As for whether he can persuade Yuan Shikai to let him set up a factory, Zhao Dongyun is actually not very confident, there are two reasons, the first is that officials have too much influence on business and politics, and now officials are explicitly prohibited from doing business, of course, it is not counted as running a government-run enterprise like Zhou Xuexi, that is not called doing business, that is called being an official.

For example, the current Zhao Dongyun, on the surface, he is not personally in business, and the Fuyuan Yarn Factory is in his mother's name. This practice of attaching property to relatives and subordinates is also a common practice for officials to get involved in business.

But if this situation is small, no one will say it, but if you get a large enterprise with hundreds of thousands of taels or even millions of taels of silver, and this enterprise is also an arms enterprise that produces the state's sharp weapons, then this problem will be magnified.

The second is because of the nature of the arsenal, because it produces arms, and there is no precedent for the production of arms by private enterprises; although the late Qing Dynasty claimed to have reformed the New Deal, it has not even opened up formal industry and commerce, let alone the arms industry.

However, although there are many problems, the advantages are also very obvious, that is, as long as Yuan Shikai agrees, then Zhao Dongyun will be able to set up an arsenal for him, and then Beiyang will be able to produce its own rifles, bullets, etc., without worrying that it cannot be imported or the factory in the south will not give it.

And this temptation is very huge for Yuan Shikai, otherwise Yuan Shikai would not have planned to spend a huge amount of money to repair the remaining equipment of the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, or even planned to spend hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to purchase equipment for the reconstruction of the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, but even so, these rebuilt Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureaus are not capable of producing guns, and can only produce bullets, shells, smokeless gunpowder, bullet shells, sulfuric acid and other military semi-finished products.

Now Zhao Dongyun has come up with a rifle production line that can produce a capacity that is not inferior to that of the Hubei Gun Factory, and he is not afraid that Yuan Shikai will not be moved.

Standing in front of the Governor's Mansion, Zhao Dongyun took a deep breath before walking in, this time he saw Yuan Shikai but he didn't wait too long, he was soon received by Yuan Shikai.

As soon as he entered, Yuan Shikai asked, "You mean you want to set up a gun factory?" ”

When Zhao Dongyun heard this, he also knew why Yuan Shikai would put aside the people who were waiting for the meeting so much, and immediately met him, it seemed that he was still quite interested in his arsenal.

He didn't hide it immediately, and said directly: "Some time ago, when I approached the foreign bank to purchase machine guns, I heard that there was a set of depreciated Type 88 rifle production equipment on the side of the foreign bank, and the price was not high, and I thought that my Beiyang is the whole of China is short of ordnance, and the annual cost of ordnance imports is more than one million, so I thought about seeing if I can buy this batch of equipment, and then build an arsenal for my Beiyang needs and reduce the consumption of military expenses!" ”

Yuan Shikai sighed, and then said: "The old machine is good, I don't know if it can still be used?" How much does it cost? ”

As soon as Zhao Dongyun heard it, he knew that Yuan Shikai must be interested in his heart, but he didn't know what he thought in his heart, so he could only tell the matter first: "The equipment was originally used by the German man-made Type 88 rifle, so the machine is slightly old but still usable, if the manpower and raw materials are properly matched, it can produce 50 guns per day and 25,000 matching bullets, so the output is enough to be comparable to the Hubei Gun Factory. And this batch only costs 360,000 taels of silver! ”

Although Yuan Shikai is not an industrialist like Zhou Xuexi, but as the boss of the Beiyang system, he is naturally very sensitive to all kinds of numbers, as soon as he heard that as long as 360,000 silver, he knew that the price was absolutely cheap, you must know that in order to rebuild the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau, he also sent people to several foreign companies to ask about the price required to purchase equipment, just the equipment for the manufacture of bullets and the production of smokeless gunpowder is often hundreds of thousands, if the production line for the production of rifles and bullets is only 360,000, it is indeed not very expensive.

Yuan Shikai even thought that it would be better to buy it at his own expense, if he bought this set of equipment, and spent another two or three hundred thousand yuan to purchase equipment, he should be able to rebuild the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau. However, when he thought that the funds for the right town of the standing army that he had planned for a long time had not yet been settled, and the construction of this arsenal would have to cost millions of dollars, and now Yuan Shikai could not move so much money.

At this time, Zhao Dongyun said: "I have been talking with foreigners here, as long as we purchase equipment, they can also send personnel to install and debug equipment, and teach the method of production. ”

If Yuan Shikai didn't feel much surprised by the 360,000 taels of silver in front of him, then when Zhao Dongyun said the sentence of two-year mass production, Yuan Shikai was extremely shocked!

Two years of mass production? How is this possible, you must know how many years did the Hubei Gun Factory spend before and after to produce Type 88 rifles? The trial production began before the first day of the year, and it was not until this year that the design output was reached, that is, the daily output of 50 rifles, although the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was faster, but it also began trial production in 1897, and last year began to switch to production, and now the daily output is actually twenty or thirty like this, which also took five years before and after.

And these two factories and bureaus can be said to represent the highest level of China's military industry at that time, even they have spent many years to get to this point, he Zhao Dongyun now said that it only takes two years to get a rifle arsenal whose output is not inferior to that of Hubei Gun Factory, how can this not surprise Yuan Shikai.

"Is that true?" Yuan Shikai no longer even attaches importance to the 360,000 taels of silver just now, he attaches more importance to the two years that Zhao Dongyun said.

If it is really two years to achieve mass production, then the benefits for his Beiyang expansion are great, and it can be said to be of strategic significance, because now the pace of Beiyang expansion is too fast, the demand for new rifles is very large, and it is not a matter to rely on imports all the time, and Yuan Shikai, the two factories in the south, thinks that they are unreliable, if there is an arsenal that can produce rifles in large quantities on his territory, then it is of strategic significance for the Beiyang expansion.

However, he still didn't believe Zhao Dongyun's words, so he had to make sure that what Zhao Dongyun said was true and valid.

In fact, Zhao Dongyun was also a little surprised by Yuan Shikai's reaction, isn't two years enough? You must know that the Germans have shipped the equipment of all sizes, including screws, to you, and to help with debugging, trial production, and training workers, almost hand-in-hand to teach you to do it.

And to be honest, how difficult it can be to produce an old-fashioned rifle, not an artillery or an airplane, or anything like that! Zhao Dongyun thought that it would take some time to build the factory, and the rest was not to worry about.

In fact, so far, in Zhao Dongyun's eyes, this arsenal is actually just a big handicraft workshop.

However, whether it is Yuan Shikai or Zhao Dongyun, in fact, they all think slightly wrong, first of all, the two years are not Zhao Dongyun himself said, nor is it said by any Chinese industrialist in China, this timetable is said by the foreign engineers of Lihe Foreign Company, and the reason why those foreign engineers say that it will only take two years is based on the premise of pure commercial operation, the use of the administrative management system of large German enterprises, and the employment of German engineers.

To put it bluntly, this is a timetable set by those Germans according to the progress of building their own factories, so two years is not a long time.

However, the timetable in Yuan Shikai's mind is based on the premise of setting up factories in China, and these arsenals in China are actually a government yamen, and it is inevitable that there will be various drawbacks of the government yamen when doing things, so it is good to build, don't think about how fast their progress is.

The work of persuading Yuan Shikai is much smoother than Zhao Dongyun imagined, in Zhao Dongyun's original thoughts, it will be very difficult to do something like an arsenal privately, but he didn't expect that Yuan Shikai didn't care about the so-called official or commercial at all.

After Yuan Shikai asked many things, he asked again: "Where are you going to build this factory?" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "Since everything is undecided, but if it can be done, it should be Zhili to find a convenient place for transportation, coal and iron!" ”

Yuan Shikai showed an approving look after hearing the word Zhili, as long as it is built on the land of Zhili, he doesn't care if you are private or government-run, and the guns and ammunition produced at that time are not all for the Beiyang military, as for whether it is legal or not, Yuan Shikai didn't take it seriously.

As the presiding officer of the New Deal at the end of the Qing Dynasty, he is ambitious, but also has decisive and ruthless means, if it is not for extraordinary things, how can the Beiyang New Army in his hands be established!

So he didn't care so much about it for now, and said directly: "If the arsenal can be done, it will naturally be good!" ”

Yuan Shikai's words mean that he has agreed to this matter in principle, but whether it can be done depends on the follow-up situation.

But after finishing speaking, he said again: "But although you have some family background, I am afraid it will be difficult to come up with hundreds of thousands of taels!" ”

Zhao Dongyun said: "It's a little difficult, if this matter can be done, the ministry is planning to raise funds and join forces!" ”

Yuan Shikai thought for a while and said: "This is a pure business, and according to you, if you want to reduce the cost of guns and improve the quality, I am afraid that this official will not be able to do it!" ”

As the ruler of Beiyang, although Yuan Shikai did not object to Zhao Dongyun running this arsenal, he did not say that he would let it go, and Zhao Dongyun also said just now that if you want to make the guns and ammunition produced by the arsenal reliable and low-cost, and at the same time let the shareholders have money to make money and not lose money, the first thing to ensure is not to bring in the bad rules and habits of the government and yamen, so Zhao Dongyun intends to adopt a purely Western-style management system and put an end to any official supervision and official name.

The official can't come forward to manage it, it doesn't mean that Yuan Shikai can't manage it, so he said: "In this case, I will also invest 10,000 taels in it!" ”

Although Yuan Shikai didn't have much heart to occupy shares or anything like that, when he was an official, private property didn't mean much to him, he said that he wanted to occupy shares in the arsenal, mainly because he wanted to use his private identity to supervise, so as not to have any problems when the arsenal was established.

However, Zhao Dongyun was pleasantly surprised when he heard what he said, once Yuan Shikai also invested money in, no matter how much money he had, the three words of Yuan Shikai alone were enough to make those who blocked this matter afraid, and the opportunity to do business in partnership with Yuan Shikai was definitely something that countless people couldn't ask for day and night.

As long as this rumor is released, it is estimated that countless officials and businessmen will come to cry and shout to participate in the shares!

After convincing Yuan Shikai and even getting Yuan Shikai's small support, Zhao Dongyun immediately sent a report to Zhao Chenbin in Tianjin: Immediately prepare for the construction of the factory!