Rise of the Argentine Empire

April 12th, outskirts of Oran, Andes Eastern Tobacco Farm.

Today is the first harvest of tobacco leaves at the Eastern Farm. The lowest grade of tobacco leaves, which are the bottom leaves, are generally used to produce low-grade cigarettes and ordinary cigars.

Repas, Guerrero, and Bill each held a cigar produced by the cigarette factory, looking quite content. Harvest time always brings joy.

Repas is the first-generation person in charge of the tobacco fields, recognized by Saint Hesser, and now manages this large tobacco farm of more than 9,000 acres, which is nine times larger than before.

It is now the golden autumn season in Argentina. For farmers who grow flue-cured tobacco, looking at the endless yellow-green mature tobacco leaves in the tobacco fields, they feel very happy in their hearts. It can be said that after suffering comes happiness. These employees who work for the Andes Cigarette Factory are busy in the flue-cured tobacco planting fields and flue-curing barns.

The cigarette factory workers and tobacco farmers are also very excited. Tobacco planting is not easy, with many twists and turns.

Last year, the indigenous villages recruited by Saint Hesser helped start the planting of tobacco fields for the cigarette factory, which was also an old skill.

Originally, a thousand acres of land was enough manpower, but Saint Hesser was very dissatisfied, so the tobacco fields were expanded tenfold in one go. The original manual planting was no longer feasible, so they embarked on a path of mechanization from which there was no return.

This year is the first year that the cigarette factory has planted tobacco leaves. Many things need to be explored. Even with the boss's support in terms of various funds and advanced concepts, the execution is often unsatisfactory and needs constant adjustment. Fortunately, the result is good.

Guerrero saw rows of newly built modern flue-curing barns standing on the west side of the farm. As he walked closer, the aroma of flue-cured tobacco wafted over him.

Customized tricycles imported from Japan replaced the former horsepower transportation. The motorcycle drivers are basically local gauchos, driving through the roads of the tobacco fields to transport the harvested tobacco leaves.

Some motorcycles, spoils of the gang wars, formed convoys to transport fertilizers, tobacco seedlings, and various agricultural machinery.

The employees working here include young indigenous people from Secretary Nora's tribe, local gauchos, and some poor white farmers. Most of them echoed each other, wearing work clothes and hats customized by the Blue Cloud Clothing Factory, full of enthusiasm. Because of the huge scale and the need for manual harvesting, some Thunder Cross logistics personnel are also helping.

This belongs to the plain farm, which Saint Hesser had inspected. It is a bit different from the alpine tobacco farm in the Puna Plateau. The planting area here is larger and the degree of mechanization is higher.

In particular, Andes Cigarette Factory also recruited several old agricultural experts from the north, selected a unique tobacco variety from the South American Andes Mountains, and carried out large-scale breeding work, and the effect was good.

Last year, after solving the problem of tobacco leaf varieties, the next thing was the employee problem of the tobacco farm. Under Bill's arrangement, imitating some of Saint Hesser's usual practices, employee dormitories were built on the tobacco farm, and their own vegetable gardens were opened up, and a poultry farm was also started, specializing in solving the food and accommodation problems of the tobacco farm employees.

With Saint Hesser's permission, Bill also sent a group of young teams to the United States. Under Sien's connections, they went to learn new tobacco planting techniques. The United States is now the world's largest tobacco country, much more powerful than Britain, with well-known brands such as Marlboro and Camel cigarettes, and tobacco planting has been carried forward and is very powerful.

For three full months last year, they traveled from Virginia to California, and also visited Marlboro and Camel companies. The route they traveled was almost all in American tobacco farms. They squatted by the tobacco fields to watch the planting of tobacco leaves, chatted with American tobacco farmers about technology, and also learned the tobacco planting manual distributed to tobacco farmers in the United States, and carried out Argentinization.

After returning to China, the learning team specially established a tobacco training room in Oran to train the indigenous tribes planting tobacco and the locally recruited employees, using scientific planting methods.

Pares pointed to the distant tobacco fields and said:

Director, since last week, the more than 9,000 acres of tobacco leaves here have begun to be topped, and now they have turned yellow and matured. These are this year's new goods, top configuration, and the quality is super good."

Bill, who was next to him, had a newly made handmade cigar in his right hand, with a mediocre taste, and a yellow tobacco leaf in his left hand, introducing it to Guerrero with some liveliness and seriousness. Now he is half a tobacco expert.

"Boss, look, this tobacco leaf is very mature, the leaf color has turned yellow, the leaf droops, the main vein turns white, and the fluff falls off with mature spots, which is a very good leaf."

Bill serves as the deputy director of the Falcon Bureau and was once a talent discovered by Guerrero. The two have a good relationship.

"Our cigarette factory divides tobacco leaves into five standards, from cigars and high-end cigarettes to the lowest grade, and the final prices are different, so as to increase the profit margin of flue-cured tobacco as much as possible. This year is actually not the peak of our tobacco fields, because we are still in the exploration stage, and there are more low-grade qualities."

Pares introduced seriously. The three of them walked forward together. Seeing the busy workers, Guerrero also felt a sense of accomplishment. The cigarette factory was his idea, and now it is a towering tree.

"Bill, we really have a great harvest this year. These are growing too well. The boss will probably be very happy. You all deserve the credit. I will write a good report."

Guerrero is very satisfied with Bill's work. The potassium triangle is developing very fast and is quite stable. The intelligence collection work is done very well, and even several successful missions have been carried out, "legally" killing several land nobles.

"Thank you, boss. It is not easy to get the boss's approval. This piece of land is indeed growing well, and we will have a great harvest this year. I wonder if the boss will come to the potassium triangle to take a look this year."

"Amazing, amazing. Tobacco planting is really a complicated job."

Guerrero praised a few words. He could feel the hard work inside. Bill's expression was still quite excited. He was stationed in the potassium triangle, responsible for protecting Morado Town, Thunder Mining, and the safety of the cigarette factory, and also providing some material assistance to the guerrillas in Bolivia.

"Tobacco leaves are not harvested all at once, but in batches. The harvesting cycle of a tobacco plant lasts for several weeks. Taking our tobacco fields as an example, the entire tobacco leaf harvesting cycle is almost 25 days."

Sares introduced the steps of tobacco leaf harvesting. This is not a one-time project and is an important sign of tobacco grading.

"When harvesting tobacco leaves, start from the bottom of the plant and harvest the lowest 2 or 3 small leaves. Usually, this first harvested leaf is used for machine-made cigars. The quality is relatively poor on the plant. We will have to deal with so much tobacco in the next two days. The manpower is quite amazing."

"I didn't expect that this is the worst made. Our cigarette factory will definitely sell well, and the tobacco rush is very good."

Guerrero looked at the cigar in his hand and thought the taste was very good.

"Seven days after the first harvest of mature tobacco plants, main harvesting is carried out in a cycle of 3 days, and eventually all the tobacco leaves will be harvested. The tobacco plants will be pulled out, and the land will be turned over to wait for next year's tobacco plants to be planted."

This is also a characteristic of tobacco leaves. Tobacco leaves are planted once a year, and new plants must be cultivated every year. After harvesting, the old ones need to be uprooted. Therefore, the tobacco leaves every year are new.

In the beginning, the development of the cigarette factory was not smooth sailing. The raw tobacco purchased from outside was of poor quality, with varying lengths, many stems, and insufficient maturity of the leaves, lacking the inherent aroma of tobacco. Therefore, Guerrero's consideration was self-operation.

After inspecting the tobacco, the group arrived at the eastern drying house. This place was very old, using anthracite coal for drying. The leaves were baked well to obtain flue-cured tobacco leaves, then shredded and rolled into cigarettes, completing the production of a single cigarette.

Currently, advanced drying technology is being promoted to improve the construction of drying houses, ensuring good tobacco is produced. Only then can the quality of tobacco leaves be continuously and stably improved. Bundles of tobacco leaves are hung here, undergoing drying through temperature control.

After viewing the flue-cured tobacco house, the three of them arrived at the cigarette factory, which was not far away. This was the location for the final shredding, packaging, and boxing of the cigarettes.

Initially, the cigarette workshop had many problems. At first, it could only produce low-quality cigarettes and handmade cigarettes. Despite this, it still earned tens of thousands of US dollars. Later, to formalize the operation, San Jose invested funds and technology to upgrade the cigarette factory.

At the same time, to improve the irrigation environment of the tobacco fields, Bill constructed a series of water diversion and irrigation systems, improving the tobacco planting conditions.

The increased income of the tobacco farmers made everyone enthusiastic, and the quality of the raw tobacco material was fundamentally guaranteed.

Bill used his connections with British South African mining companies to purchase relatively new British machines at the time, directly replacing the old equipment. Manual cigarette rolling and handcrafting were transformed into mechanized production, costing Lightning Mining a month's profit. The production volume per minute increased rapidly, and the products were of excellent quality, appearing high-end at a glance. Advance publicity was also conducted.

"Argentine national brand cigarettes, cigarettes from the Andes Mountains, the spirit of the times."

"Smoking is harmful to your health, please support national cigarettes."

"Every foreign cigarette you smoke will become a bullet for the enemy..."

Anyway, some bizarre and somewhat煽动性 slogans were arranged in some Argentine newspapers.

To expand the influence of the cigarette factory, San Jose directly acquired a football club, renamed it the Eagles Football Club, and planned to use football matches to place small advertisements.

The cigarette sales also needed to open up various retail channels, and the domestic distribution channels of the Cohen Brothers Company could be used perfectly.

Foreign exports relied on Plarrie International, which would be a hard currency to counter British and American cigarette companies, especially the French military market.

After the group finished visiting the flue-cured tobacco house and exited the gate, Bill quickly asked,

"Boss, besides this piece of land, some hills in the Potassium Triangle also grow alpine tobacco leaves. Shall we go take a look this afternoon?"

"No problem, let's go take a look at the equipment in the cigarette factory. To be honest, I haven't seen it yet."

Bill took off his coat. The temperature was very high in the place where the tobacco was being dried.

Currently, there are nearly 10,000 acres of tobacco fields in the Potassium Triangle, which is much more than originally planned, equivalent to more than 60,000 mu. So many tobacco fields can produce at least 100,000 dan of tobacco leaves, with one dan of tobacco being 50kg, producing the equivalent of 5 million kilograms of tobacco.

The value of the tobacco leaves alone exceeds 5 million US dollars. If made into cigarettes, this number can be turned into at least 15 million US dollars, a truly highly profitable industry, even far exceeding the profit margin of Rheinmetall Military.

Rheinmetall Military produces an MP40 with a retail price of 40 US dollars each. Now, because of the increase in production costs, the price has become 45 US dollars.

With the allocation of bullets, the profit is only a mere 20 US dollars. If you want a profit of 10 million US dollars, you must produce at least 500,000 MP40s, and it will take almost two years to sell so many guns. The cigarette factory only needs to plant 10,000 acres of tobacco to be enough.

In fact, only pistols have a greater market in the civilian sector. Submachine guns are generally purchased by the military and police. Fortunately, the world is at war everywhere, and the market for light weapons exports is still quite large.

The tobacco industry is really a money printing machine, and the profits are very generous, with not much investment. Argentina currently does not have a tobacco monopoly, and most of them are foreign brands, especially British and American brands. This is a huge market opportunity.

"Director, are we going to continue to expand tobacco production next year?"

Pares took out his notebook next to him and asked.

"That's not nonsense, we must continue to expand, but we must find the kind of land that is not so flat. Sunshine Agriculture must carry out an agricultural production plan, and the target of the tobacco field owner's own tobacco production next year is 30,000 acres, establishing our own tobacco base."

"Also, our cigarette factory must continue to expand its scale. Relying on ourselves alone is definitely not enough. We must cooperate with the farmers in the Potassium Triangle and let them also plant tobacco in the mountains, so that the scale can be expanded faster. We are responsible for providing technology and tobacco seedlings."

"Understood, we will implement it seriously."

"The tobacco in a cigarette is about 0.8 grams per cigarette. According to this calculation, 500 grams of shredded tobacco can roll about 625 cigarettes."

Guerrero, who was bored next to him, counted it. No more, no less, exactly 625.

"Boss, your calculation is really accurate."

Bill praised seriously, grinning.

"I want to seriously report this good news to the boss. There are too many places that need money recently."

As the Director of Intelligence, Guerrero is also responsible for summarizing the collection of commercial intelligence in various companies. There have been a bit too many places to spend money recently, and the cigarette factory is the boss's money printing machine, which can alleviate many difficulties.

In particular, investment in the American Redwood Company is essential, and the American stock market is soaring every month.

"Boss, the specific situation is like this. Our Andes Cigarette Factory is simply a money printing machine."

"Pay more attention to safety. This is very important. After the harvesting and drying of tobacco is completed, I will throw a celebration banquet for you."

"Okay, boss."

After Guerrero hung up the phone, he began a new round of intelligence analysis work. The information in the Potassium Triangle is also quite complex and chaotic.

......

Two days later, they returned to Oran. Bill and Guerrero sat in chairs and chatted idly.

While chatting, they talked about the Bolivian guerrillas. They used the same old method. Bolivia is the great philanthropist of South America. From the loss of its access to the sea to the Chaco War, the territory lost by Bolivia is countless. The only country that can compare with it is Mexico to the north.

"Yes, the intelligence work has not been going well recently. Pes is really going to revolt? I only know his identity now. It's really amazing. He used to be the president. Our intelligence work is not in place."

"The intelligence work was indeed not done well. He was indeed quite down and out at that time. Who knew this guy had such a big background." Pes was wearing tattered clothes at that time and came up to ask for sponsorship. Fortunately, they felt that this guy was indeed capable and really gave some sponsorship.

"There is still no news coming back, but he has already returned to Bolivia last month. Their guerrillas are expanding very quickly, and judging from the situation on the border, Bolivians are launching an uprising."

Bill Guerrero and Pes had a good relationship. They sponsored them with a thousand guns and a large batch of supplies, just in time to sell the replaced second-hand guns and ammunition, simply half-selling and half-gifting.

On April 9, under pressure from the United States, the Bolivian government of Hugo prepared to send 30,000 troops to participate in the Korean War, arousing public anger in Bolivia.

The nationalist revolutionary movement took advantage of the situation to mobilize the masses to launch an armed uprising. Workers, students, and peasants took up arms, defeated the government army's attack, and farmers in various places established peasant associations to launch a land seizure struggle.

The Bolivian Labor Union and the Communist Party also participated in leading the uprising, and Bolivian Communist leader Manuel Miranda was killed in street fighting.

The Bolivian Revolution was successful!