Guan Xuqing walked to a soldier standing guard next to him, and picked up his rifle with great interest, although the industrial strength of the Qing Dynasty in recent years has developed considerably compared with history, but the domestic arms production capacity is still very limited, especially the restrictions caused by steel production, because of the explosive development of the industrial revolution, there are too many places that need steel, resulting in the steel required for the military industry has been very tight, so in terms of firearms, the main priority is the army to change equipment, but "Zhenyuan" as the flagship of the Beiyang Fleet, In order to fill up the façade of Guan Xuqing's visit to Germany, the Ministry of War still allocated a batch of the most popular Hanyang No. 1 rifles to Zhenyuan at the strong request of the Yamen of the Beiyang Fleet, and this rifle developed by the Hubei Gun Factory is the most famous rifle in the modern history of China

This type of rifle is the first breech-loading smokeless powder repeating rifle designed and manufactured by China itself, and the main manufacturer is the Hanyang Arsenal located in Hanyang, Wuhan, so it is generally called Hanyang-made, and its rifle factory was handed over to the 21st factory in 1938 during the Anti-Japanese War, so from 1939 to 1944, the Hanyang-made production was printed with the Chinese logo and Chinese-style words on the gun magazine, until the official rifle in the transformation of the 21st factory in 1944, this rifle was produced in China for nearly 50 years

In this time and space, due to the butterfly effect set off by Guan Xuqing, Zhang Zhidong became the governor of Huguang a few years earlier, and with the development of domestic industry and commerce and the vigorous support of the imperial court for various arsenals in modern times, the original Hubei Gun Factory developed extremely fast, and developed the Hanyang type 1 rifle a few years earlier than in history

In 1886, the twelfth year of Guangxu, when the Sino-British Burma war was in full swing, Zhang Zhidong saw that the guns made by the domestic manufacturing bureaus were all old-style, and the imitation of British Nanxia guns was not applicable, and at that time, the great powers were afraid of offending Britain in the export of weapons to China, there were great restrictions, Zhang Zhidong after careful research and inquiry of Chinese and foreign craftsmen was "ordered to focus on Manlisha and Mauser two styles of imitation", Manlixia pointed to the Austro-Hungarian M1888 Steyr Manlicia rifle, This type of gun is an important rifle in the history of Austrian light weapons, its main advantages are the overall structure is simple, light weight, reliable function, easy to use, can fire a variety of bullets, of course, in the use of many problems have also been found in the use of many problems, of which there are two main problems: one is the difficulty of shelling; The second is that the bolt is easy to move on its own, this is because the "wedge latch body" locking mechanism is a point locking mechanism, when the chamber pressure is high, it is easy to appear that the locking is not tight, however, at that time, the overall performance of this rifle is first-class

And Mauser Zhang Zhidong at that time referred to the Mauser 1884 rifle, but in the development process later changed to the Mauser 1888 rifle, this rifle and Mauser 1884 rifle are also based on the Mauser 1871 rifle to improve the development, but not by the Mauser company, but by the German Military Affairs Committee developed, so it is also called the "committee rifle", this caliber of 7.92 mm to fire smokeless fire and medicine gun bullets, with a single row of vertical box magazines, 5 rounds of ammunition, It is the first modern rifle in the real sense, because there is a set of barrels outside the barrel, commonly known as the "old sleeve", China has copied a large number of guns in history, and it is known as the three famous guns in modern China together with the Hanyang-made and Zhongzheng rifles

The above two kinds of guns have been produced in large quantities and have been equipped with a variety of rifles such as Mauser, Liyi, Manlisha, Charp, Martini, and Three-Year Rifles equipped by various armies in the Qing Dynasty

At this time, the fog on the sea is gradually dissipating with the rising sun in the east, and the seabirds flapping their wings can be seen everywhere on the calm sea surface flying lightly, but most of them are fishing boats that go out to sea in the early morning, because there are only a few rivers such as the Nanliu River and the Red River injected, there are not many rivers along the coast, and there is less sediment in the middle of the bay, and the difference between the surface water temperature in winter and summer is less than 10, so the Beibu Gulf is a large number of warm-water species, and it is an excellent fishing ground for catching crimson carp, red snapper, golden threadfish, blue round and other fish

After the warship sailed through the Gulf of Tonkin and arrived in Siam, Thailand, which was occupied by Germany, because during the Sino-French War, in exchange for Germany's support, China unilaterally betrayed its suzerainty to Germany, which made Germany invade Thailand, so the relationship between Thailand and the Qing Dynasty government was very sinister

In fact, at that time, Thailand and China were not the kind of suzerain-vassal relationship that Europeans understood, but belonged to the loose tributary relationship of ancient China, but because each time they paid tribute, China often gave back a lot of money, so the surrounding small countries were happy to maintain this relationship, but is all this important? The Germans just needed an excuse to intervene in Indochina without offending the British, and as for what the relationship between China and Thailand was, would anyone really look into it? Perhaps only angry Thais would have tried to justify this

In short, Thailand's hostility to the Qing Dynasty is undoubted, but now Guan Xuqing is unable to deal with Thailand, first, various domestic reforms are in the ascendant, and a peaceful and stable development environment is needed; Second, the evil wolf of Japan, fed by Britain and France, was growing stronger with great speed, and the two sides were about to fight another battle of national fortunes according to the historical trajectory, and then solve the enemy that it was not suitable to set up in the south before; Third, Germany is deep in the tropical rainforest of the Indochina Peninsula, which is beneficial and harmless to China, in the Far East, Germany can only rely on China, in order to win the war, he will increase his assistance to China, and India and Malaysia have always been regarded as key points by the British, and Germany is fighting vigorously under their noses, which will inevitably distract the eyes of the British in China, so Guan Xuqing not only can not take advantage of the fire to rob, but must help Thailand in secret, the reason why Thailand can continue to obtain arms under the strict blockade of the Germans, Guan Xuqing made a lot of contributions to the secret arrangement, and those old foreign guns that were eliminated by the army were put to good use at this time, although the money they got was not very much, but it was better than throwing them in the warehouse and rusting off

Politics is like this, sometimes you have to help your enemies, so in the short term, you can only let your ally Germany suffer again in Thailand, wait for Guan Xuqing to solve Little Japan, and then go back and teach Thailand a good lesson, the mad dog of Thailand, Malaysia and Gapo, these British minions are also pulled out together, and if Britain dares to go out of the Far East, the whole of Southeast Asia will be in the hands of the Qing Dynasty

And now the biggest obstacle is still Japan, in terms of the navy, not only "Yamato", "Musashi", "Katsuragi", "Kyushu" four large battleships of more than 10,000 tons are about to be incorporated into the sequence, Japan also purchased the "Yoshino" fast armored cruiser from the United Kingdom, this armor thickness of 113mm, can easily run out of 23 knots of all-steel fast armored cruiser, combined with the strengths of the dome cruiser and the ironclad cruiser, is the world's first fast ship at this time, in history it was once the nightmare of the Beiyang naval division In addition, There are also three protective dome cruisers, Matsushima, Itsukushima, and Hashidate, which were built with the help of France, as well as the Akitsuzu, Yaeyama, and Takao, which were built by Japan itself

Each of the "Sanjing Ships" is equipped with a 320mm caliber cannon, which can theoretically easily penetrate the impregnable ironclad fort of the "Dingyuan" class ironclad ship, although in history, the "Sanjing Ship" was equipped with these huge cannons because the firing range was too small and mechanical failures, and only a few shots were fired before they died down, and they could not come in handy at all, but they still theoretically have the possibility of sinking "Dingyuan", history has changed, and when the Sino-Japanese war comes, only God knows what will happen

The total tonnage of the Japanese Navy in recent years has been straight * China due to the butterfly effect brought by Guan Xuqing, so that Britain and France, which had been neutral before the First Sino-Japanese War, fell to Japan in advance, which also made Japan's strength much stronger than in history, the British have never been accustomed to fighting the enemy in person, but buying lackeys and killing people with knives is definitely his strong point, and Japan in this era, their population is the sum of Germany and France, and they have the spirit of bushido to train the most stoic and excellent soldiers, they lack money, It was the Japanese government that had almost stripped out the last remaining copper plate in the pockets of their nationals in order to frantically develop their military power

But now that these are settled, Britain and Japan have contributed money and guns, and the other has contributed people, in order to deal with China in East Asia, the two hit it off

For nearly two thousand years, Japan has been struggling to breathe under the heavy pressure of the old empire, and finally, Meijiwei, Japan awakened one step first, domestic talents gathered, tens of millions of people worked together, vowing to create the great cause of the empire for all generations At this time, the old empire seemed to have begun to awaken this ancient and huge giant, and after opening its eyes, it seemed that it just shook its body, and the top three powers in the world were disgraced, How can this prevent many Japanese people who have been staring at this ancient country from trembling and frustrated, and even the headquarters of the Japanese army, which has always been aggressively carrying out the great cause of "conquering Korea," has lost its voice for a while

In this regard, the Qing Dynasty is obviously lagging behind Japan, but fortunately, the originator of the spy in the Qing Dynasty, Guan Xuqing's pro-Qing family, and the originator of the spy will soon return to China, and there will inevitably be an intelligence war between the two countries, and the war between the spies will certainly not be able to cover all the territory of the Qing Dynasty. And Japan's small island country, China, the elite of the Qing Dynasty, will definitely be able to control Japan's every move more clearly than the spy satellites of later generations