"It's not in good condition. You see, here... Over here... And here, there are quite a few holes. In a certain shop on the street of Hexi Township, a master who looked a little older picked up the lion skin sent by the customer, and carefully evaluated it while looking at it, only to hear him say: "This skin can only give you five yuan, and it can't be more." ”

The young man who came to sell the skins sighed in disappointment when he heard this, and said helplessly: "Master Jiang, look at it, this is a cougar's skin, not an ostrich skin, a cow or a sheepskin." Five dollars is too little, so you can add some more to me. ”

"Not a penny." Master Jiang threw the leather on the counter and said impatiently: "As for your skin full of holes, we will buy it at our discretion, and I will find a skillful craftsman to find a way to clean it up in the future, this doesn't cost money?" Besides, the skins of cougars are not a rare commodity, and last year a thousand were produced on the prairies on the east coast, and they were all in good condition. The market supply is still very sufficient, why sell at a high price. ”

"But it can't be just five dollars, right?" The young man was still not convinced.

"Young man, let's improve my hunting skills a little more. In this chaco prairie, there are many cougars. The last time I went to the city of Resistencia of the Spaniards to buy goods, I met a cougar along the way, and there are traces of the cougar grinding its claws on almost every tree along the way, which shows that the number of lions is still very large. If you still polish your skills more, if the level comes up, you will definitely be able to make a fortune in the future. Master Jiang shook his head and said resolutely: "But in front of you, this skin is worth five yuan, do you like to sell it or not." ”

In fact, from a certain point of view, what this Master Jiang said is not nonsense. The cougar is an animal that is still very widely distributed on the east coast, and there are many of them. In the case of the large population and rapid development of the East Coast Prairie, human activities have increasingly eroded the territory of animals, the original ecosystem on the grassland has collapsed, and a large number of cougar groups have begun to be hunted by the East Coast people.

In addition to the eastern coast savannah, the Duck Lake, Pampa, and Southern Cone regions also produce many cougar skins, which may add up to 2,000 sheets. Although it is not as good as the more than 3,000 cougar skins exported by Buenos Aires in the 18th century, it is also very considerable and is a huge wealth.

Of course, there are also some botanists and botanists on the east coast who have petitioned the Ministry of Agriculture to revoke the licenses of some hunters in order to reduce the number of cougars hunted. They believe that the cougar is a key link in the biological chain system, and although the stock was very large before, after so many years of hunting, the number has dropped to an acceptable level, and it is time to limit the indiscriminate hunting and killing.

As a result, the zoologists unanimously demanded that some of the cougar hunting licences, which had been issued too widely in previous years, be withdrawn, and that the remaining cougar populations be counted and protected in sparse areas to prevent people from ignorant extinction. They also cite the example of the European bison, which they believe has declined dangerously to the point where it may become extinct if it continues for a few decades.

The Ministry of Agriculture carefully considered the opinions of these people and finally decided to withdraw some of the licences in both Duck Lake and the East Shore Prairie, but did not intend to withdraw all of them. These two places are the most developed areas on the east coast, where most of the population, industrial facilities and industrial and commercial enterprises are concentrated, and the expansion of human activity will only get faster and faster, and it is not appropriate to withdraw all the licenses to establish nature reserves. In the Patagonian plateau, where the ecosystem is more fragile, the Ministry of Agriculture intends to withdraw most of the licences to avoid the collapse of the ecosystem after the cougars are killed in large numbers.

Some people may say, why do the East Coasters hunt so many cougars, is it that their pursuit of leather has reached the point of "pathology"? Well, maybe it's a little "sick", but the East Coast people are really too fond of leather, the annual consumption is an astronomical amount, from civilian clothing, bags, to industrial conveyor belts, and then to all kinds of military skins, water bladders, ammunition bags, leather hats, armed belts, etc., the scale of the industry is very large, from beginning to end the entire industrial chain enough to feed thousands of workers, very amazing.

In the case of clothing, for example, the increasingly affluent East Coasters were very fond of warm leather clothing. While non-national workers were still saving up for cotton coats, fur coats that were windproof, cold, and warm had become the norm for the middle class on the East Coast. Designers, cobblers, and tailors who emigrated from the Old World worked day and night to produce beaver or bear fur hats, seal or lion fur coats, whale skin waterproof (cold) threads, and so on, to supply the already frantic consumer market.

Therefore, it is not uncommon for a large number of East Coast hunters to go to various places to hunt cougars, crocodiles, and various sea beasts in such a situation. Especially in the Chaco Plain, which is nominally part of the territory of the Kingdom of Spain, where the laws of the East Coast are not yet governed by the law, so all sorts of licensed and unlicensed people flock here to hunt large animals, mainly cougars – and sometimes crocodiles or large pythons in the swamps to provide raw materials for women's delicate leather bags, but they are relatively few and unsystematic – giving new impetus to the developed leather industry on the East Coast.

The Chaco Plains, which means "country of hunting" in the Quechua language, is rich in animal resources and has a very large number of cougars, so the hunters on the east coast who flock to this place are simply happy to keep their mouths shut, and they are ready to laugh at the great gift given to them by the Celestial Venerable. In order to purchase these raw materials nearby, many leather shops also set up branches in Hexi Township and other places, so this is the scene at the beginning of this chapter, where hunters and merchants bargain over the condition and price of the skins.

Such a massive influx of hunters—according to incomplete popular attacks, may have numbered close to a thousand, both professional and professional—and the Spaniards were not blind, and naturally learned about it through various channels. Surprisingly, but to be expected, the Spanish colonial government chose to forgive the East Coasters — well, choose to turn a blind eye to the influx of East Coast hunters. In fact, this is also the "old problem" of the Spaniards, who can't beat the East Coast people, and can't punish these lawless East Coast crossers, so why bother to make yourself uncomfortable? It's better to turn a blind eye, anyway, the people on the east coast are quite good at being people, and occasionally give them some money and bribes, which is enough!

The Spanish colonial government ignored these things, and suddenly put the local indigenous people who had already submitted to them to wax. The Spanish colonists could pretend not to see, but they couldn't! How can they not be angry when the well-armed and enthusiastic East Coast hunters have broken in and plundered their prey, which has seriously affected their survival?

What's more, a series of cross-border reclamation by the people on the east bank of the Paraguay River have already seized the livelihood of some of the Quechua people who depend on farming for a living, leaving them without food and clothing, and they have also killed and injured many people.

As a result, a fierce armed conflict broke out between the hunters and the Quechua on the eastern coast. Especially in the last year, the conflict has become so bloody and brutal that the National Intelligence Directorate and the Gendarmerie Command have become so settling that they have begun to secretly send capable men to blend in with the hunters, slowly seizing the dominance, and beginning to devise more effective attacks against the Quechua to effectively protect the interests of the East Bankers.

In addition, several settlements on the west bank of the Paraguay River, which had been cultivated for almost two years, received orders from the General Directorate of National Development and the War Department to organize their men and carry weapons and began to move further inland, on the one hand, to fight the recalcitrant Quechua, and on the other hand, to establish new settlements and reduce the living space of these indigenous peoples.

Officials at the General Administration of National Development had developed the plan with a sense of urgency. They judged that the situation in Europe might change dramatically in the next few years, and that the Kingdom of France, which was about to move, might launch another war of aggression against its neighbors, and that the Kingdom of Spain might once again be involved in a terrible war. At that point, it would be a good time for the Sideways Republic to seize the Spanish lands, and they speculated that the Guilds of the Executive Council would seize the opportunity to take possession of the fertile Pampa Plain east of the Yanbu Railway, as well as claim territory in the Central Valley of Chile and the Chaco Plains.

There are now more than 200,000 east-coast migrants east of the Pampa Plain, numerous settlements, roads, railways and other facilities have been established, and government agencies are relatively complete, basically no different from the mainland. The Spaniards had long been mentally prepared for the loss of this land, and if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent someone to talk about it, it should not be a big problem.

The same is true for the southern part of Chile's central valley. The East Coasters exiled many prisoners there, and at the same time relocated some immigrants, and the land was still leased, so it was not very difficult to deal with. As long as they let go of the economy a little, the Spaniards, who are desperately short of money, should be half-pushed and half-pushed, sign a new agreement with the East Coast government to sell the land for a good price.

But compared to the previous two, Chaco Plains is much more complicated. The people of the East Coast entered the land very late, and the power was not very strong, and the Spaniards were more serious about this place and would not give in easily, so it would be a bit difficult to sign an agreement with them in the future. As a result, the officials of the General Directorate of National Intelligence felt the need to step up their efforts in advance to create chaos in the region and make the Spaniards feel that it was not worth the loss to hold the land, and to force them to make concessions and eventually sell the entire Chaco Plain to the East Coasters.

Based on this thinking, sending immigrants across the border to reclaim land, sending hunters across the border to compete for prey, sending herdsmen across the border to graze cattle and sheep, and even sending bandits in disguise to cross the border to rob and kill are all in the plans of the officials of the General Intelligence Bureau. So you can see that the officials of the General Intelligence Directorate took advantage of the popularity of the domestic leather market, borrowed the capital and power of the people, and entered the depths of the Chaco Plain in a big way, causing countless disputes in this land. And once there is a dispute that bores and frightens the Spaniards, then things will turn around in the future, and this is their wishful thinking.