In Changxing, Huzhou, in the south campus of the county seat, Lin Zhe was talking with Fei Lide, the manager of Xinde Foreign Bank!

"General Lin, the rifled rifle rifle gun you want is not easy to find, I have asked several other companies, and they all said that there is no stock, if you want to transfer it from the Far East or India, it will take at least half a year!" Ferid said as he observed Lin Zhe's reaction. [ads:This site has a new URL,Shorthand method:,.]

In addition, some of the products imported by the Lin firm, such as kerosene, spices and other foreign goods, are mostly through the company, and the annual transaction amount between the two sides is as high as one million taels of silver.

The last time the Lin family bought the Mini Bu' gun, it was purchased from Xinde Foreign Bank, this time the Lin family firm was entrusted by Lin Zhe to buy another batch of Minnie Bu' guns and artillery, so naturally they also found Xinde Foreign Bank.

It's just that now they don't have any ready-made Minnie rifles in their hands, which makes this business a great obstacle.

To tell the truth, Xinde Foreign Company does not care much about the profits of this batch of ordnance trade, this business is only tens of thousands of taels of silver, and the profits are only a few thousand taels of silver, whether it is for Xinde Foreign Company or for Lin's Commercial Bank, it is nothing.

But the crux of the matter now is that this batch of ordnance is very important to Lin Zhe, and important to Lin Zhe In other words, it is important to Lin Firm, so even if he knows that the profits of this batch of ordnance trade are not large, Xinde Foreign Bank did not dare to slack off, and specially sent manager Fei Li to Changxing to negotiate with Lin Zhe.

Lin Zhe sighed, he didn't expect that this time he would encounter such a big trouble when he wanted to buy ordnance, and he couldn't find the Minnie rifle he needed in the entire Far East!

Immediately, he spoke: "It's too late to transfer from Europe, but is there no Southeast Asia or India?" As long as it is in stock, we can make a little concession on the price! ”

"Not really!" Ferid also frowned, to be honest, he didn't want to destroy the friendly and cooperative relationship with the Lin family because of this transaction.

So he came up with a workaround: "It's hard to find the Mini rifle you need, but there are a lot of ordinary smoothbore rifles, I wonder if you can accept these smoothbore rifles?" We have at least 400 Bess rifles on hand, and a batch of them from a few other companies should be able to meet your needs! ”

But Lin Zhe shook his head: "This can't work, those old smoothbore guns are no longer suitable for the needs of war, what am I buying them for!" ”

However, Ferid did not stop talking, but continued: "General Lin, as far as I know, the Mini Infantry gun you want is also modified from the Brown Bass, if you buy the Brown Bass Infantry Gun and then modify it, then you can get the rifled Infantry Gun?" ”

"Oh?" Lin Zhe was a little stunned when he heard this!

To tell the truth, he really didn't know this, as an ordinary person in later generations, he could know that the famous Mini Infantry gun was already rare, if you still expect him to know that the British Army's first large-scale equipment Mini Infantry gun, that is, the Enfield 1851 Infantry gun, was modified from the old brown Bess 1842 rifle? That's unlikely.

"Oh? Refit? I have to say that Ferid's words caught Lin Zhe's attention, and he immediately said: "If it is modified, is it technically difficult?" Will performance be affected, and how long will it take? ”

When Ferid heard Lin Zhe's questions, he knew that Lin Zhe on the other side should be moved, and immediately said: "The difficulty of modification is quite small, you only need to engrave rifling on the barrel, and then install the ruler, then it is a rifled Mini step gun!" ”

Hearing Ferid's words, Lin Zhe fell into deep thought, to be honest, he really didn't know that the current Mini Bu 'guns' were all modified from the old 'smoothbore rifle' guns, if what Ferid said was not wrong, then he could buy a 'smoothbore rifle' gun, and then pull a rifling to modify it into a Minnie Bu' gun!

Thinking of this, Lin Zhe immediately said: "If this matter is feasible, then I personally have no opinion, of course, you still have to discuss the detailed affairs with our shopkeeper Pan!" ”

Lin Zhe thought, anyway, he can't sell the Mini Infantry gun now, but the expansion of the army can't be stopped, and when the time comes, it will be a Infantry gun, even if it really only has a Brown Bess Infantry gun, it must be equipped. Now that it is possible to retrofit, it is naturally the best to do it.

After Lin Zhe made a decision, Lin's firm acted quickly, and soon signed an agreement with Xinde Foreign Bank to purchase a brown bass smoothbore gun.

Since the purchased brown bass rifles are old smoothbore guns, and in order to obtain enough of this type of rifle guns in the shortest possible time, in addition to some new guns, a considerable part of them are old guns, and the agreed purchase of brown bass rifles has reached 1,600 units, which will be delivered in two parts, the first delivery of only 600 units, and the remaining 1,000 units will be delivered within a month.

Of course, what Lin Zhe needed was not the old original brown bass rifle, but the modified brown bass rifle, that is, the Mini bug gun.

Therefore, Lin's & Co. also urgently requested from Xinde & Co. and many other foreign firms in Shanghai to purchase all kinds of machines for the establishment of a small-scale modification workshop for the transformation of brown bass rifles.

It's just that although the technical difficulty of modifying the brown bass rifle is very low, it is not something that can be solved by the Lin firm itself, so this modification workshop has also received strong support from Xinde Foreign Bank, and they have sent some technicians to guide the modification.

As a result, the first privately run arsenal in contemporary China was quietly established in a warehouse of the Lin family in the British Concession in Shanghai, without even hanging an official signboard.

There are dozens of machines, more than 10 foreign technicians, and dozens of workers hired by the Lin family from all over the country, and they have only one job, that is, to draw rifling the brown bass rifle gun, install a ruler, and convert the old brown bass smoothbore gun into a rifled rifled rifle gun that can fire Mini bullets.

Due to the low technical difficulty of the modification, the first batch of 100 modified brown bass rifled rifled rifled rifled rifles was soon sent to Changxing.

Looking at the modified brown bass rifle, Lin Zhe found that this modified brown bass rifle gun was similar in appearance to the Enfield 1851 rifle gun he was originally equipped with, as for the performance, although limited by the low technical ability of the Lin family's modification workshop and the poor equipment, the modified brown bass rifle was slightly deficient in range and accuracy, but this deficiency was acceptable.

After all, in any case, these modified brown bass rifle guns are serious rifled rifled rifle guns, which can fire Mini bullets, and the range and accuracy are not comparable to those smoothbore guns.

"This gun is good, it can fully equip our army on a large scale!" Han Xiangfang, the general office of the Ordnance Bureau on the side, also played with the modified brown bass step 'gun in his hand):

"Although there is a gap between the performance and my original rifle, the advantage is that the price is relatively low, and the most important thing is that our army can continue to get this kind of rifle gun in the future, without worrying about not being able to buy a Mini rifle!"

Han Xiangfang, this person was originally a manager of the Lin firm in the Ningbo branch, because this person is quite familiar with muskets, he presided over the procurement of muskets when the Lin family purchased musket equipment nursing homes, and later established Yuyao County Yongying, Lin Zhe directly dug him to the county Yongying, as the general office of the Ordnance Bureau, responsible for ordnance affairs.

At this time, Lin Zhe also nodded: "That's true, your Ordnance Bureau will follow up the purchase!" ”

After saying that, he said: "In addition to the rifles, your Ordnance Bureau must also step up the procurement of ammunition to ensure the supply of ammunition for our army!" ”

Han Xiangfang said: "The procurement of ammunition is not small, because we use a new type of Mini bullets, it is difficult to purchase in the domestic region, at present, we are currently relying on several foreign companies to import, the quantity is small and not very stable!" ”

"Let the Lin Firm's side make it itself? Isn't it possible? Lin Zhe asked suspiciously.

Han Xiangfang said: "I have already discussed this matter with Pan Lixuan, the shopkeeper of the Shanghai branch, and according to my understanding, if you want to mass-produce Mini bullets, it is far from large enough to rely on the current machine and technical personnel, and it is necessary to purchase the machine on a large scale before it is possible to mass produce it on a large scale!" ”

The Mini Rifle is not just a rifle, in fact, its core is not the Rifle Gun itself, but its bullets, and the reason why the Mini Rifle Gun is far ahead of the smoothbore rifle gun in terms of range and accuracy is that it relies on more advanced processing technology.

In order for Mini bullets to be used in rifled rifles' guns, the clearance is required to be less than 0.01 inch)!

At the same time, it is not required that the dimensional error between Mini bullets should not exceed 0.001 inches, but this is an error in large-scale industrial production, that is, the error in the production of 100,000 rounds or even 1 million rounds of ammunition is maintained at this level.

And this kind of processing accuracy can only be achieved in the homes of Britain, France, Germany and other powers, let alone China, and even in Russia around 1860 did not have the technical ability to mass-produce Mini bullets.

It is an exaggeration to say that when a country has the technical ability to mass-produce rifled front-loading rifles and Mini bullets, then it can completely produce single-shot rear-loading rifles and metal bullets on a large scale.

Some people may say that if the Mini Bu gun had appeared 100 years ago, it would have been able to sweep the world, but the reality is that even if there was a complete design of the Minnie Bu gun 100 years ago, it would not have been possible to achieve mass production by relying on the technical power of that era.

Those who say that the Mini Step gun is a crossing artifact are completely unable to understand the high requirements of the Mini Step gun for industrial technical capabilities, if you have the ability to mass-produce the Mini Step gun, you will definitely have the ability to mass-produce the single-shot rear loading step gun, just make the Mauser 1871 directly, and play what Enfield 1853!

Don't look at the Lin firm's casual handicraft workshop that can convert the brown bass rifle gun into a rifled rifled rifle gun, but the technical difficulty of this modification is quite low, which does not mean that the Lin firm's modification workshop has the ability to manufacture rifled rifled rifle guns.

As for the Mini bullet, there is no such possibility for the time being, and the technicians of Lin's modification workshop may be able to produce qualified rifled rifle rifle guns and Mini bullets by hand in small quantities, but they are absolutely not capable of mass production.

Lin Zhe frowned when he heard this, and immediately said: "If things are difficult, then we don't have to do things, you and the business bank will talk about it again, and let them see if they can buy another machine and make bullets!" ”

Let's not talk about whether the modification workshop of the Lin family firm can mass-produce Mini bullets in the future, those are all things in the future, and the most important thing for Lin Zhe now is that with the arrival of new recruits and weapons, his work of forming a new infantry regiment is already imminent. xh118