1850 American Gold Tycoon

Chapter 558 The Year of Harvest

"Get out! Get out of here! If you want impeachment, go through the normal procedures. Put your words on the table in the parliament and don't use fucking dirty tricks!"

This is California! Not the Qing Dynasty! If anyone wants to bring the Qing Dynasty’s tricks to California, don’t blame me, Mr. Liang, for turning against others! "

In Sacramento, where Wei Xiu was staying, Liang Yao was furious and kicked out a group of Chinese mine owners.

After calming down, he called Deng Wenyu and asked: "How much did Fremont increase the mining tax? Can these mine owners jointly impeach him?"

"It's not much, so I tentatively proposed an 8% mining tax increase in the state assembly. The bill is not even under discussion yet." Deng Wenyu, who has been in California and knows the inside story, told Liang Yao.

"Increasing mineral taxes is only one aspect. In fact, they want to bring down Fremont. They are waiting for you to come to power and then rely on your decision-making to eat up the fat mines of the Georgians and secure all the mineral veins in California. Hold it in your hands, and then sit down and raise the price. Of course, except for the mines in our hands, they have not yet dared to attack our mines."

"I'm not the emperor, so how can I make decisions?" Liang Yao sighed. The feudal ideology of more than two thousand years is indeed deeply rooted.

"In their eyes, there is no difference between you and the emperor." Deng Wenyu also said with a wry smile.

He was young when he came out, not from a family of officials, and had relatively weak feudal ideas.

"They dare to take advantage of Georgia's fat mines now, otherwise they will dare to take advantage of our mines in the future." Liang Yao thought for a while and said.

"Find a few typical examples and have the tax check their accounts and hammer them to make them more honest."

"Hey, I've wanted to check them out for a long time." Deng Wenyu smiled.

"These mining operators are the most dishonest in the whole of California. In mid-October, my people went to Carson's mine to inspect taxes, but they organized the miners to hold them at the foot of the mountain with weapons and refused to let them go up. They almost took action."

"They dare to resist the tax?" Liang Yao's face darkened.

"It seems that our tax laws in California are still too loose and not strict enough."

"These people still think like the Qing Dynasty. They think that the sky is high and the emperor is far away, and the hands of the state tax bureau cannot reach over their heads." Deng Wenyu complained.

"Then stretch your hands over their heads. Not only do you have to reach out, but you also put the muzzle of the gun on their heads to make them pay taxes." Liang Yao said sternly.

"Tax collection is a first-class matter that cannot be discussed. We must not be soft-spoken. We must not let those who evade taxes and cheat people take any chances."

"Governor Fremont's statement is exactly the same as yours, third brother." Deng Wenyu said.

"After the Carson tax resistance incident happened, I originally wanted to take people to Carson to inspect the taxes. Since there were too many Chinese mine owners involved, Governor Fremont was afraid that the matter would get too big and he would not be able to clean up the mess. He suggested that I wait until you come back to investigate. He said I'm afraid no one in California can control them except you.

Unexpectedly, you just came back and they complained first. "

"What do you think of Fremont?" Liang Yao wanted to hear Deng Wenyu's evaluation of Fremont. It had been a year since he left California.

"He is a practical person, and he is more experienced in doing things than the previous Governor Robinson. He can hold a bowl of water levelly and not be partial." Deng Wenyu thought for a while and gave Fremont a more fair evaluation.

"Since Governor Fremont took office, he has used his old contacts to attract a lot of investment from the east. A lot of hot money from the east has come to us."

While he was talking, he heard the servant come to report that Chen Baoliang, the Minister of Agriculture, came to visit.

Liang Yao happened to also want to know about the agricultural situation in California this year, so he met with Chen Baoliang.

"I'm afraid Lao Chen wants to take credit from you." Deng Wenyu said with a smile.

"Our state had good weather last year and had a bumper harvest."

As Deng Wenyu said, Chen Baoliang, who was full of spring breeze, reported to Liang Yao the situation of agriculture in California as soon as he saw Liang Yao: "Last year, our state had an unprecedented bumper harvest. The grain produced in this state not only supplies Oregon and Liang Yao. In addition to its two sister states, the state also exported 800 metric tons of rice, 2,300 metric tons of wheat, 3,100 metric tons of barley, and 1,900 metric tons of oats.

The fertilizer on Nauru Island is really useful. "

Although the total export volume of these rice and wheat is only 8,100 tons, not even 10,000 tons, this mere 8,100 tons of rice and wheat exports has special significance to California, representing California's achievement of food self-sufficiency.

As domestic and international situations become increasingly complex and turbulent, achieving food self-sufficiency is crucial.

Liang Yao will never allow Californians’ jobs to be in the hands of out-of-state people, or even foreigners.

In this era, industrial fertilizers have not yet been mass-produced, and gold fertilizers and the like do not exist for the time being.

The fertilizer used in California agriculture is mainly guano from Nauru Island, also known as "phosphate rock", which is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium.

Last year alone, the phosphate mine on this island earned Liang Yao as much as US$3.8 million. In order to help farmers, Liang Yao sold this to farmers in California at a low price of US$29 per ton. profits obtained under the circumstances.

If these phosphate ores are sold to rich Europeans like the British and French at the international market price of 12 pounds (39 US dollars) per ton, the profits can be doubled at least.

In addition to the phosphate mines on Nauru Island, California currently imports struvite from Peru, Bolivia, and Chile.

Among them, the largest amount of struvite is imported from Peru. At present, more than one-eighth of the Peruvian government's fiscal revenue comes from the export of struvite to California, and this proportion is still rising.

"I had people specially transport these wines from Shuguang City for you to try." Chen Baoliang pointed to the two cars outside the courtyard, which contained at least a dozen barrels of wine.

"The federal government has increased tariffs, and now our California-produced wines are high-quality, low-priced, and very popular in the eastern region."

In 1857, under pressure from northern factory owners, the Buchanan government increased tariffs by two points, causing slave owners in the South to complain.

However, California has generally benefited from this tariff increase.

Take wine as an example. The quality and price of wine produced in California are far from being able to compete with traditional European wine powers, such as France, Spain and other countries.

However, despite high tariffs, wines produced in California can still have a place in the United States.

Of course, as California is a part of the American market, the industrial products and chemical products sold by California to the European continent will inevitably be countered by high tariffs from the European countries.

Fortunately, the industrial products exported from California to Europe are mainly pedal sewing machines, trains and locomotives, bicycles, machine tools, and petrochemical products.

These industrial products are already highly profitable, and even with some tariffs, they are still very competitive in the European market.

As for the mid-to-low end, industrial products that are not competitive in Europe can just be digested directly in the domestic market.

If it can't compete with the old capitalist countries such as Britain and France, can it still be unable to compete with those black-hearted northern factory owners? If they can't even compete with northern manufactured goods, then these companies in California deserve to go out of business.

"Okay, I'll accept these wines." Liang Yao accepted the wines very happily.

"I heard that Shuguang City is now the largest agricultural city in our state. How many horse farms are there in Shuguang City now?"

Auroville is roughly the same location as Fresno in later generations, and is the center of the San Joaquin Valley, the most productive agricultural region in California.

At the beginning of the state's founding, the California state government provided a large amount of policy support and financial incentives to the area. It gave new immigrants a tax exemption policy of up to 5 years and organized a large number of manpower to build water conservancy facilities and open up wasteland. The goal was to It is to make this area the core agricultural area of ​​California.

"Shuguang City is better than the above. Although it is not as good as the three traditional large cities in California, Jinshan, Los Angeles and Saskatchewan, the population of Shuguang City in the urban area is also more than 60,000. However, Shuguang City is an agricultural city, and the surrounding villages and towns It is relatively scattered and it is difficult to form a metropolitan area like Jinshan and Luocheng." When it came to Shuguang City, Chen Baoliang's pride came to light as he eloquently introduced the situation of Shuguang City to Liang Yao.

"There are quite a few horse farms in Dawn City. Do you want to buy a horse?"

In the mid-19th century, America was very dependent on horses. Even for plowing, Americans were accustomed to using horses to plow the land.

Before the widespread use of internal combustion engines, animal power, mainly horses, played an important role in agriculture, transportation, and warfare. Horses are one of the most indispensable livestock in the daily lives of Americans. Especially in the central and western regions, due to the vast land and sparsely populated areas and the long distances between residential areas, almost every household has a horse.

It would be difficult to survive in the rural areas of the Midwest without horses, just as it would be unimaginable for later generations of Americans to live without cars as a means of transportation.

Thanks to the huge demand and unique geographical advantages.

During this period, the horse breeding industry in the United States was very developed. According to rough statistics, around the 1860s, the number of horses in the United States was as high as 6 to 7 million.

The horse breeding industry is also one of the few industries in the United States that is far ahead of Britain and France in terms of total volume and per capita.

During the same period, the number of horses in Britain and France was about 1.5 million in the UK and nearly 2 million in France. The combined number of horses in both countries is less than half that of the United States.

"I want to buy 5,000 war horses, can I get them?" Liang Yao asked.

Chen Baoliang thought for a long time, then shook his head and said: "The horse breeding industry in California has only started a few years ago. The number of horses in local horse farms is limited, and many private horses are bought from other places. And the horses raised and purchased by the private sector are They are mainly pack horses and draft horses, and there are probably not many riding horses suitable for use as war horses.”

"If third brother wants to buy a war horse, you can go to Mr. Gervin. Ohio is a big horse-raising state. The number of horses in Ohio is probably more than that in our entire West Coast region.

At the beginning of the year, I asked Mr. Gervin to help me buy 180 high-quality military horses from Ohio. Although 6 horses died on the road, they were finally shipped to California. Each horse only cost about 160 US dollars.

If you think horses in Ohio are expensive, Mr. Bell, is there any way? I heard that horses in Texas are also very cheap. "Deng Wenyu suggested.

Horses are not a scarce commodity in the United States. As long as you have money, you can buy not just 5,000 but even 10,000 horses. The only problem is that California is far away from the big horse-raising states, so transportation is troublesome and will add a lot of extra costs.