Chapter 585: Texas in 1859

Chapter 578 Texas in 1859

In June 1859, the opening of the Ghana-Texas Railway was the biggest news of the year in the United States besides political news.

This railway starts from Los Angeles, the largest city in southern California, passes through Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, and finally connects to the Texas railway network with San Antonio, the transportation hub of Texas.

The opening of the Ghana-Texas Railway means that Texas's high-quality and low-cost raw materials such as doughnuts, sugar cane, and tobacco can be directly transported to California through this railway.

At the same time, California's industrial products, chemical products, and even arms can be transported to Texas more quickly through the Ghana-Texas Railway.

Industrial products and chemical products exported to Europe can also be transported to the Port of Houston or the Port of Corpus Christi through the Ghana-Texas Railway, and then shipped directly to Europe from these two ports.

There is no doubt that the commercial value of this railway is not an exaggeration to say that it is making a fortune every day.

The senior officials of both Ghana and Texaco were very happy about the opening of this railway, especially the senior officials of Texas.

In recent years, the federal government has gradually increased export tariffs, resulting in a steady rise in the price of cotton exports from southern states.

The original European major customers of southern states have gradually turned their attention to cheaper cotton in Egypt, India and other places. In addition, in order to get rid of the cotton stocks as soon as possible and avoid them rotting in the warehouse, plantation owners in southern states have rushed to sell them at a lower price, so that the profits of cotton are no longer as good as before.

In contrast, plantation owners in Texas are lucky. Since the West Coast is the homeland, cotton and other products sold to the West Coast are not affected by tariff adjustments, so plantation owners in Texas are still living quite comfortably in the economic crisis.

Of course, factory owners in California are also happy to import high-quality and low-cost raw materials from Texas. In general, trade between California and Texas is a win-win situation for both parties.

With the help of the California consortium headed by the American Group, Texas also has a certain industrial foundation. It has a certain number of steel mills, military factories, and shipyards. Texas has therefore become one of the few states in the South with a certain industrial strength.

As for the labor conflict between plantation owners and factory owners, this problem has not yet emerged in Texas due to the influx of Chinese and Mexican immigrants.

The economic development momentum of the entire Texas still shows a vibrant and prosperous scene.

Of course, the completion of the Garde Railway also has great strategic significance for Liang Yao.

The completion of the Garde Railway means that the West Coast can bypass the railway network controlled by the North and directly transport materials to Texas and even the entire South.

In terms of population, as of 1859, the population of Texas has more than quadrupled compared to ten years ago.

Currently, the population of Texas is as high as 430,000, including 140,000 Chinese and 70,000 Mexicans. As for those slaves, they are naturally not included in the population statistics.

The population of Houston, the largest city in Texas, has also increased by more than ten times in 10 years. From a small port city with a population of only about 10,000, it has developed into a busy port and trade center with a population of nearly 100,000.

Unlike other southern ports, such as New Orleans, Charleston, Norfolk, and Savannah, the merchant ships departing from Houston to Europe are not loaded with traditional raw materials such as cotton, tobacco, and sugar cane.

More are industrial products from the West Coast, such as sewing machines, bicycles, guns, and chemical products such as kerosene, vaseline, and lubricants.

Because these products are particularly popular in Europe, with high profits and in short supply, many Texas merchants engaged in re-export trade have made a lot of money from them.

The Western consortium also regards Texas as the most important seaport to Europe and invests heavily in Texas.

The two most important ports in Texas, the Port of Houston and the Port of Corpus Christi, have been able to develop so smoothly and rapidly without encountering financial and technical bottlenecks. A large part of the reason is that the main port companies responsible for these two ports have strong Western capital participation. For example, the American Ports Company, which is responsible for the operation of the Port of Houston, comes from the American Group, the largest consortium in the West.

It can be said that the interests of California and Texas are deeply bound. Since Liang Yao took the lead and set an example, intermarriage between the upper classes of the two places has become very common, and a situation of you in me and me in you has long been formed.

Although Texas was still a slave state in name at this time, its economic structure was obviously different from other southern states.

After attending the opening ceremony of the Garde Railway, Liang Yao came to Texas, where the people are simple, as invited by his father-in-law Bell.

What surprised him was that the plantation owners in Texas included not only Dixie, Chinese, and Mexican plantation owners, but also many Indian and black plantation owners.

What made people laugh even more was that because black slaves were too expensive and involved sensitive political issues, plantation owners in Texas rarely used black slaves, but used more slaves shipped from Southeast Asia and Japan as substitutes.

As for the original black slaves, they were sold to other southern states. After all, the money to buy one black slave was enough to buy more than four other slaves.

After learning about this, slave owners in other southern states have also been keen to introduce cheaper slaves from Southeast Asia and Japan.

As for who brought these slaves from Asia, the answer is self-evident.

When Liang Yao arrived in Texas, which he had not visited for a long time, the first stop he visited was the arsenal in Austin, the capital of Texas. This arsenal is currently the most advanced arsenal in the South with the most impressive output of guns and cannons.

Like California, for security reasons, Texas did not choose to build the arsenal in Houston, the largest city in Texas, where transportation is more convenient, supporting facilities are more complete, and labor is more abundant. Instead, the arsenal was built in the inland Austin area.

Although Austin, located in the inland, is not very convenient for transportation compared to the port city of Houston, this problem has been alleviated as Austin is connected to the railway network of Texas.

As the gunpowder smell between the North and the South became stronger and stronger, arms became a hot commodity.

The North, which controls most of the arms production capacity of the United States, has begun to restrict the southern states from purchasing arms from the North.

Therefore, the Austin Armory, which was able to manufacture the Walter M1851 rifle and the large and small Napoleon cannons, was favored by plantation owners in southern states.

These wealthy plantation owners were eager to purchase sufficient and advanced weapons from the Austin Armory to protect their property from the threat of the Yankees.