1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 656: Few Responses

"These country bumpkins from the central region are so shameless!" The hot-tempered Sartre walked into Liang Yao's office cursing and complained to Liang Yao.

"We sent out 150 invitations, but only 36 people were willing to come to North Platte to attend the party. Among them, 10 were Chinese."

In order to win over the local elites and merchants in the central border areas, Liang Yao asked Sartre to send invitations to these local elites and merchants, inviting them to gather in North Platte. Unexpectedly, few responded.

Liang Yao was not as angry as Sartre. He had expected this result.

His roots are in the West Coast region, and it has only been in the past three years that he has extended his tentacles into the central Great Plains. During these three years, the focus of his operations in the central frontier region has been on the North Platte River Valley, and his efforts in the Great Plains east of the valley have been very limited.

As for economic ties, with the pitiful transportation capacity of the Pacific Railway, it could only barely maintain the operation of the areas along the line and the Platte River Valley, and was unable to project influence to other areas.

In terms of economic ties, the ties between villages and towns in the central border areas and the Northern Federation are closer. After all, the Northern Federation has a geographical advantage.

Liang Yao's intention of asking Sartre to send invitations to these people was more to test their attitudes. He did not expect to mobilize the manpower and material resources of the central border areas for his use now.

"At least thirty-six people believe us." Liang Yao piled the processed documents on his right hand side and motioned Sartre to sit down and talk.

"You are quite open-minded." Sartre took the tea from Chase. "The land in the central border area is not all unowned. If we want to implement our national policy in these places, we can't avoid these people."

"I know." Liang Yao said.

"The new recruits of the Northern Confederacy have very poor military discipline. Although McClellan is very good at organizing and training mobilized soldiers, he is still too inexperienced and lacks reputation to completely suppress the officers and soldiers from various states under his command. These country bumpkins in the Central Region have long been complaining about this. They are unwilling to keep the appointment, and may not be wholeheartedly on the side of the Northern Confederacy, but are just waiting and watching."

The poor discipline of the US military is a chronic disease that has not been cured in the 21st century, not to mention that it is now the middle of the 19th century, an era when the concept of state is stronger than the concept of nation. It was not until the end of this war that Americans truly established their initial concept of nation.

The second batch of mobilized soldiers under McClellan mainly came from the old northeastern states such as New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. People in these areas originally looked down on the country bumpkins in the central frontier areas.

These people dare not do anything reckless in the densely populated and well-developed northeastern region, but when they come to the sparsely populated central border region where a town can hardly find a few policemen, they can be said to have completely let themselves go. It is normal to borrow something from a fellow villager and to care for the female family members of a fellow villager.

As for the local civilian armed forces in the border areas, it is okay to let them bully the Indians. Faced with the serious modern state violence machine, the local civilian local armed forces dared to be angry but did not dare to speak out.

At the beginning of the war, the North lacked veteran generals with enough reputation to convince the people. No Northern general except Scott dared to guarantee that he could suppress the generals under his command.

"Wait and see?" Sartre put down his teacup. After hearing what Liang Yao said, he was not so annoyed. "The discipline of the Northern Army is indeed poor. Omaha has been tossed around by them and is almost an empty city."

"The fact that thirty-six people came is enough to prove the problem." Liang Yao said, "Take advantage of this banquet to find out what they are saying and write down their names first."

After saying that, Liang Yao sent Sartre away and checked the telegrams between Mason and McClellan.

In this era, there was no concept of military telegraph network, let alone the awareness of encrypted messages. This was the same in the North and the South. Both sides used the method of plain text transmission to communicate and lacked the awareness of confidentiality. The West was the outlier in using encrypted transmission.

The North had frequent leaks throughout the war. In addition to the fact that there were many sympathizers in the North who actively provided confidential information to the South, the lack of confidentiality was also an important reason. Even a teenage temporary worker at the post office could participate in the deciphering of the North's confidential telegrams.

Therefore, the content of the telegram between Mason and McClellan did not even require the step of deciphering. Not to mention Liang Yao, even the ordinary staff of the North Platte Post Office knew that the two Union generals were now at odds.

Mason and McClellan were at odds, and this might be exploited.

After lunch, Liang Yao went for a walk along the Platte River.

The main urban area of ​​North Platte is located between the South Platte River and the North Platte River. The two rivers meet in the east of the city of North Platte. The North and South Platte Rivers are the natural barriers of North Platte, shaping this important frontier town that is easy to defend and difficult to attack.

Although this place has a geographical advantage and is easy to defend but difficult to attack, Liang Yao really hopes that in three months, North Platte will no longer be an important frontier town.

North Platte is not only an important frontier town at present, but also the shipping center of the central frontier region. The only shipyard in the central frontier region capable of manufacturing steamships is located in the north of the city.

The North Platte Shipyard was working in three shifts as workers were overhauling a steamship requisitioned by the military.

This battle concerned the fate of the country, so Liang Yao did not hold back and took out almost all the assets he could.

The regular troops include three infantry brigades, the newly expanded artillery brigade, the cavalry brigade, the machine gun regiment, the rocket regiment, and the local militia who come to assist in the battle. The total number of troops participating in the war is more than 60,000.

Relying solely on railways and mules and horses would certainly not be able to meet the logistical supply needs of more than 60,000 people, so Liang Yao ordered the requisition of almost all nearby steamships.

Liang Yao walked into the shipyard and took a tour. He was pleased to find that more than 80% of the workers in the shipyard were young Chinese, many of whom were senior technicians trained in technical schools in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Ten years ago, there were only a handful of Chinese who could build and repair steamships, and senior technicians could only be hired from the east with high salaries. Now Liang Yao has the ability to make money. This is the reason why Liang Yao dares to challenge the Northern Federation.

The North Platte River is not a very suitable inland waterway for navigation. During the non-flood season, the average width of the river is about 50 to 100 meters, and the water depth is usually between 1 and 2 meters. Due to its shallow water depth and narrow river channel, it is difficult for large ships to navigate on it.

The ships being overhauled in the shipyard are all barges or small cargo ships, with displacements ranging from five or six tons to seventy or eighty tons. Cargo ships with a displacement of more than 70 tons are very rare.

After all, the natural endowment of the Platte River is still very limited, and it is difficult to achieve great things while being trapped in the Platte River Valley.

In this era, the upper limit of the size of inland cities depends largely on the natural endowment of rivers. In order to develop the central frontier and compete in North America, Liang Yao needs to seize a river with better natural endowments as a support, such as the Mississippi River.

(End of this chapter)