Rise of the Argentine Empire

Besides celebrating the New Year in Buenos Aires, Saint Hesser would also attend this year's National Supreme Council meeting as the head of the Radical Civic Union in Blanca City. However, unlike last time, this year's meeting was postponed for a few days, and the intelligence he gleaned suggested the Radical Civic Union was planning something big.

In the early hours of the second day of the New Year, lightning flashed across the dark night sky, and with a clap of thunder, Buenos Aires was suddenly hit by a torrential downpour. The leaves on the trees outside the window swayed wildly, completely different from usual.

The rain grew heavier, battering against the windows, accompanied by strong winds. Huge flashes of lightning continuously illuminated the distance.

Saint Hesser sensed the unusual nature of this heavy rain and quickly got out of bed. He immediately ran to the study next door to make a phone call, notifying relevant personnel at several factories to inspect the goods in the Buenos Aires factory warehouses.

He instructed them to transfer the goods and strengthen protection measures, focusing on the large factories of Plarrie Foods and Blue Cloud Textiles. Recently, due to the New Year holidays, the factories had been closed for two days, and a large amount of goods were stored in the warehouses.

In the morning, Saint Hesser learned about the situation. He first inspected the conditions of several factories, convened all the security personnel, and prepared for this sudden situation.

The heavy rain continued for a day and a night, and many low-lying streets in the city were directly flooded. The water level on the roads exceeded 20 centimeters, adding to the woes of many less affluent families in Buenos Aires.

After the rain stopped around 5 PM, Saint Hesser organized factory management and security personnel to visit the slums, helping with the dredging work in full swing, and donated a batch of living supplies, including food, beverages, mineral water, and clothing.

Among the living supplies, a new product called instant noodles, launched by the Plarrie Foods Buenos Aires factory, received unprecedented popularity.

These instant noodles were packaged in polyethylene plastic bags supplied by Maya Chemical, which were safe and hygienic. Inside, in addition to the fried noodles, there was also a seasoning packet containing salt, monosodium glutamate, white sugar, and spices.

Although Saint Hesser thought this instant noodle product was still very simple and primitive, it was very delicious and convenient for the starving disaster-stricken residents.

All they needed to do was boil water, put the noodles in a bowl, add the seasoning packet, pour in the boiling water, and wait for 3 minutes, and a bowl of fragrant soup noodles would be ready.

Even people who were not used to noodles could have a hearty appetite. If paired with a few slices of luncheon meat or canned meat, it would be even more satisfying. And if they had a bottle of soda after eating, it would seem to make people forget the unpleasantness before them.

For Saint Hesser, these supplies stored in the warehouse could not be sold externally for the time being, and the cost was not particularly high, so he simply donated a portion, which could also win him some goodwill.

On the third day, several factories resumed operations, and truckloads of goods were sent to stores everywhere. The heroic deeds of the factory would be spread to various places through the newspapers of the New Argentina News Agency, along with subtle reports of Councilor Saint Hesser.

Today, Saint Hesser had originally planned to visit Professor Pukins and General Thompson, but ultimately he was unable to make the trip. He stayed at home with his wife and chatted with them on the phone for a while.

Saint Hesser had not originally paid much attention to instant noodle products, but Maya Chemical's powerful plastic chemical production and research and development capabilities, which produced food-grade plastic bags, made him pay more attention and approve the first batch of 100,000 packages of instant noodle production capacity.

As a result, in addition to the 80,000 packages donated, the remaining 20,000 packages were also sold out, proving that this instant noodle product was very competitive. Instant noodles were indeed very good, especially in the still less affluent Latin American region.

He immediately notified the head of Plarrie Foods to acquire a flour processing plant nearby and separate the noodle machine to establish a noodle factory specifically for producing instant noodles.

He personally designed several research and development goals, familiar flavors such as braised beef noodles, scallion spare rib noodles, pickled cabbage beef noodles, and spicy beef noodles, and asked the Cordoba Food Laboratory to experiment with them.

This laboratory near the University of Cordoba has now reached world-class standards. Various food additives have been developed. The soda he drank the other day was produced using orange flavor essence and coloring, plus sucrose and carbon dioxide, greatly reducing production costs and increasing profits.

He also placed a new batch of machine orders with Layton Machinery Factory. This time, the noodle production machine was completely independently developed. After all, with Saint Hesser's guidance, plus the difficulty of light industrial machinery was not great, they just did it themselves.

Now, Plarrie Foods has more and more food and beverage factories under its umbrella, and the production machinery is becoming more and more complex. Relying entirely on foreign countries cannot reduce production costs, so the cooperation with Layton Industries is becoming more and more in-depth, and now they are also planning to establish a machinery repair factory.

Plarrie Foods is considered one of the top ten food production companies in Argentina. Except for a few giants with foreign capital backgrounds that it cannot compare with, it is more than enough for other private companies, and there is not too much conflict.

Now, it can not only produce beer, soda, and beverages, but also coffee, fruit beer, instant noodles, milk, various canned foods, and additives. With Saint Hesser's investment not being too much, it has developed in a diversified manner. After all, the plastic factory that initially received the most investment has been completely independent and become Maya Chemical, and other conventional investment amounts cannot be compared with the huge steel and chemical investment.

This year, Argentina is fully opening up to the outside world, and many Argentine companies will lose protection and need to compete with powerful British and American companies, fighting tooth and nail.

Saint Hesser's plan this year is to continue betting on heavy industry, focusing on investing in industries such as steel, chemicals, machinery, shipbuilding, metallurgy, and energy, which will require a huge amount of capital.

In order to ensure investment efficiency and ensure the effective use of existing funds, he will no longer invest in Plarrie Foods, Blue Cloud Textile Group, and Future Agriculture, these three major companies.

Strictly speaking, the Andean Condor Cigarette Factory is also affected, but the reason it is not included is because the Condor Factory rarely targets the domestic market and mainly focuses on exports.

And these three companies, except for Future Agriculture, are all companies that fully compete in the market. Last year, Saint Hesser invested a large amount of machinery and production equipment in these three companies.

Saint Hesser still has strong confidence in them. The business philosophy of these three companies is not bad, and a group of excellent managers have been selected from domestic competition, and their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated.

.....

As the rainstorm gradually receded, Buenos Aires seemed to return to its former tranquility.

On January 6th, in the headquarters building of the Radical Civic Union, in a large conference room, the Radical Civic Union National Supreme Council was about to begin.

Saint Hesser arrived relatively late. Except for a few big shots who had not arrived, everyone else was basically there. There were still a few empty seats, which were the focus of attention for the entire venue.

He didn't pay too much attention. He simply looked at the venue. Unlike when he audited two years ago, there were many new faces this time. The overall age was much younger, ranging from thirty to fifty years old, mainly in their thirties. The old ones had basically retired.

Saint Hesser immediately noticed that the number of people attending the meeting had decreased significantly. He remembered that there were more than 130 people last time, but this time there were only 112 nameplates, an estimated decrease of more than 20 people compared to his last attendance. The presidential palace's crackdown was quite severe; 20 people represented the loss of 20 important positions or cities.

It's worth noting that there are three women among these committee members, which is clearly a sign of progress.

He walked directly to the last row and, as expected, saw his name in the third seat on the left. He stepped past the crowd and sat down quietly. He didn't talk to the people next to him, as the meeting was about to begin.

Most of those sitting in the back were heads of remote regions. These places hadn't suffered as much damage, and Saint Hheirse was one of the youngest among them.

After sitting down, Saint Hheirse still felt a bit moved. Just two years ago, he could only stand and listen, but now he was one of the people sitting here.

At exactly 9 a.m., all the attendees had arrived.

Sitting in the front row, as usual, were the members of the Radical Civic Union's highest committee, a total of 13 people. Saint Hheirse knew them all. Sitting in the middle was the current leader, Arturo, who had replaced the elderly Mr. Cabbin last year.

Arturo Frondizi, wearing glasses and a black suit, had noticeably thinning hair and a somewhat haggard complexion. He sat in the very center of the rostrum and began his speech for the day.

There had been significant changes in the upper echelons this time. Luis, the director he knew, had taken the last seat on the rostrum, and Keynes Thomas, the head of the Radical Civic Union in Ke City, was sitting in the middle of the first row facing the rostrum. Both had been greatly promoted.

As a strong leader of the Radical Civic Union, Frondizi had the support of not only the Renovation and Change Movement faction and the National Line faction, but also the Conservative faction.

This meeting was somewhat tedious and dull, but Saint Hheirse understood a lot. It was all about the Radical Civic Union's allies, the Republican Party and the Democratic Party, being severely damaged, and the Radical Civic Union's ties with the Argentine Church deepening.

Several important issues were raised, including running for president and dealing with foreign capital, among other miscellaneous matters. They didn't realize that the military junta was coming.

Argentina has three cardinals and four regional bishops representing the highest power of the Argentine Church, forming an organization called the Seven Church Association.

They are Cardinal Saint Louis Copello, Manuel Tato, La Naboa, and the regional bishops Rafael of Cordoba, Fasolino of Santa Fe, Ferreira Reinafe of La Rioja, and Andrés Biseros of Corrientes.

The Radical Civic Union's reward was to support the "Heavenly Resident Association" in participating in and interfering with national life, and to make this association a legitimate political party.

The other proposals were fine, but this one caused the biggest disagreement, even causing a sensation in the venue. When the vote was taken, at least more than half of the people opposed it, and more than 20 people abstained.

Most of these Argentine bishops came from landlord oligarchs, which was completely different from the capitalist party of the Radical Civic Union. However, they often sold out Argentine interests and had close ties with the Vatican.

This was also something Saint Hheirse couldn't tolerate. He believed that most members of the Radical Civic Union couldn't tolerate it either.

Now that the Argentine Church's power was already large enough, to interfere in politics again would be to turn Argentina into a feudal country of ****. Saint Hheirse would never allow such a mistake to continue, but he had no right to speak.

Fortunately, Frondizi only made a proposal and didn't continue to discuss it, otherwise Saint Hheirse would have to consider whether to withdraw from the Radical Civic Union.

The Heavenly Resident Association was trying to establish a Christian Democratic Party, which was an attack on Peron. It was an either/or situation. If it really became legal, then even the Radical Civic Union would be unable to oppose it. The Church's propaganda and brainwashing power was something that Argentina, with its current level of education, simply couldn't resist.

This was not Saint Hheirse's goal, even if he wanted Peron and the Church to fight each other and suffer mutual losses.

According to intelligence, there were 16,000 clergy members in Argentina who followed the Church. These people were too good at inciting people. If they really participated in the election, they could deceive a large number of votes.

After this proposal, there wasn't much else of importance, and Saint Hheirse calmed down.

This national conference was also slowly coming to an end.

At the end of last year, Frondizi reached an agreement with several bigwigs from the Socialist Party, Republican Party, Democratic Party, and Progressive Democratic Party to form a secret political alliance and unite again to oppose the Justicialist Party.

In contrast, the Justicialist Party led by Peron continued to be divided internally, full of opportunists, seemingly strong but actually fragile.

Saint Hheirse made friends with several committee members, chatted with Luis and others for a while, and then left the building.

Judging from this meeting, Saint Hheirse was quite disappointed. It was all clichés and platitudes, with no innovation at all. They didn't dare to discuss anything in depth. Currently, it wasn't so much that Peron was attacking the Church, but that the Church was attacking Peron.

The Church had actually become the common enemy of all political parties in Argentina. The Radical Civic Union still wanted to get the Church's support. In Saint Hheirse's view, these Church people were the biggest obstacle to Argentina's modernization, completely feudal remnants.

Moreover, the Church's relationship with the Argentine military had deepened, which was the real problem. They were not at all aware of the problems that existed here. Perhaps this was the problem in Argentina, which was relatively economically backward.

Only when the sword and the cross completely broke apart, like in the French Revolution, could Argentina be completely saved.

However, he also learned some information from this meeting that the Falcon Agency had not obtained, so it was still somewhat rewarding.

Saint Hheirse concluded:

"Our country's revolution has started badly. The current Radical Civic Union cannot become Argentina's hero."

Saint Hheirse planned to speed up his own pace. He would go back to Blanca City and talk to the naval branch of the military port about cooperation.

The Radical Civic Union was also quite unreliable, and many of their ways of looking at problems were not as good as those of the Argentine Republican Party.

The only good thing was that it had a relatively long history, but it was also severely divided internally. Saint Hheirse didn't join any faction, but these 110+ people were divided into four or five factions.

Saint Hheirse returned to his residence with some regret. Judging from this meeting, the Radical Civic Union was not so reliable after all. No wonder the military junta ultimately seized the final fruits.

In Argentina, it was not enough to just carry out an industrial revolution. There was still a long way to go to achieve land reform, education reform, social revolution, ideological revolution, church reform, and so on.

He had already planned to convene a Falcon Agency meeting. Falcon Agency Director Guerrero had returned to Argentina.

… …

Just after returning to his residence, Saint Hheirse was just about to contact the people from the Falcon Agency,

But within a few minutes, at the request of his wife, Elena, he had to go to the Buenos Aires Cathedral to pray for his family. Saint Hheirse looked at Elena with affection and had to agree. His wife didn't ask much of him, so he should fulfill such a small request.

Elena was heavily pregnant, so he couldn't let her wander around. Saint Hheirse also just wanted to see the current situation of the Church's grassroots forces, so he changed into ordinary clothes. Saint Hheirse first went to the Falcon Agency,

He had a special makeup artist give him a makeover before taking a few security guards and changing to an ordinary vehicle. He was now also a thorn in the Church's side because of the Church's affairs in Blanca City, and not many people knew that New Asia Media belonged to him.

As soon as he arrived at the entrance of the church, Saint Hheirse saw a group of believers. These believers looked devout and had fervent eyes, planning to go to church for mass.

Saint Hheirse seemed to see some fanatics in the crowd, who felt almost like the terrorists he had seen in later generations.