Rise of the Argentine Empire

Recent news received by José indicates that the unrest in central and northern Argentina has flared up again.

“I thought things would be quieter in the winter,” he mused.

The Presidential Palace plans to convene a joint conference of all provinces to discuss response strategies.

Each province in Argentina has its own constitution, or rather, provincial laws, which differ significantly.

Many policies and regulations in Córdoba Province are completely different from those in Buenos Aires Province. For example, Córdoba Province still allows cities to establish city defense forces subordinate to the city, which gives the local rebels a great deal of convenience.

Buenos Aires Province, on the other hand, does not allow cities to establish armies. It only allows for an increase in the number of police officers in the police department within the limits of the city's population size, and there are relatively strict restrictions.

The maximum police force configuration is 1,000 officers for every 100,000 people, and an additional 100 officers can be added for every additional 10,000 people. Moreover, there are strict restrictions on places like the Belgrano military port.

José always increases the police force staffing when the population increases. The Bahía Blanca Police Department already has a police force of 1,850 officers and conducts frequent combat exercises.

It can be said that Buenos Aires Province is the province with the strictest control over municipalities in all of Argentina.

The economy of Bahía Blanca continues to maintain strong growth. With Sanders Supermarket and ample production, prices here remain stable, and factory profits are also increasing.

Currently, the area of the main urban area is not very large, only 158 square kilometers even after José incorporated a part of the suburbs. José began to make corresponding adjustments to the jurisdiction of the five districts in the city center.

The first and second districts were merged, with a population of 61,000, and renamed the West District.

The area was expanded to 74 square kilometers. This is where the City Hall is located, the administrative center of Bahía Blanca, the economic center, and the headquarters of Balun Bank.

The third, fourth, and fifth districts were merged and renamed the East District, with a population of 97,000 and an expanded area of 104 square kilometers. Originally, there was a comprehensive medical clinic here, which will be rebuilt into Bahía Blanca Second Hospital. This is also where the Bahía Blanca Railway Station is located.

There are two universities and two hospitals here, and the population is still increasing rapidly, mainly from within the province, and some from La Pampa Province and Río Negro Province.

It is still a bit short of establishing specialized universities. José plans to build some secondary vocational schools here, which makes it necessary to reform the current secondary schools and establish junior high schools and senior high schools, as well as secondary vocational schools equivalent to senior high schools.

The construction of textile schools, nautical schools, agricultural schools, architectural schools, and medical schools has all been put on the agenda.

This is also where the passenger port and the fishing port are located. Originally, there was no industry here, but now there is a building materials market, a clothing wholesale market, a food processing plant, and a wool textile factory.

José attaches great importance to the development of the city's fishing industry, using Balun Bank to provide installment payments to support the development of marine fisheries. The State-owned Assets Commission established the Bahía Blanca Fisheries Corporation, purchased 20 fishing boats in one go, and provided local fishermen with ultra-low interest loan services, increasing the fishing boat orders of Sanhai Shipyard several times.

This place has the most favorable fisherman support policy in Argentina. With José's support, the number of fishermen gathered here has directly increased tenfold, reaching a scale of two thousand people, with 71 fishing boats, surpassing Mar del Plata and becoming the largest fishing port in Argentina.

Moreover, this place also has the most advanced fishing boats in Argentina, with offshore fishing capabilities. When the big guys from Sanhai Shipbuilding are launched, they will have deep-sea fishing capabilities.

In addition, in order to develop the arms smuggling industry, José recruited arms dealers, developed offline distribution, set his sights on the African market, squeezed the last bit of resource profits, and went crazy.

Through local forces in South Africa, he sold 600,000 MP40 submachine guns, 450,000 MG-52 assault rifles, 600,000 pistols, and 200 million rounds of various types of ammunition in one go.

The six arms dealers in British South Africa took this batch of goods, exchanging them for countless gold. These cheap arms were almost half the price of American and Soviet goods, and their power and accuracy were not bad.

International arms dealers are very welcome to this kind of white-label weapon without a manufacturer, which is durable and easy to manufacture. It is cost-effective. José only smuggles them in batches of 2,000 at a time, clearing out the stock at a great discount. Cargo ships loaded with smuggled arms roamed the Atlantic.

Before exiting the arms market in the Nanyang region, José sold at least 700,000 pistols, 1.05 million submachine guns, and 400,000 assault rifles here. The production lines of Rhein Military Industries were all fully loaded, and the production capacity of MG-52 assault rifles alone climbed from 2,000 per month to 60,000 per month.

A large number of plastic parts and integrated stamping are used for the three major components of firearms. The process is mature, and the bullets are made of the cheapest copper-clad steel. A large number of parts production plants have also been set up across the country, with 3 assembly plants under the protection of Little Thompson of the Ministry of National Defense.

Now, a large number of gun and artillery factories are starting to move to Bahía Blanca for a final frenzy.

In addition to the three-piece bestsellers, other large heavy weapons and materials are difficult to sell because they are relatively expensive and the steel technology is not very good. The German technology is mainly used for the three-piece set. The performance of a gun, whether it is durable, accurate, and the quality of the rifling are all very important.

The number of heavy weapons sold is small, and the sales of rocket launchers and mortars are relatively average. There are many situations where the technology is not in place. José can only let the research institute strengthen its research and development. This time, the ship gun matching is also a big challenge for the artillery factory.

Fortunately, the special steel plant is also working hard to develop and test the steel, but it is not easy to produce qualified artillery barrels, and processing is also a big problem, requiring a lot of experiments.

The manufacturing process of artillery barrels is even more complicated, and it is simply not something that ordinary countries can handle. Currently, there may be only about ten countries in the world with top-notch artillery manufacturing technology. This is also why José wants to introduce artillery technology from the Italians.

Even if the La Plata Steel Plant now masters electric furnace steel technology, the steel cannons produced still have problems.

First, the high-quality alloy steel billets for manufacturing gun barrels need to go through two steps: rough forging and precision forging. The problem lies in the precision forging step, which is similar to the deep processing of gun barrels, but several times more difficult, and the material requirements are also higher.

This is entirely a test of one's technical proficiency. A slight carelessness could ruin the gun barrel. The gun barrel not only requires a high material formula but also a high processing technology.

This is also the reason why Saint Hesser's specialized three-piece set is exported. It's too difficult. After all, producing cannons with only World War I level performance at World War II level prices is not something people are foolish enough to buy.

Saint Hesser doesn't even know how much money he has made in the arms trade. The monthly export volume is terrifyingly large, enough to arm a small country's army.

His ability to generously open factories in Blanca City and even support Hans Steel Factory is also because the arms trade is too profitable, far more profitable than mining.

However, such opportunities are not many. Even selling in Africa requires the tacit consent of the Soviets. The Soviets have not yet fully recovered after the war. Now that Corn Emperor has just taken office, Eisenhower is preparing to support Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam and establish a pro-American democratic regime.

The two major powers have slightly reduced their attention to Africa. There are still five or six years before the official start of events in Africa, so there is still time to sell a lot during this period.

Therefore, it is not easy for Saint Hesser to get a share of the pie. Moreover, Saint Hesser only sells to British colonies, with very little flowing into French areas, after all, the cooperation in Saigon was quite pleasant.

After corresponding reforms are carried out in the old five districts, the five electoral districts will be merged into two large electoral districts, and the number of parliamentary members will also be adjusted in the next election.

The 28 square kilometers of the coastal industrial zone remain unchanged, with a current population of 24,000, mainly factory workers, managed by the Second District, developing the steel industry, light industry, food industry, and other comprehensive industries.

A large amount of low-quality coal transported from the Salta area is stored here, and the reserves are acceptable.

The Sapla area, located at the junction of Jujuy Province and Salta Province, is a mining area that the head of the Falcon Bureau took down through a combination of vertical and horizontal strategies and clever plundering.

It has now become Argentina's largest coal production base, even surpassing the Patagonia Plateau. At a coal mine site bearing the logo of Thunder Mining Company, workers are working enthusiastically.

This mining area is about 50 kilometers wide from north to south and covers an area of about 2,850 square kilometers. It is a large mining area acquired by Thunder Mining. Iron ore was discovered during exploration.

Initially, Bill Bird wanted to mine iron ore and copper ore, but unexpectedly, all that was mined in the end was some low-quality coal. After searching more than 50 blasting points, no iron ore was found, only a pile of low-quality coal and sparse copper ore, which angered the people at Thunder Mining, feeling that they had failed the boss's trust, and turned to fully developing Australian coal mines and Uruguayan iron mines.

In fact, it wouldn't be a loss if there was copper ore, but after mining a few hundred tons of copper ore, it was gone, and even the cost could not be recovered. Copper ore is not only an important material for producing bullet casings but also an important material for the power industry.

The transportation in this mining area is mainly by ordinary roads, which can reach Salta City, Oran, Cordoba, Buenos Aires, and other places, and is transported to the south by railway and sea.

The recent booming sales of honeycomb briquette products have led Thunder Mining to expand production. Because many large-scale mining and excavation machines have not been popularized, they can only rely on manual expansion, so a large number of Bolivian workers have been recruited.

After the coal mine is blasted, it is manually excavated and then transported to the docks and railway stations by trucks. The actual efficiency is not high. Currently, mining machines are being purchased from the United Kingdom.

Raffles Bonnie, the exploration manager of this mining area, still insists that iron ore exists here. When the coal mine was dug to a depth of 32 meters underground, dawn finally appeared.

"This is 45% grade iron ore, God bless, my exploration results are not wrong."

Raffles held up the iron ore, raising it high. Argentina does indeed have large iron ore deposits.

He excitedly took the mine car to the ground.

… …

The free port is directly managed by the city hall, developing foreign trade plus industry, assembly industry. In addition to attracting some domestic factory owners, some British people also want to move in this time and are negotiating.

The 40 square kilometers of the western new district are newly added jurisdictions, with a current population of 2,200, located next to the First District, temporarily under the management of the First District, mainly developing the chemical industry. The main factories are Maya Chemical's urea plant and synthetic ammonia plant, comprehensive chemical plant, and the refinery, plastic plant, and caustic soda plant that are being prepared for construction.

The Alta District in the east was merged by Saint Hesser in order to establish cooperation with the Belgrano Naval Port. It is also the best of the three towns around Blanca City. The original population was 9,200, and the Sanhai Shipyard is also located in the coastal industrial zone in the west of Alta District, with a current population of 10,000.

The Maclo District in the north, with an original population of 4,000, has now increased to 4,500. It was originally a large ranch.

The Posca District in the west, with an original population of 6,000, has now increased to 7,000.

So far, Blanca City has regained its five jurisdictions, and its development potential has also been expanded accordingly.

The population growth of Blanca City has slowed down with the arrival of winter, but compared to last winter, it has increased by more than 70,000 people.

In terms of the city's underground pipe network system, the capacity of a pipe network system that provides for the life and production of 1 million people is at least 10 times that of a pipe network system that provides for 200,000 people, not 5 times.

In order to ensure the overall self-adaptation of Blanca City in the future, Saint Hesser must cross the threshold of a million people, so he adjusted the administrative divisions as soon as possible to face the large influx of population in the next few years.

He doesn't want to build Blanca City into a city with a large number of slums.

To this end, Saint Hesser adopted a large-area system reform. Each district is temporarily a dispatched agency of the city hall. When conditions are ripe, it will become a permanent agency with various development powers.

This can also mobilize these people's enthusiasm for developing the economy more.

The overall development level is still low, but the framework of an industrial city has emerged, especially the coastal industrial zone, which has contributed 70% of the tax revenue and 90% of the new jobs.

Blanca City's booming development momentum has attracted the attention of many foreign companies, and Saint Hesser has also been negotiating foreign investment recently.

However, the instability of the domestic situation has caused many negotiations to stall.

Through the accumulated large amount of funds, Saint Hesser plans to make another large purchase to upgrade the existing industrial infrastructure.

Especially because the rapid expansion has led to the mechanical equipment of many factories being unable to keep up, and many technologies have become outdated.