1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 712 Me too!

"Facts speak louder than words. I think the two leaders of the Bison and Sioux tribes have more say than me on this matter." Liang Yao looked at the leaders of the Sioux tribe, Hongyun and Little Crow.

"In the past six years, we have been getting along well with the immigrants from the west. Without them, my people and I would not have the opportunity to return to Sioux City to live," said Hongyun.

"The immigrants from the west are different from those from the east. Not only do they not occupy our land, they are also willing to accept us to live in their settlements and even provide us with help."

A gentleman judges by deeds, not words. Today, so many indigenous leaders from the Great Plains are willing to come to the Western Army camp with the help of Black Buffalo, Red Cloud and others.

This shows that the Western Republic government's lenient policy towards indigenous peoples is not just empty words, but is indeed being implemented in the Great Plains region.

"What do you mean by us and you? After driving away the federal troops, everyone living on the territory of my republic will be the citizens of the republic, without any distinction." Liang Yao said.

By the 1860s, the number of Native Americans in the Great Plains had dropped to less than 30.

The Great Plains are large enough to accommodate 30 Native Americans.

After occupying the Great Plains, population became a more valuable resource than land.

Under pressure from the Civil War, the Lincoln and Davis governments also lowered their stances to win the support of Native American tribes.

Whether for the purpose of developing the Great Plains in the future or for political considerations, Liang Yao should win over the indigenous tribes to his side.

Furthermore, the local indigenous tribes were more familiar with the local terrain, and he also needed indigenous people to serve as guides.

"I have offended the chief! Please forgive me!" Petalesaro begged Liang Yao for forgiveness, "We, the warriors of the Pawnee tribe, are willing to become warriors under the command of the chief like the Sioux tribe! I hope the commander-in-chief can lead us back to our homeland east of the Mississippi River!"

"me too!"

"me too!"

Most of the leaders of the indigenous tribes are quite straightforward. After hearing the personal experience of the Sioux leader Hongyun, Petalesaro and a few other indigenous leaders who were still wavering suddenly dispelled their doubts and expressed their willingness to work for Liang Yao.

"With your help, I won't have to worry about not being able to drive away the Yankee troops in the Great Plains!" Liang Yao was very happy. "We just seized some weapons from the Yankees. You can take them back and arm all your troops!"

In yesterday's battle, the Western Army seized more than 21,000 old muzzle-loading muskets. These outdated weapons were not even worth the second-line militia troops, so it was a good opportunity to do some favors and give some to the leaders of the indigenous tribes.

"Sir, Austin sent an urgent message saying that the Texas Brigade was blocked in Oklahoma by the coalition forces of the local indigenous tribes on its way north!"

As they were talking, the presidential secretary Zeiss came to Liang Yao in a hurry.

The Texas Brigade had called to say they were going to march north to open up the northern transportation line to the west, but they didn't want to be blocked in Oklahoma by the native tribes there.

The Oklahoma Territory is administratively part of Texas.

In 1851, in order to weaken Texas, the Fillmore administration planned to separate the northern Oklahoma Territory.

Later, through the land purchase plan, California paid money to Texas to buy back the Oklahoma area.

In return, California received the Western Nevada Territory.

However, the federal government did not give up. Instead, it passed a proposal in Congress to designate large areas of Oklahoma as reservations, and continued to move Native Americans into the Oklahoma area, thereby indirectly achieving the goal of weakening Texas.

The main indigenous tribes living in Oklahoma today are the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole.

These five tribes are also called the Five Civilized Tribes by the federal government. The total population of the five tribes is about 70,000 to 80,000.

Considering that the native tribal population in the Great Plains is less than 30, the native population density in Oklahoma is quite high, and it is one of the areas with the highest native population in all of North America.

While the federal government agreed to retain the Oklahoma territory within the administrative divisions of Texas, it continued to move Native Americans into the Oklahoma territory.

Naturally, relations between the Texas authorities and the Native American tribes in the Oklahoma area are not very good.

It is understandable that the Native Americans in the Oklahoma area did not agree with the Texas brigade passing through their territory.

To this day, Liang Yao's main activities in the Mississippi River Basin are still in Nebraska, and he has little intersection with the so-called five civilized tribes in the Oklahoma region.

I'm afraid the local Native American tribes would not buy his account and let the Texas Brigade pass through Oklahoma safely. If the Texas Brigade cannot go north from Oklahoma, it can only take a detour through the neighboring state of Arkansas.

Arkansas was a member of the Confederacy, while Texas remained independent and did not join the Confederacy.

The Confederacy had been urging Texas to join Richmond's camp, and would not allow Texas troops to pass through their territory easily.

What a headache.

The Western Army is still relatively short of troops in the Great Plains region. Texas' willingness to send troops can alleviate the Western Army's dilemma of insufficient troops.

But the Texas Brigade's way north was blocked.

Liang Yao found the indigenous tribal leaders in the Great Plains who were still receiving guns and asked them whether they were familiar with the leaders of the five civilized tribes in the Oklahoma area.

Pawnee chief Petalesharo and Kiowa chief Dohasan said they had fought alongside some of the Five Nations of Oklahoma and had some friendships with them.

They were willing to go to the Oklahoma Territory as emissaries to persuade the Five Oklahoma Tribes to allow the Texas Brigade to pass.

This couldn't be better. Liang Yao prepared fast horses and dry food for Petalesaro and Dohasan to express his gratitude to them.

At the same time, Liang Yao also asked Zeiss to send a telegram to Jones in Richmond, asking him to negotiate with the Confederacy and pass through Arkansas to prepare for both situations if Petalesaro and Dohasan failed to persuade the Five Oklahoma Tribes to release the Texas Brigade.

Manhattan Village neighborhood in northern Kansas.

The battle between the Western Army and the Northern Army's detachment was coming to an end.

"Dashun, our ammunition and dry food are almost running out. Do we still want to continue chasing the foreigners?" Zhu Yidian, the commander of the 2nd Guangxi Regiment, asked breathlessly.

The Guangxi Regiment is an infantry unit, but as the regiment commander, Zhu Yidian must have a mount.

However, in order to increase their marching speed, they set out from the Pratt with light equipment and did not carry much dry food with them.

Zhu Yidian's mount had long been made into dry rations and eaten by the soldiers.

"Chase them! Why not chase them?!" Peng Dashun, the head of the 1st Regiment of the Guangxi Brigade, was still very excited. "The foreign artillerymen have stopped firing, and the gunshots are becoming less and less frequent, which means that the foreigners have even less ammunition than us!"

"Isn't it too dangerous for more than 2,000 of us to be chasing more than 6,000 Japanese soldiers around?" Zhu Yidian asked.

"It's not dangerous at all. We have been chasing them for more than half a month, but the foreigners just keep running away. Guess why?" Peng Dashun said with a smile.

"It means the ghosts don't have enough ammunition, and the situation in the east is not favorable to them. Otherwise, they wouldn't have to run away in such a hurry, and should have turned back to eat us."

"That's right." After listening to Peng Dashun's analysis, Zhu Yi felt a lot more at ease and felt that Peng Dashun's analysis made sense.

"Each of us still has forty or fifty bullets, more than two kilograms of dried meat, and three cans of food. Our ammunition and dry food are not running out. If we eat sparingly, we can continue chasing the foreigners for another seven or eight days." Peng Dashun said.

"When have you ever fought such a prosperous battle under the command of His Royal Highness the Wing King? I think you have lived a good life for too long and have forgotten how we survived the hard times. When we were trapped in Yong'an ten years ago, you and I ate light food for more than three months, but we still managed to survive, didn't we?"

"When we run out of rations, we can just dig up grass roots and scrape tree bark to fill our stomachs. The problem is when we run out of bullets, because we can't dig bullets out of the ground." Zhu Yidian complained, "These foreigners are even more wicked than Zeng the Barber. They burned down the villages along the way, and we couldn't even find a few living people. We can't even buy food with our money."

"Without bullets, your bayonet and knife will become vegetarians, right?" Peng Dashun rolled his eyes at Zhu Yi, "It's just that we are few in number. If we had 7,000 or 8,000 old Guangxi brothers under us, we would have made a fool of this group of foreigners."

"Didn't they say that there are two regular regiments cooperating with us?" Zhu Yi pointed out, "It's been more than 20 days, but we haven't even seen their shadow? Could it be that the higher-ups are deceiving us? There are no such two regiments at all?"

"President Liang and General Ke don't seem like that kind of people. Besides, how can they raise cannon fodder like that? We are treated better in Pratt than the knifemen in Heaven." Peng Dashun shook his head, "Maybe the two regiments got lost."

Although the Guangxi soldiers of the two regiments were organized as militia, the equipment they were issued was no different from that of the regular army. Except for the lack of an artillery company like that of a regular regiment, they had everything they should have.

If Liang Yao and Kruger really only regarded them as cannon fodder, there would be no reason to train them in the rear for so long in Pratt, and even to teach them to read in night schools at night. Instead, they should have been sent to the battlefield to charge from the beginning.

(End of this chapter)