Rise of the Argentine Empire

After participating in the military parade, Saint Hérse began preparing for the Blanca Port council reshuffle in October and planned to directly take over the local Radical Party branch.

Starting in June of this year, Saint Hérse's luck began to turn for the better. The Argentine economy had declined to a certain point, and many factories went bankrupt this year. These factory owners could no longer support themselves due to frequent strikes and the fragility of the overall economic environment. They didn't have Saint Hérse's strong international sales capabilities, and surviving for another year or two was already difficult.

According to statistics from the Socialist Party newspaper "Avant-garde," Argentine prices have doubled in the past year, but workers' wages have not increased at all. Coupled with the currency devaluation caused by the excessive issuance of banknotes, over a longer period, from 1943 to 1953, Argentine prices increased fivefold, while wages only increased twofold, resulting in severe inflation.

The economic crisis prompted the Perón government to prepare to surrender to British and American monopoly capital. The parliament prepared to pass a foreign investment bill allowing foreign capital to transfer 8% of its profits abroad. By June, the government's internal debt had exceeded 65 billion pesos, and its external debt had reached 1.2 billion pesos, while the country's foreign exchange reserves were less than 400 million US dollars.

Of course, Perón, ever the opportunist, was still negotiating with the Soviet government to sell scarce Soviet agricultural products, such as grain. Unusually, a Soviet diplomatic ambassador attended this military parade.

Farms on the Pampas were being sold off in large numbers, and many farmers were going bankrupt and becoming unemployed. Saint Hérse, with his ample funds, directly engaged in bottom-fishing. In June alone, bankrupt farmers in Buenos Aires Province sold more than 100 farms. Since the end of last year, the number of farms had been more than 400, but at that time, he was not prepared to make waves on the Pampas; there was more land in the north, and it was cheaper, while the situation in Buenos Aires Province was too complex.

Sunshine Agriculture acquired more than 20 small and medium-sized farms in July this year, while others were divided up by large caudillos. Future Agriculture's farm area has directly doubled.

Maya Chemical also expanded its industrial scale amidst frequent strikes. Since April, monthly sales have increased at a rate of 50%, with no signs of the recession from January to March, giving Saint Hérse renewed confidence. There was great potential in heavy chemical industry, preferably with domestic production.

After all, India in later generations was a good example. It was better to buy than to build. India's Green Revolution in fertilizers relied entirely on imports. Importing these chemical equipment was too expensive and not cost-effective at all. If they could produce synthetic ammonia and other chemical industrial equipment themselves, that would be the real way out. According to Saint Hérse's estimate, a set of synthetic ammonia equipment would only cost one or two million US dollars, but importing it would at least double the cost, to six or seven million US dollars.

Of course, researching and producing this equipment themselves would require a very strong metal smelting industry and mechanical processing industry, which would take time.

The recession in Argentine agriculture was beneficial to Eagle Tobacco. This year's profits are likely to exceed 18 million US dollars, and funds have begun to slowly flow back. This money is enough to do a lot of things.

The country's external environment was also very harsh. As everyone knows, Argentina has no coal mines, and it cannot extract oil, so Argentina has to import coal and oil from Britain, in a so-called beef-for-oil-and-coal arrangement.

However, the prices charged by the British were 70% higher than the market price. Fortunately, Thunder Mining would soon be transporting cheap coal from Australia. The oil problem could not be solved for the time being. The devaluation of the pound sterling caused Argentina to lose a large amount of foreign exchange resources, especially since the price of beef sold was more than one hundred pounds per ton cheaper than the contract price, leading to a stalemate in Anglo-Argentine relations, giving the Americans an opportunity.

Saint Hérse did not comment on the cooperation with the Soviets. It was beneficial for Argentina, but so-so for Saint Hérse. Only Prarrie Foods and Future Agriculture could export to the Soviet Union; the others were competitors. Steel, machine tools, military industry, tractors, and textiles were all things the Soviets did not lack.

On August 21, the Argentine Congress passed the "Foreign Investment Law," showing goodwill to the United States.

It can only be said that Perón was indeed playing with fire. One cannot play the opportunist game.

.......

During this military parade, Saint Hérse also met some people from the Mexican consulate and had in-depth and pleasant conversations with them. This had not happened before, as he rarely contacted people from foreign consulates to maintain a low profile. Now, reality forced him to become more high-profile.

Previously, he only had a preliminary understanding of Mexico through the United States. He knew that it was more prosperous, and the Mexican consuls were quite talkative and seemed to have indigenous ancestry. The indigenous people of Mexico have completely integrated into the Mexican nation.

For him, among the major Latin American countries, only Mexico currently has the fastest natural population growth rate, with 25.76 million in the 1950 census.

Now, it is increasing by almost 1 million people every year, and it is getting faster and faster. By the 1960s, it is likely to reach more than 37 million people, and Mexican immigration is far less than that of Argentina, averaging a few thousand people per year.

This made Saint Hérse very interested. Currently, Mexican agriculture, through several large committees, is building water conservancy projects, developing modern agriculture, and irrigation. At the same time, land reform is accelerating population growth. This is also an experience that Argentina can learn from. Argentina has too many provinces, often resulting in sparsely populated provinces with a lack of funds, making it impossible to develop local industries.

Mexico can be divided into four regions: south, north, west, and core region. Currently, Mexico has achieved unprecedented unity, and centralism has reached a high level of development, which can be seen from the president's power.

Moreover, Mexico's land reform can be said to be very successful, and the federal fiscal revenue has also increased rapidly. Government budget expenditures are also high, which is in stark contrast to Argentina. Moreover, Mexico is more fortunate than Argentina and Brazil in that it has both coal and iron mines. The strength of a country ultimately depends on the production of steel.

Fortunately, Saint Hérse has sufficient reserve funds. Not only is the tobacco industry rising against the trend, but also major factories have finally begun to develop by leaps and bounds, reversing the decline that began in the second half of last year. A large amount of external funds, coupled with the establishment of Barron Bank, have made Saint Hérse's factories invincible. Even many newly established and acquired factories have been regarded as models of work-for-relief, and have been praised by President Perón, which is a huge irony.

Argentina currently imports about 1.5 million tons of coal every year, mainly from Britain. Thunder Mining has begun negotiations with the presidential palace, preparing to kick out British coal and replace it with Australian coal. Thunder Mining purchased a mine near Brisbane with a potential reserve of more than 1 billion tons for less than 1 million US dollars.

To expand the transportation scale faster, the Prarrie fleet, in addition to purchasing ships from Spanish shipyards, has also begun to lease ships. Once the steel plant is built, the annual demand for tens of millions of tons of coal can maximize the strength of Thunder Mining.

As long as he can successfully establish a foothold in Blanca Port, then mining oil in the south and establishing an oil company will not be far away. Saint Hérse is best at grabbing meat.

........

He also needs to conduct a thorough investigation into this Argentine aviation crisis, and sent a team of experts to negotiate with the city government and provincial government of Córdoba. If things are impossible or the resistance is too great, he can only give up.

As a result of a conversation with General Thompson, it seemed there was a good chance regarding this matter. General Thompson was not on good terms with the Cordoba military, mainly because Thompson had been transferred to the Ministry of Defense, and Cordoba had re-elected their leader.

Currently, a fellow named General Lonardi in Cordoba was accusing Thompson of making a mess and siding with the Presidential Palace, and secretly reorganized the Cordoba National Defense Force into the Cordoba Garrison Force, which was quite arrogant.

Garrison forces were usually only found in the capital. Previously, Cordoba at most had city defense forces. Perón didn't even dare to offend these local warlords, choosing to turn a blind eye.

Therefore, Saint Hilaire's opportunity had arrived. It was even possible to swallow the aircraft manufacturing plant whole. Anyway, in the eyes of many, the aircraft factory was just a huge money pit, a money pit with no output.

It could be said that Argentina's aviation industry had entered a death countdown. Time was very tight, and this was also the case for Saint Hilaire. He had to run for city councilor, and he was unwilling to let Argentina's aviation industry fail completely.

The aircraft manufacturing industry was an industry with a relatively large industrial chain, involving materials, engines, machining, and other aspects.

Currently, Saint Hilaire was involved in the metal smelting industry through the La Plata Coal and Steel Consortium, and machining through Layton Industries' machine tool factory. However, the basic equipment and talent were mainly acquired with the help of Germans and Japanese. Rheinmetall also had some involvement in machine tools.

The La Plata Steel Plant was about to produce its first molten iron. Recently, the steel plant invested heavily in establishing a metal research institute to study metal smelting technology. Rheinmetall Industries also began to study machine tool technology. Argentina was currently extremely short of aluminum alloys and machine tools, which could cooperate well with the aircraft manufacturing plant.

Thunder Mining's investment in Australia had exceeded US$10 million, and it had begun mining iron ore, coal, and a large amount of bauxite, which could develop the aluminum alloy industry. There were many rivers in the provinces surrounding Blanca Port, most of which originated in the Andes Mountains, which could be used to generate electricity. The demand for electricity for electrolytic aluminum was enormous.

Now the Five Eyes Alliance had been established for a long time. Fortunately, Argentina was not a weakling now. Investing in Australia was also in line with the interests of the current Australian government, and Western Australia had not completely submitted to the Australian government.

Therefore, there was not much opposition, but it was hard to say in a few years. Another important importer of coal and steel was South Africa, where costs would be much higher than Australia, mainly because South Africa's coal and iron mines were not on the coast.

The electricity problem was indeed a major issue that needed to be worried about. Currently, electricity was generated nearby, and there was no such thing as a long-distance power grid. To develop Blanca Port's industry, a large amount of electricity demand had to be resolved.

Hydropower required a large one-time investment. For example, the Maria Hydropower Plant had been under construction for two years. The No. 1 unit had already generated electricity and could meet the needs. It would not be completely completed until the end of next year. Once the hydropower plant was fully operational, Maria City would be the city with the largest power generation in the province, far exceeding Cordoba, and the economy would be able to develop further.

The operating period of hydropower can be as long as 50 years or even a century, and the operating cost is low, making it the longest-lived of all power stations.

In contrast, thermal power plants have lower construction costs and can quickly meet demand. This was the method Saint Hilaire thought of to quickly expand the power generation of Blanca Port in the short term, that is, the amount of coal transported out of the mine was relatively small.

Starting next month, 10 ships loaded with coal will depart from Brisbane in eastern Australia every month, pass through the Strait of Magellan in the Pacific Ocean, and then head north to La Plata City to store it in the warehouses of the nearly completed La Plata Thermal Power Plant.

These coal transport ships were specially modified American freighters. Coal transport ships had to be specially modified, and the deadweight tonnage basically did not exceed 12,000 tons. Each transport could only transport about 120,000 tons of coal, and transporting coal was actually more troublesome, and safety could not be guaranteed. It was more troublesome than transporting iron ore.

Therefore, Thunder Mining has also placed an order with a Spanish shipyard to design and produce 5 50,000-ton seaborne ore ships, provided that Sanhai Shipyard must be an assisting unit, and subsequent production must be authorized.

By then, these giant freighters could be produced in Argentina. In the future, even 100,000-ton freighters would have to be designed, otherwise, those with an annual steel production of several million tons would not be able to transport the raw materials.

The future aviation industry has a large volume and scale, and the driving effect is obvious. It is an industry with a high degree of concentration of technology, talent, and capital, which can effectively promote the rapid development of the social economy.

Military aviation and civil aviation are also related. If these laid-off technical personnel can be temporarily gathered again and turned to civil aviation such as helicopters and feeder aircraft design, production, and manufacturing, that is also possible. It would be a pity to give up directly.

.....

Saint Hilaire obtained a confidential document. Currently, the chief person in charge of Argentina's Arrow II project is Kurt Tank. During World War II, he led the design and manufacture of Germany's famous Focke-Wulf Fw-190 fighter.

At the end of '44, he and his colleagues at the Focke-Wulf design bureau developed the second-generation jet aircraft for the Third German Air Force—the Ta-183 Crow.

At that time, the Argentine government found Tank and commissioned him to design a better fighter than the Arrow-I for the Air Force.

In fact, Argentina was already at the forefront of the world's aviation field. In fact, just after the end of World War II, the Presidential Palace began to implement a plan to expand its air force strength. With Perón's support, the military aircraft factory sought help from abroad to develop jet fighters. Soon, in '47, Argentina successfully developed the first jet aircraft in Latin America.

In '46, Tank smuggled himself to Argentina. After a short rest with other German technicians, he immediately invested in the development of the Argentine version of the Ta-183—the I.A.33 "Arrow" II.

Kurt Tank used the British Rolls-Royce Nene II centrifugal jet engine. The output power of the Nene turbojet engine was greater than that of the HeS-011 A, but it used a centrifugal rather than an axial compressor. It was larger and longer, requiring a completely new fuselage to accommodate it.

This determined Tank's work procedure—designing the fuselage around the engine, and then designing the entire aircraft with the fuselage as the core.

The Arrow-II was designed as a fighter, so its armament was very powerful. It was planned to install 4 20mm cannons in the nose, with a gyro aiming device.

The Arrow series of jet fighters was an impact Argentina made on the jet field. It almost had the opportunity to bring Argentina's industry into a new era.

Some preliminary intelligence reports showed that this jet engine project was an industrial investment involving US$200 million, which even exceeded the hydrogen bomb project abandoned last year. For Argentina, it could indeed be said to be cutting flesh, and Argentina's current annual fiscal revenue was less than US$500 million.

The tax problem was an important problem that plagued the Perón era. Although centralization had been ongoing, the tax base had not expanded, and the tax amount basically remained at the scale of US$300-500 million.

The first economic crisis after the war hit Argentina, greatly slowing down the modernization process of the Ministry of Defense's weapons and equipment. Many projects were urgently called to a halt, and the costly Arrow-II project was also among those suspended.

Due to design flaws in the Arrow-II and Argentina's substandard manufacturing technology, the plan for this type of aircraft was completely canceled, and Tank and other German technicians were all dismissed by the Argentine government this year and planned to leave Argentina.

The aircraft manufacturing plant was also dissolved and stagnated due to this project, and Tank is currently in Buenos Aires.

.......

Under the introduction of General Thompson,

Saint Hilaire met with Tank, and the two shook hands simply.

"Hello, Dr. Tank, I am Saint Hilaire Cohen, the general manager of San Martin Aircraft Manufacturing Plant."