Wild North America 1846

Chapter 127 Western Railway Construction
Two consecutive Western Expeditions failed miserably, and at the beginning of the year, 6000 cavalry from the Tang Kingdom rushed out of the Colorado Plateau, raging wildly in the northwestern states of the United States, causing serious injuries.

Minnesota, Iowa, and Nebraska were devastated by the flames of war, and the lives of the people were devastated, forming a wave of refugees fleeing south with the old and the young.

The originally stable social environment has been greatly damaged, and the local people are in panic.

This has become the weakness of the federal government that has been strongly criticized by the opposition parties and public opinion, and has greatly weakened the positive impact of the victory in the Southern War.

Today, the US federal government is more afraid of the Tang Kingdom than Mexico.

The Americans have never surrendered so easily. The war against the Tang Kingdom has been preparing for a long time, but the "Northwest State War" that broke out at the beginning of the year caught the US federal government by surprise and disrupted the entire rhythm of war preparations.

nowadays

After mobilizing for the 4th all-out war, the U.S. government’s military strength has become abundant again. The military has tried every means to allocate materials and step up the production of new weapons and equipment to prepare for the upcoming war.

In terms of weapons, the United States is stepping up the development and production of 20-pound and 30-pound Paltrow cannons, which are used as siege weapons against the strong fortress of the Tang Kingdom, and will soon produce prototypes for testing.

The plan to develop and produce new weapons such as cavalry revolvers and heavy machine guns has never been given up. American cavalry revolvers have been mass-produced and installed, and gratifying progress has been made.

However, the heavy machine gun project is full of difficulties, especially the research and development of copper-cased ammunition has so far been unremarkable.

This does not stop the U.S. military preparations. After the disastrous defeat in the "Northwest State War" at the beginning of the year, the third Western Expedition, which was originally scheduled to be launched in early March, was forced to be postponed to a certain day in August-September.

The war is only postponed, not cancelled.

The reason why the specific time has not been determined is that Lieutenant General Arthur Temple of the U.S. Continental Army, considering the strength and difficulty of the Tang Kingdom, planned to deploy experienced U.S. generals after the invasion of Mexico City and the end of the Southern War. He and the army joined the Western Expedition, and mobilized heavy troops and elite soldiers to destroy the Tang Kingdom in one fell swoop.

It can be said that this time the U.S. federal government is really ruthless and wants to eradicate this stinky and tough little kingdom in the west at all costs.

Unifying the vast American continent is the natural mission of the United States of America. Since the founding of the United States, the 11 US presidents have all been striving for this lofty goal.

Since the outbreak of the war
The U.S. federal government has been burdened with a government deficit of as much as 1.7 million U.S. dollars, which is an extremely heavy financial burden for the U.S., whose gross national product is only 10 billion U.S. dollars.

The reason why President Polk is so obsessed with this is that on the surface it is the illusory mission of America's sacred gift, but in fact, it has extremely profound practical significance.

War can minimize internal conflicts.

President Polk clearly recognized that;

If no foreign war is launched, the internal contradictions in the United States will inevitably tear the Federation apart, and the possibility of civil war will increase sharply.

in today's American society

White manor owners in the South, who own a large number of black slaves, occupy the majority of members of Congress and are also the mainstream of American political life.

The prosperity of the cotton trade prompted the southern slave states to urgently demand to expand the slave trade and reduce tariffs in order to earn more wealth.

on the above issue
The political forces in the northern states, with factory owners and capitalists as the mainstream, strongly demanded the implementation of high tariff policies to prevent the dumping of products from developed industrial countries in Europe and damage domestic industrial development.

On the other hand, due to the urgent need of labor shortage, the calls for "abolition of black slavery" in northern states were loud.

Such appeals seriously harmed the core interests of southern white manor owners, resulting in sharp conflicts between the North and the South, which have reached an irreconcilable level of serious confrontation.

It is impossible for the United States to repeat the "enclosure movement" that took place in the United Kingdom. Therefore, the northern capitalists turned their attention to the black slaves in the south. It was not because of the impulse to fight for human rights for the black slaves, but because of practical interests. Industrial development needs more Lots of cheap labor.

in the original history

After the Northern regime won the unprecedented and tragic victory in the Civil War, it successfully implemented the abolition movement, thus obtaining a steady stream of black labor in the South, injecting new vitality into the economy, and rapid industrial development.

However, the black people were happy for nothing, and the human rights and equality of the black people have remained on paper until a hundred years later.

Colorado plateau

"Your Majesty has opened the sickle!"

A high-pitched and melodious shout came out, causing cheers like a tsunami, and the endless wheat fields on the plateau were rolling with waves, and the heavy ears of wheat were full and solid, a scene of a bumper harvest.

King Richard harvested a bunch of wheat ears with a sickle in his hand. He presided over the "opening ceremony" with a joyful smile on his face.After cheering loudly, the people who could not see the end of the road walked into the wheat field one after another, raising their sickles to harvest.

The "Scythe Opening Ceremony" is an extremely important ceremony in the Tang Kingdom. Everyone from Denver to the Indian Valley, except for the soldiers who are responsible for guarding tasks, must help harvest.

10,000+ people fight together, what a huge scene.

Li Cha watched all this with a gratified expression, the joy of a good harvest surged in his heart, and the smile on his face was uncontrollable.

After more than a year of construction, Denver has not only become an outpost for the kingdom's defense, but also developed into the largest grain base, rich in wheat, oats, sorghum, potatoes, rice, soybeans and various vegetables, and its scale is so large that it can supply the entire kingdom There is still room for what is needed.

The harvest of potatoes and oats in September last year was too large. Even if part of the grain was used for wine making, there was still a lot of grains that had been stored for too long and had to be discarded.

Due to the rapid population growth in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other places, they need to import food from Central America. Because they are located in the Gobi Desert, Fort Rio Rancho and Gallup Fort do not have basic agricultural production conditions, and food and vegetables also need a lot of food from external input.

this is the case
This prompted Richard to accelerate the construction of the railway. At the end of 1846, the Pacific Railway Company of the Tang Kingdom was formally established. The royal family invested 160 million US dollars to occupy [-]% of the shares.

Among them, the British capital accounted for 17% of the shares, and the military and political officials and businessmen of the Datang Kingdom ate the rest.

The railway construction began in early 1847, starting from Los Angeles, passing through Las Vegas, Flagstaff, Gallup and other towns eastward, and arrived in Rio Rancho Town in 7 months. The whole journey was about 1220 kilometers long. Kilometers, it has now been fully connected.

This section of the railway is called the "Western Railway". The railway passes through plains and hills, mountains, the Grand Canyon of Colorado, deserts and the long Gobi. The roadbed along the way is solid and flat, and it is less difficult to lay the railway.

The Tang Kingdom invested 8700 Indian convicts and more than 3500 Chinese laborers for this purpose, and also formed a railway police corps with a scale of more than 700 people to guard and supervise the Indian convicts.

peak time

The railway police corps attacked everywhere to arrest and eliminate scattered Indian tribes. The number of Indian convicts exceeded 1.2. When the railway was finally repaired and the Rio Rancho Fortress was closed, there were only 8700 Indian convicts left.

In addition to the harsh climate and high temperature in the Gobi desert along the way, there are also Indian convicts who are lazy, do not work hard, often abscond and are severely punished, resulting in a large number of attrition.

On average, about 6 kilometers of railway lines can be laid every day.

It should be noted that not all the 1.5 laborers are crowded on the 6-kilometer-long railway line.

The total labor force of about 1.5 people is distributed along the 1220-kilometer railway construction line, with 200 to 300 people as a labor camp, a total of 43 labor camps, and each labor camp is assigned more than 20 armed railway policemen, responsible for supervising labor and distributing food.

The tasks of each labor camp are different. Some are responsible for building roadbeds, culverts, and bridges, and the number of people will be larger, while others are only responsible for building roadbeds, and the number of people will be smaller.

on the entire railway line

Only in the Grand Canyon area of ​​Colorado, in the spring of each year, the melting of ice and snow in the deep mountains will bring a large number of torrents, which will rush down and pose a serious threat to the railway line.

Therefore, on the riverbeds of these seasonal rivers, bridges and culverts need to be built, and more than 70 bridges and culverts need to be built just across the Grand Canyon area of ​​Colorado, 116 of them on the whole line.

On the floodplain river, the longest bridge needs to be built more than 160 meters, and the small culverts need only a few meters to cross the stream, and the construction volume varies greatly.

Most of these works are done by Chinese laborers. They are hardworking, efficient, and responsible. They are the best builders.

Laying railroad tracks is a relatively simple job. With two or three thousand workers working together, the railroad tracks laid can reach more than 20 kilometers per day, and the maximum is close to 30 kilometers.

Currently
The construction of the western railway has entered the second phase, which is to lay more than 700 kilometers of railway from the Rio Rancho Fortress to Denver.

Since this section of railway is located in the Gobi desert area, there are only a few dozen bridges and culverts, so the laying progress is very fast.

Richard allocated 4200 people from Denver's convicts to participate in the second phase of the construction of the Western Railway. He was mainly responsible for building part of the railway roadbed from Denver to the south, with a total length of about 280 kilometers.

expected by the end of august
The second phase of the western railway project from Fort Rio Rancho to Denver will be fully completed, which means that the western railway project with a total length of nearly 2000 kilometers has been fully completed and officially put into use.

Then
The food, flour, soybeans, rice, liquor, beer, coal, wood, cement, and steel that are abundant in the Colorado Plateau will be continuously imported into the Tang Kingdom through the railway line.

This will effectively revitalize the towns along the railway and maximize its development limit.

For example, Rio Rancho Fortress, Gallup Fortress, these towns located in the Gobi, will usher in a big development after solving the problems of food supply and building materials.

Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Milan, Flagstaff and other cities lacking agricultural and sideline products will have ample supply of materials from now on, which will effectively guarantee the industrial development of the above-mentioned cities.

The mutual promotion of industry and agriculture is the way of long-term economic development.

(End of this chapter)