At the end of August, Rio Gran do Sul is in the middle of spring, when the retired soldiers who have been stable for a year and the Chinese workers who have migrated over the past have just finished harvesting the third crop and begin to clear the crop straw and loosen the ground between the fields in preparation for the spring ploughing of the new year.

Rice, corn, soybean, and sweet potato are crops with a relatively high planting rate in South America, of which the total planting rate of rice and sweet potato accounts for 70 percent of the cultivated area of crops in Rio Grande do Sul, corn and soybean account for about 15 percent, and the remaining 5 percent are crops such as wood and wheat.

Rice is the staple food of the Chinese, and the Chinese who have acquired a large piece of land first dig a pond on suitable land, and then build several isolated farmlands around the pond, and provide a suitable amount of water for rice by diverting the water from the pond to grow green seedlings.

In the southern part of the mainland, one acre of good paddy fields can be exchanged for three or four acres of dry land, and if a family owns more than 10 acres of paddy fields, it means that the family is either a landlord in the village or a scholar with fame.

In the mainland, the quality of the land is the main basis for judging whether a family is prosperous, and the first thing ordinary Chinese to do after accumulating a fortune or a position of power is to buy a large amount of land as the capital of family inheritance, while in Rio Grande do Sul, the Chinese who have been allocated a large piece of land have not changed their previous concepts, and they have worked hard for a whole year on hundreds or hundreds of acres of land, and are unwilling to waste a large area of land.

The first batch of Chinese who followed Li Mingyuan's expedition from Peru survived about 110,000, and each of them was given an area of more than 300 mu of land.

Li Mingyuan's well-intentioned persuasion played a certain positive role, and some Chinese who had worked as laborers in the plantations resumed their old jobs, while managing twenty or thirty acres of farmland, while receiving cash crop seeds provided by the government, and trying to operate mixed crop planting areas on their own land.

On the other hand, the Chinese who were born in the low-level peasants of Fujian Province were the representatives, who had personally experienced the pain of being landless and starving, and were afraid of living such a hard life again, so these Chinese reclaimed as much of the land distributed to them as possible and planted rice, sweet potatoes, corn and other high-yield crops.

In Rio Grande do Sul, the vast majority of the poor and frightened Chinese are faithful to the simple truth that they have food in their hands and do not panic in their hearts, and they are busy in the fields every day, clearing as much land as possible and tidying up the farmland.

Most of the Chinese did not stop to enjoy a comfortable life after retiring from the army, but devoted themselves to the labor of clearing and cultivating land with an urgent mentality.

From the first rush to plant crops in July last year and before spring ploughing this year, the industrious Chinese have reclaimed 5 million mu of farmland and 12 million mu of pasture and grassland by using simple iron ploughs and a small amount of purchased steam sowing machinery. So that after satisfying the food self-sufficiency of Rio Gran do Sul, he can also save a part of the surplus grain as a reserve.

Grain is an important link in the country's stability at any time, and after the statistics on the number of grain produced in one year were completed, Li Mingyuan ordered the purchase of surplus grain at a price 1.2 times higher than the average grain price in South America, so as to regulate and control grain prices, prevent the problem of falling grain prices in good years, and hit the peasants' enthusiasm for production.

The purchased grain will be mainly placed in the reserve granary, and the replaced old grain will be distributed to all units of the field army as military rations.

Pingshan Town, formerly the San Javier Iron Ore Area. It is now the site of the 1st Mixed Brigade of the Wehrmacht.

A team of more than 70 people, divided into 12 small boats loaded with food, weapons and ammunition, quietly crossed the border line on the rivers of Rio Grande do Sul, Argentina, and Paraguay, and advanced towards the Argentine territorial line.

Twelve small boats entered Argentine territory and carefully slid along a wooded winding river.

"Da yes." The sound of the steam engine peculiar to the river gunboats sounded on the other side of the river, alarming the cautious small fleet.

"Company commander, listen to the sound of the gunboat coming towards us, do you want the fleet to prepare for battle?"

On the small boat at the front of the fleet, the soldier operating the only heavy machine gun on the ship whispered.

"Wait, we'll see what happens."

The man in a black military uniform listened carefully to the direction where the gunboat's sound was coming from, while whispering orders to the ships behind him not to show their tracks.

The sound of gunboats continued for two minutes, and two minutes later, a patrol of Argentine gunboats skimmed over the narrow channel in which the fleet was located and headed in the other direction before approaching the small flotilla.

Having successfully evaded the water patrol of the Argentines, the man in military uniform raised his arm and made a gesture, and when the boat in the rear saw the gesture, he immediately followed the first boat in accordance with the order of the representative of the gesture.

Ma Jizu was a company commander of the 1st Mixed Brigade, and as a Chinese who followed Li Mingyuan's uprising in Peru, his seniority surpassed that of many battalion and company officers of the 1st Mixed Brigade, but because he was injured on the way to southern Brazil, he did not have the opportunity to catch up with the Paraguayan War and subsequent battles, and was never promoted.

He participated in the uprising at the same time as Ma Jizu, and the Chinese soldiers assigned to a squad, except for the five who died in battle and retired due to injuries, three of the remaining seven were promoted to battalion-level officers, and two were promoted to deputy battalion-level officers, and only he and the other person were still hanging on the post of company commander.

Ma Jizu was originally the first person in the squad to be promoted to a company-level officer, but because of an injury experience, his comrades-in-arms who were previously lower in rank than him were promoted one after another, and he was the only one pulling behind. In the face of missing out on military exploits, Ma Jizu not only felt regretful, but also looked for opportunities to accumulate military exploits, and liaising with Sun Qisheng in Argentina and being responsible for transporting supplies for Sun Qisheng's troops was an opportunity he had earned with great difficulty.

Ma Jizu had been transporting supplies for Sun Qi's sanctuary for half a year, and this time the sudden appearance of the Argentine river patrol gunboat unit near the transportation route made him feel a little unusual.

The Argentine-Paraguayan war lasted about seven months, and during the war, Argentine troops generally cruised in waters close to the Paraguayan border. For the waters near the town of Pingshan, the density and intensity of patrols are low.

The sudden appearance of the Argentine patrol gunboat on the smuggling supply route made Ma Jizu vigilant in advance, and in the following voyage, adhering to the principle of caution, the supply fleet did not choose the predetermined route, but bypassed the previously explored trail, and finally arrived at Sun Qisheng's base in northern Argentina two days later.