There was a hydrogen balloon suspended in the clear blue sky, and a basket was hanging from the balloon, and in the basket stood two soldiers, holding binoculars, vigilantly watching the ground in the distance, and hundreds of meters behind them, under the side, stood several tall chimneys, clustered around the roots of the chimneys were neat rows of bungalows.

This is the northern factory area of the Hanyang Arsenal, close to the Han River, and the Hankou on the opposite bank is only separated by a river, in order to prevent the bombardment of the Qing army on the opposite bank, the balloon is suspended above the factory area, connected to the ground by two ropes, and through a field telephone to get in touch with the artillery units on the ground, once the Qing army on the other side of the river has a change, it can immediately adjust the artillery bombardment, preemptively, defend the arsenal.

Hanyang Arsenal is developed from Hubei Gun Factory, this factory was built in 1892, is also one of the achievements of Zhang Zhidong Governor Hu Guangshi, complete equipment, advanced technology, huge scale, can be called the leader of the industry, the development to today, has formed a complete military industry chain, with more than 4,000 workers, the guns are sold all over the country, especially the "Hanyang made" rifle, is more famous, the annual output of up to 15,000 rods.

However, the source of funds for the factory depends entirely on the financial situation of the Qing court, since Gengzi, the Qing court's finances have become increasingly tight, and the rise of the New Deal has become more and more overstretched, so the source of funds for the factory is also becoming more and more short, and now, the annual output of rifles in the factory has dropped to less than 10,000 rods, and the steel medicine factory attached to it has long ceased steelmaking, and can only maintain a small amount of production of fire, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and ethanol.

Although the current condition of the arsenal is not good, it is the only reliable source of weapons and ammunition for the Republican Army, so after purging the enemies around Hanyang, Zhao Bei set up the headquarters in the arsenal, vowing to live and die with the arsenal, and would rather lose Wuchang than give up Hanyang.

As the powerful arm of the commander-in-chief, the general staff of the Republican Army is also located in the arsenal, and now that Hanyang has just been recovered, many affairs have not been completely straightened out, the commander-in-chief is busy, and the staff officers are not idle for a moment.

Lan Tianwei personally sat in the staff headquarters and led a group of young staff officers to plan the advance of the Revolutionary Guards.

After the battle ended last night, the interrogation of Qing prisoners of war began, and with little effort, many Qing generals were opened and more information was obtained.

Since the republican army marched into Wuhan, Chen Kuilong, the governor of Huguang, in order to hold the provincial wall, not only transferred a large number of patrol battalions from the nearby Wuchang Mansion, Hanyang Mansion, and Huangzhou Mansion, but also even the farther De'an Mansion, Anlu Mansion, Jingzhou Prefecture, and Yichang Prefecture also received a constitutional order to reinforce Wuhan.

Now the General Staff is busy with the march into Wuhan and Zhouquan Prefecture, and in any case, it is necessary to extend the influence of the revolution to the widest possible area and let the flames of the revolution burn.

After a busy morning, the sequence of the troops to march has been determined, and in view of the importance of the Wuhan area, the troops marching are all revolutionary guards, and in order to strengthen the combat effectiveness, each brigade is organized into a small squad of new army units, equipped with new rifles and old artillery.

After the restoration of Wuchang and Han Dynasty, the Revolutionary Guards expanded by a large number of people, so that too many troops gathered in this small area of Wuhan to do nothing, and people ate and chewed, and consumed a lot of grain and grass every day.

Lan Tianwei sorted out the marching plan, put it in a purse, and after a few words, she walked out of the staff headquarters with her purse and walked towards the general headquarters not far away.

When I arrived at the headquarters and asked the guards, I learned that the commander-in-chief had just left and went to inspect the factory with the arsenal technicians.

While Chief of Staff Lan was sipping tea in the headquarters, Zhao Bei, commander-in-chief of the Republican Army, had already finished his inspection of the Hanyang Arsenal and was talking cordially with the two persons in charge of the arsenal in a signing room.

Cai Qi, the general office of the arsenal, did not know where to go during the battle, and the current arsenal was basically in a leaderless situation, Zhao Bei could only let the arsenal promote Liu Qingen and Shen Fengming, a member of the translation committee, to be jointly responsible for the affairs of the factory, these two people were also different from other former Qing court officials, they were very enthusiastic about the revolutionary cause, and Zhao Bei was also relieved to let them do it.

Since some of the factories were destroyed by artillery fire during yesterday's fighting, and the machines were damaged to varying degrees, the first task now is to rebuild the factories and repair the machines, as well as to gather the workers who have escaped the fighting to resume the production of guns and ammunition in the shortest possible time.

"The wood sample factory suffered two shells, the stored wood was burned, the plant completely collapsed, and the plant could not be repaired in a short time, but the wood could be used in the Parrot Island Bamboo and Wood Market; The blackworks also suffered two shells, but fortunately they were all stink bombs, which did not explode and could resume production immediately; Although the sand turning plant was not shelled, the workers escaped, and some of them fled to the countryside, and it was difficult to resume production immediately for a while. The copper shell factory and the copper melting plant have been opened and fired, but the raw materials are insufficient, and I am afraid that it will not last long before the production will be stopped; The artillery factory and the artillery factory were shut down two years ago, and the machines are rusty, and they can't make any ......shells at present," Liu Qingen reported to Zhao Bei on an expressionless face The current situation of the arsenal, as a person who dreams of saving the country through industry, he is also very sad about this situation.

Zhao Bei sat on a Taishi chair, quietly listening to Liu Qingen's narration, he really didn't expect that the current arsenal would fall to this step, it turned out that he planned to rely on this factory to quickly expand his descendants, but now it seems that this wish cannot be realized in the short term, relying on those captured arms, it is indeed impossible to guarantee a gun per person.

"According to the calculation of the highest annual output of the factory, if you want to restore that output, you need to allocate 600,000 taels of silver to the factory every year, and if you want to resume the manufacture of cannons and shells, you need to add another 200,000 taels of silver. If the commander-in-chief wants to make a northern expedition to the Central Plains and recover the Han dynasty, he cannot do without the army, and the army cannot do without guns. After Liu Qingen finished speaking, he glanced at Zhao Bei, he did not have any contempt for the young commander-in-chief of the revolutionary army, and he was able to lead an army equipped with a large number of cold weapons to kill all the way here, which in itself was an affirmation of the commander-in-chief's ability.

"How's the steel pharmaceutical factory? Can steel still be made now? Zhao Bei raised his head and asked.

Liu Qingen glanced at Shen Fengming beside him and said, "Yiting knows the matter of the Steel Pharmaceutical Factory best, he has worked there, it is better for him to talk about it." ”

Shen Fengming said: "The steel medicine factory originally had a tank steel furnace, which could make two tons of crude steel per day, but the quality was low, and there was a lack of steel drawing machines, so it could not draw barrels and barrels. In the first two years, there was no funding, and the billet was not suitable, the steelmaking furnace had been stopped, and the steel medicine factory could only actually make fire yao and zha medicine, and it was inseparable from the guidance of foreign craftsmen. ”

This is the so-called "Westernization Movement"? Zhao Bei couldn't help but smile bitterly, feeling quite helpless in his heart, China in this era is really too backward, and the little money that the Westernists have accumulated with great difficulty has basically been almost defeated by those banner people.

It's hard to start a business, and it's even harder to keep a business.