Chapter 122 Simple Ideal

In fact, the biggest problem of the expansion of Jinzhou patrol battalion has been solved in advance. The most difficult thing to train the new army is cavalry and artillery units. Relatively speaking, infantry is actually the simplest.

In terms of cost alone, it takes at least 300,000 taels of silver to train the artillery and spare shells needed to train an artillery battalion, while an infantry battalion only uses rifles, 600 to 700 guns, and 30 taels of silver is only more than 20,000 taels of silver.

Including the Beiyang Standing Army, the new army is generally trained first, and then slowly replenishes the artillery and cavalry. This is why many new armies in the southern provinces in the late Qing Dynasty were only full of infantry, but artillery and cavalry were seriously insufficient.

However, the Jinzhou patrol battalion is reversed. This unit does not lack cavalry and artillery, but lacks infantry.

For cavalry, Zhao Dongyun incorporated Lv Shuangqiang and Shi Yang last year, each with more than 300 people. In May, Zhao Dongyun had already organized the two cavalry into a cavalry battalion in order to facilitate trade with the Russians, with Lv Shuangqiang as the battalion management belt and Shi Yang as the leader. Of course, he At the same time, they also served as the officers of the original cavalry. In addition, Zhao Dongyun also transferred some people from the two cavalry, and then drew dozens of people from the third standard of the cavalry team to form a third cavalry team, which was organized into a cavalry battalion with three teams.

Although this cavalry battalion is full of banditry, after more than half a year of training, it has barely looked like a new cavalry. In addition, Lv Shuangqiang has great prestige among his subordinates, so it may not be as good as the cavalry troops in the third town in tactical application, but the actual combat effectiveness is not too weak, at least pull out There is no problem to work with Zhang Zuolin and Feng Delin's cavalry.

As for the artillery, there is no problem. The artillery used in the Jinzhou patrol battalion are the Japanese artillery used by the original Third Mixed Association. When it was transferred to the Jinzhou patrol battalion, some gunners were also transferred. To some extent, this artillery battalion is actually the highest quality of Jinzhou patrol battalion. The combat effectiveness of the troops, artillery and officers is not inferior to that of the artillery in the third town.

When the artillery and cavalry were solved, Zhao Dongyun could actually set up a mixed association as long as he trained three more infantry battalions.

After more than half a year of development, the Jinzhou patrol battalion is very difficult to expand into a town, but if it is only expanded into a mixed association, it will be much less difficult. At least artillery and cavalry do not need to do it, just three infantry battalions.

However, ordinary people really don't know these actual situations. Even if they know it, they will subconsciously ignore this problem. At least Lin Yongquan didn't think of this for a while. After hearing Zhao Dongyun say that he would expand the Jinzhou patrol battalion into a mixed association, he thought: This is to double the number of troops!

It doesn't matter what Lin Yongquan thinks. Zhao Dongyun wants to expand his army. This is what he has been doing since he arrived in Jinzhou. However, last year, he focused on the third town. Now that the third town has just built, he has focused on the Jinzhou patrol camp.

After driving Lin Yongquan out, Zhao Dongyun called Zhao Dongping again!

"In the past two months, we can earn at least 400,000 taels of silver from Japan and the Russians. Although the big head will be used on the mortar equipment of the third town, it is not a big problem to remove part of it for the Jinzhou patrol camp!" Zhao Dongping said in his heart that he also estimated the cost of expanding the army and maintaining the existing military expenses.

Although he is the general office of the Ordnance Department, Zhao Dongping is also responsible for the custody of the property obtained by the bandits and the current arms trade with Japan and Russia, so he is the actual person in charge of the small treasury of the third town. Although this position has no official name, everyone inside and outside the third town knows that this person is Zhao Dongyun's money bag and As a private representative, his status in the third town would not have been so special.

Zhao Dongyun said, "In this way, I am relieved. Although there is no need to buy artillery for the time being, machine guns, rifles and mortars need to be equipped. This batch of expenses is not small. You should try your best to collect money!"

If it is only compiled according to the standards of the Beiyang Standing Army, it will not cost much for this Jinzhou patrol battalion to be expanded into a mixed association, but if Zhao Dongyun also wants to equip this Jinzhou patrol battalion with mortars and heavy machine guns, it will have to add a large part of the extra cost.

Zhao Dongping said, "Don't worry, now our ordnance business is not bad. We are already preparing for next month's order. If everything goes well, we can earn at least 300,000 taels of silver next month!"

He said with a smile: "These foreigners' money is really easy to earn. They want 50 taels of silver for a cannonball. Tut, we only got 25 taels of silver from Fuyuan Machinery Factory, and we directly doubled it!"

Zhao Dongyun listened and said, "This is the arms business!"

When doing arms business during the war, especially when it comes to politics, it is absolutely impossible to compare prices with ordinary prices. The reason why Zhao Dongyun's ammunition is so expensive is very simple. Only he can pour arms into the war zone. In addition to transporting from the mainland, the Russians can only get extra arms from Zhao. Dongyun bought it in his hand. In order to prevent the Russians from getting a large amount of arms from Zhao Dongyun, Japan also spent a lot of money to grab goods.

In this way, it is difficult for Zhao Dongyun's arms business not to make money!

"But you should also pay attention to finding new sources of goods. In recent months, there has been a lot of pressure from Fuyuan Machinery Factory. Uncle Bin wrote to the training office several times asking why the production of shells and bullets has been greatly reduced!" Zhao Dongyun continued: "Think of a way to see if you can buy a batch of arms from the Germans and the British. You can also go to the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau and Hubei Gun Factory to have a look. As long as we have enough supplies, we can make money from the two families!"

"Is the training office aware of it?" Zhao Dongping frowned after hearing this: "It shouldn't be a big problem. The output of Fuyuan Machinery Factory was only 10,000 at the end of last year. Although it has increased now, outsiders don't know!"

"There are so many people staring at Fuyuan Machinery Factory, and they will naturally find problems when they find that production has been expanded but no cannon pops up!" Zhao Dongyun said so.

Due to its particularity, Fuyuan Machinery Factory can be said to be stared by a large number of domestic military personnel. Not only are Beiyang standing army towns open their eyes to wait for the supply of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, but other provinces are also bitterly waiting for the ordnance of Fuyuan Machinery Factory. No one pays attention to this. .

At the same time, due to the large-scale expansion of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, the Training Office has even listed it as a designated purchaser of many new equipment. Last year, it made an order to buy the armor needed by the northern provinces. If the Fu factory does not have the equipment, it can buy foreign goods.

This is a supplementary measure after the court positioned the Type 88 rifle as a standard rifle last year, which is to avoid the arbitrary purchase of foreign guns by provinces.

So many provinces have placed orders for Fuyuan Machinery Factory and are waiting for the goods to arrive. However, after the expansion of Fuyuan Machinery Factory for more than half a year, rifles have fortunately reached the design output, but although the output of shells and bullets has been greatly increased, this part of the output has been brainstormed by Zhao Dongyun. It was bought, and the share left to other provinces was still only last year's production, which naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the provinces and led to an official letter from the training office.

"Although we don't take much goods from Fuyuan Machinery Factory for the time being, Russia is too tight now, and we are very nervous about the consumption of shells and bullets. It can be said that they want as much as we have, but if we take too much goods from Fuyuan Machinery Factory, I guess the training office will have opinions, so Look for those foreign banks and see if you can buy them!"

The arms business between Zhao Dongyun and Japan and Russia has unique political factors. In fact, other foreign banks do not have a large number of arms, but they can't transport them to Fengtian at all. China now pursues neutrality and strict control of railways inside and outside Guan. Trains arriving in Jinzhou are strictly monitored by Zhao Dongyun. Not to mention shells, a single bullet can't fly across Jinzhou to Fengtian without Zhao Dongyun's permission.

To put it simply, Zhao Dongyun sells not goods, but transportation channels!

Zhao Dongping said, "I'm afraid that the goods of the foreign bank are not cheap. We only take 25 taels of silver from Fu Factory, but I'm afraid it will take more than 30 taels of silver to get the goods from the foreign bank!"

Zhao Dongyun didn't care: "Even if the cost is higher, we still make money!"

The difference is that he earns more and earns less, but whether it is more or less, the money made by Zhao Dongyun, a second-way trafficker, is a huge profit!

Zhao Dongping was also enlightened when he heard this: "Yes, earning more is earning, and earning less is also earning. I will go to Tianjin to find a source of goods in the next two days!" After saying that, he sighed again: "If only Japan and the Russians continue to fight, as long as we do this business for a year, it will be enough to earn three million taels of silver!"

Zhao Dongyun smiled and said, "This possibility is still possible! But these three million are still a little less!"

In the Russo-Japanese War, the military expenditure spent by Japan and Russia was measured in 1 billion yuan. The family spent 177 billion yen in a single day. According to the official exchange rate in the Xinchou Treaty, it was more than liang of silver. Zhao Dongyun would be embarrassed to say that he had started a war if he did not make tens of millions of taels of silver from it. Wealth!

Similarly, this military expenditure figure is enough to prove that the modern regular war is very expensive. If China's main war faction wants to get involved in this Russo-Japanese war, let's not talk about whether the military strength is enough and how the combat effectiveness is. Military expenditure alone must be prepared for hundreds of millions in advance, and then you are qualified to consider the military strength. Whether it is enough and whether the combat effectiveness is good or not...

So, Zhao Dongyun never thought of wielding tens of thousands of troops with Japan or the Russians to fight to the death. What he wanted was actually very simple. He wanted to make some money to expand his army, which was what he expected.

However, with such a simple request, someone still said 'no' to him!