Section 521 Prologue to the Battle for Hegemony in the Americas (2)
There are also many Chinese immigrants in Brazil, but because the Brazilians were stingy with the land allocated to these immigrants at the beginning, a large number of Chinese immigrants obtained land from the American Company and left Brazil as the Americas Company developed upstream. The Brazilian government, which is controlled by coffee plantations and related trading groups, has to be more generous on land issues and retain many Chinese.
At the time of the Brazilian cotton boom, more than 300,000 Chinese entered Brazil, and now there are millions of descendants of these people, which is the third largest ethnic group in Brazil after blacks and Portuguese.
There are more Chinese under the rule of the American Company, and they have opened up 200 million mu of fertile land along the river on the non-winding American land, making the American Company the world's largest grain supplier, and its advantages in the grain industry have even forced Brazil to start importing grain, a cash crop, because Brazilian agriculture cannot sell it if it grows grain.
However, the price of high grain production is the small population, or because of the small ability to attract the population, which forced the American Company to encourage farmers under its rule to open up larger areas of farms, compared with the average cultivated land of 100 acres of self-cultivated farmers in North America, the farm area here is generally more than 1,000 acres, tens of thousands of acres of farms are ordinary, and the large landowners with more than 100,000 acres of cultivated land are as high as hundreds, and the result is that there are many farmlands opened up, but the population is only 3 million, and the direct agricultural population is only 1 million, and the rest are the handicraft population relying on agriculture. and the industrial and commercial population.
As a result, the Americas had a thriving industry and commerce, but a tight labor force. There are two main reasons for this, one is that the state does not give strong support to the development here, and the immigration direction promoted by the state is mainly North America, and no one knows the specific reasons; Another reason is that after the loss of North American territory, the American company quickly fell into an economic crisis, relying on the South American territory for support, and simply did not have the financial resources to subsidize immigrants, which was very attractive to immigrants. As a result, a land policy was adopted, and land authorizations were generous, with title deeds granted to a piece of land as long as it had been cultivated for three consecutive years, and there was no upper limit on the area.
As a result, the early immigrants worked hard to open up arable land, and the large-scale farm technology invented by the Americans was soon introduced here, and it was used by Chinese immigrants very easily. The average cultivated land per household can easily exceed 1,000 mu. American companies do not have the ability to attract immigrants and rely mainly on the call of friends from immigrants. Some people recruit compatriots from the country, not to make them farmers like themselves, but to hire them to open up the wasteland at high salaries. Gradually, some agricultural capitalists appeared, and their farms exceeded 10,000 acres. In addition, land was allowed to be bought and sold, a large amount of arable land was annexed, and 100,000 acres of farmers began to appear.
The lack of personnel has led to the development being characterized by extensive, mechanized, and commercial rather than intensive, labor-intensive, and administrative. This is the reason why there are large ranchers in Argentina. On the contrary, there were not many large farms in the early days of the United States, and European immigrants who first stopped in Argentina would soon set foot on American soil, because it was easy to get land in the United States, and basically the government gave 160 acres of land for free. And the reason why they did not stay in Argentina was because the Argentine land was almost completely divided among the big landowners.
Why did the Americans develop the Great Plains for decades, but Argentina easily formed a large land system, and because the land development in South America is easier, the terrain is flat, easy to cultivate, and the soil is good, the Argentines claim to drop the plough from the Atlantic Ocean and plow all the way to the Andes Mountains without encountering a single momentum.
This is also the case in Uruguay, Paraguay and other places, so the land was divided up by the big landlords very early. When the land in North America became more and more scarce, and the land could be used to attract people, the American company found that there was no land left in the South American territory, and the latecomers could only become laborers, and then engage in business, or do other things, and it was difficult to obtain land through reclamation without compensation.
The lack of land to be cultivated is not attractive enough for agricultural peoples, only trickling down to attract some merchants, and slow self-breeding, although this slowness is actually fast for Westerners, but for Chinese, it is still very slow. Among the three million population, in fact, there are only one million real workers, still women, there are not many elderly people over 50 years old, but there are many children, nearly 2 million are under the age of 18, obviously South American Chinese are still very young.
In addition, the American Company also patrolled 500,000 Indians, there were many Indians in Paraguay and Bolivia, and there were a small number of mixed Spanish and Indian people in Paraguay, less than 100,000, Bolivia was almost a purebred Indian country, and there were not many white Spaniards and native whites, either because they were suppressed because of the rebellion, or they migrated to other Spanish colonies, and it was easy to live there anyway.
500,000 Indians, 100,000 mestizos, plus 3 million Chinese, are the entire population currently under the American Company.
Such a population base allowed the American company to hire a large number of Indians as mercenaries, but these Indians were very poorly disciplined, bloodthirsty and aggressive, full of wildness, and later began to hire Japanese, the Japanese were highly disciplined, suitable for infantry, not cavalry, so the army of the American company was composed of Japanese infantry and Indian cavalry, and the artillery was Chinese veterans.
The Americas Company has formed a standing army of 100,000 people, which is enough to sweep away the surrounding opponents, so the Brazilians have been forbearing, hoping to settle the territorial dispute through negotiations, but the Americas Company does not recognize the land that the Brazilians do not control, and still continues to advance into the hinterland of the Brazilian plateau, the army opens the way, and the agricultural company follows, gradually squeezing Brazil's expansion space.
The Brazilians are-for-tat, but at most they have troops in the hinterland, but they cannot be immigrated and developed, and the cost is very high. Coupled with the instability in the country, there was always a demand for independence and the rebellion of the blacks, so the land was encroached upon by the American Corporation if they were not careful. It was in this way that the América Company occupied a third of the entire Republic of La Plata in the hinterland of La Plata.
The Republic of La Plata dared not speak out, but this was not the case in Brazil, which had a larger population than American companies and British support.
Brazil wants to expel the Chinese from its hinterland if given the opportunity. Now the blockade of the ports of the La Plata region by the American Company, including Buenos Aires, the port where British merchant ships call the most in South America, has finally caused a conflict between the British and the American Company.
Not to be outdone, the British directly blocked the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, preventing my merchant ships from docking, so no one would want to dock.
The British blockade of Chinese ports in South America finally caused the Chinese government to intervene.