Wild North America 1846

This is a drawing that can be exchanged for 50 reputation points. It is a waterwheel-driven gold trough equipment. It does not have any steam mechanical devices. It requires manual filling of river sand and finally manual picking of gold sand. However, the gold trough is cleverly set up and can be counted.

Improve work efficiency a hundred times.

A gold pan equipment built by carpenters and blacksmiths can replace the screening capacity of 760 gold diggers in a day, and only requires 7 to 8 people to operate it.

As an armed group, the Datang Society must of course have its own fixed industry and stable income channels.

If you rely on mountains, you can eat mountains; if you rely on water, you can eat water.

Of course Richard knew such a simple truth that the gold mines along the American River are now a well-known secret in San Francisco, but this news was not leaked, which triggered a gold rush throughout North America and even the world.

The ultimate reason is still caused by regional thinking.

In San Francisco, no one is willing to share the feast of gold mining with outsiders, so everyone involved consciously keeps the secrets of the gold mine from being leaked to outsiders.

If history does not change

It was not until two years later, in 1848, that a clever grocery store owner leaked the news, which triggered a worldwide gold rush and an influx of large numbers of immigrants, allowing the grocery store owner to make a lot of money.

In fact, at that time, there were very few surface gold resources that were easy to mine along the American rivers, and steam mechanical mining equipment was needed to further dig deeper gold resources.

Judging from the current total gold production, gold prospectors on the American rivers can harvest about 2.4 million to 2.5 million ounces of gold a year. Gold can be found with the simplest tools, and the peak can reach 5.2 million ounces two years later.

gold.

With such a huge amount of wealth, why not get a share of it?

Agreement Hall's income from the leather and meat business is more than 100,000 ounces of gold a year, which may seem like a lot at first glance, but its actual influence is limited, accounting for about one-twentieth of the entire American River gold reserves.

This little bit was obviously not enough to satisfy Richard's appetite. He took out the drawings and asked, "Can you understand the drawings?"

"President, this set of drawings is not complicated when broken down. It should consist of waterwheels, transmission rods, washing tanks, gold panning tanks, screens, and water pipes. The production is not a big problem, so leave it to me.

."

"We will manufacture 4 sets in the early stage. The blacksmith also uses our people. We must pay attention to confidentiality and break down the carpenter's and blacksmith's drawings to build them to prevent cheating."

"Understood, I'll ask Captain Liu Wu to help check this."

"Yes, Liu Wu. As for the Guards, you can choose capable personnel and expand it to about 50 people. Weapons and equipment will be given priority. Cooperate with General Manager Gai to get this done."

"I honor your order." Liu Wu received the order with clasped fists and a solemn expression.

"Yes." Richard nodded with satisfaction, looked around at everyone, and said, "Since everyone has been assigned tasks, let's get to work quickly. I will be in charge here for the time being, so there won't be any trouble. Mike

Sir, please hurry up and contact Captain William Richardson at Parkview, I want to meet with him as soon as possible."

"As you command!"

After receiving the order, everyone dispersed, and the meeting hall became empty again.

Richard sat alone in the hall, picked up his tea cup and took a leisurely sip, thinking about the current complex situation in San Francisco and considering the next move.

In the plans he considered;

Datang Hui is mainly engaged in the two industries of commerce and gold mining, and also operates the agriculture and animal husbandry industries of Grape Valley and Rose Manor. These are industries with great development prospects.

It goes without saying that when you are engaged in commerce in San Francisco, every grocery store is simply a money-printing machine that makes a lot of money every day. From hoes and pans, flour, weapons, kerosene lamps to clothes and fabrics, everything can be sold at sky-high prices.

The huge profits are astonishing.

Except for John Sutter, who had several of his own cargo sailing ships, all the other channels for importing goods in the city were in the hands of the captains of Yerba Caidu. They basically monopolized the channels for importing goods and made a lot of money from it.

Every merchant in San Francisco has to get goods from the captain of Yerba Buena, which is an unavoidable hurdle.

Behind these British captains is the Caribbean Fleet of the British Empire that travels across Central America. The Caribbean Fleet of the British Royal Navy can make rampant Caribbean pirates escape, and basically monopolizes regional maritime trade routes.

The current strength of the Tang Association is far from enough to challenge all of this.

Therefore, if you want to engage in commerce, you have to deal with the captains of Fangcaodi obediently and accept a level of exploitation.

If you are engaged in the gold mining industry, you will inevitably have to compete head-on with Alexander Madison.

Alexander Madison and his gang were out-and-out gold bullies. In order to safeguard the interests of the Chinese gold diggers, the armed cavalry of the Datang Society had already had several small-scale conflicts with them.

Although there hasn't been a big fight yet, the feud between the two sides has already been forged.

If the Tang Dynasty would vigorously launch a gold mining operation along the American rivers, once a gold-rich area with staggering profits is discovered, the two sides would inevitably go to war.

In the eyes of Alexander Madison and his gang, the gold mining area of ​​the American River was their territory. Anyone who dared to mine gold in a big way here would be tantamount to stealing their wealth.

Regardless of whether this bandit theory holds water, that's what Alexander Madison and his gang did.

They are like mad dogs running around in the gold mining area. Any gold prospector who discovers a gold vein, whether he is white, Chinese or Mexican, will hardly escape their murderous hands once he is discovered.

The primary goal of the armed forces prepared by the Tang Dynasty is to deal with this group of white gangsters who are rampant and wreaking havoc.

Therefore, Richard's next strategy is very simple, which is to win over the Fangcaodi forces, closely combine the interests of both parties, and form a closely cooperative interest alliance to jointly fight against the gang of local snake John Sutter and gold bully Alexander Madison.

Forging iron requires oneself to be tough. The prerequisite for cooperation is that Datang will have good armed strength and be able to rush to the front as the thugs of Fangcaodi.

The cunning British colonized the world. They always liked to use local forces to achieve their own goals, rather than doing everything themselves and rushing forward.

The British controlled almost endless material trade lines, and would never be stingy in providing materials to tempt the Tang Dynasty to join their camp.

And at the beginning of development

What the Datang Society lacks is abundant material supply channels, and both parties have a natural basis for cooperation.

Now let’s go back and talk about the third industry.

The farming and animal husbandry that operates Rose Manor and Grape Valley has become a lucrative industry with astonishing profits amid the current national gold rush craze in San Francisco.

With the influx of more and more gold diggers into San Francisco in the future, the city's population has surged from less than 30,000 to more than 300,000 in just a few years, an increase of 11 times, and the gap in agricultural and sideline products will become increasingly large.

big.

The resulting skyrocketing prices were enough for large farmers to gain astonishing profits and become the real winners in the end.

The development of these three major industries will create tens of thousands of stable job opportunities and help expand the base of Chinese influence.

Currently, in the entire San Francisco (San Francisco) area, the Chinese population is about 3,000. Including a few hundred people in Sacramento, the number is less than 4,000. How can there be tens of thousands?

To know

The large Chinese population is not in the Eastern Empire far away in the Pacific, but in Central and South America, which is close at hand, including Panama, Chile, Peru and Bolivia, and there are tens of thousands of Chinese labor groups.

After the concept of the Panama Canal was proposed, due to the huge amount of work required, astronomical amounts of money were required, and it is currently only in the blueprint and demonstration stage.

The first to be implemented was the Panama Railway invested by an American company, which is a transoceanic railway parallel to the planned Panama Canal and a railway transportation hub connecting the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

This railway was built by a large number of Chinese workers in the tropical jungles of Central America. More than 7,000 Chinese workers worked on it. Under the double oppression of tropical diseases and heavy labor, hundreds of Chinese workers died here.

Now that the Panama Railway has been built, no one cares about these Chinese workers who have contributed so much hard work to this project.

The American railway company, which once imported a large number of Chinese workers, would not spend a large sum of dollars to buy expensive tickets for the Chinese workers to return to the land of China. Instead, they would abandon them like worn-out shoes and ignore them completely.

A large number of Chinese workers were forced to find work in white manors or farms in Panama, enduring bloody exploitation, with no way to return home in sight.

In South America, in the saltpeter mines and farms in Chile, the dung-filled islands of Peru, and the plantations of Bolivia, there are no less than 80,000 to 90,000 Chinese workers working hard day and night in exchange for a meager income.

These people are Richard's first targets.

First, these overseas Chinese workers have experienced bloody exploitation, which makes it easier to gather unity and cherish the hard-won good life. They are the best source of soldiers.

Secondly, most of these overseas Chinese workers who have survived to this day are physically strong, have certain communication skills, are more likely to accept Western-style military training and the organizational concepts of the Tang Dynasty, and can quickly integrate.

The three come from the same culture and race, so it is easier to stay together in this foreign country. If you don’t rely on yourself, who can you rely on?

As long as they are given a home and a bright future, these overseas Chinese workers who have experienced various hardships will be willing to risk their lives to work with Richard. This is a point that Richard attaches special importance to.

After his career in San Francisco stabilized, Richard would try his best to start importing Chinese immigrants, with Panama and Peru being his first choices.

Needless to say, there are railway workers in Panama. Peru is the second area with a concentration of Chinese workers. It is initially estimated that there are no less than 45,000 to 50,000 people, most of whom are gathered on islands rich in guano.

Doing the hardest work and living a hard life with a meager income.

How much is guano worth?

Take Peru, for example. After Peru was established as a nation in 1821, all the islands where guano accumulated were nationalized, and a high tax of 65% to 70% of the selling price was collected.

Peru gained huge profits as a result, and guano revenue became the mainstay of the country's finances, accounting for about half of the total revenue. Peru transformed into one of the richest countries in Latin America and entered a 25-year period of prosperity, the so-called "Guano Era."

Today, Peru is in the golden age of the "guano age" and is enjoying the high profits from guano mining. The originally small population of the country is not willing to engage in hard labor at all, but wears gold and silver and sings, dances and has fun all day long.

.

Mining guano is very simple, with almost no cost except labor. Peruvians are unwilling to engage in such hard and menial work, so they imported a large number of Chinese workers from the Qing Dynasty to help them mine guano.

By ruthlessly squeezing Chinese workers, Peru gained huge revenue from guano exports, and the entire country became prosperous, but those at the bottom were these overseas Chinese workers.

more than ten years later

In the "Guano War" that broke out in the three countries of South America, an army composed of tens of thousands of Chinese miners joined the Chilean side to fight bravely and made great achievements in winning the final victory of the war. This is a story for another time.