Rise of the Argentine Empire

You never know which will come first, tomorrow or an accident.

The sudden death of Otto Lief proved that when bad luck strikes, it can truly mean dying on the spot.

Otto was indeed working overtime at the time, but San Jose never imagined that someone would be so deranged as to bomb the city hall directly.

That's almost as absurd as blowing up the Rose Palace.

Even the Church only dared to target the Congress building.

San Jose had read the files of the main culprit in the crime and figured he was a bit mentally unstable.

People from the provincial government came not only to attend the funeral but also to inspect this rapidly developing city, as Blanca City had made great economic progress.

San Jose was somewhat familiar with the people from the provincial government, having met some big shots during the establishment of the La Plata Steel Plant.

He hadn't had much contact with them since, and now it was handled by Ian, with himself working behind the scenes.

This time, the people from the provincial government expressed their desire for San Jose to work in the provincial government.

San Jose didn't want to go to the provincial government at the moment, as Blanca City's development had only just begun, and he couldn't rest easy leaving it.

Going to the provincial government would only mean holding a position like deputy minister, which would not only be of little help to development but also a waste of time, so he declined.

A deputy minister in the presidential palace might be worth considering, but that was impossible.

Time was precious now, and Blanca City's development had not yet stabilized, with many plans yet to be implemented.

He also wanted to address Blanca City's industrial shortcomings, preferably by acquiring complete production lines for automobile factories, truck factories, and machinery factories from abroad.

In terms of development ideas, Blanca City and La Plata had quite a few differences.

The La Plata Steel Plant greatly boosted the city's economy; in modern terms, it was a major GDP-boosting project, akin to a complete transformation.

Besides investing in the steel conglomerate, San Jose also had the Three Seas Shipyard; other investments were not as significant.

In the second half of the month, two large factories were opening, and the labor shortage in the old and new factories, as well as the introduced small factories, reached 4,000 people. The labor shortage had returned.

The textile, garment, and shoemaking industries also had a great demand for labor.

The food processing industry was a bit different, as it had relatively high requirements for market location.

Fortunately, railway transportation costs were not expensive, and Plari Foods also had factories in four major cities, which were also the main markets, where people could afford these consumer goods.

Plari Foods had almost reached its peak in Argentina. The domestic market was so small that it still needed to go international and seize markets abroad. The next step was to build factories abroad.

Or it could move into upstream industries, producing and processing flour, grain and oil processing, and meat slaughtering, but the competitive pressure in this area was relatively high.

These were all of Argentina's current advantageous industries, with some industry giants inside.

They were not only advanced in concept and technology, but also relatively large in scale, and even backed by American capital. Development had entered deep waters, and one could easily be taken down.

The textile and garment industry had great potential to be tapped, because the devaluation of the peso meant that labor prices were not too expensive now, and international workers from neighboring countries could also be introduced, making it quite competitive and advantageous for exports.

In addition to these light industries, textile industries, and agricultural product processing that met employment needs,

Blanca City's most important goal was to develop heavy chemical industries, especially the development of high-level mechanical manufacturing industries, chemical industries, and metallurgical industries.

Argentina had relatively few of these minerals, but fortunately, it had good marine transportation conditions as a foundation, allowing it to import from abroad.

Raw materials could be imported, but talent did not come from nowhere. Metallurgy, steel, machinery, automobiles, and shipbuilding had a very high demand for high-quality talent.

The establishment of the steel plant in La Plata City was also due to the local university and college resources, and it was also close to the capital's universities.

Argentina's universities were all comprehensive universities, and they did not pay as much attention to science and engineering.

Soviet-style specialized university education did help to quickly cultivate talent, and San Jose also wanted to set up a steel college for the steel plant.

This required the support of the provincial government, and he hoped to set up a steel college.

Similar to the cooperation with the Blanca City Higher Vocational School, the main focus was on cultivating metallurgical industrial talent.

Now, let the steel plant talk to the La Plata City Hall.

This was one of the reasons why San Jose wanted to build a new heavy industrial base in Blanca City.

Blanca City's disadvantage was obvious: it had too few people.

To develop these quintessential industries of the Second Industrial Revolution, in addition to buying technology from Europe, Germany, and the United States, it was also necessary to cultivate enough talent.

More than 30,000 people had migrated from the north during this period, and it seemed to be coming to an end, unless Cordoba raised the banner of rebellion.

Then we would have to think of other ways. The factories were being built now, and we had to reserve the population first.

In addition to grabbing people, there was also regional cooperation.

There were more than a dozen counties and towns around Blanca City, and the population was still quite large.

The next step was to activate their desire and unite them around Blanca City, becoming the source of Blanca City's population, talent, and raw materials.

The southeast of La Pampa Province was the most densely populated area in the province, and the north of Rio Negro Province was also a densely populated area. There were also two national universities here, the National University of Viedma and the National University of La Pampa, which were much stronger than the newly established National University of the South.

Both La Pampa Province and Rio Negro Province were now headed by people from the Justicialist Party.

The Radical Civic Union's power in Rio Negro Province had developed fairly well, and it was one of the few southern provinces with a relatively large number of radicals.

It was just that the population of the two provinces was not too large. La Pampa Province only had 200,000 people, and Rio Negro Province had almost 400,000.

Blanca City currently had less than 140,000 people, and the surrounding 9 towns in Buenos Aires Province had more than 80,000 people combined.

In other words, the total radiation range of Blanca City was only 820,000 people.

They lived on 390,000 square kilometers of land.

The environment of these three blocks combined was similar to the interval environment from Qilu Province to Changshan Province in New China.

Even if it was reduced by 2/3, the population potential of this area was actually 30 million, but currently there were only 820,000 people, which was far from enough.

April 18, morning, at the entrance of the City Hall,

San Jose led the people from the City Hall to welcome the heads of the towns who came.

Viedma City and Santa Rosa City also accepted the invitation and each sent a second-in-command, showing their importance.

This surprised San Jose somewhat, as these two provinces were the main targets of the cooperative development plan.

They were obviously attracted by San Jose's economic development plan.

These southern Argentine provinces could be said to be unloved by anyone.

Even though there were abundant resources here, a large number of sheep, and many cattle, they were still poor.

Engaging in agriculture would at most prevent starvation, and it was still difficult to get rich, especially for so many landless farmers, who were the source of chaos.

The future development vision described by San Jose in his letter made these people restless and responded to his invitation.

Develop the economy and build an industrial zone like the Ruhr region of Germany. This was the first sentence in San Jose's letter.

In the letter, he described a large-scale utopian industrial zone, the kind that could only be achieved in dreams.

At the end, he also attached various orders needed by Blanca City. As for whether the former or the latter attracted them, it was unknown.

The chemical industry, synthetic ammonia industry, urea, and tribasic acid that San Jose wanted to develop all required a lot of raw materials.

Reception room,

San Jose received this group of guests who had come from afar,

A total of 11 towns + 2 people from the provincial government came this time.

They represented 13 towns around Blanca, and two did not come because some problems had occurred in the city.

He discussed with them one by one and started today's investment cooperation meeting.

San Jose sat at the head of the table, with two deputy mayors next to him. The other seats were occupied by mayors and town chiefs, as well as staff standing and the people they brought.

The Ministry of Finance does not give your cities investment, the presidential palace only cares about big cities, they only care about Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Rosario, La Plata, Santa Fe, but they are very stingy with us, they are not willing to give us even a little bit of construction investment. The First Five-Year Plan built a lot of factories and power plants for them, and only distributed small power plants to us. Now many cities still do not have enough electricity..."

San Jose began by accusing Peron's presidential palace. Almost all of the First Five-Year Plan's investment was in the three provinces and one city represented by Buenos Aires, and other places only received 10% of the investment. It was not a matter of scarcity but of inequality. Only 3 pitiful power plants were allocated to the area around Blanca City.

The Second Five-Year Plan went bankrupt directly, with nothing to show for it.

In San Jose's view, this was very reasonable. When national resources were insufficient, it was right to prioritize the development of the core. The idea was completely correct.

Like backward provinces in later generations, the provincial capital was dominant, developing a single core to form competitiveness.

If we spread the cake across the board and engaged in equalization, the result might be overall backwardness, and all the talents would be sucked away by other big cities.

For backward areas, this was "blood sucking," which easily mobilized their anger.

Their faces did not change much. Not showing joy or anger was an essential skill for these old foxes.

"Our Blanca City has developed very rapidly in the last six months. We have received a large amount of investment and built dozens of factories. Now that we have developed, we will not forget your support for Blanca Port. We are willing to invest in you, build cities, and develop together. We will have greater say..."

Saint Hesser continued, and asked the staff to distribute the information, which detailed the factories that had started construction in Blanca City in recent months, as well as the basic situation of each factory and sales data, in order to persuade people with reason.

Everyone's emotions eased, and they began to carefully look at the reports. They also wanted to see the specific economic data of Blanca City. When they came, they found that there had been great changes here. Many new buildings had been built, and there were indeed many more factories.

"We are willing to provide technology to help you build factories. Let us develop our cities together and establish a large industrial zone."

The third step is to create demand and once again mobilize everyone's emotions.

"We now need crude salt, we need limestone, we need wood, we need oil, we need natural gas, we need electricity, we need wool, beef, wheat, flour, we need minerals, we need copper, tin, tungsten..."

The expansion of factories in Blanca City means that the locally produced raw materials can no longer meet the needs. The most important thing is that he needs the help of these cities to achieve mutual assistance and mutual benefit.

Expand the influence of Blanca City.

Now the city's power is still too small. The surrounding cities and towns have what he needs: population and raw materials. Even a mere 800,000 people can develop many tricks.

Blanca City wants to be the leading boss, which requires certain strategies and the output of benefits.

Blanca City is the largest and has the best economy among these cities, but its city level is still a bit short. Saint Rosa and Viedma will be the first to disagree with being the boss, in particular.

Saint Hesser decided to launch the power of money, and as long as the city develops to be large enough, then everything will not be a problem.

The Province of Buenos Aires in Argentina is a country within a country, the essence of Argentina, and Blanca City is much closer to these two provincial capitals than to La Plata.

The closest port to the Province of La Pampa is Blanca City. The economic cooperation between the two sides was originally very in-depth. The division of Blanca Port was to prevent the power of the Province of La Pampa from becoming too large. The time the province has existed is very short, only a few years. In the past, the divided forces were very large.

The same is true for the Province of Río Negro. It is very close. The provincial capital, Viedma, is a small coastal city, and many resources must be imported to Blanca City for transshipment.

Blanca City's initial positioning was to weaken the two provinces. After all, Blanca City is far more suitable as a provincial capital than Saint Rosa in the Province of La Pampa, turning the Province of La Pampa into a landlocked province.

The reason is naturally that these two provinces were almost the southern border of Argentina. Before the annexation of Patagonia, there were actually many Indians here. It's just that Argentina, like the American Westward Movement, has physically removed these Mapuche Indians.

The Indians here were not as lucky as their compatriots in northern Argentina, and encountered Argentines full of martial virtue.

This is the truth of the world, the law of the jungle, which is naked and cruel, but this is not glorious, just like the Americans.

Perhaps Argentina's fall is due to these tragic killings, cursed by the deceased Indians.

This led to Argentina's constant chaotic military governments in the second half of the 20th century, and even equally tragic internal killings.

The vast plain between Blanca City and Viedma City is almost the essence of these two provinces. It can be said that it has not been deeply developed at all and is abandoned.

Rice can even be grown here. He also wants to build a large-scale pig breeding base here, plant wheat, and establish water irrigation to build this place into a large-scale industrial and agricultural base.

"In addition, we can also establish deeper cooperation and carry out real large-scale development here. There is a real gold mine hidden here. There is no shortage of irrigation water resources here. There are two large rivers, which are completely sufficient, as long as a water network is established for irrigation."

These two provinces are mainly agricultural, and there are many large farms, but they are not very profitable, or rather, the money earned is not enough, and it is somewhat dependent on the weather.

"We have cooperated with the famous domestic company Pulari Foods. We need 100,000 tons of grapes every year to make wine, and we need 5 million tons of wheat and 2 million tons of beer raw materials."

Saint Hesser took out a pile of purchase contracts to bind the interests first.

"This year we also need 300,000 tons of leather, 1.8 million tons of salt, 3 million tons of limestone, 2 million tons of oil..."

It is not enough to just draw cakes. These people are not stupid.

Place real orders, economic cooperation, and purchase production raw materials and materials according to the needs of each factory, binding interests.

"Also, we will also provide job opportunities for graduates of the two universities."

This is specifically for the two provincial capitals.

The total number of graduates from La Pampa University and Viedma University each year is less than 1,000.

Blanca City needs enough talent to enter the high-end manufacturing industry.

The deputy mayor of Saint Rosa and the deputy mayor of Viedma were both bright-eyed.

The others are not very attractive to them, but solving the employment of graduate students is really attractive.

The employment environment in these two cities is not good. In the past, they were sent to the capital, or they were civil servants. These two years have been an economic crisis again.

Most of the students enrolled in national universities are from this province. It is too troublesome to find employment in other provinces. The city of Buenos Aires is very chaotic now, and they can't wait to run away.

If Blanca City really takes over most of these people, it will really help them solve a big problem.

Saint Hesser knows their pain points from the Falcon Bureau's intelligence.

It is impossible to send the graduates of the two universities to farms to herd cattle, and they cannot go to the capital now.

Saint Hesser asked the staff to take out the employment demand recruitment form, which were all better positions.

Barron Bank, food factory, textile factory, shipyard, chemical factory clerical staff, Blanca City Free Port civil servants, scientific research institutes, higher vocational college teachers, etc., and the salary is also high.

The two deputy mayors breathed a sigh of relief after carefully reading it. This mayor is playing for real.

In this era, being able to attend university in Argentina, especially in poor provinces, is either rich or noble, or a genius among geniuses. Saint Hesser doesn't think it's a problem.

He even thinks it's a bit small. It would be great if he could get all of these 900 people.

Barron Bank alone needs a lot of people, especially to open more than a dozen new business outlets.

At this investment promotion conference, Saint Hesser released a purchase order of 16 million US dollars, and this is only the first step in procurement.

"We will also carry out more procurement plans and build more processing plants in the future."

Saint Hesser added to these people, this is the first wave, the old foxes should pay attention.

Most of the cooperation is signed in the name of import and export trading companies, and some are separate company factory cooperation.

With the binding of interests and cooperation, these people and Saint Hesser seem to have become close brothers.

Saint Hesser finally stretched his tentacles into these cities.

His Southern System Plan of the Radical Party can also be further implemented.

Carry out branching and leaf expansion. If the Radical Party branches in these cities can really be integrated, then Saint Hesser can really become a faction of his own.

Especially the South, which will develop better in the future.

...

They talked from morning until 8 pm before finishing this rough economic cooperation. Overall, it was very smooth and needs to be further improved tomorrow.

Arranged for them the largest and most luxurious new hotel and villa in the city.

He breathed a sigh of relief when he returned to the city hall.

This plan is indeed still very rough, Saint Hesser summarized in his heart, fortunately, it was a close call.

The result is good, solving the talent and labor shortage.

Even two universities only sent five hundred graduates.

It can also greatly strengthen the strength of Blanca City.

The purpose of this time is not only for economic cooperation. The South of Argentina has great development potential. If these cities and provinces can be connected in series, plus the Second Navy of Argentina here, the weight will naturally be heavy.

It is not a problem to be the second Cordoba.

Elena called. When Saint Hesser answered the phone, his heart beat faster and he became nervous again.

He had a hunch that something terrible was about to happen.

"Mayor, the madam is about to give birth."

"I'll be right over."

Saint Hesser's voice became a little trembling.

When his car arrived at the villa area, the attending doctor Lisa had already come out to greet Saint Hesser.

"Mayor, the madam and the daughter are safe and sound."

"That's great. You will get an extra 300 US dollars bonus this month. Thank you for your hard work."

"Thank you, Mayor."

Saint Hesser breathed a sigh of relief and quickly got out of the car.

He walked quickly in small steps towards Elena's room.

He held Elena's hand tightly. Elena was covered in sweat and her hair was wet. As a husband, it was really wrong not to be able to catch up with this important moment.

Nurse Mina brought his daughter over and handed her to Saint Hesser.

"She is really my little princess."

As soon as the nurse handed his daughter over, she burst into tears.

Saint Hesser had to let go of Elena's hand and hold her carefully.

Looking at the tired Elena with an apologetic look.

"Cohen, have you thought about what name to give her?"

"Let's call her Britney Cohen."

Saint Hesser thought for a long time and came up with a word.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he said this name, his daughter stopped crying.

"It seems she likes this name very much."

Elena happily looked at the two people who were teasing each other.