1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 650: The people in the border areas will suffer more

The train passed through the mountains and arrived in Denver. The terrain began to gradually become flat and the population suddenly became dense.

The last time Liang Yao arrived in Denver was in 1859. At that time, Denver was still the largest city in Colorado with a population of less than .

After more than two years of immigration and development, Denver is now a large settlement with a population of over 50,000. Even by the most stringent California standards, Denver can meet the standards of a medium-sized city.

Along the way, the only settlement with a population of over 10,000 along the Pacific Railway was Provo, thousands of miles away. This shows how harsh the climate is and how sparsely populated the Rocky Mountains are.

Since Liang Yao was not here specifically to inspect the development of border areas, he had no plans to stay in Denver.

The person in charge of immigration and settlement work in border areas is Liang Yao's third uncle Liang Shaoyu. The Border Immigration Bureau is located in the relatively centrally located Denver, coordinating immigration resettlement work in Colorado, Nebraska and Kansas.

When Liang Shaoyu learned that Liang Yao had no plans to stay in Denver, he temporarily handed over the work to his deputy Pan Baolin, and he boarded the presidential train to report to Liang Yao on the development of the border areas.

"The railway from Denver to Tianhu City has been completed and opened to traffic. The development of Tianhu City is much better than that of Denver. Mr. President, would you like to move to Tianhu City to guide the work?" Liang Shaoyu smiled brightly.

Thanks to the immigration work experience accumulated in Utah, the war in the Qing Dynasty, the outbreak of the Eastern Civil War, and the policy tilt of the American Republic, Liang Shaoyu's immigration work started very smoothly.

In the frontier areas under the actual control of the American Republic, the top military official is Kruger, and the top civil official is actually him, the director of the Frontier Immigration Bureau, who is responsible for immigration to the frontier. In the Qing Dynasty, his current position is a proper frontier official.

Tianhu City is the former Fort Collins, the second largest settlement in Colorado. After a large influx of Han people, it was renamed Tianhu City because there was a large lake on the high mountains west of the city, which seemed to be suspended in the sky.

"I have military duties to attend to. I'll see when I get back." Liang Yao said with a smile. There was no need to beat around the bush in front of Liang Shaoyu. "Is there any difficulty in Third Uncle's work?"

"Generally speaking, the immigration work is going relatively smoothly, but there are also difficulties." Liang Shaoyu handed the work report and map that he had prepared long ago to Liang Yao for him to read.

"In the past two years, the Border Resettlement Bureau has resettled no fewer than 70 immigrants in no fewer than 500 settlements of varying sizes, including 35 in western Nebraska, 25 in Colorado, and 10 in western Kansas.

As for people, there is no shortage. As for the money and food needed to settle the new immigrants, the central government’s quarterly allocation, plus the previously confiscated Mormon properties, is enough. The only thing that is tight is transportation capacity.”

Liang Yao buried his head and carefully read the immigration work report provided by Liang Shaoyu. The report provided by Liang Shaoyu was very detailed, including the source composition of the immigrants, the population of the settlements, the persons in charge, and the locations of the settlements on the map.

There are three main sources of immigrants for the Frontier Immigration Bureau. The largest source is naturally the Han people who arrived from the west coast, followed by immigrants from the eastern region to escape the war, and finally the Indian aborigines who surrendered.

For example, the Cheyenne tribe north of Tianhu City, the Immigration Bureau even helped them build a city on the spot, taught them farming and manufacturing, and expelled the federal forces responsible for clearing out the Indians nearby, allowing them to live a relatively stable settled life.

"Capacity? Do you mean the capacity of the Pacific Railway?" Liang Yao asked while flipping through the immigration work report provided by Liang Shaoyu. "That's right." Liang Shaoyu nodded. "The border areas cannot produce many things by themselves, and materials are in short supply. The prices here are much higher than those in the west coast. The new immigrants who just came from the Qing Dynasty can still tolerate it. After all, their requirements are not high. They just want to have a meal and not starve to death.

But the demands of the old immigrants on the west coast and the immigrants in the east were not just to satisfy their food rations. If there were insufficient materials, industry and commerce would be sluggish, and if industry and commerce were sluggish, subsequent tax revenues would be difficult to guarantee.

Fortunately, the current immigrants in the border areas are mainly new immigrants from the Qing Dynasty. These people are easy to control, and we can temporarily maintain the stability of the border new areas. But I think this kind of stability is not what you want. What you want is the prosperity and stability of the West Coast. "

Different immigrant groups have different needs and purposes. For the newly arrived Qing Dynasty immigrants, those who can maintain a half-full body and not starve to death are considered prosperous. They leave their homes and travel across the ocean for only one purpose, which is to survive. The needs of these people are naturally the easiest to meet.

It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but it is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. For those old immigrants from the West Coast who have immigrated to America for some time, their purpose of choosing to come to the central frontier area is not just to meet the most basic physiological needs, but they have higher needs.

If the needs of these old money on the West Coast cannot be met in the long term, these people will sooner or later return to the West Coast.

More people are staying in the small west coast area and competing with each other. This is definitely not what Liang Yao wants to see.

It has to be said that Liang Shaoyu's horizons have been broadened a lot since he came to America. He has been able to realize more deeply that the American Republic is a country based on industry and commerce, and agriculture is only the most basic part of the Republic's economy.

"No one knows me better than my third uncle. I understand the situation you mentioned, but the border issues in the border areas are the most urgent problem to be solved. The transportation capacity of the Pacific Railway still needs to be used by the army first." Liang Yao said helplessly, "Let the small number of people in the border areas suffer a little bit, and once the border issues are resolved, life will soon get better."

The mode of transportation with the largest capacity and the lowest cost is undoubtedly water transportation, even in the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the central region is blocked by the Rocky Mountains and the endless Cordillera Mountains. There are many intermittent small and medium-sized rivers in between, but there is no large river that can directly connect the west coast region and the central border region.

There is only one major transportation artery connecting the West Coast to the central frontier region, the Pacific Railway. Although the railway has high transportation efficiency, its transportation capacity is very limited. If the military occupies more transportation capacity, there will naturally be less transportation capacity available for people's livelihood.

This is also the reason why Liang Yao stopped sending more troops to North Platte after recruiting the militia from West Mexico and Utah Territory. If he continued to send more troops, the logistics would not be able to supply them, and the additional troops would not only fail to exert their due combat effectiveness, but would become a burden instead.

Liang Yao was not just making empty promises. He was now giving priority to the military in using the precious transportation capacity so that this capacity could be freed up after resolving the border threat in the central region.

"If a war breaks out, is there a possibility of it becoming a protracted war?" Liang Shaoyu had been holding this question in his mind for a long time. After hesitating for a long time, he decided to throw this question out so that he could have a better idea of ​​the situation.

(End of this chapter)