(The first update, the caliber of the Maxim machine gun is 7.92mm, there was a mistake in the previous chapter, and it has been changed.) 600 rounds per second is the ultimate rate of fire, most of the wartime uses the economic rate of fire, and the coolest is the dense array, which looks energetic. ）

In the conference hall, Ye Kai sat in his seat alone, still thinking about the question just now, and casually flipped through the account books of the Praetorian Guard, his brows wrinkled.

The shrinking balance on the account books has to attract Ye Kai's attention, and in the past few months of high-intensity live-fire training, military spending has skyrocketed, and every shell fired out is a waste of silver.

That's not all, considering the subsequent problems of wear and tear of firearms and replacement of parts, just maintenance is also a lot of money, besides, the guns and equipment of the Praetorian Guard are all imported from Germany, although the performance has reached the same position as the world's first-class army, but at the same time it means that these delicate weapons are one less broken.

In addition, there is a deeper problem that plagues Ye Kai, these batches of weapons seem to be endless, and the powers are also very willing to provide them on the surface, after all, who will refuse to make money, but if you take a long-term view, you will come to a conclusion that cannot be ignored, these high-performance weapons and ammunition, once it comes to wartime, must be controlled by others, since it is Germany with a relatively good relationship with the Qing court, there are also intricate entanglements of interests between each other.

In order to solve this problem, Ye Kai once thought of making his own firearms and establishing an arsenal to unify the chaotic gun caliber standards in the late Qing Dynasty, and at the same time appropriately reduce production costs, but this idea was quickly abandoned.

Not only is the technology not up to par, there is a big gap with the world's first-class rifles, and the most important thing is that Ye Kai has no extra funds in his hands at all, to carry out technical research or expand production, take the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau as an example, it has spent a lot of effort to imitate the initial version of the Makqin machine gun, but imitation to imitation, investing a huge amount of money to make water tickets, not to mention, in the end produced thirty waste slag.

In the era of more and more sophisticated weapons and equipment, steel, electricity, coal, as well as high-precision machining technology, ammunition chemical preparation technology, these things are indispensable, far from a few decades ago, the era of black powder to make a shotgun short gun as simple, supporting all this is a strong and complete industrial system.

For Ye Kai, he lacks both the time and money necessary to establish this complete system.

Ye Kai scratched his head a little dejectedly, in the face of practical problems, he used to be too careful and naïve, he blamed himself for reading too many YY novels back then, and took it for granted that he could change everything with the brains of later generations, and people who still had such thoughts should grind machine tools for a few hours, so that they would know that a complete industrial chain was consumed with time and blood blisters on their hands.

Of course, shortcuts are not without money! Smash it in with any cost, and another is to send a large number of spies to various countries to steal secrets, provided that they are not caught causing diplomatic disputes, and this bad idea is just talk.

Even so, Ye Kai is still reluctant to give up, he has always pursued pragmatism, something is better than nothing, it is better to do it than not to do it well, if you can't do it in one step, then do it little by little, and add up to a lot.

Finally, he set his sights on the 1904 Mauser rifle, which is now the standard equipment of the Praetorian Guard, and if it can be successfully copied, it will undoubtedly have more important practical significance.

This 6.8mm caliber Mauser rifle, the Qing court once partially introduced, and then was sent to the Ordnance Bureau for imitation, it is said that later it was a great success, this incident was once hyped in the newspapers, but with the urine of the military industrial system at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Ye Kai could only laugh.

The shape of the imitation is similar to the original, and at a cursory glance I thought it was genuine, but when it comes to reliability, there is a world of difference.

As a murderous weapon, reliability is the life of a rifle, if you are told that the shoulder is not a gun, but a cannon that will be dumb at any time, who will not die to become a soldier? The reason why the old AK has been selling well for decades is not that it shoots farther than 16 boys, and it hits accurately, the key is that the reliability is amazing, and it can be dug out of the sand pile, and it can be hit correctly, such a firearm is not called a pervert.

So from this point of view, Ye Kai must tear down and start over, squeeze out the silver from the shriveled military bill, and throw it into the bottomless pit of imitation guns.

"Tell me that the good system, the Kazakh General Staff, and the Jiang system has arrived."

A loud report interrupted Ye Kai's thoughts, raised his head, and saw Ha Hanzhang and Jiang Yanxing who came by appointment, and the troika of the forbidden army department finally gathered again.

"Liangbi, you're finally back."

After making a look and sending the people around him back, Ha Hanzhang smiled heartily and called him by his name.

"Good brother" Jiang Yanxing followed closely behind, with a smile on his face, and the two had not seen each other for more than ten days.

"Brother Yanxing, Han Zhang, you are in the barracks, if I don't come, I'm afraid there won't be any problems." Ye Kai stood up and laughed as well.

"How is it, are your younger siblings okay?" Compared with Ye Kai's family, which is so close and drags the family with them, the two of them are much easier.

"It's all good" nodded, Ye Kai responded, and then quickly pointed to the table in front of him, "Yan Xing, Han Zhang, you sit." ”

"I called you here today because I have important matters to discuss." Looking at Jiang and Ha after sitting down, Ye Kai directly explained his purpose.

Although the relationship between the three of them is that of classmates, and they are also called brothers and sisters in private, Ye Kai is the training minister of the Praetorian Guard after all, and the relationship with the regent cannot be ignored, so when they heard that Ye Kai had something to discuss with them, they immediately sat down and cheered up.

"What's the matter?"

"Let's take a look at the accounts first" Before getting into the main topic, Ye Kai threw the account book just now to them.

Jiang Yanxing and Ha Hanzhang took over the account book suspiciously, at first they were a little unclear, but when their eyes slowly touched the lines of numbers that kept drifting green, their faces couldn't help but become solemn.

The problem of military spending is mainly managed by the personnel of the Quartermaster Department, and the two of them are mainly engaged in training, and they pay little attention to this problem on weekdays, so when they see the shrinking total amount of funds, they fully realize the seriousness of the problem.

"How is this all there is left for military spending?" Ha Hanzhang is still the same rectum, and directly threw this question out.

Ye Kai didn't answer, he slowly turned his gaze to Jiang Yanxing, who also had some doubts in his eyes.

"Judging from military spending, we really can't be optimistic." Jiang Yanxing sighed.

"Well, that's true," seeing that the two of them finished speaking, it was Ye Kai's turn to speak, "There are still some days before the next batch of military spending is approved, and in order to make the training plan go according to plan, I am considering opening up sources and reducing expenditure." ”

"Open source and reduce expenditure? How to open up sources and reduce expenditures? Ha Hanzhang's doubts were written on his face.

"Don't worry Hanzhang, listen to me, most of our military expenses are used for training, and the daily ammunition consumption alone is nearly 10,000 taels, and in three months, there are 450,000 taels, which is a lot of expenses."

When they heard this number, Ha Hanzhang and Jiang Yanxing trembled unconsciously in their hearts, the latter was transferred from the New Army, and the entire Beiyang Army couldn't use it so much, and they said in their hearts that it was all your decision, if you save a little, the military budget will not be stretched out immediately.

Of course, Ye Kai didn't feel sorry for the money, as long as it was used in the right place, he never counted the blood cost.

Ye Kai explained the question just now: "The open-source measure is to build an arsenal next to the barracks, and the main task is to imitate bullets for the use of the Praetorian Guard, so that we don't have to spend a lot of money to buy them from foreigners, and in addition, if there is a surplus of funds, we can also imitate firearms by ourselves." ”

The introduction of ammunition production lines, both technically and costly, is much easier than the whole gun, excluding the addition of freight, the price should be much lower.

"Brother Liang, how much money does it cost to build an arsenal?" After listening to Ye Kai's words, Jiang Yanxing asked.

"The raw materials are ready-made, and the rest is mainly to purchase machinery and equipment, almost tens of thousands of taels." Ye Kai gave his answer.

If the implementation goes smoothly, Ye Kai's open-source plan is the most cost-effective, not only bringing a steady stream of ammunition, but also improving technical proficiency in the process, laying the necessary foundation for future imitation guns.

"That's a good idea." Jiang Yanxing and Hanzhang thought about it, and nodded one after another, the method is a good method, but it seems to be a bit of a problem when you think about it carefully, but before they can put it forward, Ye Kai continued.

"Of course, this open-source method is far water after all, and it can't quench the thirst of the Praetorian Guards at the moment, and when the arsenal is built, I'm afraid that the entire Praetorian Guard will be cut off for several months."

Raising his head, Ye Kai looked straight at the two of them, and said with a serious face: "So, the key is the word throttling." ”

Throttling? Hearing these two words, Jiang Yanxing and Ha Hanzhang couldn't help but shake their eyebrows, throttling is to cut expenses, according to this meaning, it is possible that the training intensity of the Praetorian Guard is going to be reduced, but with Ye Kai's character, I am afraid it is impossible

Looking at Ye Kai suspiciously, they no longer thought nonsense, and waited for his answer with peace of mind.