1850 American Gold Tycoon

In addition to gold mining tools, what Liang Yao wanted most was a gun for self-defense.

At this time, California was the most remote place in the United States, not even a state in the United States.

The mountains are high and the emperor is far away, and it is a gold-producing area. There is naturally no order in such a place. It is an out-and-out world of the jungle and the strong.

He is now so weak that he can't even deal with a few ruffians on the ship, let alone those gold diggers from all over the world in the gold-producing area. The people who can survive to this place are basically not good people.

A musket, preferably a short gun that is easy to carry around, would at least give him a sense of security.

It's just that with his current financial resources, he can't afford the price of a musket at all. Take the Brown Bess musket that is about to be withdrawn from active service in the UK. The low-cost Indian Monkey version of the Brown Bess costs about 2 pounds. And now he doesn't even have a pound

"Hello, Liang."

The oncoming third officer Sven patted Liang Yao's shoulder like an old friend he had known for a long time. Sven is a Danish man, and he is not as good as his name. Although his name is Sven, he is not much taller. Not polite, but looking like a rough and rough man.

Because Sven was more easy-going and talkative, unlike the other arrogant British crew members on the ship, who acted condescending and looked down on people of color, Sven became the crew member Liang Yao was most familiar with during this long voyage.

Of course, it is also a tool to relieve boredom by talking to each other.

Somehow, Sven got along very well with the common sailors on the ship, while the captain and officers seemed to dislike their colleague.

Sven was originally the first mate on the merchant ship Würzburg of the Danish Asiatic Company. After the Danish Asiatic Company, the Danish East India Company, was dissolved, Sven, who was burdened with debts, came to work for the British Steamship Company to pay off his debts.

Could this have something to do with Sven being Danish? Or is it that Si Wen is in heavy debt and is afraid that Si Wen will borrow money from them, so he alienates Si Wen?

While making random guesses, Liang Yao's eyes fell on the two flash cap guns less than a foot long on Sven's waist. These are good things.

"Are you interested in it? This is a brand new flash cap gun produced by the famous Birmingham Arsenal! I bought it from a down-and-out aristocratic gentleman in Calcutta for a full forty pounds.

We are friends, and if you like it, I don't mind taking a small loss and selling you a handful for fifteen pounds. "

Sven took out a flash cap from the holster and introduced his gun to Liang Yao like an enthusiastic salesman. He could tell that the Oriental boy was very interested in his gun.

"It's very new. It's so new that the logo and noble emblem on it are worn, and the rifling is smoothed."

Liang Yao would not believe that Sven, who was so poor that he had to drink brandy and rum mixed with water, could afford a huge sum of forty pounds to buy a gun. However, the Birmingham Arsenal logo on the gun is real.

Sven thought too highly of him. If he had fifteen pounds, why would he go all the way to California to mine? Wouldn’t it be nice to just go back to the Qing Dynasty to buy a house, buy land, and have a concubine?

"Ten pounds! It can't go any lower!"

Sven gritted his teeth and said with a painful expression as if someone had cut a piece of meat from him.

"To be honest, I don't even have a pound on me right now." Liang Yao told the truth.

"roll!"

Sven rolled his eyes, put his gun back in his holster, and turned his face faster than turning the pages of a book.

"But I can share a business opportunity with you, one worth thousands of pounds in exchange for your gun."

Liang Yao smiled faintly. He didn't have the ten pounds, but he wanted Sven's gun.

Of course, Sven, who has been walking on the sea for many years, does not believe that Liang Yao, a young boy, has any business opportunities worth tens of thousands of pounds. He only thinks that Liang Yao is bragging and does not take it seriously.

“It only costs seven or eight cents to buy a pan from Boston, and only a dozen cents to buy a shovel.

But in the gold fields of California, a pan easily fetched six dollars and a shovel easily fetched thirty dollars.

Of course, if you like gold, you can even directly exchange it for an equivalent amount of gold. The most valuable thing in the gold mining area is gold, and the least valuable thing is gold. "

Liang Yao said matter-of-factly.

Liang Yaoneng's price was so detailed that it didn't look like he was talking nonsense, but the profit was so high that it was suffocating. Selling black slaves and piglets were not so profitable.

"my God!"

Sven's attitude towards Liang Yao immediately changed 180 degrees, but he did not believe Liang Yao's words easily. Instead, he asked Liang Yao the source of the news to determine whether the news was reliable.

"My relative told me that he was in California, and it was his letter that told us to go to California."

This sentence is half true and half false. The letter from a fellow countryman telling him that there is gold in California is true. As for the prices of pans and shovels, he made it up.

"There are countless places where gold is discovered every year around the world, but how many of them are real? Only those of you who are desperate are willing to sell your property in exchange for a boat ticket to the illusory gold mountain you talk about."

Sven had already heard the news about the discovery of gold in California, but that was just a hearsay. Unless he saw it with his own eyes, Sven would never believe these unreliable and exaggerated rumors.

Liang Yao shrugged, feeling a little disappointed. This rude-looking Nordic man was not as easy to fool as he thought.

"But based on our friendship, I am willing to take a gamble. If you lie to me, you will end up like this seabird."

When Liang Yao moved to leave, Sven suddenly took out his musket from the holster, put on the flash cap, and pulled the trigger at the seabird hovering above his head.

As a thunderous gunshot sounded, a seabird fell into the sea, and the familiar plop sound reached Liang Yao's ears.

The sudden sound of gunfire made Liang Yao pause. His legs covered by his robe seemed to be trembling, and a slight chill came from his back.

"It's yours! I suppose pans, shovels, and shovels cost about the same in Panama as they do in Boston."

Sven put the old musket with a hot barrel into Liang Yao's hand. The things Liang Yao mentioned were not valuable items. He was willing to take a gamble, and even if he lost, he wouldn't lose much.

A few good-natured British sailors were surrounding the cabin door watching the Qing people fighting below the deck. They burst into joking laughter from time to time, as if they were watching a group of monkeys fighting.

Liang Yao returned to the cabin fiercely with a musket in his hand. Several descendants of the Deng family had already been knocked to the ground.

Deng Yan's legs and right hand were tightly hugged by three green-skinned gangsters, making it impossible to move them in the narrow cabin. The left hand that was still able to move tightly grasped Wu Daqi's braid and wouldn't let go.

Not to be outdone, Wu Daqi used all his strength to punch Deng Yan in the face.

Wu Daqi was in the middle of the beating when he suddenly received a sap on his stubbled forehead. He endured the pain and turned around to attack, but saw the black muzzle of the gun pointing at his head.

"Third brother, no, third master, Master Liang, please spare my life. I will never dare to do it again. I will apologize to these masters now."

Wu Daqi ignored Deng Yanzheng's pull on his braid and hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed to beg for mercy.

The rest of the accomplices were at a loss when they saw this, and allowed Deng Yan, who was bruised and swollen, to break away from them.

"Killing you with one shot will give you an advantage. Who in Xiangshan doesn't know about the things you did in Xiangshan? You should be thrown into the sea and let the fish eat your flesh and bones one by one!" Liang Yao angrily road.

Deng Yan had been a soldier, used shotguns, and had seen the power of foreign guns. He was worried that Liang Yao was too excited and went off the rails. After all, they were on the ghost guy's ship, and they had to look at the ghost guy's face to act. It will be difficult to end the situation if someone loses his life.

"Third brother, let him apologize and spare him a life."

Although beaten, Deng Yan still maintained a cool head.

Liang Yao just happened to borrow Poxiadonkey. Although Sven's old fox gave him the gun, he didn't give him the flash cap or bullets. The thing in his hand could only be used to scare people.

"Second uncle, it's their fault. You can't get this beating in vain. The ghost doctor on the ship demands a lot of money for consultation."

Liang Yao's angry voice echoed in the cabin, and his sharp eyes were directed at Wu Daqi.

"Our brothers will pay for the diagnosis fee, and our brothers will pay for it. It's because I, Lu Daqi, didn't control that my hands are nothing."

Lu Daqi hurriedly took out two pieces of Yingyang and a few pieces of broken silver, and at the same time urged his accomplices around him to pay. Under Lu Daqi's urging, the friends reluctantly collected some silver coins.

Liang Yao stopped when he saw that it was good. Seeing that Lu Daqi and the others paid, they did not push Lu Daqi and the others to the dead end. The rabbit would bite people if they were pushed hard.

Fights between Chinese were minor, but the nature of the incident was different. A white sailor who was watching the fun soon informed Captain Frank of the situation.

"what happened?!"

The pilot, the immigration agent Huang Bingliang, followed behind Frank and sternly questioned everyone in the cabin.

"Where did you get your gun?"

Frank noticed Liang Yao's musket hidden in his clothes. Since Liang Yao understood English, Huang Bingliang no longer translated the conversation between Frank and Liang Yao.

"This is a gift given to me by Third Officer Sven." Liang Yao replied in English, "It's just a gun, without a flash cap or bullets."

Flack's face brightened slightly when he heard this. Seeing that nothing serious happened, he left with a few words of reprimand. He is not willing to interfere with matters between Chinese people.

All he cares about is how many people can make it to California alive in the end, and how much commission he can get from it, nothing more.

After Frank left, Liang Yao pulled up the curtain in the middle of the cabin and called Deng Yan and several young people from the Deng family to the end of the cabin.

"How many of you should divide the money? Tomorrow the foreign ship will dock. You can go ashore to find a good doctor to treat your injuries."

There is a ship's doctor on the Cape Town, but the ship's doctor is an extremely racist, white supremacist. The most common way to treat Chinese people is to hold their noses from a distance and direct the sailors to take the sick Chinese people out of the cabin and throw them into the sea.

Liang Yao didn't expect such a person to treat these children of the Deng family.

Liang Yao divided the money into six parts and asked each of them to take one part.

"These are just skin injuries, no injuries to muscles or bones, so it's not a problem."

Deng Wenyao said it was okay, but his body was very honest and he stretched out his hand towards the money.

Deng Wenyu stopped him: "Without Third Brother, I don't know how this matter would end today. Third Brother should have a share of this money."

Deng Yan was also convinced and took out three eagle coins: "If the third brother doesn't accept this money, our family will not dare to ask for it."

"In that case, count me in."

Liang Yao didn't show any pretense and accepted the three eagles generously.

After everyone distributed the money, Deng Yan said to Liang Yao with a worried look on his face: "People like Wu Daqi were only convinced when they saw that you had a foreign gun in your hand. They convinced you with their mouths, but in their hearts they wanted to cut you into pieces. In the future, You still have to watch out for him.”

Liang Yao smiled bitterly and shook his head and said: "Wu Daqi and his ilk are unlikely to become great, they are not worth mentioning. What I am worried about now is not Wu Daqi, but what I will do after arriving in San Francisco."

How to establish himself after arriving in California is what Liang Yao is most worried about now.

It is now the end of 1849, and James Marshall first discovered a large amount of gold in the American River in January 1848. Nearly two years have passed, and they have lost the opportunity to prospect for gold.

Many gold mining teams from the eastern United States not only have professional gold mining knowledge, their organizational forms are also more mature, and of course, they have more people. What can he do to compete with those 49-year-old miners?

If the more than 120 Chinese workers on the ship could be united and organized, it would be a force that cannot be underestimated.

But this idea is just a fantasy. The Chinese on board are very complex. In addition to Xiangshan people, there are also people from Guangzhou, Chaoshan, Zhaoqing, Hakkas from northern Guangdong, and even a dozen Fujianese.

With his current prestige, trying to unite people from different regions and clans is tantamount to wishful thinking.

A more realistic idea is to unite these Deng family members first and establish a firm foothold in San Francisco.

Deng Changchang sighed: "It's rare that you can think of this at such a young age. It's getting late, so go to bed early. Your second uncle can't guarantee it to outsiders, but if you unite these bastards of the Deng family into one, you can Second uncle can still do it.”

Liang Yao also felt a little sleepy, so he stopped talking and climbed onto the hammock made of Manila canvas with his musket in hand.