1850 American Gold Tycoon.

Chapter 726 Frontier Immigrants

It was just dawn and the morning in Omaha was as bustling as any downtown city on the West Coast.

Omaha citizens who fled to the countryside for refuge before and after the battle returned to Omaha one after another.

But that's not the main reason why Omaha is so lively so early in the morning.

The reason Omaha is so lively is that Pratt officially lifted the five-year ban on traveling abroad a week ago.

During the time when Kruger was managing the Platte Valley, in order to keep immigrants in the Platte Valley, he issued a ban restricting residents of the Platte Valley from leaving the country and preventing the local population from flowing into the northern ruling area.

Now that most of the central border areas are no longer under the rule of the Northern Region, the ban on exiting the border is naturally no longer necessary.

The first group of new immigrants to Omaha came to Omaha by train. As a link on the Pacific Railway, there was a railway connecting Omaha and Pratt.

This group of new immigrants arrived in Omaha by train the day after the ban on leaving the country was lifted.

However, the number of this group of immigrants is the smallest, and although train transportation is efficient, its capacity is relatively limited.

What's more, the war is not over yet. As the only major transportation artery between the frontier areas and the West Coast, the Pacific Railway still has a heavy task to undertake.

Half of the railway capacity is still used for military purposes to ensure the supply of frontline troops.

The daily necessities needed by the front-line troops could be obtained by mobilizing the Union Army supplies captured from Omaha, Kansas City, and Des Moines.

However, the ammunition of the Western Army and the Northern Army was not interchangeable, and the ammunition consumed on the front line still had to be transported from Pratt's Arsenal and even the Sacramento Arsenal.

In order to maximize the use of railway capacity, the Central Railroad Company, which operated the Pacific Railroad, even sold tickets on the roof of the train.

It has become the norm for train cars heading to Omaha to carry freight and people on the roof.

More immigrants came to Omaha by boat along the Platte River from Platte.

Two or three days after the ban on leaving the country was lifted, immigrants by boat also arrived in Omaha one after another.

At present, the most valuable thing in the central border area is not supplies, but transportation capacity.

Steamships and regular ships with a displacement of more than 50 tons are rarely seen in the rear. Even if seen, they are basically ships requisitioned by the military.

The immigrants could only arrive in Omaha by taking sampan boats, rafts or even rafts.

In order to solve the problem of insufficient transportation capacity, the Immigration Committee not only spent a lot of money to buy ships from the occupied areas, but also bought the Union army sunken ships salvaged from the Platte River and towed them to the Omaha shipyard for repairs.

Ships have become the most sought-after and fastest appreciating commodity in the Mississippi River Basin.

After all, railways are controlled by the military and the government, and it is difficult for ordinary people to get a share of the railway's transport capacity.

It’s different on waterways. As long as you have a boat, anyone can sail on the river.

Before the war, a small steamship with a displacement of 50 to 100 tons in the northwest Mississippi River basin cost 6000 to 15000 federal dollars, depending on the condition of the ship.

Nowadays, 20000 Republican dollars may not be enough to buy a small steamship that can run immediately, and there is still no demand for it.

As for medium and large steamships, forget it. Even if there were any, they would have been seized by the military long ago.

The boats available to the public were mostly wooden flat-bottomed boats, modified keel boats, and inland schooners.

Because the profits from the recent sale of ships were so tempting, ship dealers from Illinois and even Tennessee ignored the ban of the Northern Union and drove their ships to the Western Control Area to sell them openly, risking being sent to the gallows.

Ships sold by ship dealers in Illinois and Tennessee once became the largest source of ships in the middle frontier region.

"Brother, why did you spend so much money to buy a boat? This is all the wealth of our family!"

"Second brother, this is all the wealth our family has saved in the past four years, and it's not worth it to exchange it for these broken boats."

"You know shit. Without my second brother, we wouldn't be where we are today."

"I understand! The price of ships has risen sharply recently. Second brother wants to wait for the price to rise again, then sell the ship and make a fortune!" "So that's it. Second brother has studied and served as a group leader. Second brother has an idea!"

"I thought my second brother only knew how to study, lead militias, and run a farm reclamation company, but I didn't expect he could also sell boats!"

"Bah! You are a jerk who can't even spit out ivory. How could my second brother, who is so capable and has done so many great things for us, become just a mere idiot in your mouth?"

At an immigrant camp next to the Omaha dock, a group of immigrants wearing loose cotton shirts and canvas overalls were chatting with a middle-aged man wearing a stiff-lined fine cotton shirt and beige wool-blend trousers.

This group of immigrants spoke with an Anhui accent and were obviously from Anhui.

In recent years, especially after Liang Shaoqiong took office as the Governor-General of Liangjiang, the Yangtze River Basin in Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, and even the two lakes region has gradually surpassed Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang to become the largest source of immigrants for the American Republic.

This group of Anhui immigrants were well-dressed. Although their clothes were old, they were not patched.

They were all strong and sturdy, with no trace of paleness on their faces.

The price of an ordinary cotton shirt in the American Republic is 0.75 US dollars to 1.50 US dollars, depending on the region, and canvas overalls are slightly more expensive, with a price of 1.40 US dollars to 2.4 US dollars. In large cities on the West Coast, the price of clothing is slightly lower, and in remote areas, the price will be slightly higher due to logistics costs.

Such prices are not expensive. An ordinary worker in the American Republic can buy a decent summer and autumn outfit with one or two weeks' income.

But for new immigrants, the price is unaffordable.

The person in the middle of the crowd is the "Second Brother" in the eyes of this immigrant group, their leader Zhang Sixian.

Zhang Sixian was originally from Chizhou Prefecture, Anhui Province. The Zhang family was one of the four major families in Chizhou and was very wealthy.

Zhang Sixian himself obtained the title of scholar at the age of 22 and served as the director of the local militia. Logically speaking, such a person should be a staunch supporter of the Qing Dynasty.

However, times of chaos are often unpredictable. Anqing, the capital of Anhui Province, has been the focus of contention between the Qing army and the Taiping army for many years. Chizhou Prefecture, which serves as Anqing's buffer zone, inevitably became the main battlefield.

After several wars, Chizhou Prefecture was completely robbed by the Hunan Army, and Zhang Sixian was captured by the Taiping Army.

Although he managed to escape back to Chizhou later, he found that even his Zhang family had been looted by the Ting Camp of the Hunan Army.

That would have been fine, but before leaving, the Hunan Army of the Ting Camp set fire to all the wealth accumulated by the Zhang family for generations, even burning down the ancestral house. Many of the Zhang family's women also became playthings of the Hunan Army of the Ting Camp.

Although the Taiping rebels ate at the homes of the rich when they passed through Chizhou, they were not as ruthless as the Hunan Army. At least they did not touch the women in their families and even left them some food for the winter.

In a rage, the disheartened Zhang Sixian, together with his brothers, dug out the burial objects from his ancestor's tomb. He gathered more than a hundred militiamen from Chizhou, robbed the Hunan Army's ship that was transporting treasures to Hunan, and fled all the way to the American Concession in Shanghai.

In the American Concession, Zhang Sixian saw that the American Consulate was aggressively recruiting immigrants, so he made up his mind and boarded a ship to Jinshan with more than a hundred militia brothers and their families.

After arriving in Jinshan, Zhang Sixian learned about the local situation and thought it would be profitable to go to the border areas to reclaim wasteland.

He then used the family fortune he brought with him to set up an agricultural reclamation company, purchased livestock and farm tools, and went to Utah, Colorado and other places to reclaim wasteland.

Then he sold the reclaimed land at a high price and made a fortune.

In just five years, he achieved financial freedom and became a rare hundred thousandaire in the inland area.

But Zhang Sixian's ambition does not stop there. He found that many immigrants whose backgrounds and family backgrounds were not as good as his were able to become the masters of a town or a city.

What's worse, some of them even became senators.

Zhang Sixian didn't think he was worse than these people. The only reason this peasant could hold a high position was that he arrived early.

All he lacked was an opportunity to achieve a class leap.

The outbreak of the civil war finally made Zhang Sixian, who had a keen sense of smell, realize this rare opportunity.

(End of this chapter)