Chapter 122: People Can Leave, but the Gold Stays! (550 Subscriptions Plus Extra Chapters!)
The rumors were not groundless.
Liang Yao's assets grew faster than he expected. In mid-November, he roughly estimated some of his assets, which had indeed exceeded 10 million US dollars.
Why roughly?
Because his assets were growing at an astonishing rate every day. The gold he directly mined and the gold he exchanged for mercury alone exceeded 2,000 ounces every day, which was more than 60,000 US dollars when converted into US dollars.
This was achieved when the gold production in the old mining area was weak, the new rich mining area had not yet been discovered, and the machines purchased from the east had not yet been put into use.
This was just the income brought to him by gold and mercury.
If the income from the highly profitable industries such as ports, real estate, catering, clothing, retail, black industry, and yellow industry was counted, Liang Yao's daily wealth growth would be even more amazing.
Bank of America is still the only bank in California. As long as the bank keeps a certain amount of reserves for the gold it collects, the rest of the gold can be used by him.
Liang Yao can now be said to have reaped the benefits of the early California gold rush.
Become the biggest winner in the California Gold Rush, no one!
Even the assets owned by Brannan, the first millionaire in the West at the beginning of the year, are only a fraction of what he has now.
The cash Liang Yao has in his hands now may have exceeded the sum of the cash flows of Vanderbilt and Buckhouse.
Vanderbilt's main business is still shipping. If you want to make money, you have to run ships. His fleet is mainly steamships, and he takes the route of small profits and quick turnover. The operating costs are high and the profits will not be too high.
What's more, Vanderbilt has lost a lot of money in stock speculation in recent years.
As for Buckhouse, he is fond of the real estate industry, but even if Buckhouse has a keen eye and can make money from the land he buys, it will take time to wait for the land to appreciate.
Liang Yao picked up gold directly in California, and his asset growth rate is of course faster than the two of them.
After Mason's troops were eliminated by Liang Yao, the consortiums that arrived in California became much more honest, and even the New York consortium stopped making trouble.
Because they have truly experienced Liang Yao's strength, they know very well that the Chinese soldiers and the white soldiers of the California Infantry Regiment who patrol around their camp every day and conduct so-called routine training exercises are not just decorations.
Those are the elite soldiers who wiped out half of Colonel Mason's regiment. They can clearly feel that the eyes of these soldiers coming down from the battlefield are different from before.
Now they feel a chill when they look at them, perhaps this is the so-called murderous aura.
As for the so-called Indians in their mouths, these noble capitalists of the New York Consortium know in their hearts that they are just Liang Yao's cover.
Who in California doesn't know that Liang Yao has a good relationship with the Indians, just wearing the same pants.
This month alone, they have seen at least three or four Indian caravans carrying their local specialties to trade with Sacramento, and even the Indians in the neighboring Oregon area have come to Sacramento to trade.
These Indians walked past their mining area so openly, and those soldiers who said they would resist the Indians enthusiastically showed them the way.
When they asked the soldiers why they didn't arrest the Indians, the soldiers told them that the Indians were divided into friendly Indians and unfriendly Indians.
These Indians who came to Sacramento to trade were all friendly Indians, and they had to guard against the unfriendly Indians.
This made the noble capitalists of the New York consortium very angry.
Fortunately, they had been panning for gold in the rich mining areas on both sides of the American River for more than three months and had a good harvest.
Those embarrassed noble children and consortium representatives looked at the results of the past three months: 128,154 ounces of gold cheered and celebrated wildly.
This gold was their biggest gain in the past three months and was also their spiritual support.
Without this gold, they couldn't imagine how they had stayed in this hellhole for more than three months.
This was gold worth more than three million US dollars, which was also a huge fortune for them who were born in a wealthy family.
The miners who panned gold by hand could only watch the noble capitalists distribute the gold.
The miners only received a meager daily salary, which was barely enough to make ends meet in the Sacramento area where prices were extremely high.
They naively hoped that these noble capitalists would be kind enough to give them a little gold as a reward for their hard work when distributing gold.
Unfortunately, except for Milners who generously gave each of his miners 10 ounces of gold as a reward, the other noble capitalists did not consider these miners at all.
John also gave his miners 11 ounces of gold as a reward. Of course, this was not because he was kind, but because he felt that he could not be compared with Milners.
The New York consortium team packed up their gold, luggage and machines and prepared to leave the American River, where gold resources had been exhausted, to find the next rich mine. They were ready to pan for gold while waiting for new news from New York and Congress.
I hope the next news they receive will be good news.
"Gentlemen, you can't leave!"
Soldiers from the California Infantry Regiment patrolling nearby blocked the New York consortium's path and sent someone to notify Liang Yao.
Faced with these murderous soldiers, the big bosses of the New York consortium did not dare to make any mistakes, for fear of offending them or for fear that these soldiers would do something outrageous.
However, they still protested relatively mildly, whereas in the past, in the East, others had always provided protests to them.
Today they finally experienced the feeling of protest.
Protesting doesn’t feel good because the initiative is never in the hands of the protesters.
After learning that the New York consortium was leaving, Liang Yao immediately rushed over from the new mining area of Xiangshan Gold Mining Company.
Since moving to San Francisco, he has rarely been to Sacramento, and he has rarely set foot in the mining area.
It's not that he dislikes the mess in the mining area. He's not the kind of person who's afraid of hardship and fatigue. It's just that he doesn't have time at all.
Now, in addition to handling his own properties, he also has to deal with the state affairs of California, and he wants to break himself in half.
He came to the mining area today mainly because the machines purchased from the east had arrived. He wanted to go to the mining area in person to see how effective it was and how much gold production could be increased.
Relying on manual gold mining has gradually become a thing of the past. Next, California will belong to the era of machine gold mining.
He doesn't want to be eliminated in this round of transformation.
"Gentlemen, you may go."
Liang Yao rode a horse and looked down at the somewhat embarrassed New York aristocratic capitalists with squinted eyes.
"Did you hear that? Your commander has spoken, we can go, get out of the way!"
After hearing this, John's impression of Liang Yao improved a lot. He pushed away the soldiers in front of him and was about to leave.
Milnas still stood where he was. He knew very well that Liang Yao would not let them go easily.
If Liang Yao was willing to let them go, he would have ordered the soldiers of the California Infantry Regiment to let them go. There was no need to go there in person. Things were definitely not that simple.
"People can leave, but the gold stays!"
Liang Yao said angrily.
These words made these aristocratic capitalists in New York explode. They thought their ears had heard wrongly and froze in place.
"This is the gold we found. We have the right to take it away! Why should we keep it?!"
John took the lead in protesting, and the rest of New York's aristocratic capitalists stood up to protest.
"This is the fruit of our labor for more than three months!"
"This is our private property!"
"You are naked robbery!"
Faced with the verbal criticism from these aristocratic capitalists, Liang Yao just smiled faintly, took out the revolver at his waist and fired a shot into the air to calm them down.
After the gunshot, the aristocratic capitalists in New York fell silent for an instant. They took a few steps back unconsciously and looked at Liang Yao with some fear.
After Liang Yao put the revolver back into his waist, they let out a sigh of relief.
"You're right, but not entirely."
Liang Yao got off his horse and glanced at the frightened group of New York aristocratic capitalists with cold eyes.