Chapter 102: The Fury of Texas (3rd Update)
Liang Yao stood by the window of the study, overlooking the city below. Google search reading
In his previous life, he had been to San Francisco several times on business trips, and he looked at the empty Golden Gate Strait.
Without San Francisco's iconic building: the Golden Gate Bridge, he always felt that the Golden Gate Bay was missing something.
Build a Golden Gate Bridge?
He was not the first person to have this idea. Two years ago, when the gold rush just started, someone proposed to build a bridge across the Golden Gate Strait to connect the two sides.
It's just that this idea was too bold and avant-garde, and it became a laughing stock for a while.
In 1850, the annual output of steel in the United States was less than 10,000 tons, and the annual output of pig iron was less than 600,000 tons.
In the 1930s, the United States consumed more than 800,000 tons of steel and took 4 years to build the Golden Gate Bridge.
In other words, if you want to build the Golden Gate Bridge, regardless of other factors, with the current steel production in the United States, it will take at least 80 years to get the steel needed to build the Golden Gate Bridge.
Before the Second Industrial Revolution, it was a pipe dream to want to carry out such a huge project.
Even the British Empire, the world's first industrial power at that time, might not have the strength to build a bridge across the Golden Gate Bay.
During this period, the main bridges in the United States were still brick and stone bridges.
"Mr. Liang, long time no see."
Ge Wen walked into the study and came to Liang Yao.
"Ge Wen, how great it would be if we could build a bridge across the Golden Gate Strait. This bridge would definitely become a landmark building in San Francisco." Liang Yao retracted his eyes from the Golden Gate Strait.
"Mr. Liang, you are dreaming. If we can build a bridge across the Golden Gate Strait, it will be a miracle in the history of bridges and even the history of industry in the world."
Ge Wen felt that Liang Yao's idea was a bit unrealistic. If Ge Wen didn't know Liang Yao, he would definitely think that Liang Yao was a complete lunatic and delusional.
"Everything is possible. Sit down, Mr. Ge Wen."
Liang Yao made a gesture of inviting him to sit down, and the two sat on the sofa and prepared to start talking.
Connie walked into the study with a pot of hot tea, poured a cup of tea for Liang Yao and Ge Wen respectively, and reminded them at the same time: "The tea is quite hot, be careful of burns, gentlemen."
"Is this your new servant or assistant?"
Ge Wen pointed at Connie and asked curiously. He always felt that Connie looked familiar, as if he had seen him somewhere, but also as if he had not seen him before.
"New assistant." Liang Yao said without hesitation.
"Your assistant looks very much like Mr. Vanderbilt. I visited Mr. Vanderbilt when I passed by Texas."
Ge Wen seemed to suddenly remember something, and said with his forehead. No wonder he felt that Liang Yao's new hand looked familiar and he had seen him somewhere. It turned out that this new assistant looked very much like Mr. Vanderbilt.
"He is Connie, the son of Commodore Vanderbilt. How could he not look like him?" Liang Yao smiled.
"Mr. Vanderbilt's son is your assistant?" Ge Wen widened his eyes and almost dropped his jaw.
"Connie, introduce yourself to Mr. Gwen, no, it should be Senator Gwen." Liang Yao said to Connie.
"Hello, Senator, it's nice to meet you, my name is Cornelius Jeremiah Vanderbilt." Connie briefly introduced himself to Gwen.
"Hello, Connie." Gwen shook hands with Connie, and he still had an incredible expression on his face.
"Gwen, I saw the news in the newspaper that the territorial dispute between Texas and New Mexico has not been resolved?"
Liang Yao pays much more attention to Texas than other states.
In terms of geographical location, Texas is the closest state to California among all the states that have been established in the United States.
In terms of interests, as a state that has just joined the United States, many of California's interests are consistent with Texas.
"It really hasn't been resolved. Mr. Peter Hansborough Bell of Texas is not satisfied with the compromise, and the Texas garrison in New Mexico has not been completely withdrawn to Texas. The two sides are still very tense. This is what Mr. Vanderbilt told me."
Gerwen took a sip of tea to moisten his throat and continued: "Congress wants to annex 40,000 square kilometers of land originally belonging to Texas into the New Mexico region, and Texas will receive 10 million US dollars as compensation."
"If I were the governor of Texas, I would not agree to this loss-making deal." Liang Yao could understand Governor Bell's feelings.
"Texas is really too big, more than one million square kilometers. Congress and President Fillmore's cabinet may have allocated 40,000 square kilometers of land in the northwest of Texas to the New Mexico region for the purpose of balancing the states. After all, a state that is too large is not conducive to the unification of the United States." Gerwen said.
The new cabinet is a cabinet that is soft on the outside and strong on the inside. Although the new cabinet spared no effort to mediate the compromise, all members of the new cabinet firmly support the unification of the United States and will never allow any state to split from the territory of the United States.
"You can't just take Texas. The free states in the North have developed economies, but they don't pay more taxes than the southern states. As far as I know, the taxes paid by the southern slave states account for 80 percent of the federal government's fiscal revenue."
Liang Yao spoke up for Texas, saying that Congress and the government clearly favored the North.
"There is nothing we can do about it. The United States needs to maintain stability. Moreover, if the United States wants to be strong, it must develop industry. America's industrial products cannot compete with the British and French. In order to protect its own industry, in addition to raising tariffs, the government also gives tax breaks to northern factories, but government agencies must have sufficient funds to maintain operations."
Ge Wen stopped at that point. Liang Yao is so smart that he should understand what he meant.
This is a louse on a monk's head. It is obvious that America wants to use the scissors gap between northern industry and commerce and southern plantation economy to develop northern industry.
America does not have as vast colonies as Britain to fleece wool and suck blood to develop local industry, so it reaches out to the slave states in the south.
But the problem is that the slave states in the south are also part of the United States, not colonies of the United States. The United States cannot treat the southern states like colonies.
In fact, the factory owners in the northern states had long regarded the slave states in the south as their actual colonies, not only unscrupulously sucking blood from the slave states.
They also waved the banner of humanitarianism and condemned the barbarity of slavery in the southern slave states from the moral high ground. It can be said that they were both right and wrong.
They only cared whether their factories could make more profits to expand their factories and recruit more workers. They did not care about the feelings of the people in the southern states at all.
Congress and the federal government were always biased and did not treat the water equally, which inevitably chilled the hearts of the southern states.
No matter how clever Fillmore and his cabinet's Tai Chi muddy tactics were, they were only a temporary solution and not a fundamental solution. The war between the North and the South would break out sooner or later.
After all, the northern and southern states of the United States had parted ways since the founding of the country and chose different paths.
As the saying goes, people with different paths cannot work together. Even if they take different paths, how can they talk about being of one mind and one heart and working together?
Although the path chosen by the North is correct, if they want to make America strong and big and complete the grand plan of catching up with France and surpassing Britain, industrialization is the only way.
But while industrializing, shouldn't the factory owners and tycoons in the North consider the feelings of the southern slave states and treat the southern slave states with a more gentle attitude and means?
"This is not a long-term solution. You said that Governor Bell did not withdraw all the garrisons in New Mexico back to Texas. I guess the $10 million promised to Texas has not arrived?" Liang Yao said, "As far as I know, Governor Bell is not an unreasonable person."
He admired Governor Bell's courage to confront the federal government head-on. Texas is connected to the American railway network. Bell's deployment to New Mexico not only had to guard against the local armed forces in New Mexico, but also had to respond to military threats from the north at any time.
Of course, Liang Yao also had Bell's courage, but he relied on his understanding of history, as well as California's closed geographical environment and inconvenient transportation conditions.
It was not easy for the federal government to deploy large-scale troops to California. If a protracted war in California were to break out, the cost would be no less than fighting another half of the Mexican War.
America, which had just experienced the war, needed to recuperate and would not want to start a war in the short term, whether it was a foreign war or a civil war.
Unless the president was President Taylor, who had just died suddenly, he was full of confidence during the Mexican-American War and had once vowed to annex the entire Mexico. It can be seen that his political level is worrying.
"That's true. Texas demanded a one-time payment of $10 million in compensation, while Congress and the government advocated payment in installments on the grounds of financial constraints." Gwen nodded and continued.
"Originally, Congress and the president had no intention of forming a new infantry regiment in California. You need to thank three people for becoming an army colonel this time."