Chapter 617 Oh, gold!

Chapter 617 Oh, gold!

"Hey, what is this?

Gold!

Yellow, shining, precious gold!

No, gods, I am not an idle believer; I only want you to give me some roots!

This thing, just a little bit, can turn black into white, ugly into beautiful, wrong into right, humble into noble, old into young, coward into brave. "

——Shakespeare's "Timon of Athens"

The charm of money is indeed unstoppable. Even after the war, California's population is still growing explosively, from 450,000 before the war to 500,000, growing at a rapid rate of 10% per year.

How fast is this? Take India, which is well known to modern people, as an example. Its population growth rate is only 0.8%, while the current California area is 12.5 times that.

If it develops at this rate, California will have a population of 3.7 million in 20 years, but that is almost impossible, because the gold mines will run out sooner or later. Without gold, this land will no longer have such great charm. .

Although the alchemy technology of the Austrian Empire at this time was far beyond the level of the same period in history, and the utilization rate was also constantly improving, it is an indisputable fact that gold mines are non-renewable resources.

Moreover, in the future, the land managed by Omer United Development Company will not be limited to California. In fact, Franz is currently studying how to develop land in Nevada.

However, unlike California's beautiful natural environment, Nevada's climate is hot and arid, with high temperatures in summer and cold winters, which can be described as "two distinct seasons."

Nevada's terrain is complex and diverse, including mountains, deserts, plateaus, basins, and canyons. In addition to the common wild wolves and black bears, local creatures also include the Nevada brown spider and the Nevada burnt-tailed scorpion, which are unique local products.

Not to mention the mysterious Bigfoot and brain-eating insects. If the United States hadn’t conducted hundreds of nuclear tests in Nevada in later generations, God knows what kind of monsters could be found in it.

The local Shoshone people said that Chernobyl was weaker than anything else, and the nuclear radiation the local area endured was 48 times that of Hiroshima.

Franz was naturally unwilling to waste precious German immigrants by colonizing such a poor and poor place. In fact, the Indians are the most suitable for the local area and have the highest adaptability.

But these guys are weak in both development and resource exploration. In addition, there is a very high chance of rebellion, or even uniting with local Indians and Americans to attack the O-Mex joint development company.

Therefore, Franz needed a group of "loyal and reliable" and "hard-working" colonial advance teams. This is not just for California's sake. In fact, Austria's colonies are still very short of people.

After all, the Irish have been enslaved by the British for a long time, and it is inevitable that some crazy people will emerge. The colony can have Irish people, but the proportion should not be too high, let alone allow it to become a large gathering place.

In fact, the United States encountered many problems when assimilating the Irish, one of which was the large number of gangs and mobs.

Later generations only knew about the Italian Mafia in black clothes and black hats holding Thomson, but they did not know about the Irish gangsters who were countless times more terrifying.

Although the Italian Mafia can easily defeat the Irish in terms of professional skills, the latter has stronger concealment and more ambitious goals than the former.

In fact, you can put it in a simpler way, that is, the Italian Mafia cares about money, while the Irish Mafia cares more about power.

While the Italians were still bleeding in the streets, the Irish had quietly mastered a more effective weapon - power.

With the rapid development of urbanization in the United States, no president can keep up with the infrastructure and management system.

This created a large power vacuum, and Irish gangs spontaneously became the underground bosses of these emerging cities.

Historically, it was called U BOSS, literally translated as underground boss, but Franz felt that it would be more appropriate to translate it into underground mayor.

This is well reflected in the American TV series "The Mayor of Kingston" starring Hawkeye St. Zelian Corky. Although the plot is very hot, it is still a story about Huang Shilang's whitewashing, and even the whitewashing story. I don’t even bother to wash it, but I just tell you that this is how the world should be.

This political gang seems to have alleviated local conflicts to a certain extent and established an order "suitable" for the local area.

However, these guys have nothing to do with good people, because they themselves are the source of chaos.

Although the Irish people during the Great Famine were very pitiful, it would be okay if Franz exchanged the safety and happiness of his people for it. After all, indifference in this world can solve 99% of the problems. , do not copy them, but believe that the world is beautiful and the future is bright).

In fact, apart from Franz looking for labor, Americans are not idle either.

Historically, in 1845, Asa Whitney proposed to the U.S. Congress to build a railroad across the North American continent, so many American elites discussed building a railroad.

But now that the Mexican-American War had failed, and California and Nevada were no longer in American hands, Franz felt that certain things might never happen again.

But the reality is that Americans still intend to build a transcontinental railway, but it will no longer pass through Nevada and California, but directly to Oregon.

The reason is very strange, that is, the American whaling industry needs this railway, and at the same time, more than 100,000 Americans are blocked from colonization by less than 2,000 British people. This is really unbearable.

The two main slogans of James Polk's presidential campaign were to fight slavery and "retake" Oregon.

He always showed himself as a tough guy, and even said to the British, "If we want 49 degrees north latitude, we still need war."

Although the United States won the Mexican-American War, the losses were incredibly high, and as the army was disbanded, yellow fever began to spread across the country, killing too many people to count.

The army of the northern factory owners was completely defeated in the war. On the other hand, the army of the southern slave owners did not suffer much losses because they were always on guard against the French.

As a result of this ebb and flow, the voice of the southern slave owners became stronger, and some even claimed that they had invited the French, so that the United States could turn the crisis around.

However, there is a lot of controversy on this point, because the generals of the Northern Army insist that Austria and Mexico are at the end of their war effort, and the United States can achieve final victory without the French, and there is no need to give away half of the fruits of victory.

Both sides hold their own opinions, but one thing is certain, that is, the power of the South was stronger at this time, so Polk would never dare to initiate slavery.

Historically, Polk did not "point his finger" at slavery itself, although Democrats have always claimed.

“James Polk was a lifelong fighter for democracy and freedom, a capable, honest man who could not be bought.”

But in reality he always wanted them to be "young, effective" and cheap.