1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 342 Rural California

The trip to Los Angeles made Lionel James and others more interested in California.

Before coming to California, August reported to them on the situation in California, but the focus of August's report was on San Francisco and Sacramento, two large cities that emerged due to the gold rush.

As for Los Angeles, there was really nothing worth reporting except for the massacre in 1850, so August did not report the situation in Los Angeles to James and Lionel.

Before coming to Los Angeles, August thought that Liang Yao was an oil field discovered in San Francisco, Sacramento, or Nevada. He never thought that Liang Yao was an oil field discovered in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles, which was developed later than San Francisco and Sacramento, has developed so well. So, with the blessing of the gold industry and earlier development history, have San Francisco and Sacramento developed better?

Lionel and others are curious about San Francisco and Sacramento.

Passenger trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco stopped running after six o'clock.

However, the suspension of passenger trains did not prevent Liang Yao from taking the train back to San Francisco. He drove the entire California Railway Company, and calling a train was just a matter of his words.

Although the passenger trains between Los Angeles and San Francisco have been suspended, it does not mean that the trains between the two places have fallen into a state of rest due to the arrival of darkness.

The Los Angeles train station is still very busy at night, with freight trains blaring loud whistles and blowing black smoke as they travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Los Angeles' kerosene, asphalt and other petrochemical products are transported to San Francisco, Sacramento, Carson, Reno and other settlements along the way through California's developed rail transportation network.

Machinery, tools, grain, vegetables and fruits, lumber, cloth, luxury goods and other commodities from San Francisco and Sacramento are also imported into Los Angeles through the developed railway network.

The rapid rise of Los Angeles in just one year can be said to be indispensable to the railroad.

"Light is a luxury for the night. Before I came to Los Angeles, I thought that only wealthy cities like London and Paris could afford to light up all the street lights at night."

While waiting for the train at the train station, James looked at the street lights that illuminated the Los Angeles train station as bright as day and sighed with emotion.

The distance between street lights in Los Angeles is even smaller than the distance between street lights on the Champs Elysées in Paris.

"As long as the production of kerosene increases, there will be more and more cities that never sleep in the future. Light at night will no longer be a luxury for humans. This is the power of civilization and industry."

Liang Yao lowered his head and stared at the asphalt-paved platform at his feet and said.

He is now in the era of fastest development and greatest change in human history.

The changes in humankind in the past thousand years are not as great as the changes in this century.

If a person who lived in 1800 traveled to 1899, he would definitely wonder if he had arrived in a different world, because there were so many new things in 1899 that people in 1800 had never seen before.

After a while, Liang Yao's private train slowly drove into the platform. There is no transgression in America. He has a private train that is more luxurious than Fillmore.

Everyone boarded the special train, which was illuminated brilliantly by kerosene lamps.

In the special train, sofas, beds, desks, bookshelves, cabinets, and dining tables are all available.

Even if you don't get off the special train, you can still live a very comfortable life on the special train.

"This special train of yours is just like a palace."

Even though Lionel is picky about his personal life and pursues quality, he couldn't help but admire it after boarding the special train.

This American gold tycoon who started his career in gold did not use any gold to decorate his special train, but the owner's wealth can be felt everywhere on the special train, which is luxurious and not vulgar.

"Excuse me, if you want to have late night snacks and drinks, just pull the bell on the seat and a dedicated flight attendant will serve you." Liang Yao pointed to the copper bell hanging on the sofa and said.

This copper bell extends from the private lounge car to the crew car and the kitchen. As long as you pull it, the copper bell at the other end of the kitchen will ring.

After finishing speaking, Liang Yao went to his lounge and fell asleep.

When I woke up the next day, it was already eight o'clock in the morning, and the train was bathing in the morning sunshine and traveling through the vast Central Valley.

Liang Yao got out of bed and took a sip of water while admiring the scenery along the way. Taking a train and admiring the scenery along the way was also a pleasant and comfortable experience.

At first, the Central Valley that the train passed through was relatively desolate, with few people and buildings, and only occasionally Indians could be seen staring at the train in fear.

This kind of scene was also expected by Liang Yao. The Central Valley covers an area of ​​nearly 50,000 square kilometers, and the current population of the entire state of California is less than one million. It is still a vast area with sparsely populated areas, and the population density is still very small.

The Central Valley still has great potential for development.

However, as we get closer and closer to San Francisco, there are gradually more farms and villages along the way.

The rural areas in California are basically distributed along railway lines. Every time the railway is built to a new place, rural areas of different sizes are often formed along the way.

Outside the train window, local farmers and their employees rode horses and drove carriages to work in wheat and rice fields.

In addition to farmland, Liang Yao also saw many vineyards, orchards and patches of vegetable fields along the way.

Such large orchards and vegetable fields are obviously not grown by local farmers for their own consumption, but are grown commercially.

Except for a small amount of these vegetables and fruits that are kept for one's own consumption, most of them are brought to the city for sale.

Every village has a train station, and every train station has farmers waiting at the train station with their agricultural products, who are preparing to take their agricultural products to the city for sale.

Due to California’s vast land and sparse population, the per capita cultivated land area is already large, and the state government’s support policy for agriculture means that there are basically no homesteaders in California.

These people who look like farmers, whether they are Chinese, Mexican or other ethnic groups, are not completely farmers in essence.

It might be more appropriate to call them farmers.

As for the traditional land annexation issue in the Qing Dynasty, Liang Yao is not worried about this happening in California.

Currently, California still has a large amount of wasteland and swampland waiting to be developed. The cost and risk of developing new land are lower than directly annexing other people's land.

Furthermore, farmers in California are not farmers in the Qing Dynasty, and they are not lambs to be slaughtered.

Allowing citizens to possess firearms is a provision written into the Constitution of the United States. As a part of the United States, California should naturally follow the Constitution of the United States.

In other words, farmers of all sizes in California hold old firearms. If a large farmer insists on annexing the land of a small farmer, he will not only face legal risks, but also face life danger. After all, everyone is in front of peanuts.

Equality, if you push a rabbit into a hurry, it will bite someone, let alone someone with a gun.

The reason why land annexation occurs is because in agricultural production, land is the most important means of production.

In California's agricultural production, the most important means of production is not land, but people.

When people become more important means of production than land in agricultural production, "land annexation" will exist in another form.

What the exploiting class has to consider is not how to occupy more land, but how to occupy the more important means of production than land, that is, people.

A typical representative of this model of "land annexation" is the serfdom currently prevalent in the Russian Empire.

Russia, which is vast and sparsely populated, has no shortage of land. Therefore, the Russian landlords do not want to annex the farmers' land, but to find ways to turn the farmers into their own slaves, so that they and their descendants can become their own slaves.

Serve yourself from generation to generation.

Of course, the same is true in the slave states of the southern United States. "Black slaves" are more important means of production than land.

In the mid-19th century, the United States was second only to the Russian Empire in the number of slaves.

In Virginia, a black slave could be exchanged for at least thirty acres of cultivated land. In Texas, where the population density was lower, a black slave could be exchanged for even more land.

Liang Yao wanted to prevent and should prevent the emergence of serfs in California to prevent California from developing into a southern slave state.

While I was thinking about it, suddenly a dark shadow flashed past the window.

Negro? Negro slave?

Liang Yao's heart skipped a beat. He opened the car window, stuck his head out and looked behind him. Sure enough, he saw a black man mixed in with a group of people.

The appearance of black people in California, and the appearance of black people at this time, is not a good sign. Liang Yao frowned.

He does not want the so-called abolitionists and slaveholders to appear in California. California has no historical baggage of slavery and there is no need to get involved.

Being involved in the political whirlpool of slavery and abolition will do no good except drag down the development of California.

The train was getting closer and closer to San Francisco, and the villages on both sides of the track were getting larger and larger. The sounds of cattle and sheep penetrated the roar of the steam engine and reached Liang Yao's ears.

Liang Yao looked around and saw that this was the sound made by the livestock in the pasture.

But now he has no intention of admiring the beautiful scenery around him. When he can see a black man along the way, it means that there is already a group of black people in California.

This is a very thorny issue now and even in the future.

(End of chapter)