1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 254
The demonstration was just a small episode for Liang Yao, he didn't take it seriously at all.

It's just a small group of factory owners who don't want to pay fines are making trouble. It can't cause too much trouble, and it's not California workers who are on strike.

Liang Yao continued to listen to Taoyuan and exchange experiences with a group of mechanics, engineers and inventors.

The high-end talents poached from the east have arrived in San Francisco one after another, and some of the inventors brought their own inventions and came here to seek investment from Liang Yao.

Liang Yao's reputation in the invention world is very high now, not only because he set up the Liang Yao Invention Award with 100 million US dollars, but also inventors in the American invention world also recognize Liang Yao's inventive ability.

Seeing Liang Yao as an inventor greatly shortened the distance between Liang Yao and these inventors.

The new gadgets invented by these inventors will incubate many new industries in California, and Liang Yao attaches great importance to the arrival of these inventors.

Pinkerton was very professional, and the California intelligence agency won the first battle.

The Intelligence Bureau easily obtained evidence from the organizers and small leaders of the demonstrations that the malicious organizations of the factory owners instigated the demonstrations.

Faced with overwhelming evidence and the pressure from banks to cut off their loans, those disobedient factory owners quickly succumbed.

Honestly paid double the fine.

The factory owners who did not cause trouble were very grateful. Seeing those factory owners who made trouble pay double fines, they felt very happy. They were very glad that they had made a wise choice and saved a lot of money.

Of course, the happiest thing is the Ministry of Finance. The fine of 250 million US dollars collected this time makes the treasury of California finance suddenly become full.

Finance Minister Deng Wenyu laughed from ear to ear when he saw the fines collected.

Faced with the education subsidy that Minister of Education Pierman came to ask for, he waved his hand happily and approved the budget of the Ministry of Education.

Pearlman also left the Ministry of Education contentedly.

At this time, Liang Yao's Tingtao Garden has become an industrial exhibition venue.

Liang Yao held an inventor salon in Tingtao Garden.

There are all kinds of machinery and industrial equipment in the park. These machinery and equipment, especially machine tools, represent the top level of American industry in the mid-19th century.

The middle of the 19th century was the golden age of talents in the United States.

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The machine tools in the United States are very advanced in the world, and they are not far behind the United Kingdom.

British factories had a lot of machinery left over from the first industrial revolution, and by the middle of the 19th century, these old machines had become a burden.

However, it costs a lot of pounds to replace the factory equipment. Therefore, although many factory owners and capitalists in the UK know that the equipment in their factories is outdated, they are reluctant to pay for the replacement and continue to make do with it.

Anyway, there is no shortage of markets in Great Britain, and the colonies can always dump what is produced.

The United States does not have such a burden, and of course it does not have as many colonial markets as Great Britain, so various processing machine tools and milling machines have sprung up like mushrooms after rain.

Liang Yao stood in front of a copy engraving machine, to be precise, it was a copy engraving machine for carving gun stocks.

Seeing this profiling engraving machine reminded Liang Yao of the machines used to engrave keys on the street in later generations.

The principle of the two is the same, but the profiling engraving machine of this era is rougher and bigger.

Driven by the steam engine, the engraving machine started slowly. With the operation of the engraving machine, a log was slowly formed under the engraving of the engraving machine, gradually taking on the shape of a gun stock.

After a while, the butt was formed. Walter took sandpaper to polish the butt a little bit. After removing the burrs on the butt, he compared it with his handmade one.

Walter couldn't help admiring that the two gun stocks were almost the same.

When Walter was making the Walter M1852 prototype gun, the buttstocks were all handmade by himself, although his carpentry was not bad, comparable to that of an old carpenter.

But it takes at least half a day to make a qualified gun stock, and the efficiency is definitely not as good as that of a machine.

"Mr. Blanchard, your engraving machine is really powerful! The efficiency is at least 100 times that of manual work!"

Brand just laughed and said: "This machine is a machine tool that I fiddled with when I improved the equipment for the Springfield Armory more than ten years ago. Of course, some improvements have been made now, and the efficiency is much higher. .

At that time Springfield Armory was too slow to make butts to fill orders in time. Since using my machine, Springfield Armory no longer has to worry about missing orders. "

With that said, Blanchard promoted his machine to Liang Yao.

"Mr. Liang, I heard that you have an arsenal in Sacramento. I think my machine will be useful in your arsenal. How about it? Buy it! You can buy it for only $2 it!"

"I'll spend $5. Not only do I want to buy it, but I also want to buy its patent. Have you brought the blueprint?" Liang Yao asked.

Blanchard didn't expect Liang Yao's appetite to be so big, and then the lion opened his mouth and said, "Here, if you bring the patent, $5 is not enough, at least $10."

"Up to $7. Apart from me, I'm afraid there won't be any arsenal in the United States that will buy your machine together with the patent, otherwise you wouldn't have traveled all the way to California with the machine." Liang Yao began to bargain.

For a poor inventor like Walter, and an inventor like Nobel who has not yet become famous, Liang Yao can think of ways to fool them into his own use.

But an inventor like Blanchard, who has a successful career and is already famous, will not be willing to be inferior to others.

At the beginning, the Springfield Armory wanted to hire Blanchard, but Blanchard refused. In the end, he just accepted the invitation of the Springfield Armory and agreed to design and improve the machine for the arsenal.

But it is also a good choice to be able to cooperate.

"make a deal!"

Blanchard gritted his teeth and agreed with a look of being at a disadvantage.

After the deal was completed, Blanchard sold the barrel drilling machine and rifling machine to Liang Yao, planning to give Liang Yao a full set of services.

"Mr. Liang, look at my barrel drill and rifle again."

After watching Blanchard's barrel drilling machine and rifling machine, Liang Yao shook his head again and again.

He just said to a young man on the side: "Howe, show Mr. Blanchard our barrel drilling machine and rifle."

Speaking of young people, Frederick Webster Howe, who just turned 30 this year, is 9 years older than Liang Yao.

Although still young, Howe had achieved considerable success, inventing profiling machines, deep-hole drills, and rifling machines in his early 20s.

Some scholars in later generations believed that Howe's invention of the profiling machine was the beginning of the American machinery manufacturing industry catching up with Britain.

Howe showed Blanchard its barrel drilling and rifling machines, which Howe had designed and built during his tenure as director of the Robbins-Lawrence factory.

The Robbins-Lawrence factory was a factory in the United States that designed and manufactured machine tools, but the Robbins-Lawrence factory no longer exists.

After the Robbins-Lawrence plant was acquired by the American Group, it merged with several other acquired machinery companies, including the Bridgeport Machinery Company, which made sewing machines, to form a large machinery company: General Machinery Company.

Howe served as the technical director and vice president of the new General Machinery Company, followed the factory equipment and the original team, and came to California with Liang Yao's fleet.

General Machinery Company is now also a company that Liang Yao focuses on cultivating.

After seeing Howe demonstrate a barrel drill and rifle in action, Blanchard felt humbled.

"Your barrel drilling machine and rifling machine are indeed better than mine, but such a good machine, why haven't I heard of it before?"

"This is the latest machine, the first prototype barrel drilling machine and the first rifling machine were built at the Robbins-Lawrence factory in February 1851 and sent to the Crystal Palace in London for the first World's Fair.

These two days are the improved machines after the Robbins-Lawrence factory was acquired by the American Group, and there is only one in the United States. Of course, you have never seen it. Howe explained to Blanchard very modestly.

Blanchard stared at Hao for a long time, looked at Hao's young face, and couldn't help sighing: "Young people are awesome, now you have Mr. Liang's help, your future is limitless, and you must be better than me, an old man."

"Senior will always be my senior, and I was my idol when I was a child. It is an honor for me to see him in California today." Howe said very modestly.

"The improvement of the barrel drilling machine and rifling machine is not the credit of me alone, it is the credit of all the R & D personnel of the General Machinery R & D team, especially my two new apprentices, Pratt and Whitney, their ability He is no worse than my master, and has provided many constructive suggestions for improving the machine tool."

Blanchard patted Hao on the shoulder very appreciatively, said a few words of encouragement to Hao, and then said to Liang Yao: "Mr. Where are the lads, I want to meet these two lads."

Liang Yao was noncommittal, looking at the inventors, engineers, and mechanics who were chatting and chatting in the manor, he really had the feeling that all American talents were in my pocket.

Although many of these talents were poached from various companies at a high price, he felt that the money was well spent.

Liang Yao waved to the young man who was fiddling with a milling machine and shouted, "Platt, Whitney, Mr. Blanchard wants to see you."

Pratt and Whitney, who were inseparable, came over together and said hello to Blanchard.

Pratt and Whitney were recruited by Liang Yao from Colt.

As for why Colt was not bought directly, the reason is also very simple.

One is that Samuel Colt does not sell it himself, and the other is that Colt is no longer a small company at this time.

Colt has 1500 employees in Hartford, Connecticut alone, providing 1500 local jobs.

Colt Company is a company that the Connecticut government focuses on. After learning that Liang Yao bought the factory, the Connecticut government also came forward to lobby Colt to block the acquisition.

A similar situation was encountered with the acquisition of the Robbins-Lawrence plant in Vermont.

In order to successfully acquire the Robbins-Lawrence factory, Liang Yao finally thought of a way to transfer part of the production capacity of the Boston Butterfly Sewing Machine Factory to Vermont and open a branch factory in Vermont to provide local jobs and contribute tax revenue.

The Vermont state government did not object to the acquisition.

In this era, local trade protectionism prevails in the United States, and politicians in each state are very shrewd.

But it's all worth it.

The names of Pratt and Whitney may be unfamiliar to many people, but when it comes to the name Pratt & Whitney, everyone will not be unfamiliar.

The company was founded by Pratt and Whitney in 1865.

After the company was reorganized into a group company in 1925, the aero-engines produced by the Pratt & Whitney Group were world-renowned.

(End of this chapter)