dry shore.

"Gold, big gold!"

Deng Wenkang, who was thrown out by Fremont, noticed a faint golden light in the bedrock crack that had just been blasted, and he couldn't help but exclaimed.

He pried open the crack, and a huge piece of gold appeared in front of his eyes!

It lay there quietly, emitting a seductive dazzling light in the sun.

Although California is rich in gold, it was the first time he had seen such a large piece of gold.

"I found it! Gold! What a big piece of gold!"

Deng Wenkang tried all his strength to lift this huge piece of gold up, but the huge solid gold piece was too heavy, and it couldn't move the gold within a few steps.

"Oh my God!"

"my God!"

"Fuck!"

Everyone was stunned by this huge gold nugget, they had never seen such a huge gold.

Even Liang Yao couldn't help being amazed that the size of this gold nugget was much larger than a real dog's head.

Liang Yao asked people to wash off the dirt on the gold nugget and weigh it.

"145 pounds! This piece of gold weighs 145 pounds!"

145 pounds converted into a metric unit of weight is 65.77 kilograms, which is about 1800 ounces in gold.

This is heavier than Liang Yao's weight, no wonder Deng Wenkang couldn't move it just now.

The largest nugget of natural gold ever found during the Gold Rush weighed 151 pounds, making it slightly bigger than this one.

But a 145-pound natural gold nugget is enough to shock you. California is such a good place.

"Mr. Liang, it seems that you are well versed in the art of panning for gold." Fremont sighed.

He has never seen such a huge piece of gold. The value of this piece of gold alone is as high as 60000 U.S. dollars. Dangers flood the unruly land of California.

His first job was as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Engineering Survey Corps. He clearly remembers that the salary of a second lieutenant is only a pitiful $15 a month. Of course, the dollar more than ten years ago would be worth more, maybe It is equivalent to twenty-five dollars today, and it will not exceed 30 dollars at most.

"I want to become a partner with you and set up a mining company to make a fortune together."

California's rich gold deposits made Fremont's heart tickle.

"It's a great honor, but as far as I know, Mr. Fremont's family is very wealthy, so they still value this little gold?"

Facing Fremont's invitation, Liang Yao did not refuse.

What Fremont said was to form a partnership to establish a mining company, not to take a stake in his gold mining industry, which did not touch his core interests.

It has to be said that Fremont's emotional intelligence is very high, and it is no wonder that this inexperienced political amateur was able to become the first candidate of the Republican Party, a new political party in the United States, six years later, in 6.

Even the Democratic Party has tried to win over Fremont, hoping that Fremont can become the Democratic Party's presidential candidate.

At that time, the Democratic Party and the Whig Party were the two major ruling parties in the United States. The golden age of the Whig Party had passed, and it was splitting internally, and it was already in a dying state.

If Fremont joins the Democratic Party, he has a greater chance of successfully running for office. After all, the influence of the Democratic Party is far greater than that of the Republican Party.

It's just that the Democratic Party supported slavery at the time, which was contrary to Fremont's political ideals. In the end, Fremont chose to join the Republican Party, which was still a small party.
It is a pity that in the presidential election six years later, Fremont failed to do so and lost to the Democratic opponent Buchanan by a huge disadvantage of 6 state votes.

The first time the Republican Party came to power was in 1860, and the party's first president was the well-known Abraham Lincoln.

"The family is the family, and I am me. I don't want to live under the blessing of the family forever, otherwise I wouldn't come to you." Fremont said firmly, "I want them to know that without the support of the family , I can also achieve something. At that time, I will not be proud of being a member of the Fremont family or the Benton family, but my family will be proud of me!"

"You have such ideals and ambitions, I believe that this day will come, and you will become an influential person." Liang Yao didn't know if this was true, and Fremont did indeed do something later.

"Count me in!" Ge Wen saw the wind and said that he was also willing to join the partnership, "Big man, who doesn't want to be a big man who shakes the mountains and rivers?"

"It's an honor, Mr. Ge Wen, no, it should be Senator Ge Wen." Liang Yao welcomed Ge Wen's joining.

He is looking for someone who can give him political protection. Without political protection, it means that you have no one to speak for you in Congress.

You don't have the right to speak and influence in the Congress. Even if you are invincible, in the eyes of those powerful consortiums, you are just a fat lamb. The fact that you can still exist only means that you are not fat enough, and it is not time to slaughter.

Once you become a fat enough lamb, they will use the so-called legal method to show their butcher knives that have been hidden for a long time without hesitation, slaughter you mercilessly, and eat you up.

Undoubtedly, these two people are very suitable candidates for cooperation, and binding interests with them is exactly what Liang Yao can't wait for.

"Today can be said to be a double blessing. Mr. Liang found the largest natural gold nugget in the history of the United States and perhaps the history of the world, and the three of us happened to gather in Sacramento on this wonderful day today. I think it is God's will .” Ge Wen showed a happy smile.

"I propose that on this great day, we should celebrate."

Fremont was in a very happy mood. He didn't find gold in the mountains, but here he not only found gold, but also found something more valuable than gold.

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(End of this chapter)