"Let's see if it still works!" Zhao Dongyun waved his hand, just let Lin Yongquan go over and fiddle with those machine guns.

In addition to Lin Yongquan, an officer with experience in commanding machine guns, Zhao Dongyun also found two soldiers who had operated Makqin machine guns from the brother unit next door.

After a long time, the armourer who followed him stepped forward to knock and fight, and finally got a Maxim machine gun!

"This bullet was also stocked many years ago, but it is well preserved, and it shouldn't be a problem to use it!" While Lin Yongquan said this, he also asked the soldiers to load their bullets, and then a seconded soldier who had been a machine gun shooter sat at the back of the machine gun and aimed the muzzle of the gun at the open field in the distance.

Outside the muzzle of the gun was an open shooting range, and a hundred meters away there was a row of planks that served as targets.

With Zhao Dongyun nodding slightly, the soldier pulled the trigger, and with the trigger pulled, the Makqin machine gun, which had been silent for many years, once again erupted a tongue of fire, accompanied by a piercing sound and gunsmoke.

Zhao Dongyun squinted his eyes, and after watching the planks in the distance being torn to pieces in an instant, a question arose in his heart that many people would have: During the Jiawu and Gengzi periods, why did the Huai Army and the Wuwei Army, which had such sharp weapons, still lose so badly?

That's a war that shouldn't be lost!

"Haha, yes, it still works!" Lin Yongquan asked the soldiers to stop shooting, revealing a hearty laugh, because Zhao Dongyun had already told him before setting off that these weapons were under his control, so it was naturally a good thing for him that this thing could be used!

Subsequently, Zhao Dongyun and his entourage inspected the other three, one of which could be used, but the other two were already missing parts, but the accompanying technician took a few looks, fiddled with it for half an hour, and completely dismantled a Makqin machine gun into parts, and took the parts and installed them on the other one, so he made a Makqin machine gun that could fire.

For those remaining parts, he didn't throw them away directly, and Zhao Dongyun waved his hand to let people take away all these things, and also took away all the bullets in stock.

After pulling these three Makqin machine guns back to the second battalion, Zhao Dongyun said to Lin Yongquan: "From now on, this sentry of yours will be converted to machine guns, and I will see the results before the exercise!" ”

After Zhao Dongyun finished speaking, he seemed to be saying to him, as if he was saying to himself: "Now there are only three old Makqin machine guns should not be enough, I will think of a way to see if I can get a few new machine guns!" ”

After this period of time, Zhao Dongyun was almost running around the machine gun, as for the other training of the troops, he didn't have much to worry about, the current Wuwei Right Army is still in the rising development period, but there are not many problems of other old armies, and the daily training of infantry is just like this, he has no way to improve anything except ordering to strengthen training!

In order to get immediate results in exercises, this machine gun is indispensable!

Although the second battalion already had three Makqin machine guns, but Zhao Dongyun was not satisfied with this, he asked around where there were old Makqin machine guns, you must know that in the early years when the Makqin machine guns first came out, Li Hongzhang was very interested, in 1888 he ordered the Jinling Manufacturing Bureau to imitate, but at that time, because these early Makqin machine guns were too faulty, and too many bullets were consumed, so the manufacture of more than 30 guns stopped in 1893.

Some of these machine guns participated in the Korean War in the First Sino-Japanese War and the Gengzi Year of the First Year, and some of them were still lying in military warehouses in various places and moldy.

In addition to looking for old Maxim machine guns, he was also trying to see if he could buy new ones.

After all, those old-fashioned Maxim machine guns are already imitations of more than ten years ago, not to mention many failures and the performance has been strictly outdated, if you want to establish a machine gun unit, you must not use these old-fashioned machine guns, you have to find a way to get some new Maxim machine guns or the French Hatch Chase machine guns.

Although he didn't know why Zhao Dongyun cared so much about machine guns, as a supporter of Zhao Dongyun, Duan Qirui didn't hesitate too much, in addition to helping Zhao Dongyun find another old Makqin machine gun in stock, he even helped Zhao Dongyun propose the idea of a trial machine gun team to Yuan Shikai!

In this way, Zhao Dongyun can be regarded as the first time in this era to make his own voice, he wrote some of his own tactics on the use of machine guns into chapters, focusing on the effectiveness of machine guns in fixed defensive warfare, and also said that during his stay in Germany, he found that the German Army had begun to equip machine guns on a large scale, and if China wants to train the new army, it must keep up with the pace of the great powers, and it cannot be developed when it comes to finding that it is gone.

I have to say that in the Beiyang system in this era, whether it is Yuan Shikai or Duan Qirui and others, they still attach great importance to new technology, whether it is the equipment of the Wuwei Right Army or the Beiyang Standing Army, they are keeping up with the pace of various countries, for example, now Yuan Shikai and others have noticed that the Manlixia rifle has begun to lag behind the world, and they are already preparing to import more new rifles.

However, now that Western countries have imposed a strict arms embargo on China, Yuan Shikai is unable to purchase arms from Western countries on a large scale through normal official channels.

It should be mentioned here that the ban on the import of weapons and the manufacture of weapons raw materials in paragraph 5 of the Xinchou Treaty and the 11th paragraph of the appendix was very significant, and during the first two years of the implementation of the treaty, that is, from 1901 to 1903, China had no way to obtain a large number of weapons through official channels, and could only smuggle them secretly.

However, what is interesting is that the section of this arms embargo says this: Emperor Guangxu issued an order to ban China's import of weapons and weapon raw materials! In other words, the treaty allows China to ban itself, which is probably the most nonsense arms embargo treaty in human history!

So despite the arms embargo, it has not affected China's arms imports, not to mention rifles and artillery, and warships are still bought!

There is another reason for this, that is, the arms embargo this time is mainly advocated by France, and in the Sino-French War, the French army was beaten by the Qing army equipped with German and British weapons, and naturally it is even more reluctant to let China continue to be equipped with new weapons. In the eyes of other powers, even if the Qing army fought with them with nuclear bombs, it could still knock them down, and it is true that in modern history, the only thing that the Qing army has fought and defeated in modern history is France.

Although the arms embargo of the Xinchou Treaty had many loopholes, and the implementation was not too strict, and it would not even take long for it to exist in name only, but it was still 1901, and the Xinchou Treaty had just been signed.

To put it mildly, the arms embargo also forced the Qing court to start producing Hanyang-made rifles and artillery on a large scale, and established the special status of Hanyang-made in Chinese military history.

Naturally, the arms embargoes imposed by various countries on China will not allow China to obtain a large number of new machine guns from Western countries, but if you use guò smuggling methods, it is not a problem to get a few!

Yuan Shikai has always attached great importance to new technology, and almost as soon as Duan Qirui handed over Zhao Dongyun's construction of the machine, he approved the construction of the trial machine gun team.

Now that the armies of all countries have begun to equip machine guns in batches, Yuan Shikai also has the intention to follow up, taking 10,000 steps back and saying, even if the machine gun is useless, at most it is just a loss of some money, and this money can't even buy a seven-life-five field artillery, but if the machine gun is really useful, then the Beiyang Army will be able to keep up with the world trend in time, which is far more important than more than 10,000 taels of silver.

It didn't take a few days for Zhao Dongyun to get the approval for the official preparation of the machine gun team!

"From now on, you're the leader!" After Zhao Dongyun got the approval, he said this to Lin Yongquan, the first and only machine gun commander under him.

As soon as the matter was done, he was promoted, and anyone would be happy, Lin Yongquan's face was a little excited: "My lord's love, Yongquan can't repay it!" ”

"You've done a good job of the machine gun team, and that's the best reward for me!" Zhao Dongyun stood up at this moment, walked up to Lin Yongquan and patted him on the shoulder: "In a month's exercise, I will rely on you!" ”

Even though Lin Yongquan is ten years older than Zhao Dongyun, at this moment, the two of them seem to be as if Zhao Dongyun is the elder, and Lin Yongquan is just a hairy young man.

Sent Lin Yongquan, who was still very excited, out, Zhao Dongyun went out of his office, and then went to the barracks next door, and as soon as he entered, the people inside stood up one after another, and there was Zhao Dongping, who had just come in the past few days.

Originally, Zhao Dongyun planned to send Zhao Dongping to the camp to teach and learn to be a bookkeeper, but the plan did not change quickly, and now he was transferred to the second battalion as a commander, so he naturally changed the plan, and finally arranged Zhao Dongping to the second battalion as a bookkeeper.

This is not only to give Zhao Dongping an errand, but also to let him follow him to do things, after all, many things are more reassuring to be done by his family, in addition, Zhao Dongyun sees that although Zhao Dongping is young, he is clever and knows how to advance and retreat, so he can be regarded as having the intention to cultivate him.

If he comes out worthy of training, then Zhao Dongyun plans to recommend him to study at the Baoding Military Academy under preparation for a few years next year, and when he comes out, he may be able to become a great help to himself.

After Zhao Dongyun entered, he pressed his hand to signal everyone in the room not to be polite, and then beckoned Zhao Dongping out: "How did I let you buy a machine gun?" ”