Chapter 244: The Price

In early January 1850, when Liang Yao first set foot in San Francisco, San Francisco prospered rapidly due to the gold rush.

But there was no industry in San Francisco at that time. The sky was very blue, the water was very clear, and it was full of primitive natural charm.

Two years later, San Francisco has changed dramatically.

Historically, factories appeared on a large scale in California only after the Civil War. In just two years, various factories sprung up like mushrooms after rain in the San Francisco Industrial Zone he designated.

The towering chimneys in the industrial zone emit billowing smoke into the clear sky, making the originally clear sky dirty. The sewage in the drainage pipes discharges turbid sewage into the clear seawater, making the seawater near the industrial zone dirty. A turbid mess.

Being close to an industrial area, the pungent smell hits your nostrils, and of course, it also smells of industry.

This is an inevitable price to pay for development. When he first returned to San Francisco, some fishermen complained to Liang Yao that the sewage put into the factory had polluted the nearby seawater, and there was no longer any fish to be caught in the nearby sea.

Liang Yao just asked the fishermen to give up fishing in this sea area.

Facing the mighty tide of history, Liang Yao also seemed very powerless.

In the industrialization of California, he can try his best to take care of the interests of most groups in California, but he cannot take care of the interests of everyone.

There are always people who have to make sacrifices for industrialization, and all he can do is make the sacrifices fewer.

Liang Yao has never been to London or Paris in this era, but he has been to New York and seen the turbid and smelly Hudson River in New York.

At this time, the Thames River in London and the Seine River in Paris are not much cleaner than the Hudson River in New York, let alone the sea near the San Francisco Industrial Zone.

This painful journey is the only way for all regions and countries that want to enter industrial civilization.

If we don't take the road of industrialization if we have the opportunity now, if we are forced to industrialize in the future, the price we have to pay will be even greater than now.

"Those machines you spent a lot of money to buy from the east are really powerful. The steel and iron produced last year may be more than those produced in Guangdong Province."

Looking at the tall chimneys in the industrial area, Deng Yan felt that he looked very small in front of these buildings.

"In more than ten years, let alone Guangdong, it will not be surprising that the steel produced in California every year will be more than that of the Qing Dynasty." Liang Yao said as he walked.

Compared with the productivity of industrial civilization and agricultural civilization, it is a dimension reduction blow, and there is no comparison.

Before the emergence of the chemical industry, steel production, coal production, and railway mileage were the three most important indicators of early industrialization.

Steel is the foundation and the pillar of industrial society. Railroads, machinery, guns, warships and many consumer goods in industrial society are inseparable from steel.

As for coal, before the emergence of petroleum fuel, it was the most important industrial fuel. The operation of steam engines and making fires for cooking and heating were all inseparable from coal.

Without coal, all machines would be paralyzed.

Not to mention railways, which are the main transportation arteries. Without railways, the efficiency of personnel exchanges and the speed of commodity circulation in inland areas will be greatly reduced.

California is lucky. Gold quickly accumulated primary capital for California. Nevada's coal and iron mines and the high-quality iron ore and coal mines of Mexico, its weak neighbor, provided abundant raw materials for California's industrialization.

Counting the easy-to-exploit shallow oil in Los Angeles, California can be said to be in the right place at the right time.

Looking around the world, there are not many places like this.

According to a report provided to him by California Industry Secretary Fair, in 1851, the combined output of all steel plants, large and small, in California was 80,000 tons of pig iron, and a pitiful 353 tons of steel.

According to Liang Yao's estimate, California's steel production is close to 2% of the United States' steel production.

Although this data is not good-looking, considering that California's population does not reach 2% of the total population of the United States, California's per capita steel production is still higher than the average data of the United States.

The state government has allocated resources to the industrial sector, and Liang Yao's efforts to encourage growth have achieved some results.

California's coal production is less than 200,000 tons.

If the railway mileage in California is open to traffic, including the scattered railways built in other places, such as mining areas, the total length will be about 1,300 kilometers (San Francisco-Los Angeles, San Francisco-Sacramento, these two together will exceed 1,000 kilometers).

As a new state, such an achievement within two years is undoubtedly very impressive, enough to make many states jealous.

But other states cannot learn from California's path. California's fiscal revenue of more than 4.7 million US dollars last year is unmatched in the eyes of many new states.

What's more, the conditions in other states are different from California. Those country gentry and wealthy businessmen do not have the courage and strength to centralize power in their states like Liang Yao. This is no longer a question of whether you can learn it or not, but rather you dare not learn it at all.

The most important thing is that there is no other steel tycoon like Liang Yao who is not only willing to throw money into the steel industry, but also formed a coal and steel alliance.

Heavy industry was a gold-swallowing behemoth in the early days, so don't expect to make money.

Of course, Liang Yao is not complacent about his achievements. With his current industrial strength, he can only laugh at New South Wales in the south of the United States and Mexico, his unfortunate neighbor.

Compared with the industrially developed regions of the United States, there is still a big gap between Britain and France, especially the industrial giant of Great Britain.

During the same period, the coal production of the British Empire reached a terrifying 30 million tons, and the pig iron production reached more than 1.4 million tons. As for the total railway mileage, not counting the colonies, the railway mileage in the mainland alone was more than 20,000 kilometers.

What does this mean? The coal production and steel production of other countries during this period were not as much as that of Britain.

Of course, the railway mileage added up can still exceed that of the British mainland, after all, the British mainland is not large.

In addition to these, the British naval tonnage is also far ahead, and the tonnage of the navy of one country exceeds the sum of the naval tonnage of all countries in the world.

The locomotives currently used in the United States are either obsolete goods imported from the UK or imitations of British locomotives.

In Europe, the UK also monopolized the European locomotive market. About 60% of the locomotives in European countries are supplied by the UK.

This is why only Britain has the strength to build an industrial miracle like the Crystal Palace, and why the fleet of the British Empire can dominate the world.

Strong industrial strength and a powerful navy are the capital of Britain's arrogance.

There is still a long way to go to catch up with the UK and the US.

I hope that the machines and workers purchased from the East at a high price this time will allow California's industrial capacity to explode in the next period of time.

Liang Yao had just walked into the steel plant and was ready to visit it. He saw eight or nine dirty, coal-ash-covered children around ten years old gathered around a chimney.

Soon, two or three children aged seven or eight climbed out of the chimney.

Liang Yao subconsciously looked at the top of the chimney and saw a seven or eight-year-old child standing on the top of the chimney, cleaning the top of the chimney without any protective measures.

Liang Yao's heart instantly rose to his throat. He was so nervous that he dared not breathe, let alone make a sound, for fear that the sound would alarm the children working on the top of the chimney.