Chapter 141 We can solve it

Looking at Andre, Zhao Dongyun smiled as usual. In the past six months, he has dealt with Andre a lot. At first, he was just an ordinary diplomat in Russia, but six months ago, he began to contact with Zhao Dongyun and bought a large number of weapons and ammunition for Russia. After the war materials, this person's status in Russia also rose sharply.

Now he has become the highest head of foreign affairs of Russia in Jinzhou, and also the plenipotentiary representative of Kuropatkin, the commander of the Russian Far East Army, in Jinzhou, responsible for coordinating and negotiating arms trade with Zhao Dongyun.

Having been in contact with this person for a long time, Zhao Dongyun also found that this person is not as full of nonsense as the traditional diplomats. After talking for a long time, he will not talk about the topic. This person likes to talk directly into the most critical topic, but don't think that he is reckless. In fact, he is in the negotiation with Zhao Dongyun. Those who should fight will never give up easily.

"General Zhao, you should also know that my army is currently fighting a tug-of-war in Liaoyang and Japan. There is a great demand for machine guns, barbed wire, shells and bullets. We need more machine guns and bullets!" Andre continues to reiterate his always held view, that is, "You can absolutely rest assured about the price!"

Zhao Dongyun continued to nod with a smile, and then said, "Mr. Andrey, don't worry, try these spring teas from my hometown first!"

Almost every time this Andre comes to his headquarters, he says almost the same thing, that is, he hopes to get more weapons, ammunition and other combat materials, and this time is no exception.

It's just that Andrea said that he asked for more machine guns, which is a little difficult. Why? Because Zhao Dongyun doesn't have so many machine guns on hand!

In the military material trade between Zhao Dongyun and the Russians, although it was mainly heavy machine guns at the beginning, it was only a start. The subsequent trade was mainly composed of shells and bullets, supplemented by barbed wire, cement and grain. As for the initial batch of heavy machine guns, in addition to nearly 100 heavy machine guns, it was intermittent in the following months. Generally, the supply is maintained at more than 10 or 20 per month. From January to August this year, Zhao Dongyun has obtained about 200 heavy machine guns for the Russians through various channels.

Half of these heavy machine guns were purchased and hoarded by Zhao Dongyun from Germany in advance last year, and nearly 100 of them were imported from Germany one after another, but the number of guns that could be obtained has not been large.

The production of German heavy machine guns is also limited. They must give priority to equipping their own army before they can use them for export. In addition, the Beiyang Army is also the main buyer of German heavy machine guns. Not to mention a few years ago, Yuan Shikai alone ordered 100 heavy machine guns at the end of this year. This year's Rus Russo-Japanese War After the outbreak, another 100 were ordered, and with the heavy machine guns ordered by other southern provinces, it can be said that German heavy machine guns are not worried about the market in China.

Not to mention that after the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, Russia itself imported a large number of heavy machine guns directly to Germany due to the limited production of heavy machine guns. In the past few days, I even bought French machine guns and placed a large number of heavy machine guns orders from Germans.

In this case, it is actually difficult for Zhao Dongyun to import large quantities of heavy machine guns from Germany through import channels.

As for other countries, they have heavy machine guns, which are available in Britain, France and the United States, but they are also related to the problem of caliber and bullet supply. Russia was originally equipped with heavy machine guns imported from Germany, and later got a large number of German heavy machine guns from Zhao Dongyun, and now it is at a critical point in war. There is no time for the Russians to make any caliber change, so it is better to continue to maintain the existing machine gun system, so it is difficult for Russians to use heavy machine guns in other countries.

This is just one of them. In addition, with the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, the price of ordnance in the international market has risen almost straight, especially the price of heavy machine guns in the Far East, which is almost one price a day. The current price of heavy machine guns has at least doubled compared with the beginning of this year!

And Zhao Dongyun is just a second-way dealer. The purchase price is so expensive, and his profit is naturally low. In addition, the inverted heavy machine gun is actually not very profitable. Even if he tried his best to get 100 machine guns, it would be good to earn 100,000 taels of silver. However, he casually poured tens of thousands of shells and made more than that. It's numbered, and the shells are still the products of Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

So in contrast, Zhao Dongyun is more willing to sell consuming ammunition such as shells and bullets, and he is not willing to buy machine guns that can't make much money.

However, as a qualified and conscientious arms dealer, he naturally needs to meet the requirements of customers as much as possible, so Zhao Dongyun said, "Mr. Andrey should know that heavy machine guns are really in short supply in the Far East market. Not only are we purchasing, but the opposite Japan himself is also buying everything that can see. I saw a heavy machine gun, so it's really difficult to get a large number of heavy machine guns!"

Andre said, "General, don't you have an arsenal?" Can't you produce a heavy machine gun?"

Zhao Dongyun shook his head and smiled bitterly: "Not yet!"

In the second half of last year, Fuyuan Machinery Factory actually obtained the patent authorization of the MG01 heavy machine gun of the German Weapons Company and the patent authorization of Maxim, but with the patent authorization, it is another thing that it can be imitated, it is another thing that it can be imitated, and it can be mass produced on a large scale. So don't think that you can produce a large number of heavy machine guns by buying a patent license.

Although they have given you a full set of design drawings, and even the raw materials for making guns are ready to be imported, it is still quite difficult to make these parts, and it is not even easy to assemble them. In order to make this MG01 heavy machine gun, the machine gun factory of Fuyuan Machinery Factory has purchased it. A lot of high-precision equipment.

The reason is also simple. This MG01 heavy machine gun is too precise, and the existing machines and equipment in Fuyuan Machinery Factory are not accurate enough. When purchasing these equipment, it was raided by the Germans.

This is also good in 1904. Although there is a nominal arms embargo on China, not to mention that this arms embargo has existed in name only, and even if there is an arms embargo, there will be no technical blockade. These days, as long as they can afford to pay, those capitalists in the West dare to sell it to you * .

With the equipment and the design of a group of foreign engineers, it is not too late for the first MG01 heavy machine gun of Fuyuan Machinery Factory to come out. In fact, it has been developed in December and named Fuzo 01 heavy gun, but this is only a foreign gun. Already, it is not even a small-scale trial production.

In the first half of the year, Fuyuan Machinery Factory has been trying to try small-scale production. The output is naturally extremely tragic. Only one or two were made in a month, and only six were made last month, and most of them were used for various tests. As a formal product, only last month was given to Duan Qirui. Four pieces provided by the fourth town.

That is to say, after more than half a year, Fuyuan Machine Factory has only produced four Fuchang 01 machine guns, not even small-scale trial production, let alone mass production.

Zhao Dongyun also had to explain: "The production of heavy machine guns at Fuyuan Machinery Factory has not yet been on the right track, and I'm afraid a large supply in a short period of time will not work!"

Unexpectedly, Andre shook his head: "General, please forgive my rudeness, but I still need to point out that your idea is wrong! As far as I know, your family's Fuyuan Machine Factory has purchased a large amount of related equipment. As long as you are willing, you can carry out mass production at any time!"

Zhao Dongyun did not interrupt, but continued to wait for Andre to continue to speak.

I only heard Andre say, "It's too late to mass produce now. According to my guess, it's just a lack of relevant engineers and a large number of orders!"

Zhao Dongyun has to say that this person is right. The machine gun department of Fuyuan Machinery Factory already has a large number of equipment. The reason why it has not been able to enter mass production is mainly due to insufficient technical reserves. To put it bluntly, technology is talents. A large number of middle and low-level technicians in Fuyuan Machinery Factory Chinese people are the main. Basically, Fuyuan Machinery Factory recruits technical talents from the whole country and even to Nanyang to join. In addition, Fuyuan Machinery Factory has opened a technical school, so there is not much shortage of technical personnel in the middle and lower levels.

However, there are only a handful of technical experts at the top, especially those who can be responsible for the research and development of a whole project. Only seven or eight are hired from abroad with high salaries. Not to mention that these people's salaries are too high, and even high salaries are difficult to recruit real technical experts from abroad, only some medium-level projects The teacher was attracted to Tangshan by the high salary.

So this results in fewer top experts in Fuyuan Machine Factory and fewer people good at heavy machine guns.

As for orders is also a problem. The Beiyang system has imported a large number of heavy machine guns from Germany in recent years. To be honest, the demand for heavy machine guns has been greatly reduced. Even if there are more than a dozen, dozens of small orders. As for those southern provinces, they are not as careful as Yuan Shikai to training the new army, if the court hadn't forced him We don't even want to change new rifles, let alone buy heavy machine guns that consume expensive bullets, so even if they do, there will never be many.

However, the order volume of dozens of heavy machine guns must not keep a heavy machine gun production line running normally. If the order is not enough, it will rush to recruit a large number of workers and train workers to start the production line, and in the end, they may lose all their money.

So it's better to continue small-scale trial production as it is now. It is estimated that there will be dozens of output in a year. It is enough to replace the normal loss of Beiyang, and it is unnecessary to expand production.

Seeing that Zhao Dongyun showed a look of agreement, Andre continued: "General, we need machine guns and bullets, and General, you need money, and your factory needs orders and engineers. These can be solved!"

Zhao Dongyun asked, "Mr. Andrey, what's your opinion?"