The government was responsible for commercial matters, and after handing over the construction of the railway to Zhan Tianyou, Sun Wen and others, Xiao Zhenlei immediately began to pay attention to the construction and production of the military industry.

In the last Northern Expedition, there was no ammunition for less than two months, and this was still the ammunition production volume of the Zhenhua Arsenal in the past year and the inventory of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, which shows that the production capacity of his arsenal still needs to be greatly improved.

On this day, Xiao Zhenlei went to Baoshan to inspect Zhenhua Company and the arsenal, several factories of Zhenhua Company are in steady development, and Zhenhua Iron and Steel Company has also been established with the efforts of Williams and others, and began to be officially put into production in three months, now with a daily output of 1,000 tons of steel, and then a few months can enter the mature period of production technology.

Xiao Zhenlei inspected the steel production plant for a day, and during the inspection, he asked while visiting: "How is our special steel production now?" ”

Williams replied: "The production process and technology of special steel are relatively complex, if it were not for our detailed production technical information, it would not have been possible to enter the production stage so quickly, and now we can only produce about two tons per day!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei calculated an account in his heart, and found that the production of only two tons of special materials per day could not meet the needs of the sixteen divisions, you must know that the production of artillery requires special steel, especially the barrel of artillery, and the number of troops will only increase, and the demand will be greater and greater, not to mention that there must be enough reserves, if it is like last time, all the ammunition in reserve will be exhausted in just two months?

After thinking about it, Xiao Zhenlei said: "Williams, I want you to increase the production output of steel, whether it is special steel or general steel, the output will be increased by more than five times, the more we will demand steel in the future, so we must be prepared now, we must recruit enough workers, order enough production lines, now we have a ready-made steelmaking furnace, our machinery manufacturing plant can produce itself according to its structure, so you don't need to worry about the production line is not enough, the most important thing for you now is to recruit more workers." , and then train them skilled, the steelmaking plant also needs to add a steelmaking furnace, this is handed over to the machinery factory to solve, you give them an order, let them do their best to put it on the production schedule, recruit workers to do their best to implement, Williams, time is money, we can't afford to wait, seeing that the Balkans are about to become a powder keg, at this time the production of ammunition and weapons is as much as possible, whether it is for our own use, or export, if there is a gap in funds, you and Chen Huizu to discuss the solution, Anyway, I have a request, although the production capacity is increased, I hope that within two years, the output of our steel company can be increased more than tenfold."

Williams nodded and said: "Okay, I'll solve this, but there is one thing I can't solve, now our iron ore has just reached our production needs, if we increase the steelmaking furnace and increase the production line, we will need more raw materials, I can't solve this matter!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei waved his hand when he heard this: "You can rest assured, we have found a large iron ore in the Ma'anshan area of Anhui Province south of the Yangtze River, and now the surrounding areas are within my control range, we can do our best to carry out mining, in addition, I also sent people to Australia to buy a large piece of land, in that land has one of the richest reserves of iron ore in the world, in addition to I also sent people to Peru, Bolivia, Chile and other countries in the north and south to find iron ore, and bought them, within three months." , I guarantee you have enough iron ore raw materials to use! ”

Williams was pleasantly surprised: "Oh, God, this is really a surprise, but, Mr. President, why did you do so many things quietly, we were just worried about raw materials, you sent us so much iron ore, we were worried about funds, you immediately sent enough funds, it was really easy to work for you, thank you, boss!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei smiled and patted Williams on the shoulder and said with a smile: "You are all talents, you serve me and our country, of course I have to do a good job of logistics in the back to solve the things you can't solve for you, you see how happy we work together, don't you?" ”

"Oh, of course!"

At this stage, Xiao Zhen has very few minerals in the area, and only Ma'anshan and Pingxiang, Pingxiang coal mines, he spent less time in China in his previous life, only remembered these two places, and spent a long time abroad, but remembered more about the distribution of mineral resources abroad.

As early as a year ago, he sent people to Australia, Peru, Bolivia and Chile to buy land according to the places he remembered, and then explore minerals on the purchased land, in his previous life he remembered that these countries were very rich in mineral resources, especially iron ore and other rare metal ores.

After half a year of exploration, iron ore and several other rare minerals were finally found in these countries, so after half a year of preparation, the mining of various locations has been carried out, as long as a few months later, there will be a steady stream of minerals from this country to transport over, plus the discovery of iron ore in Ma'anshan, not only is there no shortage of ore, but there are many can not be used, but it doesn't matter, it can be stored if it is not used, and it can also be sold to Germany and the United States in exchange for technology and capital.

After staying in the steel mill for a day, Xiao Zhenlei came to the firearms production factory, and now the director of the firearms production plant is called Du Ming, and he has been accompanying him throughout the whole process after Xiao Zhenlei arrived.

Xiao Zhenlei visited the production of Zhenhua 1910 rifles and asked: "What is the production output of Zhenhua 1910 rifles now?" ”

Du Ming hurriedly said: "President, since we still need to produce Zhenhua 1909 pistols, we can now produce 12,000 Zhenhua 1910 rifles every month!" ”

Xiao Zhenlei did the math when he heard this, and found that he could produce 72,000 rods in half a year, plus the inventory of the previous production, he could basically arm all the sixteen divisions after half a year, and some of them could be used as reserves!

After thinking about it, he said: "Du Ming, I am afraid that the world will not be peaceful in the past few years, and the demand for guns and ammunition will be extremely huge, I think your firearms factory can expand its scale, if the expansion of the scale can not meet the demand, you can consider opening a branch, build a few more branches, and after half a year to complete the production of Zhenhua 1910 rifles and 1909 pistols, these two standard weapons will also increase production output, maybe next year our national army will use all our weapons, Let our weapons become the standard equipment of the national army, the task of your arsenal is not light, so we must consider this problem! ”

Hearing this, Du Ming bent down extremely respectfully and said: "President, I understand, tonight I will convene a meeting of the members of the leading team of the factory to discuss this matter, and I will definitely not delay the president and the army!" ”

"Well, that's good!"

Du Ming then said: "President, I had such an idea before, you see, the Zhenhua 1910 rifle we are producing now is more than 20 years more advanced than the rifle of any other country, of course we can't sell this weapon to other countries, just now you also said that in recent years, the world is probably not very peaceful, I wonder if our arsenal has added some production lines to manufacture weapons from some countries, such as the German Mauser G98 or the British Lee Enfield rifle, Then we sell these imitation weapons to Europe, or sell them to other stock prices, such as Australia, Canada and South America, and we try to keep the production costs to the lowest point, and strive to form an overwhelming advantage in the price of the original parts of these weapons, so that we can not only maintain the production scale of the arsenal by selling weapons, but also obtain funds to maintain the research and development of new weapons, without the need for the state and organizations to allocate additional funds to our arsenal."

Xiao Zhenlei's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he raised his hand to pat Du Ming's shoulder and affirmed: "Okay, very good, your idea is simply great, your idea should be promoted in the ammunition factory, the artillery factory and the aircraft factory, if you follow your way of doing business, our arsenal can not only always maintain the forefront of technology in the world, but also borrow the power of our weapons from other people's hands, and can also obtain enough funds to maintain the huge production scale of the arsenal through the sale of weapons, There are enough funds for the research and development of new weapons, once our country has a foreign war, the production capacity of our arsenal can immediately play an important role, without the need to re-recruit workers and re-purchase production lines, I support your idea, although you are bold to do it, if there is a foreign type of weapons, you must immediately send a salesman to contact the business abroad, as much as possible to bring orders to the factory! ”

After getting Xiao Zhenlei's affirmation, Du Ming, the director of the firearms factory, was greatly encouraged, he was very excited, his face turned red, and he hurriedly stood up and said: "With the support of the president, I am full of confidence, the president can rest assured, we will do our best to come up with a plan, do our best to let the project start, and sell our weapons abroad as soon as possible to earn foreign exchange!" ”

I remember that in World War I, because Germany attacked too fast, Britain had insufficient rifle reserves, and it was impossible to equip the army in a short period of time, so it had no choice but to buy hundreds of thousands of second-hand rifles that the US Army had eliminated and equip the troops.

After the end of World War II, the United States also sold weapons to other countries on a large scale, and obtained huge amounts of money to support the research and development of new weapons, while many other countries needed state financial funds to maintain the research and development of weapons, but the United States did not, which is one of the reasons why there is a gap between other countries' weapons technology and the United States. R1152