Chapter 2: Percussion Gun

In addition to the gold mining tools, Liang Yao wanted a musket for self-defense.

California was the most remote place in the United States at that time, and it was not even a state in the United States.

The mountains were high and the emperor was far away, and it was also a gold-producing area. There was naturally no order in such a place. It was an absolute world of the survival of the fittest.

He was now weak and could not even deal with a few hooligans on the ship, not to mention the gold diggers from all over the world in the gold-producing area. Those who could survive to this place were basically not good people.

A musket, preferably a short gun that was easy to carry, could at least give him a sense of security.

However, with his current financial resources, he could not afford the price of a musket. Take the Brown Bess musket that was about to be withdrawn from the British active service. The low-cost Indian Monkey version of the Brown Bess also cost about 2 pounds. And now he doesn't even have a pound

"Hello, Liang."

The third mate Sven, who was coming towards him, patted Liang Yao on the shoulder like an old friend who had known each other for a long time. Sven was a Dane, and his name was not as good as his appearance. Although his name was Sven, he didn't look gentle at all, but a rough and unkempt man.

Because Sven was easy-going and talkative, unlike other arrogant British crew members on the ship, who looked superior and looked down on people of color, Sven became the crew member Liang Yao was most familiar with during this long voyage.

Of course, it was also a tool for each other to talk and relieve boredom.

Somehow, Sven got along very well with the ordinary sailors on the ship, while the captain and the mates didn't seem to like their colleague.

Sven was originally the first mate on the merchant ship Würzburg of the Danish Asiatic Company. After the Danish Asiatic Company, that is, the Danish East India Company, was dissolved, Sven, who was burdened with debts, came to the British Steamship Company to work to pay off his debts.

Could this be related to Sven being Danish? Or maybe they were afraid that Sven would borrow money from them because Sven was heavily in debt, so they kept their distance from him?

While he was guessing, Liang Yao's eyes fell on the two percussion cap guns on Sven's waist, which were less than a foot long. These were good things.

"Are you interested in them? These are brand new percussion cap guns from the famous Birmingham Arsenal! I bought them from a poor nobleman in Calcutta for a full forty pounds.

We are friends. If you like them, I don't mind taking a loss. I will sell them to you for fifteen pounds."

Sven took a percussion cap out of the holster and introduced his gun to Liang Yao like an enthusiastic salesman. He saw that this oriental boy was very interested in his gun.

"It's very new, so new that the logo and noble emblem on it are worn out, and the rifling is worn flat."

Liang Yao would not believe that Sven, who was so poor that he had to drink brandy and rum with water, could afford a huge sum of forty pounds to buy a gun. However, the logo of the Birmingham Arsenal on the gun was real.

Sven thought too highly of him. If he had fifteen pounds, would he have traveled thousands of miles to California to mine? Wouldn't it be better to just go back to the Qing Dynasty to buy a house, land and concubines?

"Ten pounds! It can't be any lower!"

Sven gritted his teeth and said, his painful expression was as if someone had cut a piece of meat from him.

"To be honest, I don't even have a pound on me now." Liang Yao told the truth.

"Get lost!"

Sven rolled his eyes and put the gun back into the holster. He changed his face faster than turning a page of a book.

"But I can share a business opportunity with you, a business opportunity worth tens of thousands of pounds in exchange for your gun."

Liang Yao smiled faintly. He didn't have ten pounds, but he wanted Sven's gun.

Sven, who had been on the sea for many years, certainly didn't believe that Liang Yao, a young man, had a business opportunity worth tens of thousands of pounds. He just thought Liang Yao was bragging and didn't take it to heart.

"It only costs seven or eight cents to buy a pan from Boston, and only a dozen cents to buy a shovel.

But in the gold mining area of ​​California, a pan can easily sell for six dollars, and a shovel can easily sell for thirty dollars.

Of course, if you like gold, you can even directly exchange it for an equal amount of gold. The most valuable thing in the gold mining area is gold, and the least valuable thing is also gold."

Liang Yao said in a serious manner.

Sven was skeptical. Liang Yao could tell the price so detailed that it didn't seem like he was talking nonsense, but the profit was so high that it was suffocating. Selling slaves and piglets didn't make so much money.

"My God!"

Sven's attitude towards Liang Yao immediately took a 180-degree turn, but he didn't easily believe Liang Yao's words. Instead, he asked Liang Yao where the news came from to determine whether the news was reliable.

"My relative told me that he was in California, and it was he who wrote to ask us to go to California."

This sentence was half true and half false. The letter from his fellow townsman telling us that there was gold in California was true, and the prices of pans and shovels were made up by him.

"There are countless places where gold is discovered every year in the world, but how many of them are real? Only those of you who are desperate are willing to sell your property in exchange for a ticket to the illusory gold mountain you talk about."

Sven had heard about the discovery of gold in California, but that was just hearsay. Unless he saw it with his own eyes, Sven would never believe these unreliable and exaggerated rumors.

Liang Yao shrugged, feeling a little disappointed. This rude Nordic man was not as easy to fool as he imagined.

"But given our friendship, I'm willing to take a gamble. If you lie to me, your fate will be the same as this seabird."

When Liang Yao moved to leave, Sven suddenly took out his musket from the holster, put on the flash cap, and pulled the trigger at the seabird hovering above his head.

As a thunderous gunshot sounded, a seabird fell into the sea, and the familiar plop sound reached Liang Yao's ears.

The sudden sound of gunfire made Liang Yao pause. His legs covered by his robe seemed to be trembling, and a slight chill came from his back.

"It's yours! I suppose pans, shovels, and shovels cost about the same in Panama as they do in Boston."

Sven put the old musket with a hot barrel into Liang Yao's hand. The things Liang Yao mentioned were not valuable items. He was willing to take a gamble, and even if he lost, he wouldn't lose much.

Several good-natured British sailors were surrounding the cabin door watching the Qing people fighting below the deck. They burst into joking laughter from time to time, as if they were watching a group of monkeys fighting.

Liang Yao returned to the cabin fiercely with a musket in his hand. Several descendants of the Deng family had already been knocked to the ground.

Deng Yan's legs and right hand were tightly hugged by three green-skinned gangsters, and they could not move freely in the narrow cabin. The left hand that was still able to move tightly grasped Wu Daqi's braid and wouldn't let go.

Not to be outdone, Wu Daqi used all his strength to punch Deng Yan in the face.

Wu Daqi was in the middle of the beating when he suddenly received a sap on his stubbled forehead. Enduring the pain, he turned around and was about to have an attack, when he saw the black muzzle of the gun pointing at his head.

"Third brother, no, third master, Master Liang, please spare my life. I will never dare to do it again. I will apologize to these masters now."

Wu Daqi ignored Deng Yanzheng's pull on his braid and hurriedly knelt down and kowtowed to beg for mercy.

The rest of the accomplices were at a loss when they saw this, and allowed Deng Yan, who was bruised and swollen, to break away from them.

"Killing you with one shot will give you an advantage. Who in Xiangshan doesn't know about the things you did in Xiangshan? You should be thrown into the sea and let the fish eat your flesh and bones one by one!" Liang Yao angrily road.

Deng Yan had been a soldier, used shotguns, and had seen the power of foreign guns. He was worried that Liang Yao was too excited and went off the rails. After all, they were on the ghost guy's ship, and they had to look at the ghost guy's face to act. It will be difficult to end the situation if someone loses his life.

"Third brother, let him apologize and spare him a life."

Although beaten, Deng Yan still maintained a calm mind.

Liang Yao just happened to borrow the donkey from Poxia. Although Sven's old fox gave him the gun, he didn't give him the flash cap or bullets. The thing in his hand could only be used to scare people.

"Second uncle, it's their fault. You can't get this beating in vain. The ghost doctor on the ship demands a lot of money for his consultation."

Liang Yao's angry voice echoed in the cabin, and his sharp eyes were directed at Wu Daqi.

"Our brothers will pay for the consultation fee, and our brothers will pay for it. It's because I, Lu Daqi, didn't control that my hands are nothing."

Lu Daqi hurriedly took out two pieces of Yingyang and a few pieces of broken silver. At the same time, he urged his accomplices to pay. Under Lu Daqi's urging, the friends reluctantly collected some silver coins.

Liang Yao stopped when he saw that it was good. Seeing that Lu Daqi and the others paid, they didn't push Lu Daqi and the others to the dead end. The rabbit would bite people when they were pushed hard.

Fights between Chinese were minor, but the nature of the incident was different. A white sailor who was watching the fun soon informed Captain Frank of the situation.

"what happened?!"

The pilot, the immigration agent Huang Bingliang, followed behind Frank and sternly questioned everyone in the cabin.

"Where did you get your gun?"

Frank noticed the musket hidden in Liang Yao's clothes. Since Liang Yao understood English, Huang Bingliang no longer translated the conversation between Frank and Liang Yao.

"This is a gift given to me by Third Officer Sven." Liang Yao replied in English, "It's just a gun, without a flash cap or bullets."

Flack's face brightened slightly when he heard this. Seeing that nothing serious happened, he left with a few words of reprimand. He is not willing to interfere with matters between Chinese people.

All he cares about is how many people can make it to California alive in the end, and how much commission he can get from it, nothing more.

After Frank left, Liang Yao pulled up the curtain in the middle of the cabin and called Deng Yan and several young people from the Deng family to the end of the cabin.

"How many of you should divide the money? Tomorrow the foreign ship will dock. You can go ashore to find a good doctor to treat your injuries."

There is a ship's doctor on the Cape Town, but the ship's doctor is an extremely racist, white supremacist. The most common way to treat Chinese people is to hold their noses from a distance and direct the sailors to take the sick Chinese people out of the cabin and throw them into the sea.

Liang Yao didn't expect such a person to treat these children of the Deng family.

Liang Yao divided the money into six parts and asked each of them to take one part.

"These are just skin injuries, no injuries to muscles or bones, so it's not a problem."

Deng Wenyao said it was okay, but his body was very honest and he stretched out his hand towards the money.

But Deng Wenyu stopped him: "Without Third Brother, I don't know how this matter would end today. Third Brother should have a share of this money."

Deng Yan was also convinced and took out three eagle coins: "If the third brother doesn't accept this money, our family will not dare to ask for it."

"In that case, count me in."

Liang Yao didn't show any pretense and accepted the three eagles generously.

After everyone distributed the money, Deng Yan said to Liang Yao with a worried look on his face: "People like Wu Daqi were only convinced when they saw that you had a foreign gun in your hand. They convinced you with their mouths, but in their hearts they wanted to cut you to death with a thousand knives. In the future, You still have to watch out for him.”

Liang Yao smiled bitterly and shook his head and said, "It is difficult for people like Wu Daqi to become great. It is not worth mentioning. What I am worried about now is not Wu Daqi, but what to do after arriving in San Francisco."

How to gain a foothold after arriving in California is the problem that Liang Yao is most worried about now.

It is now 184. Marshall first discovered a large amount of gold in the American River in January 1848. Nearly two years have passed, and they have lost the opportunity to pan for gold.

Many gold panning teams from the eastern United States not only have professional gold panning knowledge, but also have more mature organizational forms. Of course, there are more people. What can he use to compete with those 49-year-old miners?

If more than 120 Chinese workers on the ship can be united and organized, it will be a force that cannot be underestimated.

But this idea is nothing but a fantasy. The composition of the Chinese on the ship is very complicated. In addition to the Xiangshan people, there are also Guangzhou people, Chaoshan people, Zhaoqing people, Hakka people in northern Guangdong, and even a dozen Fujian people.

With his current prestige, it is nothing but a foolish dream to want to unite these people from different regions and clans.

A more realistic idea is to unite these Deng family members and gain a firm foothold in San Francisco first.

Deng Yanchang sighed: "It's rare that you can think of this at such a young age. It's getting late. Go to bed early. Your second uncle can't guarantee it for outsiders, but he can still unite these Deng family members into one rope."

Liang Yao also felt a little sleepy, and said no more. He climbed onto the hammock made of Manila canvas with a musket in his pocket.