Chapter 5 Machine Guns and Wire

In addition to rifles, the Qing army, which is a vital support weapon and artillery for the army, is actually not bad. It can be said that whether it is the Huai Army in the Jiawu period or the Wuwei army during the Gengzi Incident, the number of artillery is not large, and they are also trying to keep up with the pace of the great powers in some new equipment, such as artillery. The more shooting balloons are used, such as those that are not equipped with many machine guns in various countries, which are available to the Qing army.

Of course, this does not mean that the equipment level of the army at the end of the Qing Dynasty is better than that of the great powers, but that the gap between the great powers and the army is not big, at least not bad enough to affect the outcome of the war. As for why it is still defeated, it has little to do with equipment, mainly tactical thinking and personnel.

During the First Sino-Japanese War, what did people think of the war? At that time, when the Huai army took a boat from Tianjin to North Korea to participate in the war, the family members on the dock cried all day long. Almost everyone, from Li Hongzhang to the Huai army, is unwilling to fight. Under such circumstances, it is strange to win a foreign war.

It's actually good not to want to fight. At least there were not many traitors at that time. By the year of Gengzi, countless Chinese people pushed a wheelbicle to form a huge logistics supply force for the Eight-Nation Alliance. Countless Chinese people sweated to build positions for the Eight-Nation Alliance in the Beijing defense war.

It is estimated that at that time, the Chinese people in Beijing felt that since a man like the Aixinjue Luo family could be the emperor of the Chinese people, and it was also possible for a blonde foreigner to be the emperor. Maybe they could make them gain the merit of the dragon.

During the First Sino-Japanese War and the Gengzi Incident, the Chinese people were not as patriotic as later generations thought!

The various equipment of the Wuwei Right Army in 1901 is naturally not bad, but there is no machine gun equipment in the official equipment list, which makes Zhao Dongyun not understand.

Machine gun? You mean those Mark Qin fast!" Duan Qirui was slightly stunned when he heard Zhao Dongyun say that he was looking for a machine gun, but he soon reacted: "I remember that there were some Mark Qin fast guns before, but they haven't used much after the Jiawu Festival. Maybe there are some in the warehouse, but what do you want to do with those things?"

Duan Qirui also doesn't understand why Zhao Dongyun wants Mark Qin's machine gun. It's not that he hasn't played with it. Although it sounds very powerful, it's actually not easy to use.

Not only can the weight be compared with small-caliber artillery, but also have frequent failures. Although it played a certain role in the battlefield of North Korea, it was not liked by domestic generals. In last year's Gengzi Incident, the military guards who participated in the war were also equipped with Maxim machine guns, but still did not play their due role. So much so that the remaining ones were thrown into the warehouse at the end of the war.

After all, these machine guns are expensive, not to mention many faults, and they consume too many bullets. At present, the Wuwei Right Army has not been equipped in batches for a while.

Zhao Dongyun said, "We are going to defend that exercise. I just want to see if we can get a few machine guns to defend the battle!"

Duan Qirui is an old-qualified general, and he is also a rare high-level general with broad vision in the Beiyang system. He is not unfamiliar with machine guns, and he has also thought about recommending to import a batch of new machine guns, but now when the standing army is newly built, the original military expenditure gap is very large, and the limited funds have to be used to buy artillery. And rifles, so now the proposal to buy machine guns is still in words.

At present, he heard that Zhao Dongyun wanted to use machine guns to carry out defensive combat. Although he did not know how Zhao Dongyun planned to arrange the defense tactics of machine guns, since Zhao Dongyun mentioned it today, there must have been a case.

So he didn't ask much. After thinking about it, he said, "There should be several more doors in the military warehouse, but I don't know if they can still be used. I'll give you a note and you can get them by yourself. If it's not enough, I'll take a look elsewhere, and I should be able to find a few more!"

Duan Qirui did not ask Zhao Dongyun why, but directly supported Zhao Dongyun. Naturally, there are reasons for this. If Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun can only be regarded as the descendants of Germany in the past, then since Zhao Dongyun officially sought his help and recommendation, and Duan Qirui also strongly recommended Zhao in front of Yuan Shikai. After Dongyun, it can be said that Zhao Dongyun has been tied up with him.

In popular and superficial terms, Zhao Dongyun is now his man.

Duan Qirui's later generations were able to compete with Feng Guozhang for power and profit after Yuan Shikai's death, and led a group of Beiyang warlords and Feng Guozhang to a direct war in Anhui, and reached the top of Chinese politics several times, but also relying not only on his military talent, but also on his personality charm. Otherwise, why did those warlord leaders Follow him with all your heart!

Everyone who gets up step by step and can reach the peak, whether it is the so-called great men or dictators, they have the same characteristic, that is, they have personality charm that ordinary people do not have, which can make them closely unite everyone around them!

To put it bluntly, this is the anger of Ba!

Now Duan Qirui has already shown this temperament. It's just a few words of Zhao Dongyun, and he doesn't even need Zhao Dongyun to explain why in detail. He just waved Zhao Dongyun with his hand and directly gave him the machine gun Zhao Dongyun wanted.

In Zhao Dongyun's view, this kind of decisiveness is trust!

In this case, Zhao Dongyun has a soul of the 21st century, which gave birth to an idea that he is willing to work for Duan Qirui.

After talking about the machine gun, Duan Qirui looked at Zhao Dongyun and said, "I remember that Dongyun, you have 23. As the saying goes, you have a family and a career, and you have also calculated this career. This family should be solved as soon as possible!"

Duan Qirui said that this is not a family affair, let alone that there is a daughter who can't get married and wants to recruit Zhao Dongyun as a son-in-law. He is purely from a business point of view. Zhao Dongyun is 23 years old this year, but he is not married yet. In this era, many men have married at the age of 16 or 17 years old, and have not yet There are still relatively few people getting married.

Forget it if he is an ordinary person, but he is not. Zhao Dongyun is a new military officer with more than 1,500 people. If he doesn't have a family for a long time, he will make people feel immature and not stable enough. If he continues to drag on, unmarried will become an obstacle to his continued promotion.

After all, in the concept of ordinary people, only after getting a family can they be stable and use it boldly.

As a senior, Duan Qirui feels that it is necessary to remind Zhao Dongyun!

Dongyun, as you know, now I have a new standing army in Beiyang. This standing army has two towns, and the court also wants us Beiyang to help train a Beijing flag standing army. This adds up to the establishment of three towns, and there are many empty positions in the short term. Now you are also in the eyes of Lord Constitution. If this exercise is done well, it will be reasonable to mention it next year!" Duan Qirui said this, paused and looked at Zhao Dongyun, and then said again:

"But the more you pay attention at this time, don't give those people any excuse!"

When Duan Qirui's house came out, Duan Qirui's words once again came to Zhao Dongyun's mind. With the concept of future generations, he thought that he was only 23 years old and had a lot of time to spend, but he would think that this without starting a family would also become an obstacle to his career.

Judging from Duan Qirui's words just now, he is still used in the Beiyang system. If nothing unexpected happens, he can take a step higher next year. Only by climbing to a higher position can he participate more in future changes. In this case, in order to avoid the attack and rape of political enemies, it is also necessary to improve the schedule of your marriage.

It's just that this kind of thing is really not urgent for a while, and I can only take one step at a time!

suppressed this matter. Now Zhao Dongyun is still focusing on the upcoming exercise. He has heard that not only Yuan Shikai and other Beiyang bosses will come to watch it in person, but also many dignitaries of the imperial court will come to watch it.

From a general perspective, this exercise is not only a performance that highlights Yuan Shikai's ability to train troops, but also an opportunity and stage for Zhao Dongyun!

As long as you leave an indelible impression in the hearts of these people, you can really rise rapidly, instead of relying on seniority to climb slowly step by step like others. If you rely on your qualifications to survive slowly, it is estimated that by the time of the 1911 Wuchang Uprising, it would be good for you to get into a position of co-integration, and this is far from the result that Zhao Dongyun expected!

Since God brought him to this era and made him Zhao Dongyun, it is equivalent to giving him an empty stage, and it takes his own efforts to get applause and cheers from the audience on the stage!

In the afternoon, Zhao Dongyun took the people of the second battalion to a military warehouse in Baoding. This warehouse has been stored here for some years and there are old-fashioned weapons, so there is no careful maintenance. As soon as he entered, you can see dust all over the ground, and there are many spiders on the beams. Net.

The warehouse is not small. It has various weapons equipped in the Huaijun era and the Wuwei army era. There are old-fashioned front-mounted tish guns, single-shot rear guns with fixed paper shells, and single-shot rear-mounted guns with metal fixed bullets.

There are also several front-loaded guns that I don't know how many years old. In this pile of rags, Zhao Dongyun soon found four Maxim machine guns. Like other sealed weapons, they are also covered with dust and even have a lot of rust, one of which is even incomplete.

"That's them, pull them out!" Zhao Dongyun ignored the smoke and dust around him and directly pointed to these Mark Qin machine guns.

There are soldiers behind him, and then try hard to drag them out. These Maxim machine guns are really big guys. The barrel of the water-cooled sleeve is thick enough, and there is also a thick frame under the barrel, and there are two huge iron wheels on the gun frame. This Maxim heavy machine gun is more than 100 catties. The big guy.

This looks like a small-caliber artillery!

Looking at the Mark Qin machine gun that requires three or four people to move, Lin Yongquan, standing behind Zhao Dongyun, frowned: "Your Excellency, I don't know if this thing can be used!"

Lin Yongquan is an officer who finally found an officer who knows how to fight machine guns in the second battalion. He was a machine gunner of the Huai Army in his early years. At that time, he also fought in North Korea with his Mark Qin machine gun. After the First Sino-Japanese War, he entered Yuan Shikai's new army and fell into the position of sentry officer.