John jacob astor has gone west.

Soon, Napoleon gave Jefferson a "big gift", which greatly eased Astor's fur tension. Louisiana was originally a French colony in America, but it changed hands several times and finally returned to Napoleon. Jefferson was very nervous and worried that the ambitious Napoleon might pose a serious threat to the United States in the west.

On April 1803, 1 1, French Foreign Minister talleyrand suddenly asked, "How much are you willing to pay for the whole Louisiana?" James monroe, the American special envoy, and Leavins, the French ambassador, were both surprised-they had just been ordered by Jefferson to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans. As a result, things have changed. Napoleon saw that Haiti's independence was unstoppable, and Louisiana's strategic significance was greatly reduced. He was also caught in the upcoming war between Britain and France, and he was too busy to take care of this land in the United States and was eager to sell it.

Jefferson was hesitant when he received the news: the constitution did not clearly stipulate that the government had the right to buy land. As the drafter of the Declaration of Independence, he was a staunch supporter of the constitution. At first, Jefferson wanted to amend the constitution, but the advisory group reminded that delay would lead to change, and the right to buy land was also included in the terms of the treaty that the government could sign. After discussion and counter-offer, the transaction was concluded at 60 million francs (120,000 USD). This is a good deal. According to the exchange rate at that time, an acre of land in the United States only cost 4 cents. The United States acquired the rich plains, mountains, forests and water systems of vast expanse, and became the heart of the United States 80 years later.

Jefferson's actions almost doubled the area of the United States. However, there are still criticisms. How to manage such a large area of land? Immigration to the west is bound to conflict with local aborigines. How to deal with it? Some people question that this is the madness of young America. Astor is not one of them.

He immediately realized that the mountains of Louisiana were rich in fur resources. Prior to this, Astor bought a lot of furs from Canadian Northwest Company at a high price in order to meet the trade with China. Astor immediately went deep into Louisiana. However, he also wants to establish closer ties between his fur business and trade with China.

The fur trade controlled by Canadians depends on their connection with Indian tribes and individual hunters between the St. Louis Mountains and the Rocky Mountains. Astor dreams of building a western entrance to the trade zone. 1806, william clark and meriwether lewis returned from exploring the west, which added fuel to his ideal. He paid a special visit to Lewis in Washington and asked about the situation in the northwest in detail. It is said that Astor gave Lewis a thousand dollars, which is a very large sum for him-he is not a generous person and often says, "If giving is meaningless, it will make the giver scarce."

Based on Lewis's exploration achievements, Astor envisaged the establishment of a trade network at the far end of the Rocky Mountains and the Columbia River Basin. Its headquarters is located in Columbia Pass, near where Lewis and Clark used to spend the winter; Based on this, Astor will collect fur from tens of thousands of valleys and hundreds of thousands of square miles of forests in Oregon. If we are lucky, this stronghold will control the survival of the whole basin trade. In addition, if we directly cross the Pacific Ocean from here to Guangzhou, compared with the traditional route through the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and then to the Pacific Ocean, the distance will be greatly shortened and the cost will be greatly reduced, which will bring Astor a strong competitive advantage to China's trade. This is a great conspiracy. However, Jefferson's plan was complicated by a law against Britain.