Wild North America 1846

Chapter 61 Labor shortage
"Honestly, I like this place very much. It's like a beautiful Garden of Eden. There are so many warm and beautiful ladies. Oh... God, this is really beyond my expectations. It's so wonderful."

can see
Samuel Colt had a very good impression of Si Daowan Village, and his assistant Rodlin nodded like a chicken pecking rice, expressing his agreement with joy.

In Li Cha's opinion

These two are standard engineering men with rigorous personalities and low interest in life. They are not the kind of men who talk about women, but it does not prevent them from having a sullen heart.

How can you not be overjoyed when you fall into the colorful Sidaowan Village all of a sudden?
There is a saying that the mouse fell into the rice bowl, which can very vividly describe the current situation of Samuel Colt and Rodlin.

Here, they can live and develop carefree here, have no worries about food and clothing, and even form a happy family, have children, and reproduce.

It's like a mouse falling into a rice jar, not worrying about food or clothes, the more the rice in the jar eats, the deeper it sinks...

evening
William Richardson and his group arrived here. After having a pleasant dinner time, everyone sat together, drank coffee, smoked cigars, and formulated the general equity allocation of Celtic Arms Company in a relaxed mood.

Mr. Samuel Colt invested in technical patents and served as the general manager of the company. He holds 25% of the shares of Colt Arms and is responsible for daily operations, weapon production and technological improvement.

Mr. William Richardson invested 2.2 US dollars and provided a large amount of materials. He took a stake in the company as a director, occupied 18% of the shares of Colt Arms Company, and sent a special person to supervise the finance.

Richard used the funds, equipment, and venue invested in the early stage, and then invested another 5 US dollars to become a shareholder of the company and served as the chairman of the company, holding 55% of the shares of Colt Weapons Company.

The remaining 2% equity has not been allocated yet, and will be used as an effective way to reward weapon designers and senior technicians in the future, to promote the long-term sound development of weapon companies and lay a healthy institutional foundation.

In terms of equity allocation, both Richard and William Richardson have shown a very generous attitude, giving Samuel Colt a generous shareholding ratio, which is much more than imagined.

at the same time
Regardless of whether Samuel Colt or other weapon designers, the weapon invention patents held by them and the weapon invention patents developed in the future will belong to Colt Arms Company, not individuals. This is the only condition.

As a concession, the two major shareholders, Richard and William Richardson, promised;
Samuel Colt can repurchase no more than 15% of the shares from himself and no more than 6% from Mr. William Richardson according to the actual valuation of the company at that time after the development of the arms company is on the right track in the future equity.

If it can be achieved
Then Mr. Samuel Colt will hope to hold up to 46% of the shares, thus becoming the largest shareholder of the arms company.

Of course, this is only a theoretical possibility.

It was this kind of hope that aroused the high entrepreneurial enthusiasm of Mr. Samuel Coulter and his assistant Rodelin. Early in the morning of the second day, the two were busy driving non-stop.

Carriage after carriage of goods was unloaded from the port, and dozens of skilled workers accompanied them. Colter Arms Company recruited more than 30 young women at the same time, and started working in full swing.

In just 5 days, the Colt Arms Factory located by the Yudai River started up and entered the trial production stage.

as requested;

The current trial production is an improved revolver, which is a cavalry revolver customized by Richard from Colt Arms Company according to the special needs of the cavalry.

This custom-made firearm is similar to the original 1847 Colt-Walker revolver that appeared in history, but it is different.

The new gun is named the 1846 Colt Cavalry Revolver. It uses 6 rounds of revolving magazines and uses larger caliber projectiles. Doubled the growth, the effective killing range reached an astonishing 120 meters.

This new 1846-style Colt cavalry revolver has a weight of 4.75 pounds, a length of 16.5 inches, and about 41 centimeters due to the above-mentioned improvements.

The above data are slightly higher than the original historical Colt-Walker pistols.

This custom-made new revolver is much heavier than ordinary revolvers, and it is no longer suitable for western cowboys to wear every day, because it is too long and heavy.

But this kind of revolver musket armed cavalry is no problem. Under normal circumstances, this weapon can be carried by horses like a long gun, providing fierce instantaneous firepower, which greatly enhances the combat effectiveness of cavalry.

Based on the above improvements

Richard further requested that the 1846-style Colt Cavalry revolver be designed to be equipped with an extended buttstock device.

When using

It can be fired on the shoulder like a rifle, so that when fighting on a bumpy horse, well-trained cavalry can strike the enemy more accurately and win the battle initiative.

With this extended buttstock device, the original cavalry spear does not need to be equipped. After all, such a long spear can only fire one bullet, and reloading is also very cumbersome.

In Richard's vision

Each trooper will be equipped with a saber, an 1846 Colt cavalry revolver with extended stock, a regular revolver for self-defense, a water jug, an iron lunch box, and two blankets , a short knife, basically everything is ready.

Such cavalry equipment has 6 to 7 times the instantaneous firepower of the American cavalry, and it undoubtedly has an advantage.

When the two sides are fighting, they will first use medium-range firepower output, and they can also use self-defense revolvers and sabers to fight at close range. The combat effectiveness is more than a step higher.

How else would it be a blessing to have your own weapon designer?

The arrival of Samuel Colt can make the weapons and equipment of Datang Club jump into the leading ranks of light weapons in the world, and the great significance contained in it is extraordinary.

The Federation placed an early order with Colt Arms for 1200 cavalry revolvers to arm the cavalry.

on the basis of

Li Cha put forward higher requirements, hoping that the new type of revolver can be used as soon as possible with copper-cased bullets.

Custom-loaded copper-cased bullets are an advanced ammunition design in today's world. They are located in the forefront of weaponry and have appeared, but there is no large-scale equipment army.

Nowadays, the army still generally uses cardboard fixed bullets, which have the advantages of low price and wide range of use.

The disadvantages are poor storage resistance, easy to be affected by moisture, unstable performance, easy to drop the chain, dud or sick bullets during critical battles.

The so-called diseased ammunition means that the part of the thin-shell fixed-loaded bullet is damp, the gunpowder manufacturing process is not up to standard, or the storage time is long, so it is not a qualified bullet.

When firing, the black powder exploded and burned incompletely, and the bullets shot out were crooked like sick. Don't expect to hit the enemy with this kind of sick bullet.

6 days later
Nov. 1846, 4

Sidaoling Village
Richard and several white engineering designers from New York stood on a hill pointing and drawing. They were discussing building a solid official factory building for the Colt Arms Company.

Mr. Samuel Colt was originally an outstanding designer. He designed the iconic mushroom shape for the factory building of Colt Arms Company. This is a very advanced and excellent design at present, and it can be said to be extremely avant-garde.

If this huge factory building is completed, it will become a well-deserved landmark building in Grape Valley.

The huge amount of more than 7 US dollars invested by the two major shareholders of the company will be used as the initial funds for the construction of the plant, and the follow-up funds will be paid by the company's profits to complete this grand vision.

The current Colt Weapons Company is producing in a simple wooden house in Sidaoling Village, which is unqualified in terms of fire prevention, explosion and other safety indicators, and is extremely dangerous.

This is because Colter Arms Company not only produces firearms, but also produces dangerous explosives including mines, black powder, and various custom-loaded ammunition. The production has strict requirements on fire and explosion protection.

Today's wooden houses can only meet the basic needs of shelter from wind and rain, but cannot meet the needs of long-term safe production.

Richard expressed appreciation for Mr. Samuel Colt's outstanding design, and would like to see a landmark building erected in Grape Valley, which will drive the industrial development of the entire village.

The relevant cement plant production equipment orders have been issued, and the construction of brick kilns has also been put on the agenda, which has laid a solid foundation for Colt Arms Company's ambitious plans.

However, the problem is back to the original point.

In San Fernandez, everyone was caught in the frenzy of the gold rush. Grape Valley's population was only one-eighth, and almost [-]% of the population in New Town flocked to the American River to pan for gold.

Fangcaodi is slightly better, but more than 5% of the men joined the gold rush.

Apart from the armed forces that can be mastered by the Tang Dynasty, there is almost no labor force that can participate in agricultural production, as well as the production labor of necessary facilities such as brick kilns, water mills, oil presses, and water conservancy sawmills.

In a word, there is a shortage of people and a severe shortage.

Every year after late autumn
Because of the severe cold and frozen land in the wild, coupled with the icy river water, panning for gold will become an extremely difficult job, and the harvest will be greatly reduced.

After entering November, a large number of gold prospectors stranded by the American River will return in large numbers. Before the heavy snow, the gold prospectors return to the warm new towns and grasslands to spend the cold winter.

Nowadays, a lot of labor is needed to build the factory of Celtic Arms Company. It is impossible to wait until winter, right?

Thought of here
Li Cha raised his face and looked into the depths of the valley, with unknown emotions flashing in his deep eyes.

after a long time
He nodded vigorously as if he had made a major decision. The machinery and equipment ordered from Europe had already been shipped to the North American continent. It took more than two months at the earliest, and more than three months at the slowest time, and various machinery and equipment will be in place one after another.

And the construction of some basic production facilities cannot be relaxed. Waiting will never come. The development of Grape Valley urgently needs a large amount of labor, so this is the only way to go.

The saying that every pore of capital is full of blood and tears in the early stage of development is justified.

In order for the Chinese not to shed blood and tears, and to rise rapidly in this ever-changing western North America as soon as possible, only the Indian tribes in the depths of the valley can be wronged. Who calls you weak?
(End of this chapter)