1850 American Gold Baron

Chapter 60 Have you ever thought about the worst outcome?

"Mr. Liang, let's go to the bow of the boat and smoke for a while."

Out of his admiration for Liang Yao, or his love for talent, Vanderbilt decided to remind this young man who knew nothing about the world.

The two walked to the bow of the ship, and Vanderbilt habitually took out a crumpled cigar from his coat pocket.

He doesn't like to put cigars in exquisite cigarette boxes, but prefers to put cigars in his pocket and only put two or three cigars at a time. This way he doesn't have to share his cigarettes with others.

"You made the right choice to buy land. It can make you a big windfall, but you bought too much. Do you know what kind of people your future buyers are?"

Vanderbilt said to Liang Yao in the tone of someone who has experienced it.

Being ambitious is a good thing, but not knowing how to curb your ambition is a very bad thing.

Vanderbilt himself suffered such a loss when he was young.

If Liang Yao only buys a small part of the land in the Sacramento gold mining area, maybe the big tycoons in the east will let him live and reluctantly spend money to buy some land rich in gold.

If we talk about all the land in the gold mining area, these big eastern plutocrats who are accustomed to sucking blood will never dig out their pockets and buy the land from Liang Yao with real money.

"I know that they are more powerful and ruthless people than you." Liang Yao's eyes were very firm, "As long as they come, there will be no more miracles in California. Private gold diggers and small gold mining companies will become rich overnight.

's history will forever be history."

"Money sometimes cannot buy upper class status. I am only ruthless to my competitors. I only seek wealth."

Vanderbilt's status in New York was very embarrassing, and his wealth did not bring him a commensurate social status.

Even the tickets to the New York elite and celebrity banquet were obtained by him after a lot of effort.

He still remembered the first time he attended a banquet. He was dressed very formally, wearing a custom-made tuxedo, holding a civilized staff, and even learned aristocratic etiquette in order to better blend in with them.

But his efforts were not respected by the celebrities. The upper-class people looked down on him as a country bumpkin and shamelessly insulted him as a rude farmer and a despicable sailor.

After that, Vanderbilt completely figured out that the purpose of attending the banquet was to stir up trouble, make trouble at the banquet like an immature child, vent his grievances, and create trouble for those New York elites who claimed to be aristocrats.

He gave up the idea of ​​integrating into the New York celebrity circle and instead focused on making money with his like-minded friends.

He also made friends with some members of Congress, but they were all humble members.

Vanderbilt would not truly achieve a status commensurate with his wealth until after the Civil War.

After the Civil War, Congress awarded him the Gold Medal in recognition of his support for the Union during the Civil War.

But he also paid a high price for this. The biggest price was that he sent his favorite George Washington Vanderbilt to the battlefield during the Civil War, and George Washington Vanderbilt was never able to

return.

This caused him to suffer and blame himself for the rest of his life.

"For the sake of my fellow sufferers and for myself, I must do this. Only in this way can I gain a foothold in America.

If I didn't, do you know what was waiting for those gold diggers and my countrymen? Get a living job in one of the big gold mining companies and work 90 hours a week or more for a meager income.

By then we will never be able to get ahead!

Of course, I also thought about what consequences this would bring to me."

Liang Yao's tone was very firm, and he would never give up the wealth he already held in his hands.

Although he was a human being in the last life, he had to compromise with reality in order to survive and became a cow and horse for the capitalists. But in this life, he never wants to be a cow and horse again!

Nor did he want his fellow citizens to go to California with their hopes and ideals only to take a boat ride from one hell to another.

"What do you think is the worst possible outcome?" Vanderbilt asked.

"Congress does not recognize the legality of my ownership of the land in Sacramento and will put the land that belongs to me to public bidding, and those greedy tycoons will obtain these land rich in gold through bidding at a negligible price."

This is the worst result Liang Yao can think of.

"It seems that you know them very well. If it comes to this, what are you going to do?"

Vanderbilt was very surprised by Liang Yao's answer. This was indeed the worst result, even to the point of being somewhat unconstitutional.

But he believes that for the sake of gold, it is possible for those big chaebols to put pressure on Congress to do such a thing.

When he was involved in lawsuits in his early years, he had personally experienced their methods, and he knew the faces of those people very well.

"I will destroy California with my own hands!" Liang Yao said loudly, "California not only has gold in Sacramento, but if they insist on focusing only on Sacramento and kill me, I will take up arms to defend my property and dignity.

They can't get what I can't get easily. I can make California run in order, or I can make California fall into chaos and make California a purgatory on earth. If they want gold, they can go to purgatory.

Come and get it!”

Liang Yao was not being alarmist. He had been hoarding arms secretly for a long time. In addition to working hard to train the 150-man legion into professional soldiers, the 680 members of the Loyalty Society were also taking turns training as paramilitary personnel. Young Chinese people were also being trained

Be armed.

If he really wants to fall out, he can at least raise an army of thousands of people.

To wipe out his private armed forces, at least two infantry regiments would have to be deployed. However, Colonel Griffin, who was stationed in California, only had four to five hundred men at his disposal, so there was nothing he could do for a while.

California was isolated on the western frontier, and Liang Yao had plenty of time to raze San Francisco, Sacramento and even Los Angeles to the ground while the U.S. War Department mobilized its troops.

Even if the U.S. troops were stationed, he would not engage in direct combat with them. At worst, he would escape into the vast western mountainous area and become bandits, robbing homes and homes. From time to time, he would come to the gold mining areas to fight in the autumn breeze and disgust the Americans with the Indians.

Such high counter-insurgency costs are enough to drain the American government.

Of course, this is only a last resort. There is also a more moderate approach, which is to use public opinion in the east and the Texas landowners and plutocrats who also received land grants from the Mexican government to put pressure on the government.

As for whether it would be effective, he didn't dare to vouch for it.

"Ahem, this is just the worst result. Maybe the real situation will be better than you think."

Liang Yao's countermeasures made Vanderbilt feel numb after hearing it. I hope he just said it.

It was already late at night when we arrived in Sacramento. Although the Sacramento was traveling smoothly, everyone felt a little tired after sitting on the boat for a whole day, so they decided to rest for the night before conducting the inspection the next day.

Although it is already late at night, the Sacramento area is still very lively.

Many nearby miners have settled here, and many shops are still open late at night.

This is the place where Liang Yao made his fortune, and the city of Sacramento was planned by Liang Yao himself.

The street is wide, and although there are vendors setting up stalls on both sides of the street, it is still more than enough to accommodate four carriages traveling side by side.

What's even more valuable is that Sacramento streets have a complete drainage system.

Due to the lack of materials for making drainage pipes, Liang Yao had to resort to the next best thing and use open channels for drainage.

The relatively complete drainage system ensures that sewage will not be discharged randomly on the streets, so the streets are relatively tidy.

“It’s very clean here.”

Elizabeth said with some surprise that she had thought that Sacramento would have a poor sanitary environment like many small eastern cities.

Unexpectedly, she didn't even have to hold up her skirt when walking here. The hardened streets were cleaned very clean, so she didn't have to worry about getting her skirt dirty.

Since there are enough public toilets in Sacramento, it is almost impossible to see people excreting or dumping excrement on the street at will. At most, you can see some livestock feces.

The feces of these livestock will not remain on the streets for long, because like the commercial streets in San Francisco, there are dedicated cleaning staff responsible for cleaning the streets.

"I've arrived at my home. The conditions here are not as good as San Francisco. Please just make do with it."

Liang Yao came to his house in Sacramento. His house in Sacramento was built in a hurry. Although it could not be said to be simple, the comfort level was far less than that of Tingtao Garden.

The walls of this house still have bullet marks from the original battle. Vanderbilt looked at these dense bullet marks and asked.

"Have there been violent conflicts here?"

"Yes, some deserters attacked here, and I almost died there. Fortunately, we miners were united enough to drive away the bandits." Liang Yao said with a relaxed look.

Vanderbilt nodded, he was a little absent-minded and seemed to be thinking about something.

(End of chapter)