1850 American Gold Tycoon

Not all industries in San Francisco benefited from the gold rush.

On the contrary, some industries fell into depression and were even on the verge of bankruptcy during the gold rush.

The newspaper industry in San Francisco is one of them. Because it cannot recruit employees and cannot find readers, newspapers in San Francisco have been suspended for more than three months.

Paper media is the channel for obtaining information in this era, and it is the only channel in California, which is relatively geographically isolated.

Liang Yao bought all the newspapers and books he was interested in in San Francisco and brought them back to Sacramento. At the same time, he also bought the local newspaper and renamed it "California Daily" and moved with his team. Towards Sacramento.

After having sufficient funds as a backing, Liang Yao's industry began to grow rapidly and wildly, centered in Sacramento.

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

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

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

In addition, Liang Yao also had a black powder workshop. In view of the dangers of the gunpowder workshop, Liang Yao built the black powder factory on an uninhabited 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 ample cash flow on hand, but he is not in a hurry to expand production capacity to capture the larger San Francisco market. One is because he doesn't want to confront Brannan directly yet, and the other is because he has other uses for the gold.

Liang Yao was sitting in the clean and warm study room, flipping through the newspapers he had collected at his desk.

Just three months ago, he could only read these things in a simple tent with the cold wind coming in from time to time.

Although the information in these old newspapers is mixed, and many of them are newspapers from two or three months ago, or even last year, and are not very timely, they are Liang Yao's only channel for understanding external information.

Liang Yao carefully sifted out the information that was useful to him from these newspapers. He was most concerned about information about California's statehood and the areas surrounding California.

Although it was still 11 years before the American Civil War broke out, the internal conflicts in the United States had already reached a very acute level.

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

An example of this is the California statehood issue, last December, December 1849.

Former President Zachary Taylor, who had not yet died suddenly, asked Congress to admit California into a state of the United States, and said that when the time was right, New Mexico could also become a state and join the Union.

As for the core issue of whether to implement slavery in these new states, Taylor decided to let these states choose for themselves.

This American hero in the U.S.-Mexican War was not good at politics. A large part of the reason why he was elected as the twelfth President of the United States was because of his personal prestige accumulated during the U.S.-Mexican War and his status as a national hero in the eyes of the American people. . His political abilities are mediocre and he does not have the ability to reconcile conflicts between various parties.

Zachary Taylor's idealistic proposal not only failed to pass, but also triggered a fierce debate in Congress. It represented the interests of both the North and the South. The well-dressed Congressmen even did not hesitate to physically destroy Congress for this purpose. Mingle.

Although at this time the north had far surpassed the south in many aspects such as population, economic aggregate, railway mileage and even agriculture.

However, the number of free states and slave states is still the same, fifteen. The independent establishment of California, New Mexico, and Oregon will break this delicate balance. Whether these newly annexed territory areas of the United States chose to become free states or slave states.

Of course, the Yankees in the north currently have the upper hand. If these territory areas were to be formally established as states, they would be far more likely to become free states than slave states. Such a result is absolutely unacceptable to those Dixie people in the south.

The slave-holding states in the South already held only second seats in the House of Representatives. If these territories became free states, their status in the Senate would also be in jeopardy.

Liang Yao is very happy to see this happen. The later California is officially established as a state, the better it is for him.

If nothing else, the U.S. Congress will continue to debate this issue until September before they can reluctantly compromise. This compromise was 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. This compromise won the United States at least four years of rapid economic development. During this period, California's huge gold production made a huge contribution to the rapid development of the U.S. economy. It was this gold from 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's April now, and Liang Yao still has five months to grow wild in California.

"Sir, I'm very sorry. We were unable to purchase horses from the Indian tribes. Several Indian chiefs from the Pomo and Maidu tribes said that they only trade with you and only believe in you. They don't believe in us white people. , I’m afraid you have to make a trip yourself.”

Liang Yao's assistant Jones reported to him anxiously.

Jones was originally a trader at the New York Securities and Exchange Commission, later 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 gold diggers heading west.

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

Jones cherishes his job very much because his income in one week as Liang Yao's assistant is more than what he earned in one year of working in New York.

Liang Yao also felt very troubled. After the white people poured into California in large numbers, 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 white people.

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

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

But it takes time to grow crops from the ground, and it takes not only time but also feed to grow livestock for slaughter.

He could also go directly to the port of San Francisco to squat on 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 transport something more valuable than food to California. And the cost is higher than buying directly from the Indians.

Liang Yao had no choice but to hire white people to do work for him. Most of the Chinese workers who came to California to dig for gold were illiterate working people who only knew how to farm and fish.

The talented Deng Wenyu might be able to deal with the Indians on his behalf, but Deng Wenyu was sent to San Francisco a month ago to assist Cai Mingsheng in managing the guest house and receiving Chinese workers who came to California, so he couldn't get away.

Liang Yao thought of Deng Wenyao and Deng Wenshun, who were working for Sartre. Maybe they could be qualified to deal with the Indian tribal chiefs.

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

"I know." Liang Yao replied to Jones very unhappily.

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

"Has the mercury mine been found?"

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

Since reaching the peak daily gold production of 470 ounces in early March, gold production has been declining day by day. Yesterday, their gold production was 221 ounces. Not even half of what it was at its peak.

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

Even the daily gold mining volume of the Boston Company next door has almost surpassed theirs.

The ore washing tank is not a high-tech thing, and the technical threshold is very low. Other gold mining companies and teams around Sacramento followed their lead in using wash chutes to mine for gold.

Liang Yao has no technical advantage over other gold mining companies and organizations. He now urgently needs a new gold mining technology to consolidate or even monopolize his gold mining advantage.

California is a perfect place for gold mining, because California not only has abundant reserves of gold that are easy to mine, but also has very abundant reserves of mercury!

He can't monopolize the washing tank, but he can monopolize the mercury mine! As long as he monopolizes the mercury mines, let alone these small gold mining companies and small groups, even if the large eastern consortium comes, he can compete with them.

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

It just so happens that California has both of these things!

Not only does it exist, but the reserves are extremely large. How big is it? The total mercury production in California accounts for 48% of the total mercury production in the United States!

The total output in the New Almaden area is 38,000 tons, the New Edria area is 20,000 tons, and the Sulfur Flats area is 4,700 tons.

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

Of course, the premise is to explore it first.

"I'm so sorry, sir"

Before the frightened Jones could say anything, Liang Yao became furious.

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

Liang Yao had already drawn a rough mercury mining area on the map and narrowed down the exploration scope. Unexpectedly, it had been almost two months since he had found a mercury mine.

"Yes, sir."

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

"get out"

"Sir, there is news that may be of interest to you." Jones hesitated.

"If you have anything to say, just tell me."

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

"Mr. Vanderbilt 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 brief inspection. I I think this news will be useful to you." Jones hesitated, hesitated, and finally said what he wanted to say.

"Vanderbilt? Are you talking about the New York shipping king Vanderbilt? Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous New York shipping king?"

Liang Yao's eyes lit up, he was not unfamiliar with this name.

An American business legend in the 19th century, he started from scratch with $100 and became a tycoon in American shipping, railways, and finance. When he died, the property he left behind accounted for 1% of the U.S. GDP that year, more than twice that of Bill Gates.

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

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

"This news of yours is valuable." Liang Yao knew what Qiong was waiting for and gave Jones 50 ounces of gold as a reward.