Chapter 13: Wild Growth

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

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

The newspaper industry in San Francisco was one of them. Because it could not recruit employees and find readers, San Francisco's newspapers had 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 has a relatively closed geographical environment.

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 to Sacramento with his team.

With sufficient funds as a backing, Liang Yao's industry began to grow rapidly and wildly with Sacramento as the center.

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

Simple wooden and brick houses have sprung up in the Sacramento area like mushrooms after rain, replacing the original simple tents and shacks.

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

In addition, Liang Yao also has a black powder workshop. In view of the danger of the gunpowder workshop, Liang Yao built the black powder workshop in a deserted wasteland ten miles away from Sacramento.

Limited by the current population size of Sacramento, the scale of Liang Yao's industries is not large, but it can meet the needs of Sacramento.

Liang Yao still has sufficient cash flow, but he is not in a hurry to expand production capacity to take over the larger San Francisco market. First, he does not want to confront Brannan directly for the time being, and second, he has other uses for this gold.

Liang Yao sits in a clean, tidy and warm study, flipping through the newspapers he collected at his desk.

Just three months ago, he could only read these things in a simple tent while enduring the cold wind that occasionally came in.

Although the information in these old newspapers was mixed, and many of them were from two or three months ago, or even last year, and were not very timely, they were Liang Yao's only channel to learn about the outside world.

Liang Yao carefully selected useful information from these newspapers. He was most concerned about the establishment of California and the surrounding areas of California.

Although it was still 11 years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Civil War, the contradictions within the United States had reached a very acute point at this time.

The Mexican-American War temporarily diverted domestic contradictions. After swallowing up Upper California, New Mexico and Texas. The internal contradictions in the United States did not ease, but became increasingly acute.

The issue of California's establishment is an example. Last December, that is, December 1849.

Former President Zachary Taylor, who had not yet died suddenly, asked Congress to accept California as a state of the United States, and said that once the time was right, New Mexico could also establish a state and join the federation.

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

This American hero in the Mexican-American War was not good at politics. A large part of the reason why he was elected as the 12th President of the United States was because of his personal prestige accumulated in the Mexican-American War and his status as a national hero in the minds of the American people. His political ability is mediocre and he does not have the ability to reconcile the contradictions between the parties.

Zachary Taylor's idealistic proposal has not only been delayed in passing, but also triggered fierce debates in Congress. Representing the interests of both the North and the South, the well-dressed congressmen even did not hesitate to physically fight in Congress for this.

Although the North has far surpassed the South in many aspects such as population, economic output, railway mileage and even agriculture at this time.

But the number of free states and slave states is still the same, all fifteen. The independent establishment of California, New Mexico and Oregon will break this delicate balance. Whether these territories that have just been annexed by the United States choose to become free states or slave states.

Of course, the Yankees in the north are still in the upper hand. If these territories are officially established, they are more likely to become free states than slave states. Such a result is absolutely unacceptable to the Dixies in the south.

The slave states in the south already only occupy the second seat in the House of Representatives. If these territories become free states, their position in the Senate will also be precarious.

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

If nothing unexpected happens, the US Congress will continue to debate this issue until September before it can reluctantly compromise. This compromise is 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 1850 compromise, which 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 US economy. It was these western gold that injected a steady stream of fresh blood into the capital market in the east and became a strong engine of economic growth in the United States.

It's April now, and Liang Yao still has five months to grow wildly 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 the 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 go to the Indian tribe every day.

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

Jones' abilities are mediocre, neither outstanding nor bad. The economic crisis and layoffs from the New York Securities and Exchange Commission are also being cleaned up because 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, their 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 despite Liang Yao's continuous increase in manpower and the purchase of 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 advantages.

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 its 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 the scope of exploration. 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. 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 and stood up from his seat, wanting to go out for a walk, get some fresh 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 short inspection. I think this news will be useful to you." Jones hesitated and said what he wanted to say.

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

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

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

At this time, the other two heavyweight legendary business tycoons in the 19th century in the United States, the oil tycoon Rockefeller, was still an eleven-year-old kid, and the steel tycoon Carnegie was still a messenger for a telegraph company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The only one who had already become famous and successful was Vanderbilt.

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

"Your information is very valuable." Liang Yao knew what Qiong was waiting for, and gave Jones 50 ounces of gold as a reward.