And now New York's An Liang Tang has firmly controlled New York's Chinese District and Chinatown. Even the most famous gangster and mafia in the United States dare not put its hands into Chinatown, which shows how strong its reputation and strength are.
If Mr. Situ was just a gang boss, he would have nothing to brag about.
But this man was a patriot who cared about his motherland abroad. As early as the Revolution of 1911, he called on Chinese people in the United States to donate to the revolutionary party and contributed a lot to overthrowing the feudal rule of the Qing Dynasty.
In the early 20th century, Mr. Sun Yat-sen went to the United States to propagate revolution. He advocated anti-Qing among overseas Chinese. The Hongmen, who had always used the banner of "anti-Qing and restore Ming", were the core group for his propaganda.
At that time, Mr. Situ was moved by Mr. Sun Yat-sen's revolutionary ideals and led several Hongmen brothers with strong martial arts skills to serve as Mr. Sun Yat-sen's bodyguards. They thwarted many assassination attempts by the Qing government against Mr. Sun Yat-sen and also followed him. Mr. Zhongshan formed a deep friendship.
From then on, the Hongmen organization began to support Mr. Zhongshan’s anti-Qing revolutionary activities in terms of human and financial resources. Every year, large sums of US dollars are given to alliance members to start revolution.
It can be said that without Hongmen’s support, China’s anti-Qing movement would not have succeeded so quickly.
The Revolution of 1911 broke out in 1911 and the Republic of China was established in 1912. The Hongmen Anliang Hall in the United States played the most important role. Mr. Situ was hailed as a "revolutionary hero" by Mr. Sun Yat-sen and was invited to return to China to serve as an official.
However, Mr. Situ refused on the grounds that "the Jianghu people do not want to live in temples". In fact, the real reason was that the Hongmen of the United States could not do without him. At that time, he was already the most important elder brother of the Hongmen in America.
During the September 18th Incident, the Japanese invaded the three northeastern provinces and caused friction in Shanghai. China lost a large area of land. Chinese people all over the world denounced Japan's crimes. Mr. Situ called on the overseas Chinese to donate money and materials, and sent medical supplies to the 19th Route Army in Shanghai to support the resistance against Japan. The war of resistance.
Mr. Situ has seen that the Japanese invaders' ambitions to annex China are becoming more and more expanding. A war between China and Japan is about to break out, and the fate of the Chinese nation is at stake.
Therefore, he has been using his influence to spare no effort to mobilize overseas Chinese in the United States to contribute money and efforts to the motherland's war preparations.
The just-concluded Great Wall War of Resistance made him feel crisis and hope.
The crisis is that the pace of Japanese aggression is getting faster and faster. The entire northern China has been exposed to the front of the Japanese army. Anyone with insight can feel that there is not much time left for the Chinese nation to prepare.
The hope is that although last year's Songhu Anti-Japanese War and this year's Great Wall Anti-Japanese War both ended in the defeat of the Chinese army, the little devils did not get any relief.
During the Songhu War of Resistance, the Japanese suffered more than 10,000 casualties. A mixed brigade was basically annihilated, and a major general and a battleship were buried with him at a painful price.
The just-concluded Great Wall War of Resistance was even more outrageous. The number of Japanese casualties alone exceeded 10,000, and a lieutenant general and division commander was killed, a humiliating battle loss that had never been seen in the history of the Japanese army.
This shows that even if our country is poor and weak, as long as the Republic of China government is determined to resist Japan and the people of the country are united to resist the enemy, the Chinese nation will not be without the power to fight.
Therefore, he decided to return to China in person with the millions of dollars he had raised recently and hand it over to the National Government to support the motherland's cause of the war of resistance. At the same time, it also brings the hope and determination of tens of millions of overseas Chinese, that is, they will never give in or compromise to the wolfish ambitions of the little devils.
At this time, the principal was worried about the lack of funds for the German weapon division and the delay in the arrival of weapons and equipment. Hearing this news was like manna coming out of a long drought and providing help in the snow. Of course, he was overjoyed.
Some people may not have a general idea of the funds required to form a team of German mechanics.
Let’s take the 88th Division of the National Army, which was the most well-equipped and most elite when the all-out war of resistance broke out, as an example.
The 88th Division has approximately 14,000 men and is equipped with artillery and other heavy firepower, 4 close-in defense guns, 12 mountain guns, 28 machine guns and 48 mortars.
In terms of firearms used by soldiers, one division is equipped with approximately 33 light machine guns, 72 heavy machine guns, and more than 9,000 German rifles.
At this time, the price of a mountain cannon (Krupp 75mm mountain cannon) manufactured by the Germans fluctuated around 35,000 marks (the CIF price shipped to a Chinese port). If this is converted into US dollars, the price of a mountain cannon is approximately About $9,000.
The 88th Division is equipped with 12 German mountain guns, which cost about US$110,000. The close-in defense guns are relatively cheaper, with a cost of US$2,600. Four close-in defense guns cost almost US$11,200.
There is also the Suloton 20mm machine gun, which is commonly known as the German machine gun. The cost of each door is about 3,000 marks, which is about 750 US dollars. The Chinese German mechanic has configured 28 doors, and their value is almost 21,000 US dollars.
Each mortar sells for about 2,500 marks, or $625, and 48 mortars are worth about $30,000.
To sum up, the equipment of the 88th Division, in terms of artillery alone, costs about US$200,000.
As for firearms, the German Maxim heavy machine guns equipped by elite German mechanics cost about US$700 each. 72 heavy machine guns cost US$50,000. The light machine guns, mainly Czech-style light machine guns, cost about US$100 each. 300 US dollars, the 88th Division is equipped with 336 guns, which is about 100,000 US dollars.
The main rifle equipped by the German gunsmiths was the Mauser rifle (later changed to the official rifle). The cost of each Mauser rifle was about 30 US dollars, and more than 9,000 of them were almost 270,000 US dollars.
In summary, its value in terms of firearms is approximately US$420,000.
Judging simply from the selling prices of these weapons, the equipment of the 88th Division costs at least US$600,000.
Of course, these are only those guns, without the cost of ammunition maintenance, etc. If you add the cost of artillery shells, bullets and grenades, as well as training losses and some basic equipment, communication radios, military pay, military uniforms and protective gear, etc., that will all It costs a lot of money.
Therefore, after considering some other objective factors, the cost of establishing an elite German mechanic like the 88th Division should be around US$700,000-800,000.
Of course, later on, when domestically produced medium- and formal rifles came out, all the rifles of German gunsmiths were replaced by medium- and formal rifles that were cheap but had good performance, which saved a lot of money.
In 1932, the total national tax revenue of the Republic of China was less than 200 million U.S. dollars, and the total military expenditure was correspondingly smaller. Therefore, relatively speaking, the cost of establishing an elite German weapon division was really huge.
This is also the reason why until the Anti-Japanese War broke out in full force, the national army had the most complete equipment and only a few of the most elite German weapon divisions.
