The three types of lightning guns were finally shaped as the Guangxu 23-year type lightning cannon, or the M97 type lightning cannon, the light 51 mm lightning gun and the medium 82 mm lightning gun, both of which can be carried by individual soldiers, and the heavy 107 mm lightning gun is first carried by a horse-drawn camel.

According to Wang Chenhao's request, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry plans to complete 1,400 51-mm light mortars, 1,400 82-mm medium mortars, and 400 107-mm heavy mortars within three years, and plans to assemble them with 20 integrated divisions.

Wang Chenhao had already made up his mind in his heart that he would have to expand his forces in the future to fight Russia. Although Wang Chenhao has no excuse to expand the army now, it is necessary to hoard equipment first.

As the infantry's own artillery, the lightning artillery will play an irreplaceable role in the battle at the battalion and company level, which is of great significance to the future operations of the Beiyang Army.

In addition to the development of lightning artillery, the weapons and equipment designed by Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry for the individual combat of the Beiyang Army also include grenade weapons.

The grenade has a long history, first invented by the Chinese. Grenades filled with black powder appeared in Europe in the 15th century, when they were mainly used for fortress defense and prisons. In the mid-17th century, some European countries equipped their elite units with field grenades, and called soldiers who were specially trained to use such ammunition grenadiers. By the 19th century, with the development of guns and the reduction of castle offensive and defensive battles, grenades were once given a cold reception. It was not until the Russo-Russian War in 1904 that grenades played a role on the battlefield again. It was only during the First World War that grenades became widely available due to the rise of trench trenches.

Wang Chenhao knew that when the two armies were fighting, there was a tactic called local firepower superiority, that is, when the two warring sides invested equal forces, which side had the strongest local firepower and which side would have a greater chance of winning.

After Wang Chenhao equipped the Beiyang Army with artillery at and above the regimental level and lightning artillery at the battalion and company level, he again equipped it with grenade weapons at the squad and platoon level, so that any infantry can truly have large-area lethal weapons without relying on artillery.

The artillery of the Beiyang Army can attack the enemy at a long distance, and the thunder artillery as a supplement to the cannon makes up for the need for fire at short and medium distances, but the shortest strike distance of several lightning guns designed by Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry is fifty meters, what to do with the enemy within fifty meters, in addition to attacking with machine guns and rifles, this is where grenades can come in handy.

The grenade can only be thrown by the soldier's arm strength, generally at 30 meters ~ 70 meters, and ordinary soldiers are required to throw 40 ~ to 50 meters, because the explosion range of the grenade is about 25 meters, and if you throw it close, you may injure yourself.

Before the 20th century, the world's mainstream grenades were the German potato Masha wooden handle grenade and the British pineapple Mills grenade.

Both types of grenades have their own advantages, the wooden-handled grenade has a stronger centrifugal force and is thrown farther; In addition, when fighting on slopes, it is not easy to roll down; Its production process is simple and low-cost, but the combination of man and machine is poor, it is not easy to throw accurately, and there are blind spots in explosion. The pineapple-type grenade is thrown accurately, the rebound is extremely lethal during street fighting, it is easy to carry, the explosion has no blind spots, and the lethality is strong, but the process is more complex and requires advanced production equipment.

Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. introduced both production lines, and after comparison, finally expanded the production line of British pineapple-type Mills grenades and improved them. This is thanks to the advanced machine tools and equipment of Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry, which has a more complex production process of grenades.

The grenade produced by Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry Co., Ltd. after improvement is shaped as the Guangxu 23-year grenade, because the grenade's body has been changed to a goose egg type, and the unevenness on the shell of the bullet body has been increased in order to be easy to hold, and the black paint looks like a hornet's nest, and the steel ball is added to the bomb body, and the steel ball attacks the enemy in all directions when it explodes, like a hornet sting, so it is also called a honeycomb or hornet's nest.

The honeycomb grenade is made of steel shell, with a total length of 9.5 cm, a width of 5 cm, a weight of 445 grams, a charge of 50~60 grams t-n-t, a detonation time of about: 5~7 seconds, a radius of 27 meters, and an effective killing radius of 7~10 meters.

Because Wang Chenhao has ordered Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry to start the large-scale industrial production of black sokin explosives, only the initial filling of honeycomb grenades is TNT explosives, and then all of them are changed to black sorkin charges, so that its effective killing radius reaches 10~15 meters.

There are many types of grenades and they are very versatile. Each grenade has a different surname and can be used by the Soldier to complete the assigned task in a variety of ways. Generally speaking, grenades are broadly divided into 4 categories: anti-personnel grenades, lighting grenades, chemical grenades (including incendiary, smoking, anti-riot, stun, etc.) and trainer grenades.

According to different operational requirements, the honeycomb grenades produced by Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry are also divided into many kinds. But mainly anti-personnel grenades. Anti-personnel grenades mainly rely on the high-velocity scattering of shells and fragments of the fuse assembly to kill people, and can also be used to destroy or disable equipment.

However, the honeycomb grenade is extremely powerful, scattering a large number of fragments, and the steel balls can still be lethal at a considerable distance from the point of explosion, making it an ideal melee weapon to inflict casualties on groups of advancing enemy troops. However, this mechanism of lethality requires the soldier who drops the bomb not only to take cover himself, but also to pay special attention to the position of his own personnel. If you are not careful, it will affect you.

It is worth mentioning that there is another way for honeycomb grenades to adjust the explosion power for different combat purposes, that is, Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry has prepared various vests for honeycomb grenades under the prompting of Wang Chenhao.

The so-called vest is to put a metal jacket on the shell of the honeycomb grenade according to different killing requirements, and the metal sleeve can be "broken wire" steel, so that the explosion power is increased and the lethality to the enemy is increased.

In addition to the main production of anti-personnel grenades, there are several production lines for honeycomb grenades that produce illuminated grenades, chemical grenades and incendiary grenades.

Wang Chenhao has watched a lot of American blockbusters, and knows that all kinds of tactics in his era are inseparable from grenades for various charges.

Among them, the illumination grenade is used to display the terrain during night operations, and can emit a strong light with an average of 50,000~60,000 standard candles in a few seconds. They can also be used as incendiary grenades, which are used to set fire to hay, leaves, or shrubs. In today's absence of night vision equipment, the illumination grenade is very useful as a night combat weapon, because it can suddenly blind the enemy, or expose the enemy's position to facilitate our army's attack.

Chemical grenades are honeycomb grenades filled with various charges, which can be used for incendiary, masking, signaling, anti-riot and other purposes. Anti-riot grenades are usually filled with tear gas (chloroacetylbenzene), a type of tear gas that can irritate the eyes and cause temporary partial or complete blinding. When used in non-military (e.g. police) operations.

Incendiary grenades, on the other hand, are simple and have the purpose of setting fires, and can also be used to sabotage, disable, or destroy vehicles, weapon systems, bunkers, or ammunition. The incendiary grenade uses a mixed charge that can be burned at high temperatures for 40~60 seconds (usually with magnesium thermite or its derivatives as the main component). A portion of the charge turns into molten iron, which flows out of the grenade, igniting or melting anything it touches. This charge burns through steel plates about 50 mm thick and can fuse steel or iron parts together. Among them are also smoke grenades, which come in 2 different types. Grenades that emit colored smoke screens, mainly for identifying or marking locations, and can also be used to mark areas for ground-to-ground or ground-to-air combat operations; Grenades emitting white smoke screens are mainly used for covert offensive or retreat operations, or to create smoke screens for these operations.

Of course, except for the first grenade, which can be mass-equipped for army soldiers, the latter grenades are not suitable for mass production because of their high cost. But Wang Chenhao still opened the relevant production line, and his real purpose was to equip his escort team. Wang Chenhao's escort team is an elite carefully selected from various combat units of the Beiyang Army, and their combat quality is excellent, and Wang Chenhao usually trains them strictly, and from time to time instills in them the knowledge of modern special operations. Wang Chenhao's escort team is actually developing in the direction of special forces, but because the cultural knowledge of the guards is not very high, they are actively working hard to learn relevant knowledge at this time, and it will not take long to have the knowledge level that special forces soldiers should have, and at that time Wang Chenhao will select the elite of the elite from among them to form special forces. And the weapons of the special forces naturally have to be developed and produced in advance, and once the time is ripe, they can be armed at any time.

Wang Chenhao inspected the Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry for two days, and on the third day, Wang Shizhen reported to him, saying that the first and second towns of the Beiyang Army had finished resting and had returned to the Tianjin Military Horse Farm.

That night, Wang Chenhao held a banquet in the mansion to entertain the main officers and generals of the first and second towns, and after a farewell of more than a year, Duan Qirui, Feng Guozhang, Jiang Guidi, Liang Huadian, Wu Changchun, Xu Bangjie, Yang Rongtai and other generals naturally had to celebrate with joy when they saw their marshal Wang Chenhao.

That night, Wang Chenhao drank happily with the generals, and everyone did not return home if they were not drunk.

The next day, Wang Chenhao and his generals made new arrangements for their own strengths and weaknesses in the Qing-Russian War. Since the strength of a reorganized division in Russia has reached more than 16,000 people, and the strength of the Beiyang Army in a town is only 12,500 people, although this does not affect the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army, but as the Russian Army has grown wise, it will not be so lucky next time.

Considering that the Russian Army will certainly strengthen its firepower, and Wang Chenhao intends to use the new weapons and equipment produced and developed by the Beiyang Ordnance Heavy Industry to the Beiyang Army, among these new weapons, such as the addition of heavy machine guns and lightning guns, the infantry will be bicycled, and the logistics support personnel will also be increased, all of which have forced Wang Chenhao to reform the existing establishment of the Beiyang Army.

The first town of the Beiyang Army bore the brunt and was the first to accept the reorganization.

The basic structure is as follows:

Divisional units: 1 artillery regiment including 6 light artillery companies (36 80 mm Krupp infantry guns), 3 heavy howitzer batteries (18 150 mm Krupp heavy howitzers), 3 heavy mine artillery batteries (18 107 mm mine guns), 1 engineer battalion, 1 communications battalion including (2 wired communication companies, 1 wireless communication platoon (under construction...... ), 1 baggage battalion, 1 special service battalion (formerly the police adjustment reconnaissance battalion), 1 teaching team (responsible for comprehensively teaching the officers and soldiers of the army to obey Wang Chenhao's personal will and strengthening Wang Chenhao's control over the army), 1 health team (a division hospital in peacetime and a field hospital in wartime).

The division has 2 infantry brigades and 2 infantry regiments, and the units directly under the regiment include 1 medium mine artillery company (12 82 mm mine guns), 1 light mine artillery company (12 51 mm mine guns), 1 communications company, and 1 special service company.

The regiment has 3 infantry battalions, and the direct unit of the infantry battalion includes 1 machine gun company (3 Maxim heavy machine guns, 4 82 mm mine guns, 4 51 mm mine guns).

The battalion has 3 infantry companies, 3 infantry platoons, and 3 squads (3 Browning heavy machine guns and 30 rifles per platoon).

The division has 2 supplementary regiments: the old equipment that was eliminated during the equipment change is used for regular training, and it is used as a reserve in peacetime to supplement the consumption of the main regiment in wartime.

The total strength of the division has been expanded from the original 12,500 to 15,000, which is actually Wang Chenhao's performance in expanding his strength in disguise.

Wang Chenhao handed over the reorganization of the eight towns of the Beiyang Army to Wang Shizhen and Ruan Zhongshu, and instructed Duan Qirui, Liang Huadian, and other generals of the Beiyang Army to actively cooperate with the reform. For the generals, Wang Chenhao is equivalent to giving them more troops and weapons and equipment, and they are naturally willing, so they actively cooperate with the reform.

The first and second towns of the Beiyang Army were reformed successively, followed by the other six towns of the Beiyang Army. After the expansion, the eight towns of Beiyang increased from the original 100,000 troops to 120,000 people, and although Wang Chenhao did not get the approval of the imperial court to expand the army, he began to recruit soldiers under the banner of reorganizing the Huai Army, and planned to complete the training of 180,000 reserve soldiers within three years, so that the eight towns of the Beiyang Army will actually reach the strength of 20 towns after three years.

The original Huai Army was reorganized into the Zhili patrol police, military police, local police and other troops, which not only made full use of the remaining strength of the Jiuhuai Army to make some contributions to the stability of the Zhili area, but also realized Wang Chenhao's complete elimination of the Huai Army system and created a new Beiyang Group that was completely loyal to him.

Because the eight towns of the Beiyang Army are Wang Chenhao's descendants, they have sufficient military funds and weapons and equipment, and they will reform when they say that they will be reformed, and they will be quite smooth.

But for the new army of the 28 towns in other provinces, not only could they not follow Wang Chenhao to reform, but their own construction had not yet declined!

The imperial court originally planned to complete the training plan of the new army of the remaining 28 towns within six years, but now a holy decree of Guangxu has ordered all provinces to start training a new army at the same time. The military expenses and equipment procurement expenses of the new army are as high as more than 70 million taels of silver, and this is not according to the standards of the Beiyang Army, and the expenses for building the new army in each province are paid by the taxes withheld by the provinces, and the governors of the provinces have no choice but to form the new army according to the financial resources of the provinces. Even in the provinces with money, the equipment, training, and expenditure of the new army are far below the standards of the Beiyang Army, let alone the poor provinces that have no money, and many of them are just bare-bones commanders who set up a shelf. Moreover, officials in some provinces are seriously corrupt, and they are directly changed from the green battalion and the training army to the new army, and directly ask the imperial court to get double military salaries, and deceive the superiors and subordinates.

Although they both tried their best to build a new army and try to surpass the Beiyang Army, no matter how they grasped military affairs, the gap between them and the Beiyang Army was getting bigger and bigger. It's not that they have retreated, they are indeed improving, but the progress is slow, and it is too far behind the Beiyang Army.

In terms of the navy, Wang Chenhao continued to meddle in the Guangdong Navy Division and the Fujian Navy Division in the name of Vice Minister of the Navy. Although the equipment of the Guangdong Navy Division and the Fujian Navy Division was too weak, there were only some old warships and gunboats, and Wang Chenhao could not look down on them. However, among the Fujian Navy Division and the Guangdong Navy Division, there are a large number of outstanding officers and men of the future national naval force, and Wang Chenhao is eager for talent.

As the Dengyun-class battleships were about to be completed in the UK, Wang Chenhao needed to transfer a group of outstanding naval officers and sailors from China to the UK to receive the warships. Since Wang Chenhao did not want the gap between the North and the South Oceans to become deeper and deeper, Wang Chenhao, the officers and men of the new ship, planned to divide the North and the South Oceans in half, so that there would be no more exclusion between the North and the South regions within the navy, and he would integrate all the personnel of the North and South Oceans into the navy and eliminate the boundary between the North and the South in the navy first, which would be conducive to the cohesion of the national will.

The officers and men of the Nanyang Navy have long been out of boats, and many of the admirals who have graduated from the Naval Academy can only command small gunboats and torpedo boats, and they all dream of entering the Beiyang Naval Division and serving on the large ships of the Beiyang Naval Division. However, the Beiyang Naval Division under the management of Li Hongzhang was very prejudiced in the region, and it was difficult for the naval officers and men of the Nanyang faction to stay in the Beiyang Naval Division, and even those who stayed were not welcomed.

However, with Wang Chenhao in charge of the Beiyang Naval Division and the Pacific Fleet, and then integrated into the Royal Navy, a large number of Nanyang Navy generals such as Lin Jianzhang and Du Xigui, who had commanded the Pacific Fleet and made great contributions to Wang Chenhao, entered the upper echelons of the Royal Navy.

As the British mercenaries left the ships of the Royal Navy one after another, half of the new Royal Navy personnel were from the original Beiyang faction and half were from the original Nanyang faction, and the two sides reached an unprecedented balance from senior officers to grassroots personnel as a whole.

Of course, Wang Chenhao knew that the discord between them could not be completely eliminated in a short period of time. However, Wang Chenhao believes that both the officers and men of the Beiyang faction and the officers and men of the Nanyang faction are iron-clad heroes, and as long as they have experienced one or two bloody wars, after the officers and men of the North and South Oceans have made concerted efforts to deal with foreign enemies, they will form respect and tolerance for each other, and thus they will also merge together, become one, and no longer distinguish between the North and the South Oceans.

Second, Wang Chenhao took advantage of his position and power to bring the Mawei Shipyard and the Huangpu Shipyard under the direct jurisdiction of the Royal Navy's Shipbuilding Administration on the grounds that the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau and the Guangdong Shipbuilding Bureau had not made any achievements for many years, had abandoned the Mawei Shipyard and the Huangpu Shipyard, resulting in a waste of equipment and resources, and lacked coastal defense capabilities.

After Wang Chenhao annexed these two large shipyards, he immediately ordered Wei Han, director of the General Administration of Shipbuilding, to appoint commissioners to take over, and at the same time began to upgrade and expand the two shipyards, restore shipbuilding capacity, provide help to the navy within his ability, and constantly improve his own strength in this process, and one day reach or surpass Shanghai Shipbuilding Heavy Industry and become the country's stronghold.

(To be continued)