On the second day, Gaochang Temple, the capital of Hua Kingdom, was visited.
Numerous factories and chimneys stand here, and the air is filled with the smell of cinders. The Hudu Arsenal is filled with the smell of oil, metal, and gunpowder.
The machine made a trembling roar, the clatter of iron, and the clang of hammer heads.
The molten iron in the furnace glowed red, and countless workers were carrying various metal parts.
Five or six Huk-style 75mm mountain guns were neatly arranged in the open space outside the factory.
This is the Hudu Arsenal. It was established in September 1865 by Li Hongzhang, the governor of Liangjiang in the Xuan Dynasty, who raised hundreds of thousands of silver. He subsequently opened a gunpowder factory, an artillery factory, a shell factory, a mine factory, a boiler factory, and a bullet factory... for Hua. It is the earliest and largest fully functional arsenal established in China.
At its peak, it could manufacture 3,000 rifles and 10 million rounds of ammunition each year.
The steel plant can produce 1,500 tons of raw steel, and there are about 6,000 engineers, engineers, workers and apprentices.
Lu Xiaojia is currently inspecting the factory with two middle-aged and elderly people with gray hair.
One of these two middle-aged and elderly people with unremarkable appearance is Xie Deqing, the general manager of the Hudu Arsenal.
The other one is Liu Guoen, who is known as the first person in China to produce semi-automatic rifles.
This Liu Guoen was the weapons master specially invited by Lu Xiaojia. In his early years, he studied at the Tokyo Imperial University of Fuso Kingdom, and later went to the Krupp Arsenal of Hans to study weapons development and manufacturing.
After returning to China, he served as the general manager of the Hanyang Arsenal, and later developed weapons such as the "Thirty-knot Heavy Machine Gun", "Guoen Cannon" and "Liu's 7.92 Semi-Automatic Rifle".
But it is a pity that such a capable man had to resign due to illness due to being squeezed out by warlords such as Cao Kun and Wu Peifa. It was really a waste of natural resources.
Lu Xiaojia naturally couldn't stand such a capable person being buried. Although he had a system now, he couldn't stop developing his own weapons just because of this.
"General Manager Xie, it seems that your Hudu arsenal is in a very bad situation now. I just took a general inspection and found that there are only more than a hundred machines in the entire factory. Your arsenal can only manufacture cannons now, which belongs to Empty airs."
"Well, Mr. Lu, you can't blame me for this. Our arsenal is currently short of funds and has not paid wages to the workers for three months. Moreover, five years ago, Hanyang Arsenal took away more than a hundred of our machines. Now we have Production capacity can only go so far.”
Seeing Xie Deqing hesitating, Lu Xiaojia smiled and patted him on the shoulder.
"It's okay to thank the General Office. I know your difficulties. I have decided to close this arsenal. I will pay all the wages owed to the workers. You will take all the workers and remaining machines with you tomorrow and move to Jinhua City, Yu Province. I plan to A new arsenal was re-opened in Jinhua City, introducing 4,000 of the world's most advanced equipment, machines, various machine tools, forging hydraulic presses, artillery shell production lines, bullet production lines, steel-making furnaces... The scale of the new arsenal is at least that of this one Twenty times the size of the veteran factory. As for the operation of the new arsenal, weapon research and development and improvement will be left to you and Uncle Liu."
As soon as these words came out, before Xie Deqing had time to speak, Liu Guoen grabbed Lu Xiaojia's hand suddenly, his body trembled, his eyes flashed and he asked:
"Master Lu, you are serious about what you said. You didn't lie to me, right? The scale is twenty times larger than this factory."
"Uncle Liu, I never tell lies. The factory is still under construction. As for the machines, equipment, and production lines, I have already ordered them abroad. There are 20 7.92×57 mm rifle ammunition production lines, 20 7.92×33 mm short ammunition production lines, 10 12.7×99 mm large-caliber ammunition production lines... 10 120 mm artillery shell production lines, 10 155 mm artillery shell production lines. In addition, you don’t have to worry about the materials and workers’ salaries in the arsenal.”
Unexpectedly, just after he said this, Liu Guoen's curiosity was aroused again.
"Huh? Mr. Lu, what kind of ammunition are these 7.92×33mm short bullets of yours? I have been studying guns for many years, but I have never heard of them. I was outside just now and saw your soldiers carrying a weird weapon. Submachine gun, if this ammunition is for that kind of gun, please bring it to me and see."
Lu Xiaojia also had nothing to do with Liu Guoen. This man was really a lunatic with a gun, so he waved.
A soldier trotted in carrying an STG44 assault rifle. Liu Guoen took the gun and looked at it with admiration. After taking it apart, he was full of praise for it.
"Oops! This gun actually uses a gas-guided automatic firing principle, and the bolt adopts a deflection lock. If I guessed correctly, after the bullet of this gun is fired, the remaining gunpowder gas will be introduced into the gas tube, and then drive The piston of this gun drives the bolt to reciprocate, ejecting the ejection case and loading the bullet again. This is a machine gun that can be held and fired!!"
"And this gun is made of excellent materials. When manufacturing this gun, a very high-tech stamping process should be used. In this way, the manufacturing cost and labor hours of this gun will be greatly reduced, making it very suitable for large-scale equipment for the army."
"But this kind of gun is definitely not made in China. We don't have this kind of industrial strength now. It is estimated that only the countries of Hans, John, Gaul, and Sam can make this kind of gun. And the ammunition of this kind of gun is... There is a lot less medicine, and the maximum range should be much shorter than that of an ordinary bolt-action gun, but in medium and close range combat, the firepower of this gun is absolutely unparalleled."
After hearing Liu Guoen's evaluation, Lu Xiaojia was stunned. It had not been five minutes since the gun had been in his hand.
This guy actually understood the structure, principle, manufacturing process, advantages and disadvantages of the gun?
