Rise of the Argentine Empire

Leaving Cavo's house, his ramblings were a little hard to understand, unsure if it was the truth coming out from being drunk, or something else.

It wasn't early, and I didn't plan on going to the factory, after all, sitting on a train for almost a day was still tiring. I instructed Cruise of the Thunder Cross, and stayed in the villa, considering what to do tomorrow. The brewery and most of the other factories were developing well.

But the Rhein Explosives Factory and the Fireworks Factory, and the Maria Mold Factory still had some minor problems. I'll prepare to integrate these factories in the next few days.

"This Zhuyeqing wine is good, but it's still a bit strong."

I had just drunk at least half a kilogram of liquor. I didn't feel it at first, but soon I felt a little dizzy.

Saint Hethus struggled to stand up, rubbing his forehead and talking to himself,

"I shouldn't drink anymore in the future."

He touched his pocket, intending to light one up, only to realize that he didn't seem to smoke.

"I don't know why, but I always do strange things when I'm drunk."

This wasn't the first time, I remember it happened once at Elena's house.

Taking a train in Argentina was indeed a bit tiring. I still prefer the high-speed trains of later generations. The comfort of steam trains is too poor, even worse than internal combustion trains. The clanging noise makes it hard to sleep. There are also a lot of messy things happening on the train.

After drinking so much wine, I should get some sleep first.

....

The next day, early in the morning, after taking a bath and changing clothes, Saint Hethus had a simple breakfast.

He planned to take a walk around Maria Town. Perhaps because of the autumn season, the whole town was a bit foggy in the morning. When the sun rose, it dissipated a lot.

Completely different from the slums of Bu City, the security here was very well-maintained.

The Maria Town militia patrolled every day to maintain law and order,

Ensuring the security environment of the entire Maria Town, with security guards from the Thunder Cross following behind him.

Originally, walking around Maria Town would only take ten minutes to cover most of it. Now, walking around Maria Town took a full half hour, and he still hadn't finished.

Back then, Saint Hethus would sometimes drive a pickup truck around, familiar with almost every old road. There were many new buildings, and the people from the Thunder Cross would occasionally take him to avoid some places, making him feel a little strange.

Looking at his watch, it was not yet eight o'clock, and many workers were already preparing to go to work. The Blue Cloud Clothing Factory customized factory uniforms of various colors, which were easy to recognize.

Sky blue was for the explosives factory and fireworks factory, dark blue was for the mold factory, yellow was for the brewery, and pink was for the clothing and textile factories.

Most of them he didn't recognize, so he didn't say hello. There were some small cars outside the factory, run by workers doing small businesses. These factories shared a huge cafeteria, and the basic facilities were relatively complete, also providing accommodation.

As the eight bells of the church rang, the workers on the road had basically disappeared. The machines in the major factories started up. For the workers, it was another hard day.

Now a large number of old buildings in the town were being re-used, and new construction sites were also starting work. Everywhere you could see workers wearing hard hats, which was Saint Hethus's mandatory requirement. Anyway, Saint Hethus had a plastic factory that produced some high-strength engineering plastics, and with some straps, it was done.

In terms of the town's population, the number of people in Saint Hethus's factories alone exceeded 4,000. The textile factory had expanded to more than 1,000 people, and the clothing, shoes, and hat factory had already moved here as a whole, developing the fastest.

A small number of them rented houses in Maria Town, bringing their families and children, but most still lived in the factory's dormitory.

The total population of Maria Town now exceeded 80,000, more than double the number from last year.

To build it into a large-scale industrial base. Now Maria Town transports goods to Rosario by rail, and then exports to Brazil, Uruguay,

And Australia. The main export products include Rhein explosives, Rhein fireworks, Lidema beer, Miranda soda, and Kenais Zhefan clothes. These products earned Saint Hethus a lot of Reais and Australian dollars.

Little Knicks, who was in charge of Plari International Trade, made the greatest contribution. The three ships purchased some time ago have been assigned to him to do international trade. One ship specializes in transporting supplies to the French,

And the other two are responsible for importing and exporting these goods, while also purchasing their raw materials locally and transporting them back, such as Brazilian pineapples, sugar cane, cocoa beans, coffee beans, Brazilian steel, iron ore, and even Australian coke and wool. Progress in New Zealand is also very fast and will soon be completed.

Plari International not only does transportation and trade for Saint Hethus's companies, but also helps domestic companies export and buy goods, earning transportation fees. Little Knicks plans to apply to buy a few more ships to form an international fleet specializing in international transportation.

The home ports of these freighters are two in total, one is Bu City Port, and the other is Blanca Port.

In the morning, the Maria Committee headquarters was a simple three-story building.

"Sure enough, it's good wine, it doesn't go to my head. I'll praise the people at the brewery separately later."

After sleeping all night, Saint Hethus felt refreshed, standing by the window looking at the sky that was not so blue in Maria Town,

It was a scene of bustling construction, and even some six- or seven-story high-rise buildings were starting to be built. Yes, six or seven stories was considered a high-rise building in Maria Town.

Unlike the ordinary factory buildings of Saint Hethus's factories, the construction of high-rise buildings took more time, even requiring more than a year to build.

Now many construction teams have settled in Maria Town. Many of the construction teams are Bolivians, recruited by the Cohen Brothers Company. There are two in total, adding up to five or six hundred people.

The workers mainly come from some farming and pastoral tribes in Bolivia, responsible for construction site construction, bricklaying, pouring concrete, scaffolding, exterior walls, rebar binding, and other work, at a cheap price.

Also, Old Chen from Chinatown has also become a small contractor, forming a construction team to do some masonry and decoration work.

The entire construction worker team in Maria Town is expected to have more than a thousand people, which is barely keeping up with the expansion and development speed of Maria Town.

Maria Town has even opened some Chinese restaurants and other stores that support construction, and restaurants are developing rapidly.

Rosa, the person in charge of the Finance Center next to him, stood behind him and said,

Rosa is the head of the committee's Finance Center and one of his confidants. The people in the Finance Department have also been carefully screened by him, responsible for the financial work of all factories, and many have been sent out.

"Boss, the air quality in Maria Town has been getting worse and worse recently."

This was Rosa's code. It seemed that many moths had indeed infiltrated Maria Town, and Rosa was probably being targeted as well.

"This is also a pain that exists in the process of development. Compared to the famous 'Fog City' London, the situation in Maria Town is not too bad. After all, our country doesn't burn much coal, and the pollution from petrochemical plants is not too serious."

Saint Hethus shook his head, feeling it was normal. As a late-developing country, wanting both green mountains and clear waters, and gold and silver mountains, was wishful thinking.

"Yes, fortunately we have the National Petroleum Company, and now we can use oil and natural gas. Only Maria Town in our province has it."

"Haha, I didn't expect that there was this benefit to setting up a plastic factory and cooperating with them in the first place."

The cooperation between Saint Hethus's plastic factory and the Argentine Petroleum Company has been expanding. They not only extract oil,

But also extract and sell natural gas. Most of these resources come from the Patagonian Plateau in the south. When they send raw materials to the chemical factory, they also help Maria Town build a simple natural gas pipeline.

There is also a large natural gas storage tank in the town. Saint Hethus found that it looked a bit like the tanks he played in Just Cause 4 in his previous life. He was really afraid that someone would shoot a few bursts at it and blow it up.

Now the Argentine Petroleum Company is borrowing money to lay natural gas pipelines in major cities across the country. This is the beginning of the ambitious Second Five-Year Plan. If it were the original population size, it would be difficult to recover the cost of laying the pipeline to Maria Town.

This is actually a benefit distributed by the Peron government. After all, Argentina's coal resources are too small and it is necessary to import coal from abroad,

Which is both troublesome and expensive. It is better to develop the natural gas industry, but unfortunately the investment is too large and does not take into account costs. It was laid from Rosario, and only opened successfully last month.

… …

After a while, the heads of the town had arrived, most of them looking high-spirited and in control of power.

It was hard to imagine what these people were like half a year ago. Saint Hethus even saw something called ambition in some people's eyes, which made him sneer inwardly.

The only one who looked relatively miserable was Philip, who had a bandage on. He suppressed his doubts and listened to their work reports.

The reports covered the specific work done over the past four months, and the overall development momentum was quite good.

First, there was a general meeting. Most of the information was similar to what had been reported before. Saint Hilaire encouraged them and let them leave to return to their posts, while the people from the dynamite factory, the mold factory, and Rosa stayed behind.

Then, a separate meeting was held. The focus today was on resolving the issues of the Rhein Dynamite Factory and the Maria Mold Factory.

Saint Hilaire looked at Philip with the bandage, and his expression darkened, losing the smile he had just had.

"Sean, didn't you say no one was injured? What's the situation with Philip?"

This time, he was truly suppressing his anger. Such a serious matter hadn't been reported. Would they dare to sell the factory next time?

"Boss, I'm really sorry. Philip just accidentally fell a few days ago. It's nothing serious, and he'll be fine in a couple of months."

It seemed that Sean still hadn't realized the seriousness of the matter, and Cruz from the intelligence group hadn't reported this situation either. It seemed that there were also problems within Maria Town. If Cruz couldn't be trusted, then he would have to take drastic measures to eliminate him.

Moreover, Cruz's work reports were also unsatisfactory. It was unclear whether it was due to insufficient ability or whether he himself had colluded with the First Factory under his command. If it was the former, then it didn't matter much, but if it was the latter, then he would have to…

"Yes, Boss, I accidentally fell while taking a shower…"

Philip's voice grew softer and softer.

"Okay, okay, safety first. This counts as a work-related injury, so remember to get reimbursed from Rosa."

He saw through their little thoughts and didn't want to point them out, but Sean was indeed no longer suitable to be the head of New Rhein.

"Thank you, Boss. I don't have any major problems here."

"Let's have a meeting now. I plan to reorganize the Rhein Dynamite Factory, the Fireworks Factory, and the Maria Mold Factory and form a new Rhein Company."

"Boss, the development is good, why merge them?" Sean raised his hand to ask.

"These are not things you should be asking about. Just follow the arrangements."

Saint Hilaire's voice turned cold again.

"Okay, Boss."

"Here's my plan. The new Rhein Company will be set up as follows: the Maria Mold Factory will be split up. In the future, the mold factory will be divided into two. One will be the new Rhein Arms Factory, located in Bu City,"

"Fully entering the military manufacturing industry, striving for this year's national defense military orders. I will invest another 100 million pesos, equivalent to 2 million US dollars, to upgrade production equipment and workshops."

"The remaining Maria Mold Factory will be reorganized into the Maria Light Industry Equipment Factory, specializing in the production of civilian equipment, especially various special-purpose machines, to help upgrade the equipment of the Prari Factory, the Maria Soda Factory, and the Liderma Brewery."

"Philip will temporarily serve as the general manager of the new Rhein Company and concurrently the head of the Rhein Light Industry Equipment Factory and the Dynamite Factory. Sean will be the head of the Fireworks Factory, and Sean's treatment will remain unchanged."

Saint Hilaire removed Sean from his position as the head of the Dynamite Factory and specifically assigned him to be in charge of the Fireworks Factory. For him now, a more obedient factory director was more important. The sales aspect had already been completely separated. If these people really had any ulterior motives, he would just replace them.

If this made them feel that the development of the factory was their credit and they were messing around below, then he would let them get lost. He had already seen some signs.

"Sean, report on the situation of the Dynamite Factory in the last few months, and don't talk nonsense."

"The civilian blasting explosives produced by the Dynamite Factory have opened up many markets and have already developed two international customers, one is Vale in Brazil, and the other is an Australian coal mining company,"

"Rhein Dynamite is different from other domestic companies, adopting a cost-effective model. The quality of the explosives produced is good and the competitiveness is very strong."

Sean liked to study technology. Overall, he was basically satisfied with his work.

If Sean made contributions later, he could consider letting him take the position of fertilizer factory director to satisfy his desire for revenge. After all, there is a famous saying that goes like this,

"Forgive the first mistake your subordinates make, unless it is unforgivable."

Under Saint Hilaire's strong arrangements, the new Rhein Company was established, and Sean's position as factory director was revoked. Now the Dynamite Factory already had a lot of technical talent, and another one could be promoted.

Saint Hilaire discovered that the Thundering Cross might also have some problems. He didn't show it for the time being. Cruz stood honestly behind him, his face full of smiles.

"Boss, our Maria Town has developed quite well in the last few months, and the brothers are all very serious and responsible."

"Cruz, go and call all the captains of the Thundering Cross and the Maria Militia, as well as other people in charge, to a meeting at my residence this afternoon."

"Yes! Boss," Cruz saluted and prepared to leave the conference room.

"I hope you don't really make mistakes."

Saint Hilaire muttered to himself, causing Cruz's eyes to shake and his body to tremble slightly.

The people of the Maria Town Militia were all trained by him.

Later, there were relatively few people recruited, and most of the members of the Thundering Cross were Saint Hilaire's old subordinates.

Saint Hilaire had many confidants in Maria Town, and some people had revealed some bad news to him.

…

"The boss seems to have noticed something," Cruz said to his trusted subordinates, his expression somewhat ferocious.

"You still call him Boss? Aren't we his 'dogs,' haha."

"We patrol and maintain order so hard, what's wrong with taking some money? We've followed him for so long. Didn't we take less when we were in the City Guard?

He made a lot of money when he led us to make money in the beginning, right? Later, he became clear-headed and free, and took the lead in reading books. Only Aragon, Andrew, and those idiots would believe him."

"It wasn't easy for you to become the head here, it doesn't matter if you take some."

His trusted subordinate said indifferently.

"He, Saint Hilaire, makes a lot of money, eats well, drinks well, and chases girls. Has he forgotten about us old brothers? Has he thought about us?

He only gives us 8,000 pesos a month. Guerrero's monthly salary is 12,000. His qualifications are much shallower than ours,

It's not as much as we made when we were in the City Guard."

"He makes a lot of money, earning tens of millions of pesos a month, but only gives us so little,

He has a house here in Maria Town, he bought a house in Cordoba, and I heard he bought one in the capital too.

We can't even afford a house in Ke City."

"We stayed in that broken plateau in the Potassium Triangle for a few months, and were put in confinement by Guerrero for even looking for a few village girls."

His trusted subordinate also became somewhat ferocious.

"Isn't it just taking a few million pesos?

And getting a few girls? Anyway, no one knows. I've already warned them. Saint Hilaire wants to be a great saint, but he has to let us drink some soup, right?"

"Those factory directors make more money than us. They resell products, making millions at a time, and they have several mistresses. We're considered good."

"Well, after all, we wouldn't have our current development without Boss Saint."

Cruz sighed and said hypocritically.

"Let's unify our statements this afternoon and fool him first. Anyway, he's going back to Bu City to go to university in two months."

"That's the only way. It's a pity that this old dog came back too quickly, otherwise we could have won over more people."

"Let the people patrolling the factory also pay attention, hide it first, dispose of all the evidence, and send those women away."

Cruz swiped his right hand across his neck.

"Tell your people to restrain themselves a little. Close the small casinos first and let the brothers be patient. Saint Hilaire is going to Guerrero's place in a few days. Then we can do something again."

"Understood, we are all in the same boat."

The voices gradually faded.

…

At two o'clock in the afternoon, Saint Hilaire sat in the hall, not in a good mood. Some secret intelligence showed that Cruz had many problems, and things were much more serious than he had imagined.

Many people came to Saint Hilaire's large villa one after another, all familiar faces.

"Cruz, report on the specific development of the militia and this side."

"Yes, Boss, we currently have 524 people in the militia and 147 in the Thundering Cross. They are now mainly responsible for city patrols and security management."

"Also responsible for inspecting, recording, securing, and patrolling various factories…"

"The work situation is basically like this…"