Rise of the Argentine Empire

Saint Hesser waited in the hotel for a day, but didn't receive any news. Instead, the Barossa family was still holding those dance parties.

Saint Hesser arranged for people to leave Saint Pedro City directly, feeling that it was a waste of his time. He might as well organize his forces to find brick factories, cement factories, and steel rolling mills, especially since the steel mill issue also needed to be resolved.

He left Guerrero behind to haggle and amuse himself, while Saint Hesser planned to get down to business.

Steel is needed for everything now, and Argentina's biggest shortage is steel. He didn't want to waste time on such boring parties.

Argentina's cement industry is only just managing, ranking in the top twenty globally, and is the second-largest cement producer in South America after Brazil. However, Brazil's annual output is less than 2 million tons, and Argentina's is even less than 1 million tons.

Currently, the major cement-producing countries are the United States, the Soviet Union, West Germany, Italy, France, Japan, and Spain. The United States produces 50 million tons, while the Soviet Union and West Germany produce between 20 and 50 million tons. Other countries are also growing rapidly, like Poland, which produces 5 million tons.

There is great potential in the cement industry. Argentina has all the conditions for developing a cement industry, but there are fewer than 10 comprehensive cement plants in the country, with an average annual output of less than 100,000 tons.

Saint Hesser once again smelled an opportunity. Houses, infrastructure, roads, and bridges all require a large number of cement plants, and Jujuy Province is the perfect place to establish a large-scale cement plant, which can not only supply the new town's construction but also solve many employment problems.

The construction period for large cement plants is long, but small and medium-sized cement plants are much faster. Half a year is enough time, and Jujuy Province already has a cement plant with an annual output of 50,000 tons. Saint Hesser plans to talk to their boss about cooperation.

Saint Hesser's research found that it's better to produce cement bricks than red bricks. Argentina doesn't lack sand for construction, and northern Argentina is relatively dry.

However, like steel mills, cement plants are also heavily invested industries. A cement plant with a daily output of 3,000 tons requires at least a $2 million investment in equipment, with a construction period of about six months. Once completed, it can instantly double Argentina's entire cement production and solve the employment problem for 500 people in Pularí.

The investment in a cement plant is much less than in a steel mill or fertilizer plant, and the construction period is also much shorter.

Equipment also needs to be bought from Europe.

August 6th, Sunny.

After having the intelligence team gather information, Saint Hesser arrived in a town called Metán and met the boss of the Metán Sidek Cement Plant, Bago Zayev Sidek, a man in his fifties.

"Hello, Thunder Mining, Saint Hesser Cohen."

"Hello, Sidek Cement Plant, Bago Zayev Sidek, you can call me Old Yev."

"Mr. Old Yev, I'm here to discuss cooperation. We need you to provide us with 42,000 tons of cement within six months, at least 7,000 tons per month."

Saint Hesser didn't waste any time and went straight to the point.

"Mr. Saint Hesser, I'm afraid that's not possible. You're joking too much. Our cement plant's current annual output is only 30,000 tons, and the equipment is old, and we're losing workers. There's little demand for building houses in the north now, and we can't sell it."

"Haha, who doesn't know Old Yev's capabilities in Metán? It's just that I'm not doing well now. Back then, in our Metán, no one from either side of the law dared to cause trouble."

"That's good. I believe we'll have a great cooperation. My goal is simple: an annual output of 200,000 tons, quadrupling your current production capacity."

"No problem. As long as you give me money and equipment, expanding to 500,000 tons, 1 million tons, is no problem. I know many equipment suppliers in France, and Metán, or even the entire Andes Mountains area, has an endless supply of cement raw materials."

"That's good. As long as it's suitable, I'll invest in your factory. I also want to establish a cement brick factory nearby."

"That's not a big problem either. There's a lot of sand nearby, but no one wants to build houses. They'd rather suffer in Buenos Aires than develop in their hometown.

In fact, I was also planning to close the cement plant. Cement simply can't be sold now. The cement plants here can't compete with those in Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, and Córdoba. There are plenty of raw materials, but it's not cost-effective to transport them."

"I see. That's true. Argentina's housing plan is basically in a few important provinces. But with my support, I'll build at least 1,000 houses within a year. That's 25,000 tons of cement. We also need to build cement roads and various buildings. We have many places that need cement."

"That's good. Are you planning to build a new town?"

"Yes, near the Lithium Triangle."

"Oh, the Lithium Triangle. A good place, promising. No problem at all. As long as you invest 3 million pesos, no, 5 million pesos, I can turn on all my current factory equipment, recruit workers, and tap the potential to increase monthly output to 5,000 tons a month."

Currently, 5 million pesos is about $80,000. Currency devaluation is too severe.

"No problem, Old Yev, can you introduce me?"

"No problem. Let's start with the outer mines. The limestone mine here has reserves of billions of tons. There are limestone mines and clay mines a little further away. There's no need to worry about raw materials at all.

"There's no problem with mining at all. You just need to transport it. If it's really not enough, just arrange for some dynamite, blast it, and get tens of thousands of tons at a time is not a problem."

Saint Hesser followed Old Yev's finger and saw a mine about a kilometer away that had been hollowed out. Some workers were loading trucks, and he saw a huge area of limestone ore.

"We have specialized blasters who drill holes in the ore, then blast it, collect it, transport it, and finally transport it here to be crushed."

"This is the limestone crushing workshop. The limestone transported from the mine is crushed here, then pre-homogenized in the stacking shed, raw material grinding room, and raw material warehouse. The warehouse on the right is for storing raw materials."

Saint Hesser saw the crusher, which crushes the limestone.

"This is the firing workshop, divided into three parts: the kiln tail workshop, the kiln middle workshop, and the kiln head workshop. There's also a coal workshop and a coal powder preparation workshop for coal-fired fuel."

"Oh? Where does the coal come from? Can it be used to make iron?" Saint Hesser was quite interested in this.

"There's quite a bit in our province, but the quality is lower. It's lignite. To get better quality, you have to transport it from Bolivia. I don't think it's very good for ironmaking. The quality is too poor."

"We just dig whatever we want. Anyway, it doesn't matter how we do it."

"Old Yev, the mining rights in our country are nominally returned to the state, but in practice, the local provincial governments are responsible for granting special development rights to private enterprises and collecting mineral rights royalties from the concessionaires.

Private landowners have the right to use and mine sand, clay, and stone within their land."

Saint Hesser studied law and happened to be involved in mining law. Nominally, he was knowingly violating the law.

Now, his Thunder Mining actually needs to obtain authorization from Jujuy Province to mine these minerals.

But no one cares whether there is authorization or not. Saint Hesser is also trying to avoid legal risks, so he rarely cares about other people's threats. He now has many ways to circumvent this problem.

"I see. No wonder no one has ever dared to interfere with our mining of limestone and clay. But to be honest, the pollution from the cement plant is still very serious. Have you noticed that Metán is covered in a layer of gray? It's all our factory's doing."

"This is also inevitable for development. The technology isn't there yet. To be honest, Argentina's laws and regulations are not perfect enough. For example, the tax law is very problematic, haha."

"I've heard about that too. I heard that the Presidential Palace's Ministry of Finance's treasury is exhausted, but it can't collect taxes. If our country's tax bureau had one-tenth the level of the US tax bureau, it certainly wouldn't be in this situation now."

"Old Yev, you're very knowledgeable about international affairs. Now you even know about the US tax bureau,"

"Hey, actually my youngest son has already immigrated to the United States. He's studying in the United States, but he still needs to go to school, so I pay special attention to this. Their tax bureau is really powerful. My eldest son is also a doctor in a US hospital, and he was fined a lot for not paying taxes on time."

"The United States' perfect tax system is very worthy of our country's learning."

"Forget it. I pay a lot of taxes already. If the taxes are so severe, I'll be completely bankrupt. Moreover, a lot of the taxes we pay are intercepted by the city hall, provincial hall, and presidential palace."

"Haha, the only two things you can't do in the world are evading taxes in the United States and banning alcohol in the Soviet Union. Maybe we can add one more in the future. The two things Americans can't live without in this life are death and taxes. They even have to pay taxes on any illegal income."

"The largest military organization in the United States is the US Army, and the second largest military organization is the US Tax Bureau. Even the notorious Mafia has to pay taxes. For a country to become strong, taxation is indeed very important. At least I am a legal taxpayer."

"That's true. From the perspective of national interest, taxation is very important. It's a pity that I don't like Argentina anymore. From the Great Depression in the 1920s,

I was only in my twenties, truly living a life of debauchery. Now that I'm in my fifties, I can't do it anymore. Argentina is no longer great. People like Perón, who are speculators, are truly a disaster for our country."

"Having high ambitions but low abilities is a common problem for most people. I can't avoid it myself, but in recent years, our country's situation has indeed been getting worse and worse."

"Okay, let's not talk about this anymore. I'm already too disappointed. At least in the last thirty years, our country's development has been too slow. Let's tour the raw material warehouse and cement mill."

"I'll be old enough to retire in a few more years. I hear the environment in California, USA, is pretty good."

"My youngest son is studying for a master's degree in electrical engineering at a school called Stanford University. His undergraduate degree is in engineering from the National University of Cordoba. The only relatively troublesome thing is the tuition, which costs hundreds of thousands of pesos a year. The cement plant's profits haven't been good in recent years, but fortunately, I have a lot of savings."

Old Yev wore a proud expression, then became somewhat lost.

"Stanford University, not a bad university. Currently, it's a little worse than some of the University of California's branches. If he can get a teaching position or something, that would be good. Of course, if he can get a doctorate, like from Caltech or MIT, that would be even better."

San Jose fully unleashed his keyboard warrior spirit, pontificating about the world.

Currently, Stanford already has the potential to be a good university, second only to a few top schools in the University of California system.

But its status is far inferior to later generations. It wasn't until the rise of Silicon Valley a few years later that it continued to improve, becoming one of the top five universities in the United States.

"I don't know about that. If he can get a doctorate, that would indeed be amazing. Maybe I'll have to sell the steel mill by then. Ever since my wife died of lung cancer, I've been disheartened."

Old Yev's expression turned sad.

"Hey, Old Yev, you're still young, the golden age of your career. There are plenty of opportunities waiting for you to explore."

"You know, General San Martin lived to be 72 years old over a hundred years ago. You can live to be at least eighty or ninety. I heard that there was an American president who was over 80 years old and still running for election. How can you give up on yourself?"

"Cohen, don't lie to me. How can there be such an old president? It's not like I don't have an education. I finished middle school back then."

"It's true. Any dog can do a good job as the president of the United States, except for situations like Roosevelt's. So what's impossible about being president at seventy or eighty years old?"

Trump probably hasn't been born yet, and Biden is probably a few years old. I don't know if he'll die in office. It's a pity I won't be able to see that future.

"Cohen, thank you. Your comfort is very useful. Maybe I'm just too pessimistic. At least these two cement plants shouldn't end with me."

"Yeah, yeah, Old Yev, maybe you should marry another wife, haha, I'm just joking. After all, you still look good when you dress up."

"That's right. I was a famous handsome man in Jujuy back then, liked by many girls. Jenny was one of them. We used to be very happy."

"The past is in the past. A bright future is still waiting for us. But you do need to tidy yourself up. You know, the wife of the high-ranking official from Salta, Julia, is only in her thirties. She's now seven or eight years older than you, and her young husband has countless mistresses."

"I'll seriously consider it, but I also need to take care of the cement plant first. This is not only related to my retirement, but to be honest, I don't really want to go to the United States. After all, it's not my home. Our Cedec family has been based in South America for 174 years. Back then, it was much more powerful than North America."

"Our ancestors even participated in the South American War of Independence. How can we be the same as those slave owners and plantation owners in North America? The blood of heroes flows in my veins."

"I admire you, Mr. Old Yev. I plan to invest 500,000 US dollars to build our cement plant into the largest cement plant in Argentina. I believe that Argentina will definitely rise again in the future, because Argentina still has countless heroic people like you, Old Yev."

San Jose said admiringly.

"Huh, what did you say? 500,000 US dollars? Oh my God, are you kidding me? I thought you could come up with 80,000 US dollars, which would be great. That's 500,000 US dollars, worth 40 million pesos. Don't fool me, old man."

In fact, San Jose's goal was 2 million US dollars, but considering that this cement plant, including the surrounding minerals, is worth at most 200,000 US dollars, he quoted a low number. At least hundreds of thousands of tons of cement are completely sufficient.

If Old Yev is really reliable and capable, he can continue to add more until he buys the cement plant.

"It's true. We can sign the contract tonight and transfer the funds to the bank account tomorrow. I will send someone to be responsible."

"If you can come up with 500,000, I can give up 70%, no, 80% of the shares, as long as the cement plant doesn't change its name in the future. I can sell all the shares after I retire. We can sign an agreement."

Old Yev said excitedly. It would take who knows how long to reinvest in the small cement plant with its own profits. Not many people in Argentina are optimistic about the cement industry. It's enough to have enough houses to live in. The railway is state-owned, and there's not much need to build cement roads.

"Okay, no problem. We can handle it tonight. Happy cooperation."

"You're my boss from now on, a big tycoon, hahaha, I finally met one. I thought the cement plant would be like this for the rest of my life, completely ruined in my hands."

Old Yev danced with excitement.

"Let's have a drink, sign the contract before drinking."

Old Yev didn't even take San Jose on a tour. He grabbed San Jose and left. The security guard next to him wanted to stop him, but San Jose stopped him with a look.

"Okay, if the conditions are right, I can add more investment. I have a lot of money."

San Jose also breathed a sigh of relief that he was able to settle the cement plant's affairs today. Now the worst thing is time, not money. The profits and sales production scale of the soda factory, brewery, shoe and clothing factory, explosives factory, and fireworks factory are increasing every month. He is no longer short of money. Except for investments like the steel mill, a few million is not a problem at all.

Now it's just constant expansion, expansion, expansion. Thunder Mining will also start to generate more profits. His goal is that by the end of this year, the number of employees in each factory, excluding Thunder Cross security guards, will reach at least 10,000, reaching a new level.

"Old Yev, your residence is not bad. This place is worth at least 100,000 US dollars."

A group of more than a dozen people drove for more than ten minutes to the other side of the town. You can no longer see the cement plant's large chimney. They arrived at Old Yev's manor, which has a very classical style and the architecture is also very classical.

"This was built by my father. It cost a lot of money back then. There were many people in the manor back then, but now there are only me and a few butlers and servants left. I really want to sell it, but I can't bear to."

"Okay, okay,"

"Old Dirk, go get a barrel of 22-year-old wine. I'm going to drink my fill tonight." Obviously, Old Yev's house also has a wine cellar.

"Cohen, I'm really sorry, now only wine can be offered." It seems that Old Yev's family is indeed very difficult. Sending two sons to the United States to immigrate has almost emptied his family's wealth. It's not easy.

"It's okay, I still like wine."

"That's good. I'll go draft a contract first. You guys sit down first, sit wherever you like, take a look around."

San Jose didn't wander around randomly. He just took a simple look. There weren't many valuable things. There wasn't even a TV or refrigerator in the hall, only an old-fashioned large radio, which was very simple.

Old Yev's car is also a vintage car, a Ford Model T,

It's been around for a while. The intelligence team has done a simple investigation. Old Yev is indeed an old family. He diligently took over his father's business, but unfortunately, he couldn't resist the decline of the times.

After some contact, San Jose already had a good understanding of Old Yev: his ambitions were not fulfilled, the hero was old, and he felt like Lian Po was old, but could he still eat? He had good abilities, but lacked a large amount of capital to invest in equipment production.

Half an hour later, Old Yev took out the equity transaction investment materials. San Jose took a quick look and there were no problems.

"Cohen, as long as you invest 500,000 US dollars, I will transfer 80% of the shares. You can send people to station and keep an eye on it, but the equipment is estimated to be purchased from France. My equipment is from the Faraggi Cement Plant. I am confident that I can get back a production line with an annual output of 500,000 tons and put it into production in 4 months."

"Okay, no problem,"

San Jose wrote his name with a flourish.

"The amount will be credited in two days. Since you are going to France, I will provide you with foreign exchange. As long as the first production is successful, I will invest more than twice the amount again."

"Good, good, good, let's drink wine, let's eat some dishes."

The two had a good time drinking and chatting, and then San Jose stayed at the manor.

This time, San Jose didn't have any other strange dreams, maybe he was too tired recently.

… …

Starting on the 4th, the round table meeting finally began. After arguing for several days, attacking from all sides, uniting and dividing, all of Barrosa Zedler's layout, in the face of absolute strength, could not support a splash.

The main reason is that Thunder Cross destroyed several more small gangs and is already approaching the Barrosa family's base. Ukanaka here, the knife is on his neck.

And Guerrero's negotiations were also considered successful, curbing other people's unreasonable troubles, smiling on the surface, but in reality, they were completely thorough.

"Several disobedient troublemakers have been sent to South African mining, and the others have been arranged to go to other prisons."

"Guerrero did a good job. Some people are really shameless. To put it bluntly, they are just cheap. Also, let people inquire about the manufacturers of steel mills and rolling mills. We will also have to negotiate with them then."

"Understood, boss, I will go back to Oran City tomorrow to get the Thunder Mining headquarters down first."

The new town birth certificate has been issued, with a 1-year trial operation, and a new town will be established if it is suitable.

When the news reached San Jose's ears, he had just woken up from Old Yev's manor and watched him exercise.

Thunder Mining's reputation has become a little famous from Jujuy to Salta Province. At least no one dares to stop him administratively.

And other companies have been trying to curry favor with her, fearing that they will provoke the powerful Thunder Mining and be destroyed by accident.