Rise of the Argentine Empire

To Saint Hesser's surprise, Peron's side had indeed terminated cooperation with Standard Oil of California.

Perhaps the presidential palace really thought 30 million US dollars was too little, and instead negotiated with other American oil capitals, such as trying to negotiate with the more powerful Mobil Oil Company.

Since the beginning of 1953, Argentina's economic difficulties have become increasingly serious, and the Peron government has turned to publicly sacrificing workers' interests and relying on the United States to seek a way out.

Negotiations with the Americans were intermittent and not continuous, and even often went back on their word.

Even last year's new trade tariffs could not stabilize the economy, and the central bank has been printing money and easing monetary policy.

The currency continues to depreciate.

Saint Hesser still takes the time to visit the slums for research. Night school has not continued due to safety concerns.

The overall situation in Argentina is not very optimistic.

Due to inflation, many people in the slums cannot support their families even with work, let alone those who have no work at all.

When Saint Hesser went to the slums to offer condolences, he saw the women and children left behind at home, and their faces were unhealthy. After Mrs. Peron's death last year, the Peron Foundation has been struggling to continue, and they can only eat half full each day, which is quite absurd. Most of the clothes they wear are also tattered.

They are almost like beggars, and even the beggars in the inner city look more decent than them. They cannot farm, have lost their land, and have come to the city, but have no work. It is truly pitiful.

Saint Hesser, through the Future Agriculture Company, launched a self-help and equal cooperation relief association, and opened suburban farms in Buenos Aires Province to help some unemployed people become employees of the suburban farms, taking self-salvation activities.

Fortunately, most of these poor people in Argentina come from remote rural areas and have a strong resilience that some other Argentines lack. Some are heavily in debt and do not want to be exploited by the caudillos, so they come to the city, which is better than the life of renting land without freedom and poverty.

In recent years, Argentina's agricultural development has been fragmented, and rural areas have also declined severely. Often, half of the rural population is lost, coming to the city to seek survival, but the city is also affected by the economic crisis, with increased unemployment and difficult living conditions.

There are also many bankrupt ordinary people, mostly from private factories. Orders have decreased, and they can only lay off employees. Those in state-owned factories are doing better, but the overall living conditions have declined a lot.

Gangs have continued to appear. For them, chaos is the best. They take the opportunity to develop their power.

Even Saint Hesser was almost killed.

One day in mid-April, Saint Hesser sent Ilena home after watching a movie. When he was returning along the dimly lit street, two stray bullets from a gang feud almost hit his feet.

Saint Hesser also strengthened his defenses because of this. At the same time, he conducted special training for the Delta Force. After investigating clearly, Aragon sent people to directly exterminate the two gangs, sink their leaders into the La Plata River, and send the rest to South Africa to mine coal.

This incident also gave Saint Hesser a lesson, which is that he must bring many bodyguards when he goes out, and specially customize armored cars such as German Mercedes-Benz.

Saint Hesser has also been listed as one of the people who cannot be provoked by the local gangs.

Saint Hesser's New Argentina newspaper also began to slowly add some articles opposing Peron's policies, supporting Radical Party activities, and received some criticism from the presidential palace.

Argentina's current corruption problem is particularly serious, and the bureaucratic system is corrupt, which makes Argentina even worse.

"It's really damn it, even if I do a good job of risk warning, the loss is still relatively large."

Their power is weak. Bill Bernard has shown outstanding talent and has already settled several cities, allowing Future Agriculture to enter development, using clever tactics to seize land and establish collective industrial farms.

The bright moonlight decorates the autumn night sky, and also decorates the earth.

The fields, villages, trees, Future Farms, and tobacco farms have achieved a great harvest.

Especially on the Future Farm side,

After scientific planting and mechanized production, a large amount of wheat and some rice were harvested, and dairy cows were also raised.

A flour mill was built in the farm, and Plari Foods also established a milk factory here. After all, there is no Tetra Pak yet, and fresh milk can only be supplied to surrounding cities and locals in glass bottles, but milk powder can already be made to establish a more distant market.

The tractors produced by the Leiden Tractor Factory are supplied here. Future Farms has also trained a group of tractor drivers, and the area of cultivated land is larger. The invention of three-wheeled motorcycles has replaced the original cattle and horses, facilitating transportation.

Future Farms does not directly export wheat, but grinds it into flour and then produces various noodles, breads, and other products to obtain higher profits.

The Future No. 1 Farm has more than 2,200 workers, cultivating 30,000 acres of wheat fields, raising 500 dairy cows, and building biogas digesters, irrigation systems, and other facilities.

"Bill, you've done a good job. It's developing very well."

Saint Hesser also came to the vicinity of Oran, where the suburbs of several cities have basically been controlled by the Thunder Cross, and jointly controlled more than one million acres of farmland and grassland in the vicinity with the local caudillo families.

Among them, Sunshine Agriculture controls 4 large industrial farms, about 200,000 acres of land, which is more than three times the 57,000 acres last year. Behind this represents the withdrawal of several families, from less to more, buying farmland in large quantities, and Saint Hesser is also reclaiming wasteland. There is a lot of wasteland in the north. With tractors, various agricultural machinery and equipment can be installed, saving time and effort, but the power is a little worse.

The scale of the Andes Tobacco Farm has more than doubled compared to last year, and the profit is 1.5 times more than last year. This money can be deposited in the Oran branch of Barron Bank. After all, this tobacco fund is really a lot and can do a lot of things.

"It's all thanks to the boss. I'm just responsible for execution."

Bill is still very humble, which is a very good and excellent quality.

"It's really the intoxicating taste of harvest."

Saint Hesser took a breath of air, as if he could smell the taste of harvest.

For him, it's simply wonderful.

"Are there many children born on the farm this year?"

"Not many, but there are some pregnant women. We only started recruiting more workers in the middle of last year. Everyone wants to earn more money, not have children."

Bill thought about it seriously. For him, this matter is a bit difficult, after all, young men, urging children.

Fortunately, Saint Hérissé didn't make things too difficult for him, only asking that Sunshine Agriculture cooperate a bit.

"Encourage them more. Offer a subsidy for having children, say, half of their working salary. What do you think? 3 months of maternity leave, 4 months of pregnancy leave."

"Boss, wouldn't that be a bit much? We already pay pretty good wages. We won't have many female workers actually working."

From the start, he'd opposed the farm hiring married couples, but Saint Hérissé had forced it through. Now, he was implementing these strange regulations.

"There's plenty of time during pregnancy to arrange some simple tasks."

Saint Hérissé remained noncommittal.

"As long as people are having children, we can even set up a kindergarten directly on the farm in the future, so parents don't have to take care of them during the day."

Saint Hérissé even considered a crèche system to allow parents to have children without worry.

To test the birth rate, Saint Hérissé was even planning to try out new policies.

The future farms in the north had become like small, independent kingdoms, with Sunshine Agriculture as their ruler.

"Continue expanding the number of people on the future farms this year. Give them more work, but pay attention to safety."

Actually, this experiment wasn't particularly ideal for him.

The population growth plan wasn't so easy. Trying to achieve it through corporatization and capitalization might be a failure, after all, the 'future' now felt like some kind of capitalist farm.

Argentina's agricultural land area exceeds half of the country's total area, roughly 1.6 million square kilometers, while arable land is about 1/10 of the country. Currently, the rural population continues to decline, having fallen below half.

"Okay, boss. As you wish."

This was an irreversible situation. Stimulating population growth within reasonable limits was a major challenge. Clearly, the experiment through Sunshine Agriculture Company was quickly turning into capital exploiting farm workers.

"Indeed, land reform is still needed. Let more Argentine farmers own land. Over one or two generations, the population growth rate can be maintained, adding at least twenty million people. At the same time, encourage urban birth rates. Have more babies?"

Saint Hérissé said, somewhat uncertainly.

Actually, it couldn't be said that the future farm plan had failed in the short term, but the more Saint Hérissé looked at it, the more it resembled an Argentine caudillo rather than a Soviet collective farm.

It seemed like the path had gone astray, as he was employing workers rather than promoting Argentine farmers' self-governance.

Even though last year's harvest was bountiful, it was mainly due to Sunshine Agriculture's scientific management, not farmer autonomy.

"It's truly fraught with difficulties. It seems we still have to rely on political power. Capital is profit-driven, not omnipotent."

To be honest, this outcome was somewhat expected from the start. After all, ideals are ideals, and a real agricultural company still needs to make a profit. Even encouraging childbirth was only because they wanted to.

Mexico's agricultural reform took place in the 1920s, and it was indeed very effective in increasing the native population.

Now it's the 1950s, and Mexico has nearly 30 million people, about 10 million more than Argentina. By the 21st century, the gap had widened to a staggering 90 million.

The fact proves that Mexicans in later generations were much more fertile than Argentinians, which was likely because Mexican farmers had their own farmland. Argentina, on the other hand...

"Bill, what do you think about dissolving the future farms and giving the land to these farmers?"

Saint Hérissé asked, somewhat dispiritedly. The effect was mediocre, and it could be sold off later.

"Boss, are you crazy? This is land we bought with great difficulty and at considerable expense. Why should we give it away?"

He was just asking casually. Whether or not to do it was another matter.

"Well, yes, but we need to be mentally prepared for the future. Future farms can continue to expand, but don't acquire land from small farmers. We can even give them technical support to help them develop their land."

"That's acceptable. We have been developing too quickly here."

Bill almost thought his boss was drunk. He'd heard old Guerrero talk about the boss's past, and it seemed the boss wasn't much of a drinker. But he couldn't smell any alcohol.

"During your development, I can give you accurate information. Future farms don't have to make money, they can even lose money. But they must explore a suitable development model."

This year, the future farms had made a profit through deep processing, and currently, per capita productivity was still very high.

That's the charm of mechanized production, but it ran counter to Saint Hérissé's purpose, which was the real problem.

… …

Saint Hérissé arranged inspection activities in several core cities such as Oran, the Lithium Triangle, and Morado Town.

This year, besides agricultural land, the tobacco farms were doing even better, but they had to be opened up on mountains and wastelands.

In terms of profit, it was actually very good. Scientific planting management had resulted in good harvests for the farms and tobacco farms, with direct income slightly better than last year and profits soaring.

"Making money in agriculture is indeed very profitable, but this is also due to the economies of scale."

After staying for a few days, Saint Hérissé returned to Bucheng, because Commander Thompson had invited him to visit the National Defense Military Academy.

The National Defense Military Academy was no simple institution. It was still Argentina's largest military academy, surpassing the Army Command School, the San Martin Military Academy, and others.

This place had always been a disaster area for military leaders.

Saint Hérissé didn't stand on ceremony and planned to befriend future generals.

Like the famous Galtieri of later generations, who graduated from here, two or three years older than Saint Hérissé.

The National Defense Academy was not in the city center, but in a relatively inexpensive location.

To be.

July 9, 1953, a glorious Argentine military parade.

July 9th was a special day, also Argentina's Independence Day, and the Argentine army was preparing to show the world their strength, as President Juan Perón led them into the highest of banners in the world.

This parade was Perón's high moment.

The Labor Confederation would also participate.

Then came the countdown to dissolution.

Union leaders, on the other hand, began to oppose Perón.

"Cohen, did you know that our students from the National Defense Military Academy will also participate in this parade?"

Since becoming the principal, Commander Thompson seemed to be doing much better.

Here it was relatively relaxed, and there wasn't as much pressure.

He was even losing less hair.

"Oh, is that so? That's really good."

"Cohen, I'll introduce you this afternoon. I have to go to a meeting later."

"Okay, General."