In the past, the effect of running a machine gun team in Dongyun was obvious to all. As the saying goes, I don’t bother you. I suggest Dongyun carry this machine gun battalion again so that the second battalion of Dongyun Hand can fully cooperate with the trainers of the machine gun team! "
Wang Yingkai’s words made Duan Qirui’s face slightly changed and Zhao Dongyun’s brow slightly wrinkled!
On the surface, Wang Yingkai directly recommended the second battalion of Zhao Dong Yunshen to run a machine gun team, but everyone knows that Wang Yingkai is not interested in Zhao Dongyun. He has one thing in mind, that is, he will not let the machine gun team set up an artillery plane in Duan Qirui, and everyone in Beiyang has already accepted Zhao Dongyun’s default to send a team of Duan Qirui. Wang Yingjie is recommending Zhao Dongyun, but it actually weakens Duan Qirui’s influence and may also cause a gap between Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun.
Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui simply said a few words, but everyone at the scene could smell the strong gunpowder inside, which made Zhao Dongyun feel huge pressure when he was directly in the big fight for the first time.
This belongs to the battle between Duan Qirui and Wang Yingjie, not to mention that Zhao Dongyun can’t intervene. Even people like Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen can watch!
However, Yuan Shikai, the head of the company, did not seem to see the hidden gunpowder smell between the two men, but he took his time to focus on Zhao Dongyun again. "Oh, Dongyun, what do you think?"
Zhao Dongyun knows that he can’t back down at this time, no matter whether Duan Qirui or Wang Yingkai is involved, he can’t back down because Yuan Shikai is in front of him, and Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai in front of Yuan Shikai are nothing.
"Du Xian’s adult can rest assured that Dongyun has the confidence to run this machine gun team well!" Don’t think much of Zhao Dongyun immediately gave Yuan Shikai a guarantee.
When Zhao Dongyun did not hesitate to say this sentence, the actual audience had already seen that Zhao Dongyun had given up Duan Qirui and Wang Yingkai, and he chose a more direct and efficient method, that is, he directly chose to invest in Yuan Shikai.
Yuan Shikai nodded his head. Actually, before today’s meeting, he had appointed Zhao Dongyun to be responsible for the compilation and practice of the machine gun team. Because there are only a handful of people who can understand machine gun tactics in the country, Yuan Shikai can actually be Zhao Dongyun. However, although he has appointed Zhao Dongyun to be responsible for the compilation and practice of the machine gun team, it makes him feel good to see that Zhao Dongyun did not take a reason for Wang Yingjie and Duan Qirui but directly exported it.
Yuan Shikai is naturally well aware of the hand-to-hand struggle, or he provoked it to a great extent. What he did can be summarized as mastery. If the hand-to-hand didn’t send a fight, then Yuan Shikai would have to worry about whether the hand-to-hand was planning to replace himself. But it doesn’t matter if the hand-to-hand has a faction. It is important that the hand should always know that he is the boss in Beiyang!
Zhao Dongyun made a promise to Yuan Shikai for the first time. Yuan Shikai seems that Zhao Dongyun did not put Duan Qirui or Wang Yingkai first, but put him in the first place.
Yuan Shikai immediately nodded his head to reveal a satisfied face and then said, "In this case, you are still in charge of running the machine gun team!"
Yuan Shikai’s airy sentence is to hand over the preparation of the machine gun team to Zhao Dongyun, while Duan Qirui and Wang Yingjie and others have not said anything against it. The look is also an expression of appreciation and approval. What is on their minds is not known to outsiders.
Zhao Dongyun, the core of Zhao Dongyun’s explanation at this meeting, talked about and explained in detail the reasons from machine gun tactics to machine gun team establishment, while a group of bosses, including Yuan Shikai, who sat first, listened quietly and made a word or two of doubts from time to time.
This kind of scene makes Zhao Dongyun feel quite good. After all, it is not often that Yuan Shikai, Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang, the Beiyang bosses, listen to him like primary school students!
"In terms of battalion system, the armies of England, Prussia and other countries all set up two battalions with more than 10,000 infantry divisions, with about 24 heavy machine guns. The number of Taixi First Division in Beiyang Town of our army is quite equal. However, there are few newly-built machine guns or gun-holding sergeants in our army. The newly-made machine gun battalions should not be dispersed. One battalion of machine guns in each town can be assigned to the surface infantry standard to participate in the war according to the situation.
So the new machine gun battalion can administer four machine gun teams, each team has three whistles, and each whistle has two heavy machine guns. So there are 24 machine gun sergeants in this battalion, with 514 people. "
Zhao Dongyun said that the establishment of this machine gun battalion is something he has studied for a long time, but it is at least in line with the current situation of Beiyang. From the perspective of future generations, the more this machine gun is, the better it is. It is best for a division to get him hundreds of thousands of guns. But considering that it is only 192, let’s not talk about whether there are enough trained soldiers to go. Just that is expensive enough to make Beiyang vomit blood.
These days, machine guns are still new things, although the price is much cheaper than artillery, but one gun costs 1,200 silver. Not only is the body of the machine gun expensive, but the consumption of bullets in the machine gun is also a huge amount.
This kind of consumption is nothing to the great powers, but it is a big problem for the backward industry to import even machine guns and bullets into China. This is not only related to the high price of imported weapons, but also easy to be controlled by people’s eyes. The arms embargo imposed by various countries on China is the most obvious example.
While taking this opportunity today, Zhao Dongyun simply said to Yuan Shikai, "My Lord, if our army wants to equip machine guns on a large scale in the future, it will not only cost a lot to rely on imports, but also be easily controlled by people in wartime. It is suggested that the National Manufacturing Bureau can copy machine guns by itself so that we can equip Beiyang with machine guns on a large scale!"
Yuan Shikai listened and nodded. "I know this!"
Yuan Shikai didn’t say that it was too difficult to copy machine guns right away. Although Jinling Manufacturing Bureau made machine guns in the early years, it has now declined. Although there are Hubei Gun Factory, Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and other provincial manufacturing bureaus, the technology is still insufficient. It is more difficult to copy heavy machine guns with the international advanced pace.
Of course, this is a national perspective, but these problems are not the most important for Yuan Shikai. The most important thing is that neither Hubei Gun Factory nor Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, or other southern provinces manufacturing bureaus, are under his control!
Yuan Shikai is the governor of Zhili and the minister of Beiyang trade, and the roots of Beiyang’s power are Zhili and Shandong. In addition, Henan and Northeast China can barely be counted, but the south has little influence
Yuan Shikai was able to control the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau in North China, but the largest arsenal in North China was destroyed by the Allied Forces during the Geng Incident, resulting in Yuan Shikai not controlling even a large arsenal at present.
That is to say, it is too difficult to build your own heavy machine guns or build a new arsenal or invest money in Hubei Gun Factory or Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau to make them copy heavy machine guns. It is impossible to build a new arsenal here without several million taels of money, and now Yuan Shikai can’t even get the money to build a Beiyang Standing Army. There is still money to run an arsenal there.
For Yuan Shikai, it is better to take money out and let the southern provinces manufacturing bureau manufacture machine guns directly from abroad.
Every province in China is a kingdom these days. They have financial, military and people’s livelihood interests. When the Qing court needs money and mobilizes troops, it has to ask the governors. Otherwise, those government officials really won’t dump you. The most obvious example of mutual protection in Southeast China during the Geng Incident is that the central government declared war on foreign countries, and the provinces even declared neutrality. This kind of thing is as nonsense as it is in a normal country.
For Yuan Shikai, Beiyang is Beiyang Nanyang, and Nanyang Province is Nanyang. For Beiyang, there is not much difference from other countries. He won’t do it if he uses his own money to let other provinces develop military industry and kill them!
When Yuan Shikai pondered the problem of heavy machine gun self-building, Wang Yingjie also said, "Ordnance self-building is indeed a problem, and this is not only a problem of heavy machine guns, but also a problem of rifles, artillery shells and artillery."
Wang Yingkai continued, "Now we don’t have a manufacturing bureau at hand, and the manufacturing bureau of southern provinces won’t give us all the weapons we need. We need to import everything, which has not only consumed a lot for a long time, but also cut off weapons in wartime!"
Wang Yingkai said this because the problem of heavy machine guns is the same as that of rifles. At present, a number of southern manufacturing bureaus in China, including Hubei Gun Factory, have mass-produced Type 1 Committee rifles. However, they have all produced Hanyang rifles for the southern new army and the old army roots, and it is impossible to give even one Hanyang rifle to the Beiyang new army.
On one side, Duan Qirui frowned and said, "It is difficult for everyone to know, but now our army is in short supply and it is urgent to import ordnance when it becomes an army. Although there are many disadvantages, it has to be done!"
Chapter XIII Supervision of New Machine Gun Battalion II
Zhao Dongyun looked at Yuan Shikai, Wang Yingjie, Duan Qirui and others, and he also secretly thought about the problems faced by Yuan Shikai and others.
Nowadays, Beiyang is no longer the glory of Li Hongzhang’s era. After the fiasco of Jiawu and Geng, China was not only humiliated, but also the Beiyang body plummeted. People say that Li Hongzhang finally recommended Yuan Shikai and handed over the Beiyang family to Yuan Shikai, but they rarely say that Li Hongzhang’s hand over to Yuan Shikai was a rotten stall.
Today, the largest political group in China, the actual manager of North China, not only Beiyang can’t even take out an arsenal, but Yuan Shikai can’t even take out millions of taels of silver to train a standing army. No one believes this kind of thing.
Zhao Dongyun knew these difficulties, but he still said, "Of course, short-term ordnance import is still necessary. I mean, we must make long-term plans. We can’t import weapons forever!"
After listening to Zhao Dongyun’s words, Yuan Shikai once again said, "Whether the ordnance problem is to import ordnance or build a manufacturing bureau, we will discuss it later!"
Then he looked at Zhao Dongyun again. "You put your mind on the machine gun surface these days. I hope that your machine gun battalion will take shape when the Standing Army becomes an army!"
Yuan Shikai’s request is not simple. Although the Qing court just approved the official designation of the Beiyang Standing Army, it was actually compiled and trained last year when Yuan Shikai was acting as the governor of Zhili. That is to say, they have been compiling and training the Standing Army for less than half a year, and they are waiting for the official designation to become an army. More importantly, the compilation and training of the Standing Army has rules to follow. Whether it is infantry, artillery or cavalry, it can be done according to the experience of the new army. However, this machine gun camp can be regarded as something new. Zhao Dongyunji has to start from.