Since the incident of Lin Xiaoyu being cut first and then being named a virtuous concubine, under the dual requirements of Xu Shaoan and the "Dark Feather" General Hall (Intelligence Department), the "Dark Feather" Kaifeng Branch Office has accelerated the development of the number of informants in the palace, and has also ordered all spies and informants to strengthen the collection of all kinds of information in the palace of the Zhou State, especially information related to Youzhou. Although "Dark Feather" had revealed some information about the relationship between "Dark Feather" and the crossing team to individual informants in order to contact Lin Xiaoyu at the beginning, these informants who knew the relationship between the two were limited to a very small number of high-level informants, and most of the informants still knew nothing about the secrets. Therefore, when the "Dark Feather" Kaifeng Branch issued a task to the informants, it proposed to step up the collection of information related to the Northern Expedition and the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun - after all, at present, the news related to the Northern Expedition and the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun are usually inseparable from the crossing team.

Therefore, when Zhang Yongde thought that the main hall was full of eunuchs and palace maids in the palace, and no one would dare to leak the news, and talked eloquently there, trying his best to slander the "Qingyuan" brothers, he did not know that among the eunuchs who served in the palace at that time, two of them were "Dark Feather's" informants in the palace - the two were not the same, and they did not know each other's details. As a result, Zhang Yongde had just left the palace on this side, and the two eunuchs on the other side passed on everything that happened in the palace as quickly as possible.

Since the news came from two incense halls that were not subordinate to each other and did not know each other, in the eyes of the deputy hall master in charge of intelligence analysis of the "Dark Feather" Kaifeng Branch, its reliability was still very high, so this news was quickly handed over to the master of the "Dark Feather" Kaifeng Branch.

After receiving the news, the branch hall master did not immediately report it to the main hall or Xu Shao'an, but first further verified the news through other channels. After confirming that the news was correct, he sent this important news to Xu Shao'an before noon on the second day after the discussion of Chai Rong and Zhang Yongde's ministers, and reported it to the main hall through the secret contact point set up in the "Hidden Garden" of Chenqiaoyi outside Kaifeng City.

When Xu Shaoan saw this report, the first thing he did was to scold Zhang Yongde for "dogs taking rats -- meddling in things", and the second thing was to go to the telegraph room and order the telegraph operator to decode the report as quickly as possible and send it to "Qingyuan".

Xu Shao'an sent a telegram at noon, and received a call back from "Qingyuan" in the afternoon. However, contrary to Xu Shaoan's expectations, this reply did not give instructions on how to deal with the matter, but only said that the committee was aware of the matter, and the specific response will need to be discussed at the committee's expanded meeting before it can be decided. In this regard, Xu Shaoan also had nothing to say, and after ordering the "Dark Feather" Kaifeng Branch to continue to pay attention to this matter through secret channels, he could only sit in his own house and wait for news.

While Xu Shao'an was waiting for news in his house, the members of the enlarged meeting of the committee were also having a heated discussion in the "Liangyuan" hall. It's just that the content of their discussion is not limited to the telegram sent by Xu Shaoan.

Coincidentally, just as the head of the Kaifeng branch of the "Dark Feather" was trying to verify the news coming from the palace, Wang Kunjun and Zhang Weixin, who lived in the "Qingyuan," also received a telegram from the Weapons Section of the Ministry of Science and Technology, requesting the committee to accept the two new types of weapons -- in fact, the two new types of weapons were not rigorous enough, and to be precise, they should be two different models of the same new type of weapons. The name of this new type of weapon is very familiar to all travelers, that is, the machine gun, the forerunner of automatic firearms in the previous life.

From Jishu's point of view, the development of a machine gun was not a difficult task for the weapons section. As early as when the "Five-Five" rifle was first developed, the Weapons Section had actually started the development of machine guns, and several prototypes were produced shortly after the "Five-Five" rifle was inquired about. It's just that due to the limitations of the performance of the steel produced by the crossing team, the shooting life of these machine gun sample guns is not long, and basically all kinds of problems will occur after firing 1,800 rounds. Either the barrel is overheated and must be cooled down for a long time, or the rifling is badly worn and must be replaced with a new one. Either the automaton malfunctioned and could not provide continuous fire. In short, there are many problems, and they simply cannot meet the needs of actual combat. ,

Fortunately, the brothers in the Weapons Section and other relevant departments of the Ministry of Science and Technology have a spirit of perseverance, and on the premise of ensuring that the progress of the development of other weapons and equipment will not be affected, they have not given up the research and development of machine guns -- although the machine gun is a very sharp weapon, its importance is still one level lower than that of rifles and rifled guns.

With the continuous progress of the materials department in steel smelting, especially the successful research and development of the steel required for rifled guns, the machine gun, which was originally very slow in research and development, has finally crossed a difficult hurdle in Zuihou and began to enter the fast lane of research and development. Eventually, at the end of the seventh month of the lunar calendar of the eighth year of the corresponding calendar, the Weapons Section completed all the tests of the two machine guns and submitted an application to the Commission for the acceptance of the weapons.

There is also a new type of weapon that can equip the "Flying Dragon Army", and the committee naturally welcomes it very much. Therefore, on the fifth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar, a notice was sent to the members of the enlarged meeting of the committee, and it was decided to conduct a finalized test of two machine guns at the Shiyan field of weapons in the "Liangyuan" in the afternoon of the next day.

Before noon on the sixth day of the eighth month of the lunar calendar of the eighth year of the corresponding calendar, all the participants arrived at the "Cool Garden". After lunch, everyone went to the weapon Shiyan field, which is located not far to the east of "Liangyuan", to prepare for the final type test of the two machine guns.

When several senior craftsmen of the weapons section, under the command of Fu Guangsheng, the backbone of the weapons section, carried the two machine guns up to the Shiyan platform and began to debug the zuihou, the participants of the enlarged meeting of the committee, who were sitting under the pergola not far from the Shiyan platform, pointed to one of the machine guns and exclaimed in unison: "Isn't this the famous 'Makqin' machine gun?" ”

Hearing everyone's shouts, Zhou Lei, the second brother who was also sitting in the pergola, and now held the two positions of director of the mechanical department and deputy director of the weapons department, smiled, pointed to the machine gun and explained: "Brothers, pay attention, it's the tenth century AD, and the Englishman named Makqin, who was born in the United States, may not be born until nearly nine hundred years. Therefore, although this machine gun looks very similar to the 'Makqin' machine gun in the previous life, it is a product designed and manufactured by the brothers of our weapons department according to the principles of modern firearms they have mastered, and has completely independent intellectual property rights, and it has nothing to do with the guy named Makqin. ”

Zhou Lei was loudly promoting the brothers of the weapons department there, and was very proud to attribute the intellectual property rights of this machine gun to the name of the weapons department, but forgot that this machine gun was almost the same as the "Maxim" machine gun in the previous life, and the caliber (11.43 mm) was exactly the same, and the theory of automatic weapons in the modern firearms principle he mentioned, as well as the chain feeding system, were all from Mr. Hiram Stevens Maxim, who is known as the father of automatic weapons.