On May 22, 1910, the United States finally approved the "Rubber Purchase Restriction Act", which stipulated that the purchase of foreign rubber would be restricted within three years, and a few days later, the British Parliament also approved a similar decree, because it was rumored that France, the world's second largest rubber importer, would also issue such a decree, and the price of rubber in the international market finally fell rapidly.

This was the last crazy feast of the Qing Empire, and the last financial crisis of the Qing Dynasty.

During this period of time, the Restoration Society, which had been lurking in China for five years, also began to move wildly, and the Liberation Society in Fujian and the Han Society first revolted in Fuqing County, and some counties in other provinces echoed with it, but these were small actions, just to build momentum for the future, and to really start a big discussion of the Manchu and Han disputes in various media.

…… On this day in mid-June, Song Biao went to the Far East Arsenal to inspect, with the rapid development of the Shenyang New Area, considering the matter of secrecy, the Far East Arsenal moved back to the Changling area surrounded by mountains on three sides in April 1908, renamed the Shenyang Arsenal, and set up branches in many places.

The scale of investment in the new Shenyang Arsenal is very large, with a cumulative investment of 5.5 million pounds so far, which is lower than that of the Benxi Arsenal, which is jointly operated by the Far East Arms Company and the German company DWM, and slightly higher than the Liaoyang Arsenal, a joint venture between the Far East Arms Company and Russia.

In the United States, Song Biao and Connes. Vanderbilt jointly purchased Winchester and a number of arms companies in the New Haven area to form the new Winchester Arms Company, and thus he also found new technical support for the Far Eastern Arsenal, which until then had been mainly supported by the Russian and French allies.

Graduated from Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, S&F, who studied industrial machinery in France, was invited to work as a factory director in the Far East Arsenal. Johnson. Crossley worked as a new designer at the factory, and for the past two years, Thomas has worked as a new designer. Crosley redesigned the M1907 Winchester semi-automatic rifle according to some of Song Biao's requests and suggestions, and changed it to a new M1910 Winchester rifle.

Song Biao arrived at the factory very early, and the workers had just started to work, and many of the workers working here were discharged from the army, mainly because they were old and failed to pass the assessment and be promoted to non-commissioned officers.

Although it is already a private factory, the welfare of the factory is still better than that of other enterprises, because after all, this is a very special military factory, the biggest advantage of setting up a factory in Changling is that the surrounding land price is very low, in addition to the production plant, the surrounding area can continue to maintain enough land to build a weapons test site, but the original infantry training camp has been transferred to the more remote Yanming Lake area.

Accompanied by S&F, Song Biao inspected the factory and felt that it was not bad, the treatment of the workers was very good, and he took care of almost everything like the state-owned factories in the 70s.

At present, there are more than 20 enterprises engaged in the production of weapons and gunpowder in Northeast China, and the largest ones are the four major arsenals in Benxi, Shenyang, Liaoyang, and Fushun.

The Benxi Arsenal mainly comes from German technology, capital and personnel, and the Far East Arms Company only holds 35% of the shares, with a total investment of 13 million pounds, and gunpowder, explosives, bullets, shells, Mauser rifles, shell guns, Madsen machine guns, and artillery are all produced; The Liaoyang Arsenal is a 50/50 joint venture between the Far East Arms Corporation and the Russian State Arsenal to produce the Mosin Nagant range of rifles, ammunition, Makqin machine guns and artillery.

Unlike the previous two arsenals, the Shenyang Arsenal was not involved in the production of artillery and focused on the production of rifles and mortars, while the Fushun Arsenal concentrated on the production of gunpowder and various ammunition.

Shenyang Arsenal currently mainly produces M1891\M1910 Mosin Nagant rifles, Winchester M1897 shotguns, 77mm mortars, 60mm mortars, and 105mm mortars.

The M1910 Mosin Nagant rifle is a new type of rifle produced in cooperation with Russia, but Russia has no intention of installing this type of rifle, because the 7.62*54CR rifle cartridge used in this type of rifle will bring a lot of trouble to the Russian army.

Until this time, Song Biao actually did not think clearly about which kind of rifle to use to continue to develop, as a new army in the northeast, and the official rifle of the future Imperial Defense Force.

This is a complex question, not so much about which rifle to choose, but which bullet to choose.

At this time, the Northeast New Army, the Patrol Army, and the militia happened to use three different bullets, namely the 7.62mmR edge primer rifle cartridge, the 7.62mmCR center primer rifle cartridge, and the 7.92mm Mauser rifle cartridge.

The problem now is that both the R-type bomb and the Mauser bullet have ready-made systems, but neither of them is what Song Biao wants, and the CR-type bullet still lacks a system, and if it wants to develop its own system, it will take a lot of effort.

Walking around the factory and listening to S&F and Thomas. Crosley's various introductions, Song Biao was actually thinking about what kind of bullets and rifles would be used by the Royal Army \ Wehrmacht after the empire was built.

There is no doubt that the Royal Army will be replaced with semi-automatic rifles very early, the current rifles are only a transitional stage, and the Winchester M1910 semi-automatic rifle is only a special transitional period, and what really determines all this should be which bullet to choose.

S&F found a newly produced M1910 Mosin Nagant rifle and asked Song Biao to make a fuss, as a soldier, his eternal favorite is actually this kind of manual rifle, and every step is full of the unique temperament of a soldier.

The Mosin Nagant rifle has been improving since its birth, the M1910 Mosin Nagant rifle and the Tsarist Russian series have undergone great changes, the butt and wood are still birch, from the bottom edge of the bullet to the center of the primer, the rifle chamber processing must be more stringent, after the use of the new downward bend handle, the operation is more flexible, which is helpful to increase the rate of fire, the bolt, the safety and the magazine have been improved to a certain extent, the new magazine can hold 8 rounds of ammunition, and the bayonet uses a three-edged bayonet, But it's still removable.

The reason why Song Biao chose the three-edged bayonet was not because of the lethality of this bayonet, but because after the barrel was shortened by 10 centimeters, the bayonet had to be extended by 7 centimeters to reduce the length of the bayonet.

This reason is completely consistent with the early choice of this scheme in the early days of the Republic, it is by no means for the so-called lethality, the bayonet in the Soviet Union at that time was a conical bayonet, very beautiful, and the lethality was good, but it was easy to bend, and the Soviet Union was still like this, and we copied it very badly, so we had to thicken it, and finally it became the prototype of the three-edged bayonet.

In general, the bladed bayonet is the trend of the times.

The new magazine of this type of rifle can hold 8 rounds of ammunition, plus the chamber, can be loaded with up to 9 rounds of ammunition, but in the actual use of the structure of the bolt can only be loaded with four rounds of bridge clamps each time, in addition to the 8-round magazine, there are also 12-round, 16-round, 20-round magazines.

Because of the improvement of the bolt, the mechanical parts of the firearm have also been improved, and the insurance mechanism has been modified to be more suitable for the bolt.

There are many differences between the M1910 Mosin Nagant rifle and the Tsarist Mosin Nagant rifle, and the relationship between the two is similar to that of the Chuntian rifle and the Mauser rifle, the official name is the M1910 type Shenyang rifle, and it is also the first domestic modern rifle designed by the Shenyang Arsenal.

Shenyang rifle should be said to be satisfied with Song Biao, from the production accuracy requirements, in addition to the processing accuracy requirements of the chamber than before, the other processing accuracy requirements have not changed much, it is still a rifle that can be mass-produced, and the design has been greatly improved, more safe and flexible, recruits are also easier to accept in the process of adaptation, under the premise of the same accuracy, the rate of fire has been increased from the original 12 rounds / min to 15 rounds / min, and there is a special new design of the dust cover, Suitable for use in the north.

In terms of accuracy alone, at a distance of 300 meters, the Mosin Nagant rifle is slightly better than the Mauser GEW rifle.

The only problem now is that Song Biao has not made up his mind to replace this new type of rifle in the whole army, and after doing some work, Song Biao is very satisfied with the rifle returned to the worker in charge of proofreading, and continues to let Shi Enfu take him to the mortar factory to inspect.

In order to maintain this advantage, the factory specially invited four mechanics from Sweden and Belgium, plus the domestic designers of the factory, to form two teams to engage in the design and testing of mortars alone.

Compared with the mortars being designed by France and Germany, the mortars of the Shenyang Arsenal are more unique, with buffers on the gun carriage, gearboxes on the gun body, and seat plates at the bottom.

The Shenyang Arsenal now produces 60\77\105 three models of mortars, and is designing 80\120mm mortars, due to the problem of buffers, as well as the problem of gunpowder and barrel stiffness, coupled with the constraints of weight and shells, the range of the 120mm mortar can be called a bit tragic, so it has been delayed in service.

Compared with the 60mm caliber mortar currently launched by Russia, the 34-year-old 60mm mortar of the Shenyang Arsenal has a longer range and higher accuracy, and the 77mm mortar is a cooperative production between the Shenyang Arsenal and Russia, and will be gradually replaced by a newly designed 80mm mortar.

Song Biao took a general look in the factory and design room, some things must be there, and the significance will not be great after the actual installation, the 120mm mortar is such a typical example, at least 300 kg of weight and less than 2,500 meters of range is a big tragedy, it is better to use a light mountain gun directly.

This technical aspect of things still has to find a way to break through, it is always a good thing, so the research and development work should continue to invest in promote, the real service and the largest role is undoubtedly only 13.5 kg weight, but the range can reach 140 meters of 60mm mortar, of course, the difference in ammunition weight between the two is 7.5 times, the difference in power is large, really encounter a high protection bunker, 60mm mortar is not moving, 77 \ 105 mortar may not be able to do it, so it is necessary to 120mm mortar, If you really want to make this thing, even if it is only a 2,000-meter range, it can greatly reduce unnecessary casualties, and you don't have to sacrifice human lives to rush over and order explosives packs.

After inspecting the entire Shenyang Arsenal, Song Biao went to Thomas. Crossley's design room, where I see a few more drawings of firearms that are still in their infancy.

None of them were able to bring John. Moses. It was always a pity that Browning invited the Far Eastern Arms Company. In addition to Thomas, the designers recruited at home and abroad before and after the Shenyang Arsenal, as well as the young mechanics trained by the country themselves, together formed five design studios, two mortars and three firearms.

Thomas. Crosley had both his own design office and his obligation to help the other two, so he was able to see the most drawings in his studio.

With the gradual accumulation of these years, in the past two years, Song Biao has begun to step up the pace of China's modern weapons development. The scheme for which Crossley was directly responsible was a new semi-automatic rifle.

Before that, Song Biao gave Thomas. Crossley a draft, representing some of his ideas and asking for indicators.

Now, Thomas. Crossley has already translated these drafts and ideas into more detailed and standard component drawings and mechanical construction drawings, and has simply built a prototype gun in the workshop, although the new rifle still has many problems and cannot be used for actual shooting tests, but at least it can test some of the mechanical design and the coordination between the parts.

At this time, it was close to noon, in this bright and spacious large design room, several assistants had left, and various drawings and parts were scattered on the surrounding desks. Crossley sat next to him with some special excitement, smoking a cigar.

Although working in a foreign country, it can be useful for Thomas. Crosley, for his part, followed his parents to the United States as a child just to make money and make a living, but now he can earn more and be paid better, so that he can enjoy the best office environment and smoke Cuban cigars like the big designers.

He earns four times as much a month as he did in the United States, and has a more lucrative royalty contract.

So in the past two years, he has been working very hard to help the other two design offices solve more problems, and his own new rifle development work is also actively moving forward.

Song Biao sat quietly in the sunlight and looked at the drawings, and compared them with the new rifle on the table.

He provided Thomas with a piston short-stroke method of air conduction, and at the same time required a rotary pull-back bolt bolt structure, but unlike the SKS semi-automatic rifle, this semi-automatic rifle required higher accuracy, due to the use of central primer Burdan ammunition, the new rifle bullet had a low change in diameter, so when the magazine was very long, it had a much smaller bending radius.

In terms of specific requirements, the accuracy, range, and power requirements of the gun cannot be lower than the M1891 \ 1910 Mosin Nagant rifle that is now mass-installed, and the standard magazine capacity of the rifle is 10 rounds.

The gun bayonet will no longer take a triangular bayonet, because in the period of semi-automatic rifles, the probability of fighting a bayonet will be further reduced, at the same time, the cost of this rifle will increase, there is no need to save that little money on alloy steel, the new bayonet requires detachability, and adopts a multi-bladed bayonet design, and the bayonet design and production will be responsible for the Benxi knife factory.

After roughly reading the design drawings, Song Biao and Thomas asked, "What are the questions now?" ”

Thomas. Crosley replied: "There are two small problems, but they are also very difficult to solve, and that is the problem of stroke springs and the cost of production, we currently import springs from a spring factory in the United States, but they don't have the standards that we need, and if we produce them ourselves, the cost will inevitably increase." Even if you don't consider the stroke spring, the manufacturing cost itself is definitely not low, about 30% higher than the Shenyang rifle, and a large number of skilled technicians are also needed at the initial production stage, and the production capacity will be relatively small, unless we have better special machine tools, as much as possible to simplify the production process, so that the investment cost is still very high. ”

Song Biao thought for a moment and said: "Cost is not a problem, the key is to find a way to solve these problems as soon as possible." ”

Thomas. Crossley was a little surprised, considering that this new rifle would be equipped with hundreds of thousands of pieces, and the total cost was still very staggering, but he still quickly added: "If the production quantity is expanded to a certain level, the cost will drop a lot, but I estimate that in a long period of time, it is still necessary for us to continue to increase the production of the M1910 Winchester rifle and Shenyang rifle, both of which can effectively supplement the production capacity of this new rifle, and the ammunition is the same, which will not lead to waste." ”

Song Biao nodded, which was obviously the best solution, and asked Thomas instead. Crossley said: "Is the problem of designing a new type of scope-precision rifle based on the Shenyang rifle solved?" ”

Thomas. "It's a matter of time, and all that's left is to repeat the test to make sure it's good and can serve in the army for a long time," Crossley said. Our problem is that the sights have to be imported from the German Zeiss company, and the director of the S&F factory and I have considered replacing them with local scopes, but the quality of the optical glass provided by the Far East Glass Factory is still relatively poor, in fact, even in the United States, such scopes cannot be bought, which is a real German product. ”

Song Biao did not think about the use of domestic scopes in the near future, he said: "When I talk about this matter with S&F later, I can ask him to make a plan to gradually solve the problems of technology, raw materials and production processes in four or five years." ”

Thomas. Crossley said: "If you set up a factory directly in the United States, or let the American telescope company produce it on your behalf, although the surname can be different, at least it can be used." ”

Song Biao said: "This can be used as an alternative. ”

Immediately, he continued to ask Thomas. Crossley: "When will the new semi-automatic rifle be available?" ”

Thomas. Crossley said: "At the end of the year, the whole gun test can be carried out, if everything goes well, through the import of some spare parts, it will be officially put into production at the end of next year, and it can be completely produced in our factory in about three years, and the key problem is only the production capacity." ”

Song Biao sighed and said, "Try to speed up!" ”

Thomas. Crosley said: "Actually, you can produce it in Winchester, and then the progress will be much faster." ”

Song Biao shook his head and said, "Not for the time being." ”

His plan was to start the official installation of this new type of rifle before World War I, and slowly wait until the end of World War I to obtain a large-scale installation, take the opportunity to deal with Tsarist Russia, and make more benefits is a little benefit, and it may be a windfall to get the Winchester company to produce during World War II, but money is not very important to him.

The important thing is not to make money, but to kill people with guns yourself.

(To be continued)