Zhao Dongyun has always rarely analyzed what kind of person he is, if he has to give himself a position, then Zhao Dongyun will position himself as a rational ordinary person.

As an ordinary person, Zhao Dongyun has countless selfish desires, for example, when he sees Fang Ruolian, he wants her to be by his side, for example, he wants to control more power, power, fame, money, and women are all very attractive to Zhao Dongyun, and the specific expression is that he wants to climb to a higher position, and even thinks that when he has enough foundation in the near future, he will directly rebel.

Regardless of whether this is a fantasy or not, these thoughts did appear in Zhao Dongyun's mind, and even considered the possibility in detail.

However, as an ordinary person who prides himself on having reason, then he will think about many things before acting, and he will not say that his head will decide some kind of serious event as soon as his head is hot, so although he has fantasized about winning the Beiyang or rebellion, reason tells him that now is far from the time to think about such things.

Now for him, the only thing is to climb up, and in the process of climbing up, he will promote the expansion of Beiyang.

He Zhao Dongyun is a Beiyang descendant officer with good roots, and his personal interests are actually tied to the interests of Beiyang.

That's why he went to great lengths to persuade Yuan Shikai and others to train a machine gun unit, because the training of a machine gun unit would not only give him a chance to be promoted, but also greatly improve the combat effectiveness of the Beiyang Army.

At the same time, this is also the fundamental reason why he set up an arsenal with Yuan Shikaiti yì, because having an arsenal plays a huge role in the Beiyang system, because it means that Beiyang has the ability to make weapons by itself, and if you want to expand the army in the future, you don't have to worry about not being able to buy weapons.

At the same time, more importantly, once a war breaks out between Beiyang and other forces, then Beiyang will be able to obtain a steady supply of weapons and ammunition without worrying about the supply of weapons and ammunition being cut off.

Of course, in this process, Zhao Dongyun inevitably has his own selfish desires, because he knows that the Manchu Qing Dynasty will not live for a few years, so he is also consciously preparing for the future, and this preparation is to try to control more voice in the Beiyang system, in order to have a place in the future great changes.

If he can control an arsenal in his hands, then it can help him gain more say in the Beiyang system.

As for the way to make money for the family, it can only be regarded as added value, which is better than nothing, but it does not matter.

However, in Zhao Dongyun's expectations, the arsenal is a long-term plan, even if it is to be launched, it is estimated that it will not start until two or three years later, as for now, he just wants to invest a little money to go down, first study mortars and grenades, not to build a large-scale arsenal, just hope to get a handicraft workshop for preliminary research.

Based on this plan, he instructed Zhao Chenbin to build a small machine factory, which was for preliminary research, and it was also an early investment in training management and technical personnel.

And asked them to ask what the market of the equipment for making guns is, mainly because he wanted to know how much it would cost if he really wanted to build an arsenal, and what technology could be obtained in today's environment, when he knew these prerequisites, he could make follow-up plans, such as raising funds, such as persuading Yuan Shikai.

The above two points can only be regarded as Zhao Dongyun's forward-looking plans, so he didn't pay too much attention to it, just casually ordered a few words, but what he didn't expect was that when Zhao Chenbin and Zhao Dongping got together, one person guessed that Zhao Dongyun had won Yuan Shikai's trust and wanted to establish an official arsenal, while the other person thought that Zhao Dongyun was eyeing the red arms business and wanted to intervene in it.

However, no matter what they think, their ability to do things is far beyond Zhao Dongyun's expectations, or Zhao Dongyun is far underestimating the determination of those foreign companies to make money.

After Zhao Chenbin returned to Tianjin, he went to do this with great fanfare, although Zhao Chenbin was just an ordinary businessman and was not familiar with those foreign firms, but there were many foreigners in Fuyuan Yarn Factory.

As soon as he returned to Tianjin, he found Dowgel, the manager of Fuyuan Yarn Factory, and the matter was mixed up, except that Dougel helped introduce the foreign company to purchase machine guns, rifles and equipment for making guns.

Although Dougel 61 Brown is an Englishman, he is very familiar with several high-level executives of the Tianjin branch of the German and foreign banks, and last year the Fuyuan Yarn Factory purchased equipment in order to expand production, and he also introduced it to the company, and reached a deal to buy a batch of tens of thousands of taels of silver machine equipment, of course, Dougel also took a lot of kickbacks.

This time, when Zhao Chenbin found him and said that he wanted him to introduce a foreign company to buy a batch of ordnance and gun-making equipment, his eyes lit up, and the order for this batch of ordnance and equipment had to go up to 100,000 yuan, how much introduction fee could he get?

And considering his close relationship with Lihe and the foreign company, he naturally introduced the Lihe foreign company this time.

Lihe & Co. is the largest German-funded foreign firm in contemporary China, and it is the agent of German enterprises such as Krupp Artillery Factory and Siemens in China.

According to reason, an order of tens of thousands of taels and an order of more than 100,000 yuan will not cause much alarm, but in the past two years, the performance of the Tianjin branch of Lihe Foreign Bank has not been good, especially the performance of arms.

The Tianjin branch of Lihe Foreign Bank, of course, does not need to say much about other businesses, only the relevant arms part, and the sales performance of this arms part can be described as extremely bleak.

The main army in North China is actually the Beiyang Army, and the large number of military purchases of the Beiyang Army in the past two years was mainly for the Wuwei Right Army to purchase weapons and ammunition for the follow-up replenishment, mainly Manlixia rifles and the like, but this list has always been controlled by the British-funded Phillips Foreign Company, and other foreign companies have not intervened at all.

After the formation and training of the standing army this year, Yuan Shikai and other high-level officials in Beiyang had a great impression of Japan's own arms, because Japan's industrial progress has been relatively rapid in recent years, and although the level of ordnance made by Japan is not as good as that of the old European powers, it can be used at best, and because Japan is seeking arms exports, the price concession range is relatively large, and at the same time, because the wages of Japanese workers are low and they are close to China, so after combining many aspects, the price of Japanese ordnance in the same period is much lower than that of European products.

Specific examples, for example, Yuan Shikai bought the Qisheng Five Mountain Cannon from the British-funded Foreign Bank, and the unit price was seven or eight thousand taels of silver, but the unit price of the Seven Life Five Mountain Cannon of the same caliber purchased from Japan was only about four or five thousand taels of silver, with a gap of more than three or four thousand taels. There is also a big gap in rifles, for example, the new Mauser 1898 rifle in Europe, the basic unit price of buying is more than fifty or sixty taels, but the Japanese version of the 30-year-old rifle, including rifles, bayonets, etc., only costs 27 taels of silver.

Of course, if Yuan Shikai doesn't dislike it, the second-hand 88 type of the Germans is cheaper, and you can buy it for less than 20 taels.

Of course, the reason why the above prices are large is also related to the large performance gap between them, but these performance gaps have a limited impact and will not have a greater impact on the combat effectiveness of the army, so it is not a big problem for Beiyang, in this case, Yuan Shikai naturally attaches more importance to the price of ordnance!

Based on the fact that the Japanese ordnance was cheap enough, and the rifle caliber was small and suitable for the use of the Chinese body, Yuan Shikai was inclined to purchase the Japanese ordnance in the early stage of the standing army's training.

Yuan Shikai wants to purchase Japan's ordnance, so naturally there is nothing to do with foreign companies in other countries.

However, this batch of orders has not yet been completed, and the situation in the Northeast has begun to become tense, and the Japanese have also begun to reserve weapons and ammunition in the country to prevent accidents, so they dare not continue to accept Yuan Shikai's orders.

However, the current Beiyang expansion operation is still continuing, so how to solve the weapons of the follow-up troops? While annoying Yuan Shikai, it also made arms dealers from all over the world jump and try to get a piece of the pie.

At this time, someone suddenly came to the door and said that they wanted to purchase a large number of machine guns and equipment for making guns, and several people in charge of Lihe Foreign Company suddenly jumped out like cats smelling fishy.

As the largest German-owned foreign firm in China, Lihe & Co. has acted as an agent for many German-funded enterprises in China. Want a machine gun? No problem, as long as you give the money, it will be shipped to you immediately, and it is guaranteed to be the latest MG01 machine gun produced by Deutsche Arms Company, with reliable quality and excellent performance.

Want a rifle? No problem, even the German Army has not been able to complete all the new Mauser 1898 redress, I dare not say more, but tens of thousands can still be taken out, if it is too expensive, there are cheap and beautiful second-hand 1888 style to choose from, and you can sell you as much as you want, not to mention tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands can be sold to you!

And the equipment for making guns? Although this is not strictly speaking, it is not an arms business, but whatever he is, except for Emperor Wilhelm who did not dare to sell it, there is nothing else that it does not dare to sell, so it is also a trivial matter to make guns and artillery equipment.

In a word, whether it is weapons or equipment, gifts and foreign lines, quality and quantity, as long as you can get real money, free shipping immediately to the door, support cash on delivery, seven days at any time, with a one-year warranty!

Zhao Chenbin was frightened by the enthusiasm of Lihe and the foreign company, he didn't know that the people of the Lihe foreign company wanted to go crazy with the arms orders of the Beiyang Army.

Besides, he can't decide on the purchase of orders such as machine guns and rifles, he is actually just an introducer, and the details still need to be discussed by Zhao Dongping, and then Zhao Dongyun will make the decision himself.

He didn't have much right to decide on weapons and equipment, so he could only tell Zhao Dongping, but at that time, he remembered the equipment for making guns, so he asked a few more questions.

It is not easy to make gun equipment, it is very easy for Lihe to purchase it in Germany and then ship it to China, the key is whether you have the money?