Rise of the 1630s South America

Chapter 2115 Preliminary Preparation ([-])

"La Plata is wild and wild, and it will be managed as a core area in the future. What do you think of the industrial and urban development here? Let's start with Santa Fe." December 1690, 12, just now At the end of a diplomatic negotiation in Buenos Aires, Gao Wengang, who had been promoted to Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked his secretary.

Gao Wengang has basically confirmed that he will be elected as a member of the executive committee at the plenary meeting of the Founders Council early next year to replace the retired member Li Qing who was in charge of foreign affairs and foreign trade, and has since entered the list of the nine most powerful people in the country .Therefore, this will be the time when Gao Wengang is full of ambition, and it is also the time when he is full of energy and fighting spirit.No, in the just-concluded discussion and negotiation, he and the people in the military department sang red face and bad face one by one, made the representative of Spain look ashamed, and finally succeeded in forcing them to make a concession, expressing that they would accept the sale of 5.5 yuan by the people from the east coast. tons of grain (of which 5000 tons of potatoes and cassava are bonus), although this still needs the final approval of the Madrid court before it can take effect.

After finishing the negotiation, Gao Wengang was not in a hurry to go back, but wandered around La Plata to see the charm of this heaven-sent land that was about to be acquired by the East Coast Republic.He first visited the two cities of Buenos Aires and Rosario, held talks with local businessmen and expatriates on the east coast, and then reached the ship of the state-run inland water transport company to Santa Fe, a famous port city on the Paraná river.

"Minister, if I'm not mistaken, the Government Council should have reached a conclusion after discussions, that is, Santa Fe will be positioned as a city of textile industry, right?" After seeing Gao Wengang's affirmative gaze, the secretary was relieved and spoke freely. And Tan: "Because of the particularity of the Chaco Plain, such as daily life, precipitation, and temperature, it is very suitable for cotton growth, so it is very profitable to focus on the development of cotton planting on this great plain, and it is also in line with economic laws. As the downstream port of the Paraguay River and the Parana River, Santa Fe has a wide river and deep water, convenient transportation, and has port facilities left by the Spaniards for many years. It is very suitable as a cotton storage and processing base. The current cotton textile processing in our country Although the industry has good technical strength, it is relatively scattered, and the scale of the industry in a single place is not large, so it is urgent to integrate to reduce costs as soon as possible. In this regard, the wool textile industry in the Southern Cone has set us a very good example. The advantage makes the production cost greatly reduced, and the competitiveness of the product is greatly enhanced."

It is said that although La Plata has not been officially won, the people on the east coast have already made a rough plan for the future of this land.Because the development of Chakoping is behind the Pampa Plain, the government is unable to make large-scale investment in a short period of time, so it thought of using social capital to promote the development progress of this vast plain.And if you want to make good use of social capital, you have to give them a profit model before they invest money.After all, businessmen are not government officials, and they are not obliged to spend money to contribute to the country. Every investment they make must see results, so you must let them confirm that they can make money.

Therefore, after some research, the officials of the Government Affairs Council decided to circle a large tract of land on the Chaco Plain and lease it to private investors to grow cotton.And the cotton they grow will be uniformly transported to the port along the river, where it will be processed and produced by the textile enterprises set up there.Therefore, in the future, there will be many textile industry cities along the Paraguay River and the Parana River. The government is currently interested in two cotton textile centers, Santa Fe and Resistencia, one south and one north, of which the former is the main one. The latter is supplemented by the rise of a series of textile towns along the river.

The textile industry will never be outdated no matter what age it is!Although in the economic structure of the east coast, the textile industry has been replaced by heavy industries such as metallurgy, chemical industry, and equipment manufacturing in terms of output value and profit, but if only a single commodity is concerned, textiles are still very important. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is the first.

In the past, the cotton textile industry on the east coast was relatively scattered due to the large amount of cotton imported from the Caribbean, North America, Brazil, New China, Peru, etc., and the concentration was not high enough. There has never been a cotton-based textile industry in China. Textile city.Moreover, the domestic cotton planting industry was not very successful at that time, the output was not very large, and the cost was higher than that of foreign cotton, so farmers were not very enthusiastic about planting.

After taking down La Plata this time, the government decided to take a good look at the cotton textile industry.For this reason, they have decided to set up a new Ministry of Textiles, which will be responsible for the overall planning of the national textile industry, and guide all affairs including cotton planting, spinning and weaving, and the production and research and development of textile machinery. Industry guidance, optimize resource allocation, improve the overall competitiveness.

In the plan of the Ministry of Textiles, the Chaco Plain will be dominated by privately invested cotton plantations in the future, and the cotton produced will either be sold to private textile companies or to state-owned textile factories. It is digested in the textile towns to produce various types of cotton cloth, which are then packaged and transported to various places for sale.At this time, the advantages of a big river port like Santa Fe came into play. Other river ports were either seriously silted up, or the water depth was not enough. In short, the conditions were not as good as Santa Fe. Therefore, the center city of La Plata's cotton textile industry is located in Santa Fe. , should be more appropriate.

Another shocking piece of news is that the Ping'an Weaving Factory located in the northern metropolis of Ping'an County may have to relocate its cotton textile business, and its preferred destination is Santa Fe.This factory is a large-scale textile enterprise in the east bank that is as famous as the Dayuhe Textile Factory, and it is an important support for the early development of Ping'an County.However, with the gradual development of the social economy, in order to adapt to the situation, the factory has moved its wool textile business to the Southern Cone region many years ago to make full use of the rich local wool resources.Now, it is said that the factory is also going to move its cotton textile business to Santa Fe. This has greatly distressed Ping'an County.

Fortunately, there is a giant enterprise like the Ping An Coal and Steel Consortium in their county, and the chemical industry is also developing vigorously. It is the first brand in the east coast of China, so it will not be as painful as Zhenhai County (Modern Special Ships) factory relocation), lost tax sources and jobs, and can slowly find opportunities to make up for it in the future. In this way, Ping’an County will gradually lose the elements of light industry and become a fourth-type city, namely mining and heavy industry. City.

In addition to the cotton textile industry, the future center of the wool textile industry will undoubtedly be Yancheng Port. Of course, the premise of all this is that the two railways dedicated to wool transportation are completely completed and opened to traffic.According to the plan, the rich wool resources in the Southern Cone region will be enriched in Yancheng Port in the future, and correspondingly, production enterprises will naturally be concentrated here.This is not good news for coastal cities like Hai'an, which already have a certain wool textile foundation, but the impact will not be too great.Capital will only start new factories in Yancheng Port, and will not close the old factories in these places. After all, they are also one of the raw material producers, and they still have certain advantages.

"You're right, Xiao Wang. But I'm going to test you now. It's easy to set up a city, but where does the population that the city needs come from?" Gao Wengang walked with his hands behind his back, surrounded by guards, on the St. Port of Philippines's pier.

"Minister, I think there are two major sources." Secretary Xiao Wang thought for a while, and Cheng Zhu replied with confidence: "According to the history of the wool textile industry cities in the Southern Cone, it is not difficult to find that net immigration is actually the biggest source of urban population growth. The main source. Taking Santa Fe as an example, there are only a few thousand Hispanic whites and mixed-race whites. How can such a population base support the scale of the textile industry center city? Therefore, immigration from other places has become inevitable! The early days of Santa Fe Some of the immigrants should be the workers and their families relocated from the Dayuhe Textile Factory and Pingan Textile Factory, and the later sources are mainly immigrants from rural areas in China.”

"The current recession in the rural economy has plagued the peasantry for many years. Even though the country has thought of countless ways and introduced many policies, it still does not help. The root cause of this is that the per capita productivity in rural areas is too low, resulting in cost Too high. To put it bluntly, there is no need for so many people in the countryside! Look at those large state-owned and private farms. When they use a lot of agricultural machinery, their per capita production efficiency is much higher than that of small farmers and small households. How can they compete like this? ? In my opinion, the status quo in the countryside can no longer be maintained, and a thorough reform is necessary!" Secretary Xiao Wang continued: "I think that through the establishment of emerging cities in the La Plata area, such as textile cities, manufacturing The establishment of cities, administrative cities, and even comprehensive cities absorbs the urban and rural population of the old coastal areas in the east and forces the reform of the local rural mechanism. The existing rural policies are actually against the laws of the economy, and the people’s grievances are not small. It is time to carry out It has been reformed, and the establishment of the new city of La Plata this time is a very good opportunity."

"Hehe, Xiao Wang, your thinking is very dangerous. People from the army heard it, and they might want to smash the windows of your house." Gao Wengang said with a smile after hearing this, but there was no sense of accusation in his tone. This made Secretary Xiao Wang even more excited.

"Minister, what do their elm heads know? I really think that rural policy is a golden rule that will not be changed for ten thousand years. This time we will use this strategy of dredging salaries from the bottom of the pot, using economic means and market laws to transfer those incomes from the eastern rural areas The rural population, which has been decreasing year by year, will be absorbed into the new city of La Plata and incorporated into industrial production. In this way, the atmosphere in the countryside will be refreshed, so that you don’t have to keep following the army.” Secretary Wang finally said: "I hope the executive committee will think about it carefully."

(End of this chapter)