After Yuan Shikai left, the East China Government also ordered the Military Commission to immediately carry out a new establishment of the army and arrange the troops on the border as soon as possible.

At the beginning of this year, the Central Military Commission (CMC) decided to establish a division-level establishment with the approval of the Executive Yuan. However, it was only a simple attempt to merge the three regiments and add one or two auxiliary regiments and regimental battalions directly under the division to form a division.

However, battalion and regiment-level commanders at all levels reported to the War Department that the "division" is the basic independent combat unit of the modern army, and that it should basically be equipped with all branches of the army, and that it should be used as all kinds of auxiliary support firepower. At present, however, there are great deficiencies or irrationalities in the establishment of the KPA Army in terms of the supporting firepower of units at all levels, and this is mainly due to the fact that in the early days of its establishment, the KPA basically relied on the capture of weapons; after occupying Qingdao, it confiscated the Qingdao Arsenal of Germany, and only then did it have the ability to produce its own weapons, but the Qingdao Arsenal itself had not yet been built, and it could only do so. and small and medium-caliber artillery shells, the output is also very limited, and it cannot be supplied to the combat needs of the People's Army at all, so in the later stage, the traverser purchased a batch of weapons and ammunition from Zhang Zhidong, which can be regarded as enough to avoid strength. Under such circumstances, the People's Army can only be equipped with whatever weapons it has at hand, and it is not in a position to pick and choose at all.

Now the conditions are different, the equipment purchased from Germany is in place, the expansion project of the Qingdao Arsenal has been completed, there is enough capacity to produce most of the weapons, and some new weapons have also been developed, and the production capacity has also been greatly increased, and the People's Army is fully qualified to choose weapons according to its own needs.

Since the navy has already completed the establishment of fleets at all levels in accordance with the existing conditions of warships, and has basically reached the level of the establishment of a modern navy, the army cannot afford to lag behind, and many commanders at the battalion and regiment level have suggested to the War Department that it is better to take this opportunity to carry out a reorganization of the army so that the supporting firepower and weapons of the units at all levels can be fully equipped, and this will also be able to further enhance the combat effectiveness of the people's army.

The Central Military Commission reflected the views of the War Department to the Executive Yuan, and Xia Bohai also formally issued a presidential decree approving the order for the reorganization of the Army. However, as a result, the workload of the army has also increased dramatically, because the comprehensive reorganization of the army cannot be done well by a few people sitting in the office and dreaming, and it is necessary to extensively solicit the opinions of operational commanders at all levels, and the opinions of commanders who have actual combat experience should be obtained, and only they know what weapons the combat units need.

Luo Yue originally returned to Qingdao with his troops to prepare for the formation of division-level combat units, and then promoted to regiment commander, but this reorganization plan was delayed, and Luo Yue stayed in Qingdao. However, his unit was the ace unit of the People's Army and had rich combat experience, so he was temporarily recruited by the War Department to serve as a consultant on the reorganization of the army.

Of course, the War Department would not only solicit Luo Yue's opinion, so the War Department recruited several officers at all levels to return to Jingdao to participate in the discussion. A total of 12 officers were recruited, including 4 regiment commanders, 6 battalion commanders and 2 company commanders, all of whom were of course crossing soldiers, and all of them were middle- and low-level officers with considerable combat experience.

Although most of the company-level officers of the People's Army are now appointed by local soldiers, and the lack of crossing soldiers serving as company commanders is only because there is no one for the time being, or the deputy company commander still needs to take a period of time, so he will temporarily stay in office, but in terms of military quality, actual combat experience, and understanding of modern warfare, local soldiers are far from being able to compare with crossing soldiers, and the crossing soldiers are all fighting step by step from the grassroots level, knowing the needs of grassroots soldiers, so this time there was no requisition of local officers.

In order to discuss the establishment of the army, we must first understand what weapons the Qingdao Arsenal can produce and what their performance is, and the officers who have just been requisitioned back to Qingdao need a comprehensive understanding.

Now the scale of Qingdao Arsenal is huge, a total of two factories, a production base, a total of 385 sets of various machinery and equipment, the main factory in Qingdao is located in the suburbs of the city, covering an area of 45 acres, divided into firearms, artillery, auxiliary, accessories 4 large sections, 14 production workshops, 8 warehouses, 12 buildings, 18 traversers, 427 workers, but also equipped with 5 trucks, 3 light trucks, mainly responsible for the production of various firearms, artillery spare parts, In addition, there is a branch factory in the military port, which is much smaller, with an area of only 6 acres, with 6 traversers and 82 workers, mainly responsible for the maintenance, repair, and replacement of shipboard weapons.

There is a large production base on the outskirts of Qingdao Arsenal, covering an area of more than 6,000 acres, of which the production area is 40 acres, with a total of 20 traversers and 514 workers.

At present, Qingdao Arsenal is the largest enterprise in East China, with the largest number of personnel and the largest number of traversers. Although the Changbaishan ship is not a surface combat ship, it is also equipped with a PJ26 single-barreled 76MM naval gun, which is the same as the naval guns of the Yueyang ship and the Sanya ship, as well as four AK-630 30mm rapid-fire guns, which are mainly used for close air defense and self-defense, so the gun crew is also a relatively important department on the Changbai ship. The gun crew must have a deep understanding of the structural principle of naval guns, which is also an important factor for Tang Nengzhi to become the director of the Qingdao Arsenal.

The visit was of course in the main factory area in the suburbs of Qingdao, and when the inspection team came to the arsenal, they were also warmly welcomed, and the factory director Tang Nengzhi was personally responsible for receiving them.

Since Tang Nengzhi had received a notice from the War Department in advance and had already made preparations, he took the investigation team to the shooting range after being polite. Not only is the location spacious enough for the team to see samples of various weapons, but they can also try it out with their own hands, of course, only the weapons in the guns, and the cannons can't be test-fired.

Tang Nengzhi first introduced to the investigation team the weapons in the firearms, and the first weapon was a standard rifle that had been modeled, officially named the Type 01 rifle, which was actually an imitation of the Type * rifle.

At present, there are three main types of rifles used by the People's Army: one is the Russian-made Mosin Nagant M1891 rifle, which currently has about 20,000 rifles; the second is the Hanyang-made Type 88 rifle, which has about 16,000 rifles; and the third is the * type rifle, which currently has about 23,000 rifles, of which about 12,000 are produced in the Qingdao Arsenal.

However, the Type 01 rifle has made some improvements to the original Type * rifle, and the main improvements are in three aspects:

The first is to change the caliber from 7.92 mm to 7.62 mm, which is mainly in line with the habits of the traverser, because in the old time and space, the 7.62 mm caliber rifle is an international standard, the famous sharpshooter AK-47, is the use of this mouth, and China was equipped with a large number of 56 type *, Before the crossing, the 7.62 mm caliber and the 5.8 mm caliber of the Type 95 automatic rifle were the standard caliber of Chinese firearms, and the latter was mainly used in automatic rifles, squad machine guns, and squad sniper rifles;

At present, all of the Traveler's two-shelf chariots, warrior vehicles, and military speedboats are equipped with machine guns, as well as a small number of light machine general-purpose machine guns that have crossed over, all of which are 7.62 mm caliber. Moreover, the Russian-made Mosin Nagant M1891 rifle is also 7.62 mm caliber, so the caliber of the Type 01 rifle is 7.62 mm, which is of great significance in terms of reducing costs and unifying standards. In extreme conditions, the original Type * rifle could use 7.62mm rounds, but the Mosin Nagant M1891 rifle could not use 7.92mm rounds.

The second is to reduce the length of the whole gun from 1250 mm to 1150 mm, which is 100 mm shorter. The main thing is to shorten the original barrel 740 mm by 640 mm, and change the strap loop to the side of the gun body for easy carrying.

Such an improvement is due to the fact that the length of the original *-type rifle is designed according to the body of Europeans, mainly Germans, while the Chinese soldiers are obviously shorter than the German soldiers, so the size is shortened, which is more in line with the usage habits of Chinese soldiers; For the G rifle, the overall length is shortened to 1100 mm, and the barrel is shortened, which also helps to reduce costs.

Of course, after the length of the rifle is shortened, the soldiers will obviously suffer when fighting bayonets, and the Type 30 rifle equipped by the Japanese Army, the main opponent of the East China Government in the future, has a total length of 1,280 mm, which is 30 mm longer than the original Type * rifle, so that when the two sides meet on the battlefield in the future and engage in white-knuckle combat, it will definitely be unfavorable to the People's Army. The solution is to lengthen the size of the bayonet, the length of the bayonet blade of the Type 01 rifle reaches 455 mm, while the bayonet of the Japanese Type 30 rifle is 400 mm, which can also make up for the weakness of the Type 01 rifle to a certain extent, and such a bayonet, under necessary conditions, can also be used as a sword.

The third is to change the bolt handle from a straight type to a downward curved type, which can make the action of the bolt more comfortable and convenient. For example, on a rifle with a gun scope* attached, a straight handle will touch the scope holder, but a curved handle will not.

Of course, from the overall point of view, there are not many improvements, the most important bullet supply system and bolt of the bolt rifle still follow the original design, on the one hand, because the arsenal is now using the German machine, not suitable for major changes, on the other hand, the design of the * rifle is almost perfect, almost become the next few decades, the world's standard bolt rifle, there is not much room for improvement.