Chapter 188 Prelude to the War

In the past few years, Duan Qirui's prestige was not bad, but later, due to the failure of the competition for right-wing control, the subsequent battle for the second town control was jointly suppressed by Wang Yingkai, Feng Guozhang and others. In addition, what hit him more was Zhao Dongyun's self-proclaimed system. Duan Zhao's alliance was unexpectedly split, and he Duan Qirui was no longer ugly. It was not until the eve of the Russo-Japanese War that it came to a fourth town control.

In such a situation, regardless of his prestige and qualifications, he can no longer be compared with Wang Yingkai!

Now he is not high or low, his prestige is not as good as Wang Yingkai, his strength is not as good as Zhao Dongyun, and his attraction to talents is also very embarrassing.

Maybe Zhao Dongyun saw his weakness, so he opened his mouth and asked for so many ordnance! But can you not give it yourself? No!

Now is not the time to fall out with Zhao Dongyun. Now Duan Qirui still needs to unite with Zhao Dongyun to destroy Wang Shizhen, Feng Guozhang and the Qing court, which are the most threatening to everyone. Next is the time for Wang Duan Zhao and Zhao. Even at that time, he is not sure that he will fight with Zhao Dong. Yun turned around, because if Wang Yingkai sat in the position of the lord of Beiyang at that time, he would have to join hands with Zhao Dongyun to fight against Wang Yingkai.

For the future plan, although he was dissatisfied with Duan Qirui, he still said, "Don't say anything about it. I have my own decision on this matter. I will inform the welfare factory and let them complete our first two batches of orders and deliver the goods to Feng Province!"

Lu Yongxiang beside him was puzzled: "Why is the number of the first two batches of orders not much, and the amount of Feng Province is so large that we can't play it in less than half a month, so we can't get a single bullet these days?"

Duan Qirui said, "Don't worry, Ziyang is also a person who cares about the overall situation. He must know it!"

Like Duan Qirui's guess, Zhao Dongyun, who had just arrived at Shanhaiguan, got off the train and saw Duan Qirui's call back. At this time, he smiled and said, "Brother Zhiquan is still a reasonable person. Well, to call Tangshan is that I am a little nervous about the province's finances. I asked the fourth town if we can buy this batch of ordnance together. Then divide it evenly, and then communicate with Baoding to allocate the output of Fu Factory as soon as possible!"

For many ordnance output of Fuyuan Machinery Factory, it is impossible for any of Wang Duan and Zhao Sanjia to embezzle them. There must be a proportion of distribution, which not only takes into account the distribution of benefits, but also takes into account that any family must have ammunition in joint operations. You monopolize the production of ordnance in Fuyuan Machinery Factory alone, and you let it How can his two families fight? Is it possible to finish the inventory of ammunition and wait to die?

After all, no one is stupid. Whether it is Duan Qirui or Zhao Dongyun, they will not dare to swallow the ordnance production of Fu Factory alone at this juncture. Everyone has to share it, otherwise the other two families will not beat Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen. Let's unite to kill you first!

It is relatively simple to allocate the production of ordnance of Fuchang. Since Wang Yingkai's first town is made of 30-year rifles, the 6.5mm bullet output in Fuchang is naturally given to Wang Yingkai's family, while the remaining 7.92mm bullets are 40% by Duan Qirui and Zhao Dongyun accounts for 60%. After all, Duan Qirui has only one fourth town in his hand, while Zhao Dongyun has three towns. It's not good to have fewer bullets.

As for other rifles, artillery and even heavy machine guns and various shells, they are divided according to Wang Yingkai 30%, Duan Qirui 30%, and Zhao Dongyun 40%. The reason why Zhao Dongyun has a big head is because he has more troops.

As for other troops, such as Zhang Huaizhi's fifth town, Wu Fengling's second town can't get a particle bomb! If you want to get ammunition and weapons, you have to find another way. You can buy them from the above three people or import them directly from foreign countries.

It is not only Zhang Huaizhi who find foreigners to import weapons. In fact, Zhao Dongyun, Duan Qirui, Wang Yingkai and even Feng Guozhang and Wang Shizhen of the Qing court have all found foreign arms dealers and proposed to buy a large number of ordnance, especially artillery.

He has gathered the important troops of the third town in Shanhaiguan, and he has seen Andre again in Zhao Dongyun's temporary headquarters.

"We are still more supportive of the general's idea of buying heavy machine guns and artillery. As you know, in the past two years of war, our army has hoarded a large amount of weapons and ammunition in the Far East, so it is not difficult for the general to buy ordnance, but at this price!" Andre said and then handed over a list.

Looking at this list, Zhao Dongyun frowned. The Russian is more ruthless than himself, and the price is not much lower than what he opened for them in those years!

The same MG01 heavy machine gun is at least twice the plan taken from the Russians, and the Russians gave second-hand goods used during the Russo-Japanese War. The only advantage is that they can give * directly. As long as they have enough money, the Russians can immediately pull out hundreds of active heavy machine guns and millions of bullets to him.

Zhao Dongyun did not agree to Andre immediately, but found Zhao Dongping and said, "How's your talk with Ri`? Can you buy their artillery?

Zhao Dongping said, "I have talked about it, and the effect is not very small. There are not many German-tube field guns in their hands, and their domestic imitation production is also relatively high. They are not enough for their own use. Only their 30-year-old guns can be sold to us, and the price is relatively expensive!"

Japan's 30-year-old 75mm wild gun and mountain cannon, that is, the cannon purchased by Beiyang from Japan that year, is an old-fashioned retreat gun with only three rounds of fire per minute. The only advantage is that it is cheap. However, now that I see that the war in China has started, I immediately sat on the ground and raised the price. In the past, four or five thousand taels of silver a cannon has now opened more than 6,000 taels of silver!

"If this is put in peacetime, you can buy an advanced tube retreat cannon with a few thousand taels of silver!" Zhao Dongping also had a flat face: "All of them are like hungry wolves, and they all want to bite us!"

Zhao Dongping complained and then said, "What about the Russians? Although their guns are different in diameter from ours, they should be able to use them!"

Zhao Dongyun also has a low face: "The price is not cheap!"

After saying that, he gave Zhao Dongping the price list quoted by Andre. Zhao Dongping frowned after reading it: "These old hairs are too dark to take 5,000 taels of old guns!"

Zhao Dongyun said, "In this situation, it is normal for them to ask for a high price, but the production of artillery in Fuchang is too low, and there are still three points. We can't get a few guns from Fuchang in a month. Now the fourth mixed association and the fifth mixed association are newly established, and we always have to allocate them with a gun battalion."

"In this way, you can go to Japan to talk about it first and keep the price down as much as possible. If the price really can't be suppressed, buy the Russian one!" Although Zhao Dongyun knew that it was not very useful to buy these old guns, the advanced barrel return guns were not so easy to sell. In the past, the guns purchased by Beiyang were imported from Germany, but now the 1903 75mm field guns in Germany have long been sold out of inventory. During the Russo-Japanese War, Japan originally went to Germany in one breath. People have ordered hundreds of this gun, and with orders from other countries, if they want to buy this gun smoothly, they will go there as soon as next year.

However, if the goods will not arrive until next year, the ghost will know what the situation was at that time.

With time waiting for no one, Zhao Dongyun naturally tends to buy ready-made second-hand goods. The performance is worse, and it is more expensive than in the past, but it is better than nothing!

What's more, he is not the only one selling his own ordnance. Several other companies are rushing to buy his old ordnance. Wang Yingkai ordered 10,000 30-year-old rifles and more than 30-year-old guns from Japan in one go. It seems that he is going to equip Japanese weapons to the end.

The seventh town under Feng Guozhang also used Japanese weapons. The original Beijing flag was equipped with the same Japanese equipment as the first town. This time, the war situation was tense, and Feng Guozhang also spent a lot of money to buy arms from Japan himself.

It can be said that this is a real spring for the Japanese army. Second-hand old 30-year-style rifles and 30-year-old artillery can still be sold at these expensive prices, and the supply is still in short supply. This is simply a good thing for the Japanese army with tight funds after the war, and they can get I got valuable money to replace the new Type 38 rifle and Type 38 artillery.

Relatively speaking, Russian ordnance is easier to buy, but this is mainly because the relationship between Russians and Zhao Dongyun has always been good. For Russians, they still hope that Zhao Dongyun can live in the customs and then control the situation of China. In the past few years, Zhao Dongyun has proved it with reality. He did not hesitate to sell his national interests for his power.

If Zhao Dongyun controls China, maybe the yellow Russian plan that Nicholas II mutters every day will really be successful!

Otherwise, Russia is not on the Japanese side. Russia has no plan to change on a large scale. Their machine guns and artillery can continue to be used in World War I, but there are no extra weapons to sell to those warlords in China.

Therefore, if Zhao Dongyun wants to buy ordnance from Russia, he can only buy active weapons of the Russian army, especially heavy machine guns, which must be directly extracted from the Russian Far East forces.

Because of the outbreak of the Beiyang Civil War, the arms market in the Far East has calmed down for half a year, and it has become prosperous again. Arms dealers from all over China have traveled around China to sell arms. At this time, the Beiyang Civil War, which has been brewing for more than half a month, finally took place for the first time.

On October 16, after Zhao Dongyun led the main force of the third town to arrive in the area of Ji County, Duan Qirui's fourth town has also arrived in the Xianghe area and marched in parallel with Zhao Dongyun's third town, north and south. The next day, the forward cavalry of the fourth town's patrol in Tongzhou and the seventh town outside the capital division. Fight.

Hundreds of cavalry on both sides retreated after a tentative contact. That night, Feng Guozhang announced in the capital that his cavalry had won a great victory and defeated more than a thousand 'rebels'. Duan Qirui was also unwilling to show weakness and claimed to kill and injuring 'Feng Wang'. More than 1,000 rebels have won a great victory in Tongzhou!

In fact, in that tentative battle, only more than 300 cavalry participated in the two sides. Nearly 100 cavalry in the fourth town had a contact with the second cavalry battalion in the seventh town. After more than ten people were killed, the cavalry in the fourth town took the initiative to retreat, and the cavalry in the seventh town also did not dare to continue after seven or eight people were killed and injured. Chasing.

The reason why they exaggerated the war situation and results is naturally to encourage the demand for morale. Anyway, no one dares to ask them to confirm the real situation of the war results.

If this tentative contact between the cavalry of the fourth town and the seventh towns set off the war, then the battle that broke out in the Fengtian First Cavalry Association and the Sixth Town led by Meng Enyuan on October 19 means that the war has been officially staged!