1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 113 Telegram

In the telegraph room of Tingtaoyuan, the ticking sound of telegrams can be heard all the time.

The telegraph operator Liang Yao hired from the First Telegraph Office in the East was skillfully operating the electromagnetic telegraph machine and sent the first telegram to the American Telegraph Office branch in the Sacramento area.

After the telegram was sent, the operator nervously waited for the reply from the other party. Soon after, the telegraph machine made a sound.

The Sacramento Bureau successfully received their telegrams and responded to them!

The operator hurriedly decrypted the message, then stood up and handed the decrypted and translated message to Liang Yao.

"Long live California, sir!"

This is the first time there is electricity between the two cities of San Francisco and Sacramento!

“Long live California!”

In the telegraph room, California dignitaries who were eagerly waiting for California's first cross-city telegram couldn't help shouting this message.

Their faces were filled with happy and confident smiles.

At this time, six years have passed since Samuel Morse, the father of the telegraph, sent the first telegram from Congress to Baltimore in 1844: What a miracle God has created!

In less than six years, the United States has laid more than 14,000 miles of telegraph lines and has 20 telegraph offices.

However, due to the high cost of laying telegraph lines, the average cost of laying telegraph lines per mile is as high as $500. If the telegraph lines have to cross mountains and rivers, the laying cost will be even higher.

Therefore, most of these telegraph lines and telegraph offices are concentrated in the eastern region with developed economy and strong financial resources.

In order to lay the telegraph line between San Francisco and Sacramento, Liang Yao spent a total of 65,000 US dollars. Including the telegraph lines laid to the military fortress, Liang Yao spent more than 70,000 US dollars on laying the telegraph lines.

After this crisis is over, he will also lay a telegraph line between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

With the telegraph, Liang Yao could issue orders to the military fortress in his own manor, and at the same time receive information from the Sacramento area as quickly as possible.

"Shunfeng Er in mythology is nothing more than that."

The impact of the telegraph on Deng Yan was greater than the impact of steamships on Deng Yan. When he was in Guangdong, Deng Yan could at least see British steamships, so Deng Yan was not very unfamiliar with steamships, but the telegraph was a new thing.

This was his first time seeing this thing.

He felt that this kind of machine that could instantly receive information hundreds of miles away was very magical.

"If there was such a thing, wouldn't it be possible to strategize in the telegraph room, command thousands of troops, and win a decisive victory thousands of miles away?"

Deng Yan's first reaction was to apply telegraphy to the military, which may be related to his military background.

"It depends on the person, and it may ruin millions of troops in the telegraph room."

With that said, Liang Yao left the telegraph room and walked back to the study. He glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall and asked Deng Yandao.

"Brothers Wen Yao and Wen Shun haven't come back from Los Angeles yet?"

Shortly after the establishment of the Loyalty Society, he sent two brothers, Deng Wenyao and Deng Wenshun, to Los Angeles and asked them to run Los Angeles.

Now Colonel Mason is leading half of the regiment northward and must pass through Los Angeles.

For safety reasons, Liang Yao had sent someone last month to inform brothers Deng Wenyao and Deng Wenshun to bring local residents, especially Chinese residents, to San Francisco to avoid the war.

The military discipline of American soldiers in this era was worse than that of later generations, especially since Colonel Mason also had a captain named William Tecnum Sherman.

This man was the notorious northern general during the Civil War.

The Germans like to name their tanks and armored vehicles after animals, especially cats, while the Americans like to name their tanks and armored vehicles after their generals. Sherman also won this honor during World War II.

The M4 tank known as Ronson's lighter is named after him.

This man was extremely murderous. During the Civil War, he carried out an indiscriminate massacre of Atlanta and burned the southern city.

It can be said that Sherman left no one behind, and his atrocities were not limited to Atlanta. As long as he passed through, whether it was a military fortress or a civilian settlement, he could not escape his murderous hands.

In Mississippi, the hometown of Confederate President Davis, more than 90% of the towns and plantations were burned by Sherman, and more than half of the young adults died under Sherman's butcher knife.

Sherman's massacre made Mississippi become a famous poor state in the United States after the war, and it could not recover for a whole century.

Sherman's bloodthirsty nature had already begun to emerge during the Mexican-American War.

Sutter told Liang Yao that during the Mexican-American War, Sherman was unable to catch up with the Mexican army because the Mexican army retreated too fast. In anger, Sherman massacred Mexican villages to vent his anger, and burned the villages afterwards.

to destroy evidence.

Liang Yao's base camps are in San Francisco and Sacramento, and it is impossible for him to divide his troops and station them in Los Angeles.

Furthermore, he has not yet developed the oil in the Los Angeles area, and there are currently no high-value industries in Los Angeles worthy of his deployment.

However, for the safety of local residents, Liang Yao decided to send local residents, especially Chinese residents, back to San Francisco for resettlement.

There are not many residents in Los Angeles anyway. Even if they all come to San Francisco, Liang Yao is still able to accommodate more than a thousand residents of Los Angeles.

"Wen Yao just brought more than 500 Los Angeles people to Jinshan this morning." Deng Yan said.

"Wen Shun hasn't come back yet?" Liang Yao couldn't help but frown when he heard this.

"Wen Shun is a stubborn kid. He said that he is the mayor of Los Angeles and is responsible for the people of Los Angeles. He insists on leaving the people in Los Angeles who don't want to come to Jinshan to come to Jinshan." Deng Yan was full of worries about this.

He was very worried about Deng Wenshun's safety.

"Have all the Chinese residents followed Wen Yao back?" Liang Yao continued to ask.

"Except for Wen Shun and a dozen members of the Loyalty Association, all the Chinese residents have returned. Those who are hanging on in Los Angeles are basically local white people." Deng Yan said.

"This careless guy!" Liang Yao sighed, "Immediately sent someone to deliver a letter to Wen Shun, telling him that he had fulfilled his responsibilities. The white people who refused to listen and were unwilling to leave were allowed to stay in Los Angeles to fend for themselves.

Damn, Mason’s subordinates are not a good person, don’t end up in Los Angeles when the time comes.”

After the Department of War and the Army appointed Liang Yao as the California Sheriff and the Commander of the Infantry Regiment, they actually handed over the defense tasks of the Canada-Mexico border to Liang Yao.

Mason shifted the focus of defense to southwestern New Mexico.

But soon, Mason received four consecutive letters, which could also be said to be orders, from the President, Congress, the War Department, and the Army Department.

They asked Mason to immediately send half a regiment to the San Francisco and Sacramento areas to ensure that Congress could successfully recover the land in California.

Faced with these four letters with different wordings, Mason felt very confused.

The President and the War Department asked Mason to treat the local squire's armed forces with a gentler attitude and prohibit him from clashing with the local armed forces, otherwise he would be responsible for provoking the American Civil War.

This made Mason burst into tears. He was just a small colonel, how could he bear the responsibility of provoking a civil war?

Besides, it is your Congress that is in conflict with the California authorities, not me, Mason.

Congress and the War Department required Mason to take a very tough attitude towards the local gentry and armed forces, and clearly instructed him to use all means to eliminate the local gentry and wealthy merchants who opposed Congress.

After reading the four letters, Mason felt as if ten thousand alpacas were rushing past him, and for a moment he didn't know what to do.

But at least one thing the four letters agreed on was that they all ordered him to go to San Francisco and Sacramento.

As for what to do after arriving in San Francisco and Sacramento, Mason can only take one step at a time.

Maybe he will receive new orders when he gets there.

(End of chapter)