Not all industries in San Francisco benefited from the gold rush.
On the contrary, some industries fell into depression and even were on the verge of bankruptcy during the gold rush.
The newspaper industry in San Francisco is one of them. Due to the inability to recruit employees and find readers, the newspapers in San Francisco have been suspended for more than three months.
Paper media is the channel for obtaining information in this era, and it is the only channel in California, which has a relatively closed geographical environment.
Liang Yao bought all the newspapers and books that interested him in San Francisco and brought them back to Sacramento. He also bought the local newspaper and renamed it "California Daily", and moved to Sacramento with his team.
With sufficient financial support, Liang Yao's industry, centered in Sacramento, began to grow rapidly and wildly.
Behind the blank market in California are countless opportunities, and these opportunities can bring Liang Yao a steady supply of gold and more.
Simple wooden and brick houses sprang up in the Sacramento area like mushrooms after a spring rain, replacing the original crude tents and shacks.
Liang Yao's brick factory, sawmill, restaurant, hotel, tavern, brewery and laundry brought him much more income every day than the gold he mined directly.
In addition, Liang Yao also had a black powder workshop. In view of the danger of the gunpowder workshop, Liang Yao built the black powder factory in a deserted wasteland ten miles away from Sacramento.
Limited by the current population size of Sacramento, Liang Yao's industries are not large in scale, but they can still meet the needs of Sacramento.
Liang Yao still had sufficient cash flow, but he was not in a hurry to expand production capacity to take over the larger San Francisco market. Firstly, he did not want to confront Brannan head-on for the time being, and secondly, he had other uses for the gold.
Liang Yao sat in the clean, tidy and warm study, flipping through the newspapers he had collected at his desk.
Just three months ago, he could only read these things in a simple tent, enduring the cold wind that occasionally came in from time to time.
Although the information in these old newspapers is of varying quality, and many of them are from two or three months ago, or even last year, and are not very timely, they are Liang Yao's only channel for obtaining information from the outside world.
Liang Yao carefully selected useful information from these newspapers. He was most concerned about the establishment of California and the surrounding areas.
Although it was still 11 years before the outbreak of the American Civil War, the Civil War, the internal conflicts in the United States had already reached a very acute point.
The Mexican-American War temporarily diverted domestic conflicts, but after the United States annexed Upper California, New Mexico, and Texas, internal conflicts in the United States did not ease, but became increasingly acute.
The issue of California statehood is a case in point, last December, December 1849.
Before his sudden death, former President Zachary Taylor asked Congress to admit California as a state of the United States, and said that once the time was right, New Mexico could also become a state and join the federation.
As for the core issue of whether these new states would implement slavery, Tyler decided to let these states choose for themselves
. This American hero in the Mexican-American War was not good at politics. He was elected the 12th President of the United States in large part because of his personal prestige accumulated in the Mexican-American War and his status as a national hero in the minds of the American people. His political ability was not good enough and he did not have the ability to reconcile the conflicts between the parties.
Not only did Zachary Taylor's idealistic proposal fail to pass, it also sparked heated debate in Congress. The well-dressed congressmen representing the interests of the North and the South even physically joined together in Congress for this.
Although at this time the North had far surpassed the South in many aspects such as population, economic output, railway mileage and even agriculture.
But the number of free states and slave states is still the same, 15. The independence of California, New Mexico, and Oregon will break this delicate balance. Whether these territories that have just been annexed by the United States choose to become free states or slave states.
Of course, the Yankees in the North still have the upper hand. If these territories are officially established, they are far more likely to become free states than slave states. Such a result is absolutely unacceptable to the Dixie people in the South.
The slave states in the South already held only a minority of seats in the House of Representatives, and if these territories became free states, their position in the Senate would also be precarious.
Liang Yao was very happy to see this happen. The later California officially became a state, the better it would be for him.
If nothing unexpected happens, the U.S. Congress will continue to debate this issue until September before it can reluctantly compromise. This compromise was based on the sudden death of President Zachary Miller, and the new President Fillmore used his flexible political skills to lobby all parties to reach it.
This is the famous Compromise of 1850, which won the United States at least four years of rapid economic development. During this period, California's huge gold production made a huge contribution to the rapid development of the US economy. It was the gold in the West that injected a steady stream of fresh blood into the capital market in the East and became a strong engine of economic growth in the United States.
It is now April, and Liang Yao still has five months of wild growth in California.
"Sir, I'm very sorry that we were unable to purchase horses from the Indian tribe. Several Pomo and Maidu Indian chiefs said that they would only trade with you and trust you, not us white people. I'm afraid you have to go there in person."
Liang Yao's assistant Jones reported to him nervously.
Jones was originally a trader at the New York Securities and Exchange Commission, which later became the New York Stock Exchange. He was laid off due to the economic depression in the United States at that time and became one of the thousands of gold diggers heading west.
It's a pity that he is not proficient in gold panning, but fortunately Jones finally found a job that suits him here at Liang Yao.
Jones cherishes his job very much because the income he earns as Liang Yao's assistant in one week exceeds what he earns in a year working in New York.
Liang Yao was also very troubled. After a large number of white people poured into California, they burned, killed, looted, raped and cheated the Indian tribes. It can be said that they did all kinds of evil. It would be a miracle if the Indians could trust the white people.
Nearly half of the ingredients for Liang Yao's catering business come from the two Indian tribes in the north, the Pomo and the Maidu.
Although he also hired Chinese people to open up wasteland and raise livestock, he even spent a lot of money to buy land that had just been abandoned by the descendants of early white immigrants in order to save time.
But it takes time for crops to grow from the ground, and it takes not only time but also feed for livestock to grow and be marketed.
He could also go directly to the port of San Francisco and wait for the merchant ships like Brannan did, and buy food from them. However, this supply was not stable, because those merchant ships were more willing to transport something more valuable than food to California. And the cost was higher than buying directly from the Indians.
Liang Yao had no choice but to hire white people to work for him. Most of the Chinese workers who came to California to pan for gold were illiterate and only knew how to farm and fish.
The talented Deng Wenyu might be able to deal with the Indians on his behalf, but Deng Wenyu was sent to San Francisco a month ago to assist Cai Mingsheng in managing the guesthouse and receiving Chinese workers coming to California, so he was unable to spare the time.
Liang Yao thought of Deng Wenyao and Deng Wenshun, who were working for Sartre. Perhaps they could handle the task of negotiating with the Indian tribal chief.
It is impossible for him to go to the Indian tribe every day.
"Got it." Liang Yao replied to Jones very unhappily.
Jones's ability is mediocre, not outstanding, but not bad either. He was also laid off by the New York Securities and Exchange Commission during the economic crisis, because they only need the best traders.
"Have you found the mercury mine?"
After more than three months of high-intensity mining, although the gold mines in the Sacramento area have not been exhausted, production has been decreasing and has entered a bottleneck period.
Since reaching a peak of 470 ounces of gold per day in early March, gold production has been declining day by day. Yesterday, their production was 221 ounces, less than half of the peak period.
This was even as Liang Yao continued to add staff and purchase more ore washing tanks.
Even the Boston company next door is almost surpassing them in daily gold mining output.
The ore washing trough is not a high-tech thing, and the technical threshold is very low. Other gold mining companies and teams around Sacramento have also followed their example and used ore washing troughs to mine gold.
Liang Yao no longer has a technological advantage over other gold mining companies and organizations. He now urgently needs a new gold mining technology to consolidate or even monopolize his gold mining advantage.
California is a natural place for gold mining, because California not only has abundant gold reserves that are easy to mine, but also very abundant mercury reserves!
He can't monopolize the ore washing tank, but he can monopolize the mercury mine! As long as he monopolizes the mercury mine, let alone these small gold mining companies and small groups, even if the big consortiums from the East come, he can compete with them.
There are many places in the world where gold is found, but there are not many places where gold and mercury are found at the same time! Mercury is two hundred times more rare than silver, and is no less rare than gold.
California happens to have both!
Not only that, but the reserves are also very large. To what extent is it so large? California's total mercury production accounts for 48% of the United States!
The total production in the New Almaden area is 38,000 tons, the New Adrià area is 20,000 tons, and the Sulphur Beach area is 4,700 tons.
Moreover, these places are less than 200 kilometers away from San Francisco, making mining very convenient.
Of course, the prerequisite is to explore it first.
"I'm so sorry, sir"
Before the trembling Jones could say anything, Liang Yao flew into a rage.
"You are a bunch of rubbish! I didn't hire you to listen to you say sorry to me. Everyone can say sorry. Sorry, Mr. Jones, I will give you another week. If you still haven't found the mercury mine, you'd better get out."
Liang Yao had already drawn the approximate mercury mining area on the map and narrowed the exploration scope. Unexpectedly, he still hadn't found the mercury mine after almost two months.
"Yes, sir."
Jones had no doubt that the new boss would fire him. The young new boss rarely got angry, and it was the first time he saw Liang Yao lose his temper so badly.
"Go away"
"Sir, I have some news that might interest you." Jones hesitated.
"Just tell me if you have anything to say."
Liang Yao felt a little depressed, so he stood up from his seat and wanted to go out for a walk, get some fresh air, and relax.
"Mr. Vanderbilt has opened a route from the East to California and is now in Nicaragua (a small country on the Isthmus of Central America). According to reliable information, Mr. Vanderbilt will make a brief visit to California. I think this information will be useful to you." Jones hesitated for a long time and finally said what he wanted to say.
"Vanderbilt? You mean the New York shipping magnate Vanderbilt? Cornelius Vanderbilt, the famous New York shipping magnate?"
Liang Yao's eyes lit up; this name was not unfamiliar to him.
A business legend in the United States in the 19th century, he started from scratch with $100 and became a tycoon in American shipping, railroads, and finance. When he died, the fortune he left behind accounted for 1.1% of the US GDP that year, more than twice that of Bill Gates.
At this time, the other two legendary business tycoons in the 19th century, the oil tycoon Rockefeller, was still an eleven-year-old kid, and the steel tycoon Carnegie was still working as a messenger for a telegraph company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Only Vanderbilt had already become famous and successful.
"A friend of mine works for Mr. Vanderbilt, and he said Vanderbilt is very interested in California." Jones did not leave, but stood there and continued.
"Your information is very valuable." Liang Yao knew what Jones was waiting for and gave Jones 50 ounces of gold as a reward.