After inspecting the local military horse breeding work at the Xilin Gol Military and Pastoral Bureau, Song Biao continued to Chifeng to inspect the coal and iron industry and the coal chemical industry, and only arrived in Shenyang in early March 1914 after inspecting the Xing'an League, Harbin, Changchun and other places.

After Fengtianfu was renamed Shenyangfu, Shenyang inherited the jurisdiction of the original Fengtianfu, and the development level in the fields of mechanical machine tools, electrical communications, aircraft, automobiles, locomotives, and military industry has always been in the leading position in the country.

In particular, the Far East Locomotive Corporation has completed the process of localization of the entire railway system during this period, and can produce key equipment such as trains, train steam engines, and rail control switches on its own.

It is precisely because of this foundation that China no longer needs to spend a large amount of foreign exchange on a large scale to expand its railway construction, but only needs to continuously borrow special railway funds from the central bank, and all railway construction costs can be paid with silver yuan bills.

In the past, the construction of a railway required millions or even tens of millions of pounds of borrowing, in which trains, rails, control equipment, etc. had to be purchased from abroad, the construction cost was naturally high, and the purchase price was much higher than the actual cost.

Coupled with the low cost of labor and land acquisition in the customs area, borrowing 4 million pounds from Britain, France, Russia and other countries as a guarantee to issue 140 million silver yuan bonds in China, can allow China to complete the construction of the main artery of the Jinan-West Railway from Jinan to Xi'an, and in the past three years, the total investment scale of China's railways has reached 2.33 billion silver yuan, in addition to the construction of the main road, the construction of each section of the branch line and the branch railway is also closely promoted, especially around the three eastern provinces, Zhili Jincha, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Shanghai large-scale branch railway construction, Around 1918, the grand railway plan to open a railway in every county of the three major industrial zones was basically realized.

After the Huahuang special train arrived in Shenyang, Song Biao returned to the well-known Northeast Military Headquarters compound to rest for two days, and then went to the Shenyang Locomotive Manufacturing General Plant of the Far East Locomotive Corporation in Shenyang to inspect it.

With the rise of Shenyang, Fushun, Liaoyang, Benxi, Haizhou, Aurora six city industries, China has a real urban industrial cluster for the first time in modern history, three years after the implementation of China's railway plan, a total of 1.345 billion silver yuan added to the total output value of China's railway manufacturing industry centered on Shenyang and Liaoyang, making China's railway industry leap beyond the textile industry, becoming China's largest modern industrial leader, driving the rapid development of the entire three eastern provinces.

The Shenyang New Area on the north bank of the Shen River has become the most glorious area in China's industrial map, and the entire Liaoning Province is the only coastal open province in the country, and the whole province is implementing the New Economic Policy and opening up to foreign capital.

The Shenyang Locomotive Manufacturing Factory is located on Shenshui Road in Shenyang New District, covering an area of six kilometers and setting up factories along the river.

Song Biao, accompanied by Cai Shaoji, governor of Liaoning Province, took a large delegation to visit the factory, he has a special interest and hobby in machinery, and specially recognized the main machinery and equipment in the factory.

The scale of investment in this factory is relatively large, from 1907 began to build trains, through joint ventures, the introduction of technology and foreign engineers, and constantly integrate technology, improve technology and equipment, through the joint venture and foreign-funded factories in Liaoyang and other places, has the ability to produce trains completely localized.

Previously, the train production technology introduced from Germany and the United States is relatively backward, mainly because the introduction of steam units and special boilers has a gap compared with imported products, after the two years from France to continue to introduce the latest steam engine design and manufacturing process on a large scale, the latest model of the factory Oriental C301, C303F trains in most of the data and surnames can begin to approach the United States, the gap is only some details of processing and assembly, debugging capabilities.

How to assemble a bunch of parts into a locomotive and ensure that the locomotive reaches the best condition requires a test of the debugging ability of the domestic train industry and factory technicians.

The equipment of Shenyang locomotive manufacturing plant is introduced by Germany, the United States and France, and there are also some Russian and domestic machine tool machinery, there is certainly no problem with the equipment, the introduction of technology is mainly from Russia, Germany, the United States and France, the initial stage depends on Russia, the middle stage depends on Germany and the United States, these two years are purely dependent on France, purely from the production, design drawings, there is basically no problem.

At present, the poor is the level of workers and the debugging ability of technicians, in this field, Shenyang locomotive manufacturing plant has also put a lot of efforts, in addition to the opening of a subordinate technical school in the factory and Shenyang technical industrial school to cultivate technicians, the factory also imitates Germany and the United States, developed a perfect technician rating and training plan, in the United States, France and Germany and other countries have long-term commissioned training technicians.

The gap in the past was very large, and the gap is not small now, especially after reaching the current qualified standard, it is even more difficult to continue to develop towards the good standards of France and the United States and Germany.

In recent years, the railway plan has made the business volume of Shenyang locomotive manufacturing plant surge four or five times, the whole plant has as many as 14,000 employees, the annual production of 600 train units, more than 7,000 wagons, and a certain scale of foreign exports, but even the domestic market is busy and cannot win, and the development of foreign markets is not very important.

After visiting the Shenyang Locomotive General Factory, Song Biao and his entourage continued to visit the main plant of Shenyang Machine Tool Corporation in Shenyang New District, in fact, the two factories are basically close together, the former is in Shenshui Road, the latter is in Shenshui East Road, around the Shenyang New Area of the ring railway distribution, the original choice here are fancy to the cheap land price and close to the Shen River.

The Shen River originates from the Hunhe River in Fushun, also known as the Xiaoliao River, subject to the problem of shallow waterway and small water flow in the middle of the western section, the actual shipping capacity is very low, in recent years, it has been artificially opening new waterways, dredging and straightening the western section of the waterway between Liaozhong and Liaoyang, merging the Da Liao River and the Xiaoliao River into the Xiaoliao River, merging the two waterways with low water flow into a relatively abundant waterway, and building multiple reservoirs in the middle and upper reaches at the same time, while increasing the water conservancy irrigation conditions and the total amount in the southern part of Liaoning Province. Increasing the upper limit of navigation on the Liaohe waterway from Dongying to Fushun in Haizhou to ships with a displacement of 300 tons is already the limit of the new Liaohe, after all, the water flow is small, and agricultural irrigation in the central and southern regions of Liaoning Province must also be considered.

At this time, located on the north bank of the Shenyang River Tool Factory, the factory has been built for seven years, because the parent company Far East Consortium itself is also one of the controlling shareholders of the largest United Machine Tool Company in the United States.

Seven years is still a very short moment for the machine tool industry, and the import tariffs of foreign machine tools have been relatively low, the development of Shenyang Machine Tool Factory is not particularly smooth, the current foundation is still in a stage of large-scale imitation of foreign products.

The machine tool industry is different from train manufacturing, this is a real high-profit, high-tech industry, the slightest difference, a thousand miles, like locomotive manufacturing on a large scale of formal introduction of foreign mature technology, design is impossible, because the patent licensing fee is usually very high, which is similar to the military industry.

The best thing to do is to plagiarize directly.

If a foreign company wants to sue, then come directly to the complaint, anyway, as long as the Shenyang Machine Tool Factory is not too stupid, the court must be supported, as long as the Shenyang Machine Tool Factory does not export on a large scale, foreign machine tool companies will not move to China to fight a lawsuit, in addition, Shenyang Machine Tool Factory is often copied from the United States machine tools, the reaction is usually smaller.

Even so, subject to the gap in theory, technology and production technology, the level of Shenyang Machine Tool General Factory is still in a relatively low-level stage, mainly producing the most common grinding machines, milling machines, planers, boring machines, and also producing special industrial equipment such as oil presses, sugar mills, spinning machines, etc.

The accumulation of the machine tool industry needs a very deep heritage, seven or eight years of time can not do anything big, after all, the machine tool industry in Europe and the United States has 140 years of foundation and history, in the fifteenth century there was a prototype of boring machines and thread processing lathes, China's machine tool industry even if it is to reach the level of the second rate in Europe, it takes at least 20 years in the middle, and it needs the full dedication and attention of the political axe, the business community and the whole country, to rise to the strategic height of the survival of the nation.

This is not Far East Machine Tool Corporation a company can be solved, or the need for more small and medium-sized machine tools, machinery enterprises to invest in this industry, there are preferential policies, there is a basis for the development of the national economy, there must be abundant talents in the middle, now the lack of talent, the training process of this talent is also very long.

Now, the United States' largest United Machine Tool Corporation has set up branches in Liaoyang and Shenyang, the goal of the United Company is to exempt tariffs, reduce production costs, close to the industrial zone, conducive to the flexible design of new special lathes, Liaoning Province political axe has also given a very important support policy, the goal is to "reduce imports, increase exports" as much as possible.

Russian overseas Chinese, French overseas Chinese, German overseas Chinese in the three eastern provinces have also established a number of foreign-funded, joint venture machine tool machinery companies, and joint machine tools, Far East machine tools jointly formed the machine tool industry in the three eastern provinces, in the long run, China's broad market space is destined to machine tool industry can not be weaker than foreign countries, the development space is very large, promising.

After leaving the Shenyang New Area, Song Biao led the delegation to continue to the Shenyang Arsenal in Changling.

After the end of the Xinhai War, comprehensive efforts and large-scale investment, as well as the foreign markets found in the Second Balkan Campaign, quickly made the Far Eastern Arms Corporation the largest military industrial giant in Asia, and the Shenyang Arsenal in Changling gradually expanded into Asia's largest small arms and military enterprise, and also produced some artillery parts.

Chen Baoxuan, a classmate of S&F in the manufacturing class of the Fuzhou Shipbuilding School, served as the head of the design team at the Shenyang Arsenal for seven years, and succeeded S&F as the new director of the Shenyang Arsenal last year. Johnson. Crossley continued to serve as chief designer.

After arriving at the Shenyang Arsenal, Song Biao continued to visit the various factories and workshops of the factory first, because there was a strict agreement with the French side to ensure the secret surname of the French long-stroke tube decommissioner, and the new artillery did not continue to be produced in the Benxi Arsenal, but was produced separately by the Shenyang Arsenal and the Sino-Russian joint venture Liaoyang Arsenal, the Shenyang Arsenal was responsible for the production of the retractor and gun mount, and the Liaoyang Arsenal produced the cannon body, which was finally assembled in the Liaoyang Arsenal.

Because of the technical differences between Germany and France, as well as the rapid improvement of the industrial level and the demand for exports, the Central Military Department has been a little hesitant to update military equipment in the past two years.

After a tour of the factory, Song Biao worked with S&F, Chen Baoxuan and Thomas. Johnson. Accompanied by Crossley, he was invited to the general design office, where the core company of the Far East Weapons Corporation is the Shenyang Arsenal, and the Far East Light Weapons Research Institute has set up more than 20 design groups here to engage in the design of different light weapons and other military equipment.

The unexpectedly large scale of military exports in the Second Balkan Campaign, as well as the hot sales of Popning submachine guns and Shenyang rifles, made the Far Eastern Arms Corporation swell in confidence, and invited more outstanding foreign designers and engineers and technicians on a large scale to purchase the most advanced equipment, research the most advanced military industrial production technology and materials, and constantly innovate in the fields of gunpowder, explosives and ammunition, new models of light machine guns, heavy machine guns, and submachine guns have been launched one after another, and the mortars for export have also increased by 75mm\ 85mm\105mm and other different calibers.

After the Xinhai War, the Central Army launched a slow, gradual, and orderly equipment replacement program, and after several years of hard work and continuous improvement, the new models of weapons were generally tested in the 4th and 30th Infantry Divisions and the Hung Yen League's weapons test base.

The 30th Infantry Division is stationed in Changsha and Guilin, and the climatic conditions belong to the south, and it is also the main force of the first integrated division of the Central Army in the south, and it is also the main force of the first integrated division of the Central Army in the south, and it is also the new weapons testing base in the south.

In the showroom, Song Biao saw in the showroom a variety of new models of light weapons that the Far Eastern Weapons Corporation has continuously launched in recent years, covering a very wide range of areas, and has completed the layout of the system, such as pistols, manual rifles, semi-automatic rifles, sniper rifles, light machine guns, submachine guns, heavy machine guns, howitzers, gun grenades, grenades, grenades, mortars, machine guns, and anti-aircraft guns, and the entire series has been perfected.

Even the legendary multifunctional sapper shovel appeared.

The main co-designer of the light machine gun and the heavy machine gun was John Brown. Moses. Browning, which began after the end of the Xinhai War, was invited by the Winchester Arms Company, a joint venture between the Far Eastern Arms Company and the Vanderbilt family. Moses. Browning, a joint venture for research, Winchester has the right to manufacture and sell in the United States, and the rest is mainly the responsibility of the Far Eastern Institute of Small Arms.

Song Biao took a look in the showroom, because most of the new weapons had been used in his hands, and he had even participated in the design of these weapons, so he was still very familiar with these light weapons.

China's current problem is not the lack of weapons, but the variety of weapons, at the insistence of Song Biao, the Far East Light Weapons Research Institute has even studied the rear end of the Enfield rifle locked rotary bolt bolt bolt, on the basis of the Enfield rifle to re-improve the design and simplify the process, the launch of a new Jiangnan rifle, produced by the Jiangnan Arsenal, and a bit of a fantasy to sell this new type of rifle to the British, after being rejected by the British War Department, the Jiangnan rifle was installed in a small range in Jiangsu, Zhejiang patrol forces, Available in 7.7mm and 7.62mm diameters.

The world's three major rifles, Enfield, Mauser, Mosin Nagant have all arrived on the land of China at this time, and the Shenyang rifle has been strictly determined as a unified standard rifle, the five major arsenals of Shenyang, Benxi, Liaoyang, Jiangnan and Hanyang nationwide have been produced, and the Taiyuan Arsenal, which was rebuilt on the basis of the Shanxi Gun Bureau, also started from the production of Shenyang rifles.

In the past three years, through the diffusion of the Northeast military industry accumulated technical strength, as well as a wide range of external experts, technicians, the gun and ammunition manufacturing field of the [***] industry has gradually expanded to six production bases, Hanyang, Taiyuan Arsenal relying on local coal, iron, copper, miscanthus resources, in recent years the largest scale of investment, located in Nanjing Jiangnan Arsenal was originally founded by Li Hongzhang Jinling Manufacturing Bureau, the foundation is better, now moved back to Shanghai, relying on the recruitment of foreign workers to improve the level of manufacturing, There is also a high number of new investments and acquisitions of new equipment.

Beginning last year, with the six major arsenals gradually completing the expansion, the Shenyang rifle began to be produced at a rate of 200,000 per year, and it is expected that the weapons of the whole army will be formally reloaded in 10 years.

Only at the same time, the latest semi-automatic rifle was also improved twice at the Far Eastern Research Institute of Small Arms and met the requirements for service.

The scale of the Central Army is too large, and after the total establishment of 15 integrated divisions, 35 ordinary divisions, and 43 brigades is officially completed, it has a force scale of 1.35 million even in non-war periods, which can only be compared with Tsarist Russia in the world, and Germany, which claims to be the world's largest army, only had 650,000 conventional troops in the non-war preparation and non-competition period, which increased to 810,000 in the first half of 1914 -- of course, it was very powerful at the moment of general mobilization, and it sprinted to 4.5 million within half a year. It was indeed the world's first army of this period.

If the CSKA and the German Army are at war at this time, the CSKA will increase to a maximum of 2.5 million within half a year, and it is the limit of the national general mobilization, and the quality of the troops will basically drop by half, and the German army will be able to be crushed if it goes up, but if the war drags on, after two or three years, the CSKA may be increased to 10 million, and the German army may not be able to withstand it, and the key is whether the CSKA can hold on for three years.

This is a pointless discussion, although many staff officers in the General Staff of the Central Military Department like to discuss this subject in a decent manner.

In any case, the current problem of the Central Army is that it has a large number of troops, complex equipment, stable funds, but there is no need for an instant outbreak, and there are very many new weapons that need to be replaced; therefore, the decision drawn up by the General Staff Headquarters to take the equipment renewal plan as a 10-year unit is correct, and it will be gradually readjusted in accordance with the method of first, second, and third-level troops, and the first-level will be replaced with the old at the second-level, and the third-level will be replaced with third-hand goods, so as to save military expenditure as much as possible.

Song Biao began last year by acquiescing in allowing the six major arsenals to produce new weapons in accordance with their normal production capacity, and weapons and ammunition other than the amount ordered by the Central Military Department were purchased by Xinhua Company for additional reserves of military supplies.

Of course, Song Biao had a plan in his heart, he calculated that World War I would break out in 1914, even if others did not assassinate Archduke Ferdinand, the Anglican Church would send someone to do this kind of thing, the so-called Anglican Church is to establish the first hegemony of the Chinese Empire in the world at all costs, surpass Britain and the United States, and make the European chaos naturally the most in line with this goal.

Therefore, Song Biao in the arrangement of the development of the industry in the [***] is very compact, from 1911 began to increase investment on a large scale, a large number of equipment from abroad, lathes, the introduction of American assembly lines and modern management theory, the introduction of electrical revolution technology and special machine tools, increase industrial production efficiency, and even the training of technicians have a special plan.

Based on the foundation left by the Qing Empire and the foundation of the Northeast industry, as well as the long-term cooperation with Germany, the United States, France and Russia, coupled with the large-scale investment of about 57 million pounds in recent years, the Chinese industry, especially the production of light weapons and ammunition, has reached a very high value.

Because the Central Military Department had not ordered enough orders, and the machinery and equipment of the six major arsenals had already been put in place, and the recruitment and basic training of workers and technicians had also been completed, the Xinhua Company, which had a foreign trade license for military industrial products, placed a large number of orders in place of the military department, so that the six major arsenals could gradually improve their production and management level in large-scale production, and they did not have to worry about finding buyers for the more hoarded firearms, ammunition, and artillery explosives in World War I.

During the visit to the showroom, Song Biao and Thomas. Johnson. Crossley asked some new questions about the process of revising the new equipment according to the opinions of the troops, and after talking for about ten minutes, Song Biao left the showroom and took a temporary break.

In the lounge prepared for him alone, Song Biao only left Zhang Futian, a first-class chamberlain, to accompany him, so that he could rest quietly for more than ten minutes and clear his mind.

Previously, when he visited military enterprises, Song Biao usually arranged for Jiang Fangzhen, Chen Qicai, and Shu Fangde to accompany him.

The maternal grandfather of the Greek king Constantine I was Tsar Alexander II, and Nicholas II were cousins, and it was at the suggestion of the Russian military attache in Greece that Constantine I invited Chen Qicai, deputy chief of the general staff of the Central Army, to visit the Greek Army.

After arriving in Greece half a year before the outbreak of the Second Balkan Campaign, Chen Qicai made a series of small but effective rapid adjustments to the Greek Army, especially through a large number of orders for Popnin submachine guns, 60mm mortars and 75mm light field guns, to improve the light mobile combat capability of the troops, and to use fast troops to quickly attack the Bulgarian rear defense forces, resulting in a large-scale rout of the main frontline forces of Bulgaria.

Shu Fangde was conducting a second inspection in France, and Jiang Fangzhen went to the Northwest Military Region to inspect again, and Song Biao became a loner and could only inspect alone.

That's fine.

Song Biao hadn't been so quiet for a long time, and he could think alone for a moment in the lounge alone.

In the past two years, the various new weapons of the Far Eastern Arms Corporation have been tested a lot, and except for the air-cooled Browning heavy machine gun, which still has many problems, all the others have met all the requirements for service, and some of them have already begun to officially enter service and change their equipment.

At present, the controversy is the new M1914 semi-automatic rifle, after the privatization of 70% of the shares of the Hanyang Arsenal by the Far Eastern Arms Corporation, according to the guarantee agreement signed with the Central Military Department, in order to ensure the future development of the Hanyang Arsenal, this new rifle will be mainly produced in the Hanyang Arsenal, so it is named the M1914 Hanyang rifle, and two years ago, this new semi-automatic rifle has been tested on a large scale in the Fourth Infantry Division, and the evaluation at that time was very good, after several improvements, The military department has long been impeccable, but the military budget is limited, and the Shenyang rifle is still in the process of large-scale installation.

The problem now is the dispute between the Shenyang rifle and the Hanyang rifle.

The problem of light machine guns is also relatively a bit complicated, the Madsen machine gun is still very good on the whole, and the Far Eastern Arms Corporation has redesigned part of the bolt structure and shape after improving it many times with the surname of a bit of a scoundrel, and after adopting a replaceable barrel design, it was renamed the M1914 Popning light machine gun again in the name of General Popnin, the general adviser of the Light Machine Gun Committee.

The M1913 Browning light machine gun and the M1914 Popning light machine gun are basically the same in terms of data, the former continues to use a bipod design and magazine feeding, while the latter uses a tripod design and drum feed in order to make a clear difference from the Madsen machine gun and the characteristics of the Browning light machine gun.

At Song Biao's suggestion, the Popning light machine gun was more like a medium-sized machine gun, with a barrel made of Bethlehem's new Type 633 manganese-nickel alloy steel seamless steel tube, and the barrel design was thickened, which could ensure up to 8 minutes of high-speed continuous shooting.

In contrast, the Browning light machine gun was designed to be lighter and more reliable, ensuring that each squad could be deployed effectively and more easily carried.

But in actual data, neither of them is a significant improvement over the Madsen machine gun.

The CSKA question of whether to install these two new light machine guns and how to adjust the assembly and use in the troops has become a more controversial issue.

Song Biao didn't have a definite answer to this, it was good to replace better and newer guns, but the expenditure was not low.

In the lounge of the Shenyang Arsenal, Song Biao thought silently for a long time, although from the perspective of the Central Army, replacing new rifles and machine guns is a matter of low yield, and even seems a bit wasteful, but from the perspective of the long-term development of the [***] industry, this is still very necessary.

If the military industry wants to develop, it cannot be sustained by the domestic market alone, and it must export to foreign countries as much as possible, and expand the overall strength of the Chinese industry with a systematic large-scale export.

Chen Qicai has a very important task of selling in Greece and Seville, and compared with European military enterprises, China offers cheaper prices, and is willing to transfer production patents on a large scale at lower prices.

Don't fancy the products at this stage of the industry are still a little rough, but they are definitely not weak in design to other countries, very practical, and have the characteristics of suitable for large-scale production, and the actual technical indicators are not bad, but the process is a little simple.

In order to compete for the market, under the vigorous efforts of the Far East Arms Corporation, the Central Military Department even gave up the technology of fully introducing the French M1906 75mm field gun, but only introduced the brake and part of the technology, and on the basis of the original Sino-German cooperation in research and development, it continued to hire French artillery experts to improve the domestic M1906\08 field guns, light field guns and light cavalry guns, collectively known as the new M1912\14 75mm field guns, light field guns and light cavalry guns, and the technical parameters are relative to the French M1897\1906\ The 1914 Type 75mm field gun has a certain gap, in the case of roughly the same rate of fire and firing range, the accuracy is relatively insufficient, and the shell loading volume is also 0.3kg smaller, but the weight of the gun has increased by 23 to 42 kg, and the ballistic curve is relatively flattened.

There is a gap, but this is a truly home-grown product, which is not subject to any export restrictions.

The gap also has its own characteristics, because in the process of Sino-German cooperation to consider the idea of adding howitzers, after the interruption of cooperation, the Central Army continued to implement this line of thought, M1912 \ 14 75mm field gun is actually China's first howitzer, but technically, this is not a real sense of modern howitzer.

After making a complicated trade-off in his heart, Song Biao called Shi Enfu into the lounge, and did not say too much, that is, let the Far East Weapons Corporation continue to speed up the production of new equipment, and the excess production capacity can be sold to Xinhua Company as a special reserve.

In addition to the military industry, Song Biao will also inspect other industrial development levels in the three eastern provinces.

At this time, the three eastern provinces are like two countries compared with Kannai, except for the Northeast to introduce technology and talents at all costs, as the economic leader of the development of the train industry, the rest of the machine tool industry, or electrical, chemical, automobile, aircraft, communication industry, there is still a big gap between the Northeast industry and Germany, the United States, Britain and France, even if the same vigorous development of the textile, military industry, shipbuilding industry compared with the European and American powers The gap is still obvious, but the overall level except for the shipbuilding industry has been equivalent to the capital. In some areas, it is even higher than the capital.

With the current overall industrial level of the three eastern provinces, the Kannai market is like a huge colony of the three eastern provinces, which continues to promote the further development of the three eastern provinces.

(To be continued)