It's just that the cooperation between the Beiyang armies is more difficult than Zhao Dongyun imagined, and he and Yuan Shikai mentioned several times that they would carry out cooperation training between infantry and machine guns with Zuozhen of the Standing Army, but they are not sure, as for the reasons, but the main one is Wang Yingkai's side.

Wang Yingkai and Duan Qirui are rivals, and in the eyes of outsiders, Zhao Dongyun is Duan Qirui's descendant, so don't want Wang Yingkai to take the initiative to cooperate with Zhao Dongyun for training.

Anyway, for Wang Yingkai, those machine gun units will always be deployed to various armies, and when the time comes, after the standing army is equipped with machine gun troops, it will not be too late to train on its own, and there is no need to give Zhao Dongyun a long face now.

This made Zhao Dongyun a little angry, but there was no way, so he could only transfer some soldiers equipped with rifles from the newly built machine gun battalion to simulate the running-in training of infantry units and machine gun units.

Although this is only a simulated unit, most of the officers and officers in the newly built machine gun battalion are infantry officers, so it is much easier to train an infantry unit than a machine gun unit.

Therefore, without the cooperation of friendly infantry units, the newly built machine gun battalion was able to conduct a good training of coordination between machine guns and infantry, and for this reason, it is said that some officers of the Standing Army Zuozhen were very unconvinced, thinking that the people of the new machine gun battalion had crossed the line, and instead of playing with machine guns, they made an inexplicable simulated infantry team.

In the process of organizing and training the newly built machine gun battalion, there are many, many similar trivial matters, and the newly built machine gun battalion is slowly becoming an army in such an environment.

At the beginning of August 1902, Zhao Dongyun and Fang Ruolian officially held a wedding, because Fang Ruolian was a Catholic, she wanted to hold a Western-style wedding at the beginning, but Zhao's mother resolutely did not allow it, thinking that a traditional Chinese-style wedding must be held. In the end, Zhao Dongyun said a compromise plan, that is, the two were fused together, and they also visited the church and went to the church, and finally got a nondescript wedding with a fusion of Chinese and Western.

The consequence is that both sides are unhappy, and Zhao Dongyun feels very helpless about this!

Of course, the process of the wedding and even the marriage itself are not the key to Zhao Dongyun, for Zhao Dongyun, what he needs to use the appearance of marriage to give people a sense of maturity and stability.

On the day of the wedding, many Beiyang bigwigs also appeared one by one, even Yuan Shikai arrived in person, but he was also very busy as the governor of Zhili, so he didn't stay at the wedding for long, just came to show up and left, but Duan Qirui and Feng Guozhang and others stayed until after the dinner before going back.

Another thing that can't be laughed at is that three days before the wedding, Yuan Shikai inexplicably called Zhao Dongyun and Fang Ruolian over, and then directly accepted Fang Ruolian as a righteous daughter.

This made Zhao Dongyun's bottom line for Yuan Shikai to win people's hearts lower again, if you were sincere, you should have accepted Fang Ruolian as a righteous daughter a few days earlier, I only came to do this three days before I got married, isn't it clear that you want to win me over!

However, although the move is simple, the effect is good for Zhao Dongyun, at least others seem to be the evidence that Yuan Shikai attaches importance to Zhao Dongyun, not everyone's fiancée will be accepted as a righteous daughter by Yuan Shikai before marriage.

In addition to these bigwigs, most of the Beiyang officers who have a good relationship with Zhao Dongyun are also present, and even most of the people who have no friendship will come to take a turn, although Zhao Dongyun has not risen for a long time, but for more than a year, he has been continuously focused on by Yuan Shikai, and a clear-eyed person can see that Zhao Dongyun has been on a rocket, and he may not know when he will suddenly go up.

A week after the wedding, Zhao Dongyun and Zhao Chenliang went to Tianjin, where they were going to Tianjin and then to Tangshan to inspect the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, which had already started.

Although the ordered machine equipment has not arrived so soon, the preparatory work for the premise of Fuyuan machine has been launched!

As a commercial enterprise with comprehensive Western-style management, the efficiency of Fuyuan Machinery is far from being comparable to those government-run factories in China.

After deciding to establish a factory in Tangshan, relying on Yuan Shikai and other Beiyang tycoons, Fuyuanji Qì Factory obtained a large piece of land set aside by the local county government to build a factory without difficulty, and immediately put into the intense factory construction work.

Due to the abundant funds, the construction speed of the plant will be very fast, and the first batch of plants will be put into use within three months, so that after the equipment is shipped back to China, there will not even be a place to store the equipment.

Subsequently, the construction of the second and third batches of factories will continue and the equipment will be accepted one after another, and it is estimated that the acceptance of all equipment will not be completed until the summer of 1903.

However, before that, in fact, the trial production of rifles has been carried out in advance, and after the arrival of the first batch of equipment this winter, the engineers of the arsenal will begin to solve relevant technical problems, solve potential problems, and begin to trial produce Type 88 rifles and bullets, etc., and begin to recruit workers on a large scale for training.

After all, the establishment of an arsenal is not organic equipment, even if it is someone who teaches you how to do it, but it also takes time to absorb, and it also takes time to train workers, as long as the engineers are familiar with the situation of the equipment, can maintain the normal operation of the equipment, and the workers also reach the level of skilled workers, then it can be said that the design and mass production stage has been reached.

And this time Zhao Dongyun gave two years, that is, before July 1904, the mass production of the Type 88 rifle must be completed.

This time is not only related to the business and capital of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory itself, but also related to the pace of Beiyang army expansion.

In order to give Yuan Shikai confidence and let him suspend the large-scale purchase of German Type 88 rifles, Zhao Dongyun also personally went to Tangshan to urge the construction of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory, and went to meet the engineers of the Fuyuan Machinery Factory.

Although the Fuyuan Machinery Factory was established for a short time, and even the formal plant was not built, it did not prevent it from starting to recruit talents on a large scale, in addition to recruiting foreign engineers and management personnel, domestic technicians and management personnel were also the focus of recruitment, and a considerable number of these people recruited were people from the former Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau.

The year before last, after the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau was destroyed by the Eight-Nation Alliance, those technicians and workers lost their jobs, and some of them chose to seek jobs in other factories and bureaus, while others could only wait for the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau to be rebuilt.

Now the rise of Fuyuanji Factory, and when digging people everywhere, it has also attracted their attention, so that many technical talents have been absorbed by Fuyuanji Factory.

In the temporary workshop of the Tangshan Fuyuan Machinery Factory, Zhao Dongyun took out a few drawings, and then began to say to a group of engineers: "These are the grenades and mortars I told you before!" ”

"First of all, this grenade is intended to produce a bomb that soldiers can carry and throw, the body of the bomb can be made of iron, and the weight must be controlled within the throwable range!"

The grenade picture drawn by Zhao Dongyun is just an appearance, and this appearance is from his later war films, that is, wooden grenades.

A former technician from the Beiyang Machinery Manufacturing Bureau walked up and said: "This kind of improvised bomb should not be a big problem, but the firing method is a bit troublesome, and it is worth considering whether to adopt a timed delay fuze or a collision fuze." ”

The grenade is actually not difficult, it can be made in any handicraft workshop, of course, whether the performance is good or not has to be said separately.

"As for this mortar, we haven't heard of this kind of artillery, and there is no sample gun to refer to, I'm afraid it's a big problem to make it, for example, the weight, if you want to control the weight, then the requirements for the barrel are not small, and the fuse of the shell is also a problem!"

Zhao Dongyun's mortar design drawings also have only one appearance, and don't ask him about the interior design, because he doesn't know either.

"I'm just throwing bricks and bricks, and put forward the idea of these two weapons for you, if you want to design it, whether it is feasible or not depends on you to improve it together!" Zhao Dongyun said to a group of technicians: "As long as it can be made, then the factory will not hesitate to reward it!" ”

After leaving a lot of problems for the engineers of Fuyuan Machine, Zhao Dongyun patted his ass and left!

The Fuyuan machine didn't talk about him in advance, and said that Zhao Dongyun was called by Yuan Shikai not long after he returned to Baoding!

"It's been a few months since the new machine-gun battalion was built, how is it doing now?" As Zhao Dongyun expected, Yuan Shikai was still concerned about the machine gun battalion.

Zhao Dongyun said: "Since May, three battalions have been formed, and the personnel have been in place and are being trained, and the required machine guns have reached more than 30 units. ”

Yuan Shikai nodded after hearing this: "Yes, I can rest assured that you can do things, it is not easy to be able to train the machine gun battalion of the third battalion in a few months." Speaking of this, Yuan Shikai stopped talking, and then looked at Zhao Dongyun.

"Now that the machine gun team has just begun, several other armies are also shouting for a machine gun team, and it will not be good to drag it out, so let's start distributing the machine gun teams of the three battalions this month!"

Although he had expected this situation for a long time, it was still not a taste in his heart, it was all the troops he had trained with his own hands, and the officers he had trained one after another with his own hands had now scattered and distributed all the armies, which made him feel very uncomfortable.

It's just that he doesn't feel comfortable and he has to listen, because this matter has been decided from the beginning.

"In this way, the name of the new machine gun battalion is no longer used!" Yuan Shikai continued, seeing that Zhao Dongyun's face was quite normal, and then nodded secretly and continued: "In addition, the imperial court also said that a military training office will be established, and at that time, a cadre in the military and political department will also fall into the military training office. ”

"But I also know you, I have a set of training skills, and if you go directly to the training office, I am afraid that I will waste your training talent, so I hesitate for a while!"

At this time, Zhao Dongyun couldn't hear it, and now Yuan Shikai was thinking about his next appointment.