Chapter 7 Trial Machine Gun Team 2

Since Yuan Shikai allowed him to try out a machine gun team, he naturally gave a certain amount of funds. Although the funds are not much, he can still sell a few new machine guns. However, now the money is not a problem. The key is that he can't buy a new machine gun.

At present, there are two categories of machine guns. One is Maxim water-cooled heavy machine guns. Germany, the United Kingdom, Russia and other countries have purchased licenses to produce their own products. At present, the typical models of this category are the British MK1 and the German MG99\MG01, among which MG01 The style is the predecessor of the famous MG08 style in the future.

Another category is the French Hachikais air-cooled machine gun. At present, in addition to a large amount of equipment in France, Japan has also imported part of it. Its latest model is Hachikais 1900, which is improved from Hachikais 1897. In addition to a large amount of equipment in France, this new model has also been introduced into Japan. It became the main machine gun of Japan during the Russo-Japanese War. Japan was very satisfied with this type of machine gun. After the Russo-Japanese War, it specially introduced relevant patents from France for imitation, which was the later Meiji 38 heavy machine gun.

MG01 and Hatchez 1900 have got rid of many problems of machine guns in the early years, making them truly a life harvester for soldiers. However, due to the embargo, China has not yet been able to openly buy these weapons from Western countries.

However, if there is an embargo, there will naturally be smuggling. There will be smuggling under such a strict blockade in the 21st century, not to mention the present in 1901. Nowadays, arms dealers in various countries do not care about your national interests. As long as you pay enough, those British businessmen dare to sell you Queen Victoria's crown. !

So if you can't buy it through official channels, it doesn't mean that Zhao Dongyun can't buy machine guns!

As the residence of the Governor of Zhili and the Minister of Commerce of Beiyang, Baoding can be said to be a city with a political status second only to Beijing, bringing together a large number of political speculators and arms dealers in Baoding.

It's easy to find an arms dealer in Baoding.

At the beginning, when those arms dealers heard that the Right Army of Wuwei wanted to buy machine guns, no matter what country's arms dealers came up, and they all put on their chests to guarantee that as long as the number of purchases reached more, they could get a lot of discounts and ensure door-to-door delivery.

"But when they heard that we only sold three or four, they all..." Zhao Dongping said this and looked sad and indignant: "Those people, it's okay to look down on people, but the price is still so expensive!"

This can't be blamed for the munitioners' snobbery. After all, now everyone is staring at the arms orders of the Beiyang Standing Army and the Beijing Flag Standing Army. These tens of thousands of people' equipment are as high as millions of yuan. Who doesn't want to get a piece of it!

If Yuan Shikai intends to popularize machine guns in the whole army, those arms dealers will definitely come, but now it's just Zhao Dongyun who buys a few. No wonder he is not very motivated.

Zhao Dongyun is not interested in understanding the attitude of arms dealers, and he is not interested in listening to Zhao Dongping's complaints. He just asked, "Can I buy it now?"

Whether the machine gun is bought and when it can arrive is what Zhao Dongyun cares about, and one very important thing is that Zhao Dongyun doesn't like to be controlled by others. Not to mention talking with his subordinates, he likes to control the rhythm. Even if he talks to Duan Qirui and other bosses, he tries his best to control the topic. Lead in the direction you want

Zhao Dongping is young and didn't have much contact with Zhao Dongyun before. At the beginning, he still followed his previous appearance in his hometown, with a little deliberately complaining and showing off his words, but he saw that his cousin had been exposed. He also did not dare to continue to waste his words, but said directly, "I have negotiated with a Russian Yangxing. They have shipped directly from Lushun in the past few days. Four of them are all new goods!"

Zhao Dongyun nodded when he heard this. He didn't need to know what channel and method Zhao Dongping bought the machine gun. He just needed to know that Zhao Dongping bought the machine gun.

"Well, you did a good job this time. You should also follow up in time. Don't let them delay too long. You should know that our time is limited!" While praising his little cousin, Zhao Dongyun did not forget to warn him.

Zhao Dongping immediately said, "Don't worry, I won't delay the year-end practice!"

Zhao Dongping naturally knew what Zhao Dongyun was worried about, that was the drill at the end of the year. Although the scale of this drill was not large, at the end of 1901, the imperial court wanted to train the new army on a large scale and eliminate the old army, so its influence actually exceeded Zhao Dongyun and others themselves. Imagine.

Although the court says that it wants to train the new army, it is a problem how to train it. Therefore, the scale of this drill at the end of the year is not large, but in fact it has attracted the attention of many people. They want to know what kind of combat effectiveness Yuan Shikai's new army has, and whether it is it is different from last year's Armed Guard. Like the three new armies, they are just a vain shelf.

To put it bluntly, people want to see something different from the old army from this drill!

Yuan Shikai is confident in this point, and Duan Qirui and other people in Beiyang systems are also confident. In fact, Zhao Dongyun was also confident, but Zhao Dongyun not only wanted to sit firmly in this position, but also wanted to go further, so he moved out the machine gun.

He is going to shock the Beiyang bosses who watched the performance at that time!

As time went by, the Russian arms dealer Zhao Dongping was looking for was not slow, and he didn't know what means to pull the four-door Maxim heavy machine gun in front of Zhao Dongyun a few days later.

"These four machine guns are all brand new!" Zhao Dongping has been fiddling with the machine gun during this period, and it looks decent: "This gun body is made by Germans. Look, this gun also has the logo of the German weapons company, but this gun frame is Russian. You see, this gun frame not only has steel shields, but also this small steel wheel support. The gun body will not be too high. According to the Russians, this is the gun frame made by the Russians themselves, called Sokolov's frame.

While listening to Zhao Dongping, Zhao Dongyun also looked at the four Mark Qin machine guns in front of him. The shape of the four machine guns in front of him is not much different from the heavy machine guns used in various countries in later film and television dramas. At least it looks much more reliable than Zhao Dongyun's four old Mark Qin.

"Yongquan, let people try it!" Zhao Dongyun ordered Lin Yongquan to test it when it arrived.

Lin Yongquan walked over with a happy face. With his big hand wave, he was followed by a group of soldiers. These soldiers were ordinary riflemen not long ago, but now it looks decent to see them go up to play with one of the machine guns.

Lin Yongquan stood beside Zhao Dongyun and said, "Your Excellency, this machine gun also has a steel shield, and the body of the gun is low. At that time, they will swing in front of the enemy's position. Unless they are directly hit by the gun, they really can't help us!"

Zhao Dongyun did not answer, but looked at the soldiers in front of him fiddling with the machine gun. After a while, the soldiers had already put the bullet chain into the machine gun. As the machine gun shooter pulled the trigger, the muzzle spewed out a lightning-like tongue. The unique click of the heavy machine gun echoed in his ear, and the golden brass shell kept throwing out. As the sudden sound continued, a pile of yellow shells quickly accumulated on the ground, and the water-cooled casing on the barrel was also water vapor.

The test machine gunman received an order earlier. At this time, he did not feel sorry for the bullets. He intermittently fired hundreds of bullets in the ammunition box before stopping. At this time, a row of thick boards as targets in the distance of the shooting range had already been smashed.

Zhao Dongping, who saw the machine gun shooting continuously for the first time, opened his mouth from the moment the machine gun began to shoot. He didn't come back for a long time. When the sound of the machine gun stopped, he came to his senses: "No wonder the third brother has always wanted this machine gun. Let's see how much he has to kill!"

Of course, not everyone has never seen the market like Zhao Dongping. The machine gun is not something that has just come out. More than ten years ago, China began to build itself and used it in the war, so many other second battalion officers, including Lin Yongquan, already knew how powerful the machine gun is.

But whether it is Lin Yongquan or others, they are as surprised at this moment. What they are surprised is not the huge power of the machine gun. They are surprised that the new machine gun smuggled from arms dealers in front of them has unimaginable reliability.

Machine guns are not strange to the Qing Dynasty army, which used machine guns many times in the North Korean War and the Gengzi War, but why did they pay much attention to machine guns before? The main reason is that the machine guns used by China in these two wars were manufactured by the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau before the First Sino-Japanese War, and these systems The Maxim machine guns are the earliest models. The reliability of the machine guns is very low, and they will fail if they can't hit a few bullets.

However, the new machine gun in front of us is a product after many years of improvement. Its reliability and performance are very close to the machine guns used by various countries during World War I. It can be said that the machine guns before the First Sino-Japanese War and the machine guns after the First Sino-Japanese War are the products of two eras.

Lin Pingxiong, the leader of the former team of the 2nd Battalion standing behind Zhao Dongyun, has begun to imagine that if his troops have such a machine gun in the defensive battle, they don't need more than two, as long as there is enough bullet supply, the enemy on the opposite side may not be able to rush even several times!

Compared with the surprise of his men, Zhao Dongyun does not have much feeling. For him, this machine gun should exert such power. If not, he will be surprised!

"Now these four machine guns have also been allocated to you. You have to take the soldiers to train more closely. As for the soldiers you lack in front of you, I will first transfer some of them from the other teams!" Zhao Dongyun said to Lin Yongquan, "Don't be afraid of waste and don't train. Those four old-fashioned Maxims will be useless in the future, so it's okay to use more daily exercises!"