Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 143 Agriculture II

The main crops in the Pelotas Plain are rice, soybeans, wheat and corn. The inland Campos Grassland is a pasture dominated by plants such as buckwheat, timothy, June grass, alfalfa, and clover. It raises cattle, sheep, and reindeer left over from Brazil, as well as alpacas, guanacos, horses and other animals brought from Peru by the Chinese.

When the Chinese set out from Peru, they had more than 40,000 pack horses and more than 5,000 alpacas to carry food and supplies for the troops. During the long journey, more than half of the pack horses were lost, and only nearly 4,000 of the more than 5,000 alpacas were left.

After arriving safely in the Rio Grande do Sul region, half of the remaining 20,000 pack horses were distributed to retired soldiers who had made meritorious services, another 7,000 were incorporated into the National Defense Force's combat sequence to perform logistical transportation tasks, and finally more than 2,000 healthy pack horses were retired from the army and raised as stallions on the ranch in Campos.

Two pack horse breeding ranches and a military horse farm were established in Campos Prairie. In addition to the horses brought by the Chinese, the two pack horse ranches and the military horse farm also had more than a thousand horses collected from the two southern states.

Campos Grasslands is part of the Pampas, where many stray wild horses live in the border area between Rio Gran Sul and Paraguay and Argentina.

They were originally Andalusian horses brought to the Pampas by Spanish colonists. After the Spaniards accidentally lost them on the grasslands, the abundant forage food and living environment without natural enemies prompted the horses to reproduce on a large scale. The freed horses quickly evolved from wild horses. After more than three hundred years, the small number of horses multiplied rapidly and became the main animal population throughout the Pampas.

Indians living in the grasslands and forests of southern Argentina captured wild horses wandering in the grasslands and woods, mastered the horse riding techniques learned from the Spaniards, and used horses as new combat tools to wage guerrilla warfare against colonial soldiers for hundreds of years.

After the independence of Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and other countries in the La Plata region, most of the gaucho cavalry who resisted Spanish colonial rule were incorporated, and some retreated to the forests and mountains with the Indians to maintain their ethnic lifestyle.

The interior of Pelotas is an endless grassland. Starting from Pelotas on horseback, you can reach the Uruguay River bordering Uruguay in less than two days. The gauchos and Indians living at the junction of Argentina, Uruguay and Rio Grande do Sul often cross the border into Rio Grande do Sul to hunt.

The Pelotas garrison and local ranch guards encountered hunting Indians and Gauchos many times. However, due to Li Mingyuan's order, the Chinese garrison did not expel the incoming Indians and Gauchos. Instead, they used the daily necessities in their hands to exchange with them for horses and precious animal furs.

The Chinese maintained a tacit cooperative relationship with the Indians and Gauchos. More than 700 of the newly added horses on the ranch were traded with them, and the rest were captured by traps designed by Chinese troops or seized from local Brazilians.

In this way, the number of horses in the military horse farm gradually increased, and the Chinese also used the Indians and gauchos to inquire about the geographical environment of the border area and the troop deployment of the Uruguayans.

The supply of military horses is indispensable for the Wehrmacht that is determined to expand its influence in the Pampas, while alpacas can be used as a short-distance transportation tool and one of the raw materials for fur manufacturing textiles.

Four thousand alpacas are distributed among three farms, and five hundred guanacos are also concentrated in one pasture.

In addition, two thousand sheep and three thousand cattle also have specific breeding areas.

There are many sheep in Rio Grande do Sul, but most of them are mixed goats with poor fur quality, which is not suitable for textile manufacturing. The 2.5 sheep raised in Pelotas are selected Merino sheep. Merino sheep originated in Spain, are small in size, and the rams have spiral horns and wrinkled skin. The wool yield is about kg, and the wool quality is good.

Before the 16th century, Merino sheep were mostly in the hands of Spanish nobles and the church. Later, Spanish Merino sheep were smuggled to the North American continent, and then spread to Australia, New Zealand and other places. By the second half of the 19th century, traces of Merino sheep and their offspring could be found in many areas.

The characteristics of Merino sheep's fur have changed through interbreeding and breeding in different regions. Australian Merino sheep are the offspring of Spanish Merino sheep and British long-wool sheep. Australian Merino sheep are strong, with wool diameter of 20 to 22 microns, high yield and good quality. They are suitable for weaving high-quality worsted wool fabrics, durable and beautiful, and are one of the best sheep breeds.

Raising Australian Merino sheep is the most profitable way, but the export of Australian Merino sheep is prohibited, and Rio Grande do not have the ability to reach Australia for the time being.
The Merino sheep were smuggled out, so searching for Merino sheep locally to provide the much-needed raw materials for the established textile mills became the first choice.

The harvester designed by American McCormick in 1834 was widely used in agriculture after 1850, and the iron plow produced by another American company was also soon put into agricultural use.
The structure of the harvester and iron plow is: a three-wheeled iron cart powered by steam in the front, with an iron plow or harvester at the back. People sit on the tricycle, which is pulled by three horses or oxen and driven by steam power.

The emergence of steam harvesters and iron plows changed the traditional agricultural production methods. In the past, a family cultivated 30 acres of land, but with the help of agricultural machinery, a family can cultivate 200 acres or even more.

Economic agriculture plays an important role in the overall development of Rio Grande do Sul, and the development of large-scale concentrated agriculture requires a mature industrial system and a large number of livestock.

The initial construction of the Rio Grande do Sul industrial system still has a long way to go before it can produce mature agricultural machinery. Moreover, due to the limitations of the times, today's machinery still requires cattle and draft horses as the main labor force.

Three thousand cattle are the main agricultural animal power in Pelotas for the time being. Two months later, in February (February is summer in South America, and summer ploughing begins), the full-scale agricultural planting will require a large number of buffaloes to work, and three thousand cattle are still far from meeting the needs of crop planting.

South American buffaloes are mainly distributed in Argentina, and the relationship between the Chinese and Argentina is not very good. In addition, during the Misiones conflict, the Chinese favored Paraguay and provided Paraguay with a large number of replacement weapons and ammunition, which made the relationship between the two sides worse. Argentina was unwilling to recognize Rio Grande do Sul as a legitimate country, and the two sides have been arguing over this.

Buffalo breeding involves the agricultural development of the Principality of Rio Grande do Sul. The lack of buffaloes to work during the spring ploughing next year will affect crop yields. However, the number of Chinese is not large, and the food produced is still enough for the Chinese to consume even without buffaloes to cultivate the land. The only difference is how much food will be left over.

Li Mingyuan's plan has already made sure that even if some fields are delayed in planting during the spring ploughing season, the buffaloes on the farm will not be used excessively.

These buffaloes existed as seeds and could not be easily lost. Once the busy summer farming season was over, buffaloes could be purchased from other regions such as the United States to work with the agricultural machinery purchased from Prussia.

(End of this chapter)