Chapter 35 Ambition as an arms dealer

There will be four battalions in the new machine gun battalion. In the early stage, we will first train three battalions, and then train the fourth battalion after the first three battalions are completed.

Among the first three battalions, the first battalion must be formed two months later. The second battalion and the third battalion can be delayed until the end of the year, and the fourth battalion and other first battalions will be set up after they become an army. It is expected to form an army early next year.

That is, it is expected that by the beginning of next year, I will train four battalions of machine gun teams for Lord Du Xian!" After Zhao Dongyun said this, he looked at the people again.

"In order to form the combat effectiveness of each battalion as soon as possible, the chief officers of each department will also use the elderly as much as possible!" After saying this, Zhao Dongyun can already see the expected eyes of his subordinates. At this time, he will naturally not do anything mysterious to tease the patience of his generals.

said immediately: "I still serve as the general belt of the newly built machine gun battalion. Lin Yongquan serves as the battalion assistant and the general office of the battalion department, Zhao Dongping serves as the general office of the ordnance department, and Kong Jingbei serves as the general office of the law enforcement department!"

"The first battalion management belt is headed by Qin Lin, the former leader of the former team."

"The second battalion is headed by Pei Lianying, the former leader of the left team."

"The third battalion is headed by Lan Tongmai, the former leader of the rear team."

Zhao Dongyun did not delay for too long. Soon, he happily told out the candidates for the chief officers of each department, and the above leaders are actually old people in the machine gun camp. Except for Lin Yongquan and Zhao Dongping, the remaining four people are actually the original four team leaders. This promotion is to put them all The ministry took a step, which can be said to be beneficial to everyone.

In addition, if you look carefully at the above appointments, you will find a very strange situation, that is, there is also a new machine gun battalion on the following machine gun battalion, and the new machine gun battalion has set up positions in the name of battalion, ordnance, law enforcement and other positions. This situation is actually very unusual. Of.

If someone has a richer imagination, then you can basically see that the camp of the so-called new machine gun battalion and Yuan Shikai's new army in those years have great similarities, just one is called the 'camp office' and the other is called the 'camp section'.

It was not deliberately made by Zhao Dongyun to make such a nondescript camp, but forced by reality. The most important point is that Yuan Shikai asked him to build three new machine gun battalions. On the other hand, although he was given the authority to supervise machine gun affairs, he was only given the head of the new machine gun battalion. Title.

That is to say, if Zhao Dongyun wants to train the machine gun camp directly under his hands, he can only rely on the new machine gun camp, so that he can't avoid expanding the camp of the new machine gun camp to handle many affairs, and Zhao Dongyun does not have the power to change the formalization of the new machine gun camp. The name, you should know that the five words 'new machine gun battalion' are the official number recognized by the superior, just like the 'Wuwei Right Army' and 'Wuwei Right Army Pioneer'. The name cannot be changed randomly.

That's why it's an embarrassing thing in today's camp!

And there are many subordinate troops, and some institutions must be added to manage battalions in the new machine gun battalion, such as battalions, ordnance, and law enforcement. However, in order to distinguish them from the camp offices and law enforcement offices of the Wuwei Right Army and the Standing Army, they are renamed the Camp Service Section, Ordnance Section and Law Enforcement Section.

In addition, Zhao Dongyun's men are only a few, and he is not Yuan Shikai who could recruit talents, so he can only appoint his original subordinates on the spot.

Others are fine. They have been expecting it for a long time. Although they are all happy, they are not too happy. However, when Zhao Dongping, an 18-year-old young man, heard that his cousin appointed him as the general manager of the Ordnance Department, his face instantly became gaffe.

"I, thank you, third brother, I won't let you down!" Zhao Dongping was so excited that he even forgot the official title of the officialdom.

Faced with the excitement of his cousin, Zhao Dongyun waved his hand to show him to calm down. The reason why he appointed Zhao Dongping, a young cousin, as the head of the Ordnance Department, was actually selfish. On the one hand, he wanted to promote his cousin to assist him. Zhao Dongyun was not a trusted relative brother in the Beiyang Army. My brother can help. If I can pull this cousin up, I can also give him some help in the future. Whether it is to play rebellion or fight for power, it is more convenient to have my brother to help him.

Another reason is that he plans to do some personal things in this military purchase! This time, there are a lot of arms purchases, and it is international practice to give rebates to military purchases. Arising Zhao Dongping to take back the deduction is basically equivalent to Zhao Dongyun taking back the deduction himself, which can only be regarded as a small matter. What is really important is that Zhao Dongyun still wants to get involved in the arms business.

Due to the lack of large-scale arsenals under Yuan Shikai, the expansion of the Beiyang army has been forced to import a large number of weapons over the years. There are countless business opportunities here. Whether it is a second-way dealer or simply build his own factory to produce arms, as long as it can be so big for Zhao Dongyun in the future. The development is very beneficial.

In fact, when he bought a machine gun for the first time last year, he had the idea of getting involved in the arms business, but at that time, he just wanted to be an arms dealer, invert the import and export of munitions, and get some kickbacks.

However, when he was appointed as the supervisor of the machine gun incident by Yuan Shikai, he saw that there was a large order of more than 100,000 taels of silver under him. It was false to say that he was not jealous, so he began to think about how to profit from it. Obviously, it was not possible to be a two-way trafficker, because Yuan Shikai sold arms and generally went directly to foreign countries. Besides, Zhao Dongyun can't get a large number of artillery or rifles from foreigners.

After thinking about it, Zhao Dongyun still feels that there is no future to be a second-way trafficker. Only building his own arms is the best way to the road to power, because it can not only make money, but also rely on arms to become the capital for promotion.

It's not easy to build arms. The money to invest is not a small amount of money. Although Zhao Dongyun is only a small new army officer, his monthly salary is only a few hundred taels of silver, but his family is rich!

Although the Zhao family is not a rich and noble family, it is not a problem to gather the strength of the whole family and take out more than 100,000 taels of silver.

Relying on this money, he asked Zhou Xuexi to lend some money, and then deducted 10,000 to 20,000 yuan from the funds of the machine gun unit this time. Zhao Dongyun felt that he could barely make up 200,000 taels, and it was estimated that he could run a small workshop-style arsenal at that time.

Of course, Zhao Dongyun did not expect to rely on this money to introduce a complete set of mechanical equipment such as making rifles, producing bullets, and producing smokeless gunpowder. He just wanted to get only one of them, such as bullets, grenades and the mortars he was looking forward to.

In fact, Zhao Dongyun was still too optimistic at this time. He always felt that the workshop could make rifles and shells during the Anti-Japanese War. How could he throw hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to get something? But he would know that there is only a set of 300 pounds of smokeless gunpowder per day these days. The production line needs 145,000 taels. If you want to build rifles and bullets, you can't even buy hundreds of thousands of silver.

In fact, the equipment is just a small matter. The key is that he has no talent!

If you have money, you can buy equipment. If you don't have enough, you can borrow it. If you can't borrow it, you can cheat it. If you can't be cheated, you can always get it. But it's really difficult to solve. In such a large country, there are only a few people who know how to drive machines and equipment. Where is Zhao Dongyun going to hire people?

My scalp is numb when I think of these problems. Of course, the matter of building an arsenal is just Zhao Dongyun's idea. It's far from being implemented. Those things are still a headache later, and now I don't have to pay attention to them.

Now Zhao Dongping is placed in the position of the Ordnance Department, mainly to let him deal with foreigners and establish channels, so that he can get a kickback and become a two-way dealer or something.

Finally, if you really want to build an arsenal, it will be more convenient to buy machinery and equipment!

The idea of arsenal can only be regarded as Zhao Dongyun's current lofty ideal, not to mention it for the time being.

After appointing the chief officers of various ministries, he asked his men to go to Zhili prefectures and counties to recruit soldiers. At this time, Zhao Dongyun did not know whether to complain or praise Beiyang's recruitment system.

The recruitment and training of Beiyang troops have not completed the real unification so far. The Wuwei Right Army has its own recruitment and training system, and the standing army also has its own set. The vanguard and the self-improvement army are also different, and even the left town and right town in the standing army are also unrelevant. It can be said that there is no matter how chaotic it is. How much.

Now that Zhao Dongyun wants to set up a machine gun team, he also has to recruit troops in person and train by himself. Yuan Shikai will not directly allocate thousands of recruits to him.

It can be said that this independent recruitment system is the biggest drawback of the future separation of Beiyang warlords from Yuan Shikai!

Of course, he complains, but Zhao Dongyun is still unwilling to change the current system of independent recruitment and training, unless he does not want to move from Yuan Shikai's control to independence.

And he believes that he is absolutely not the only one who has the same idea. Otherwise, with so many elites in Beiyang, no one will see this problem?

They can definitely see the impossible, but they just don't say it or even let others say it. Why? Isn't it possible to climb to the top of power one day by relying on your army independently?

Yuan Shikai may also know, but he has absolute confidence to control his military leaders, and he also has this ability. He may also pretend not to know in order to win over his generals.

The real reason is not what Zhao Dongyun can guess.

When Zhao Dongyun sent people to recruit soldiers to buy ordnance, and those subordinates were busy, Zhao Dongyun finally became a little free.

The matter of training machine gun troops has been on the right track, and the rest is to go step by step according to the plan. There is no need to rush. At this time, Zhao Dongyun can also focus on other directions, such as the development of his own industry.

Zhao Dongyun, like most bureaucrats these days, is an official and there are other people in the family who do business, but it is different from other families. In the second room of the Zhao family where Zhao Dongyun is located, except for his family, his mother does not understand business, and one of the younger brothers is too young, so this family is operated by He also has to take care of the matter himself.

So when he was a little free these days, he called Zhao Chenbin, the general manager of Fuyuan Yarn Factory, to talk to him about the expansion of the yarn factory!