1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 332 An Unhappy Year

Fillmore, who was successfully re-elected, reciprocated, and soon submitted the "Pacific Railway Bill" to Congress, and tried his best to promote the smooth passage of the bill.

After the "Pacific Railroad Bill" was passed by Congress, Liang Yao immediately sent a telegram to the headquarters of the Bank of America in San Francisco, instructing the Bank of America to provide $300 million in funds to the California Railway Company to start this super project. Construction is planned to begin.

The Atlantic Railroad in the east also received $100 million from the New York branch of the Bank of America to assist Vanderbilt's railroad in the construction of the eastern section of the Pacific Railroad.

Knowing that Congress had passed the "Pacific Railroad Bill", Vanderbilt was very excited, and finally he could do a big job.

After seeing the documents of the "Pacific Railroad Bill" with his own eyes, Vanderbilt quickly raised 200 million US dollars from Wall Street, and at the same time came to Liang Yao, hoping that Liang Yao could find a way to provide him with more railroad workers. Said to be the Chinese laborers who built the railway.

"This is a huge project, and I need more labor, to be precise, more hardworking Chinese labor." Vanderbilt said.

"How much do you need?" Liang Yao poured a glass of wine for Vanderbilt.

In the course of widening the Nicaragua Canal, he provided labor for Vanderbilt. Vanderbilt was kind, and the wages provided to Chinese laborers were three-quarters of that of white laborers.

"Three thousand." Vanderbilt held out three fingers.

"In order to cooperate with your project, I have specially recruited people from major railway companies to form the Pacific Railway Company to be responsible for the construction of the Pacific Railway, but there is still a gap of [-] workers. The gap of [-] workers, you no matter what You have to help me find a way.”

Seeing Vanderbilt's rogue face, Liang Yao felt a little amused: "This is our common engineering project. I can help you figure out the labor problem, but I can't get [-] people together for you at once. They can only be delivered to you in batches."

"There are also new types of explosives. I need a large amount of new types of explosives. I heard that the efficiency of this type of explosives in mining and building roads is several times that of black powder explosives." Vanderbilt continued to speak loudly.

"This kind of explosive is too dangerous, and it is easy to explode during transportation." Liang Yao shook his head and said.

A week ago, he received a telegram from Nobel. Nobel has successfully produced a relatively safe diatomite explosive in the laboratory, that is, solid nitroglycerin explosive, and is now looking for an efficient and safe detonation method.

In a short time, Liang Yao still had to use liquid nitroglycerin explosives, which had a relatively high safety hazard.

Using nitroglycerin in California is dangerous, let alone transporting nitroglycerin long distances east.

The fastest route from California to the eastern United States: the Nicaragua route, both by water and by land.

During the transportation process, in addition to loading and unloading at the starting point and destination, loading and unloading must also be carried out in Nicaragua, which undoubtedly increases safety hazards.

If something goes wrong midway, the global shipping group responsible for the transportation will not only lose the precious transport ship, but also bear the casualties, which is unacceptable to Liang Yao.

This is also the reason why Liang Yao has been slow to sell nitroglycerin explosives to the outside world.

"Efficiency is more important than safety," Vanderbilt said grimly.

Liang Yao paced back and forth in the room. After thinking for a long time, he finally said: "It is too risky to transport nitroglycerin explosives from California, but I can open an explosives factory in the mining area, which is responsible for producing nitroglycerin explosives for the Pacific Railway Company to build roads." use."

As soon as Liang Yao finished speaking, Kony walked in hastily and said to Liang Yao, "Sir, Mr. President is looking for you and asks you to meet him in Washington."

"Understood." Liang Yao nodded and said.

Fillmore sent a special telegram asking Liang Yao to go to Washington to meet him, and Liang Yao couldn't refuse, the president still had to give him face.

Liang Yao put down what he was doing and took the train to Washington to meet Fillmore.

Liang Yao came to the Oval Office of the President in the White House, Fillmore signaled his assistant to go out and closed the door of the office.

Only Liang Yao and Fillmore were left in Nuo Da's presidential office.

This time, Fillmore did not beat around the bush, but cut straight to the point, directly explaining the purpose of calling Liang Yao to the White House: "You are an expert on Eastern issues, and you are the person who knows Asia best in America. I am here to consult you. You something about the Far East to solve our American Eastern problems."

After finishing speaking, Fillmore pointed to the chair beside Liang Yao, motioning Liang Yao to sit down.

"I wonder what questions Mr. President wants to ask?" Liang Yao asked after taking his seat.

"China."

Fillmore swiped the telegram on his desk to Liang Yao.

"In March, the anti-government armed forces of the Qing Dynasty occupied Jiangning, an important city in the south, and made this city their capital. As far as I know, this anti-government armed forces were only established in 3. The capture of such an important city in just two years means that this new government will replace the Qing government and become the new government of China.

If so, will they recognize the treaty signed between the Qing government and us.I want to know which side to support is more in our American interests in China. "

This year is destined to be a year of unrest. Not only is Europe not peaceful, the Near East is not peaceful, the Middle East is not peaceful, and even the Far East is not peaceful.

Tsarist Russia and the Ottoman Empire were about to go to war, and most American politicians, including Fillmore, could see it.

But they didn't understand the situation in the Far East. Fillmore wanted to hear Liang Yao's opinion on this.

The telegraph companies in the United States are basically private companies, and many confidential government information is transmitted through these telegraph companies.

The news that the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom contributed to Jiangning, that is, Nanjing, and established its capital in Nanjing, was transmitted from California to Washington through Liang Yao's telegraph company.

Because there is only one telegraph line from the west coast to the east, and this line was built by Liang Yao at the beginning.

Liang Yao had already read this telegram before it was placed in Fillmore's office.

The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom captured Nanjing and changed its name to Tianjing. This happened in March, and now it is June. At this moment, Lin Fengxiang and Li Kaifang’s Northern Expeditionary Army has already taken the capital of Yandu and headed straight for the lair of Qing Yao. , wanting to capture alive the Emperor Xianfeng who is the head of the Qing Yaoyao.

The treaties that Fillmore mentioned that the Qing government had signed with the United States were not only the relatively equal Qing-American Free Immigration Treaty signed by the two countries in 1852, but also July 1844, immediately following the signing of the British Treaty of Nanking. , the "Five Ports Trade Charter: Customs Tariffs" signed in Wangha Village, Macau, is the unequal treaty of the "Wangha Treaty".

In addition to not obtaining the land cession and indemnity rights that the British side obtained in the "Nanjing Treaty" in this treaty, the U.S. side also obtained all other rights and interests.

Because the articles of the "Wang-Hai Treaty" in the United States were more complete and detailed, in October of that year, France also signed the "Whampoa Treaty" with the Qing government using the "Wang-Xia Treaty" as a template.

Fillmore attaches as much importance to the "Wangxia Treaty" as the "Long-Term Treaty" and the "U.S.-Japan Treaty of Goodwill" signed with the Tokugawa Shogunate last year.

"Support the Qing Dynasty. China is a secular country. The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is a group of fanatical religious elements with romantic fantasies. It is impossible to replace the Qing government."

Liang Yao gave Fillmore a very clear answer.

He didn't like the Qing Dynasty, but he didn't like the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom either.

As the leader of the Peasant Uprising Army, Hong Xiuquan was not a man of great talent and strategy like Zhu Yuanzhang, but a leader of a cult with a false name, and he had no air of emperor.

Even if Hong Xiuquan had one tenth of Zhu Yuanzhang's ability, Liang Yao was willing to raise a sum of money to invest in Hong Xiuquan.

What is the future of a regime that relies on the god of dance and the possession of the heavenly father and brother to make decisions?

From the riots in 1851 to the collapse of the regime in 1864, it is already very clear that no Jinshi defected to the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom regime.

It shows that the ruling class of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom did not know that they had to rely on the landlords and gentry to rule the country after the successful uprising.

In the six years before Zhu Yuanzhang became king of Wu, he already had Jinshi of the Yuan Dynasty represented by Liu Bowen serving him, and won the support of the landlords and gentry in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and assisted him in establishing a stable ruling base in Jiangsu and Zhejiang. National foundation.

Liang Yao had no intention of denying the justice of the peasants in the Taiping Army who resisted the Qing government. He just despised most of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's ignorant and pleasure-seeking leaders.

As for the few sober leaders within the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, they are just poor funeral objects.

Supporting the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom is not as good as supporting a local warlord.

Furthermore, before a local warlord capable of unifying the whole country appeared in China, Liang Yao still hoped that the regime of the Qing government could exist.

If the Qing government collapsed ahead of schedule, with the greed of Tsarist Russia, the future of China's northern territories would be unpredictable. This was not the situation Liang Yao wanted to see.

Of course, choosing to side with the Qing government between the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Qing government is also in the practical interests of the United States, because the Qing government recognizes the "Treaty of Wangxia", and Liang Yao needs to continuously obtain immigrants from China to expand his California base.

"I thought you would talk to me about the details and situation in China." Fillmore laughed.

"I can't finish talking about China's affairs in three days and three nights. I think you have just been re-elected, and you still have a lot of things to deal with. You don't have such ample time." Liang Yao replied, "What you need is an indirect and reliable The answer serves as a reference."

"I see." Fillmore nodded, and then talked about the Japanese issue, "The US Minister to Japan Townsend Harris, and Colonel Deng Yan, the commander-in-chief of the US Nagasaki Garrison, also called. After us, the US, Warships from Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Russia sailed into Edo Bay one after another, demanding the signing of a trade treaty, and asking me for instructions on how to deal with this matter.”

(End of this chapter)