The afternoon of communication made Xu Jie feel physically and mentally exhausted. But in order to make up for the losses caused by his planning mistakes, Xu Jie had to continue working at night. Since it is necessary to build an army, it is indispensable to choose the right weapons. And before choosing weapons, Xu Jie must know the difference between the new army and the Japanese army.

Xu Jie first wrote down these words on the white paper: numerical superiority. According to historical records. During the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese army reached 6 main divisions and regiments in the front line, with a total of more than 150,000 people. Each division averages more than 20,000 people. This is the family foundation accumulated after the Meiji Restoration in Japan for more than 20 years. There are only 50,000 front-line troops in Beiyang, and the outnumbered force is clear at a glance. Even if you consider Xu Jie and Beiyang, expand some more troops. (These newly expanded units can only be of the nature of local regimental training, and it is impossible for them to be recognized and replenished by the central authorities.) The reason is very simple, the first can't afford to raise. You must know that Japan had less than 200,000 standing troops in those years (many of the standing divisions were greatly expanded during the First Sino-Japanese period). But it is these 200,000 troops that spend more on military expenses every year than the Japanese Navy! Even if you count the potential allies of Beiyang, Beiyang will never be able to form an army that can compete with the Japanese army, and the center of the Qing State will definitely not allow such an expansion of the army in Lao Li!!

"Artillery superiority". Subsequently, Xu Jie wrote these words on the paper. If compared with the Japanese Type 13 and Type 22 single-shot rifles, the various rifles equipped with Beiyang have performance advantages. ACCORDING TO XU JIE'S RECOLLECTIONS, EACH DIVISION OF THE JAPANESE ARMY WAS EQUIPPED WITH 26 75MM FIELD GUNS AND 13 75MM MOUNTAIN GUNS, WITH THE FORMER FIRING RANGE OF 5 KILOMETERS AND THE LATTER FIRING RANGE OF 3 KILOMETERS. This is definitely much stronger than the firepower of Qing Guo pulling out a 2-pounder field cannon and a Gatling machine gun!! Moreover, in addition to the artillery equipped by various Japanese troops, Japan produced a total of 700 70MM class artillery pieces and 500,000 shells during the First Sino-Japanese Period.

And these two points are only the gap in hardware, as for the will to fight, the gap in training, this can not be measured by specific numbers at all, one side is the Japanese army armed with the spirit of bushido, and the other side is the Qing army with mixed rice as the main purpose, this kind of gap, you can know it when you think about it.

Therefore, in the face of an extremely unfavorable situation, if you want to contain the opponent's attack, you can only strengthen it in equipment and training. And as a weapon that already existed at that time, it was most suitable to restrain the group's charge. Naturally, it was the prestigious Maxine machine gun. A rate of fire of up to 600 rounds per minute. (Of course, because of the different bullets used or the different storage time, the rate of fire of the Maxine machine gun fluctuates up and down on the standard of 600 rounds per minute, but the impact is not great) and the Gatling machine gun and the Garnard machine gun of the same era as Maxine are hand-cranked machine guns, the former generally does not exceed 400 rounds per minute, and the latter has a maximum rate of fire of no more than 250 rounds per minute even in the hands of the designer himself. Summing up, the rate of fire of a real automatic machine gun Maxine is the highest. As for the results of the Maxine machine gun, it can be illustrated by the following examples. In the battle between the British and the Zulus, 50 British soldiers used 4 Maxine machine guns to repel 5 waves of the opponent's charge in a row, shooting 5,000 Horde fighters. In the Battle of Umdurman in 1896, Maxine machine guns slaughtered at least 15,000 Islamic fighters. Some people may say that this is against an outdated army, so let's look at the example of the Russo-Japanese War. In a battle on January 8, 1905, two Maxin machine guns fired 1,000 rounds in just two minutes in the face of a 200-strong Japanese charge, and the opposing 200-man attacking force was almost completely wiped out. As for the reliability of the Maxine machine guns, in the Battle of Mukden, 8 Maxin machine guns repelled 7 attacks in one day, firing 200,000 rounds of ammunition without any failures. This is enough to show that the Maxine machine gun is a powerful and durable weapon.

Of course, there were still many problems with the Maxine machine gun at this time, and the most obvious problem was that it was too heavy and unsuitable for manual handling. However, in Xu Jie's eyes, these technical problems can be overcome. The MG08 Maxine machine gun used by Germany in World War I and the shooting principle of the Vickers machine gun used by the British were deeply imprinted in Xu Jie's mind. COMPARATIVELY SPEAKING, THE VICKERS MACHINE GUN WAS LIGHTER THAN THE GERMAN MG08 MACHINE GUN (A THIRD LESS IN WEIGHT, BUT WITH THE GUN MOUNT, THE VICKERS MACHINE GUN STILL REACHED ALMOST 50KG). ）。 More manpower-saving, the MG08 machine gun team is generally 7 people, while the British Vickers machine gun can be operated by 4 people (sometimes a 6-person machine gun team is arranged) However, the Vickers machine gun also has its own problems, the most important of which is that the cooling water evaporates too quickly~~. According to statistics, after 500 rounds of Vickers machine guns, the cooling water turns into boiling water. Because the entire barrel of the Vickers machine gun was soaked in cooling water, the cooling system of the German MG08 was relatively more durable. Moreover, the Vickers machine gun's cooling system is unprotected, and a single bullet can render this expensive and ferocious weapon useless. The meticulous Germans, on the other hand, set up protective armor in the cooling water barrel and gun carriage to protect the cooling water system and the main shooter. (Of course, Britain and France were not stupid later, they did not set armor for the machine gun, but the main shooter had a steel plate armor similar to a lobster for protection, and there was a feeling of returning to the age of knights in a trance) The last point is the high precision of the German MG08 machine gun, and its high accuracy comes from 2 points, one is the sled bracket that is stable and can be fine-tuned. The second is the specially equipped Zeiss 2.5x scope. (Here we can't help but admire the optical technology of Germany at that time, some of them used 2.5 times the sight during the 1st war, and until now it can be cleaned and imaged~~) In the case of a sight, the MG08 machine gun has a good accuracy in direct fire at a distance of 2000 meters in the face of small group targets, and if an indirect design is used, it has a certain lethality even within 4000 meters. Vickers machine guns, on the other hand, generally have a range between 2,900 and 3,500 yards (the range varies depending on the type of ammunition used)

Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, Xu Jie's changes to the Maxine machine gun have the following arrangements: First, the curved unlocking mechanism above the bolt of the original Maxine machine gun is reversed, which can reduce the overall height of the receiver by 2 inches. At the same time, the shell throwing port was improved, and the forward shell throwing of the original Maxine machine gun was changed to a backward shell throwing. Second, the water cooling system is designed with reference to the German MG08 and is properly protected. Thirdly, the gun carriage uses a Vickers tripod, but at the same time has some fine-tuning functions. Balance weight and utility. Fourth, the machine gun cartridge uses the German standard 7.92*57 smokeless propellant bullet. If possible, equip yourself with specialized optical sights made by Zeiss in Germany. As a result, the design features of the 1889 version of the Xu version of the Maxine machine gun were freshly released. As for the impact on later generations, it can be evaluated by a sentence from Hannagan, who participated in the Sino-Japanese War. The bullet fired by the 1889 version of the improved machine gun was a "whirling dragon".