Inside the Heshingen Arsenal in Berlin.

Mayne, the director of the factory, was showing Ernst the performance of the two-shot rifle, and on the table were the Dreiser's rifles of the Prussian army and the Chasepol rifles captured on the battlefield.

Mayne picked up the Chasepol rifle and explained to Ernst: "The Chasepol rifle used by the French, it borrows from many successful practices of the Dreiser rifle, and it is also a rotating bolt pull, a firing needle, and a paper fixed load, but compared to the former, it is slightly better. For example, the locking system, the Dreiser rifle has a problem, it is not airtight and leaks, which greatly affects the effectiveness of the gunpowder, and then affects the muzzle velocity of the bullet. ”

"The Chasebo rifle was improved to address this problem by changing the Dreiser's hollow bolt to a solid one, and adding a rubber seal on the top of the bolt, so that when the bullet was fired, the high temperature generated by the gunpowder gas expanded the rubber and sealed the entire chamber. The sealing is improved, the muzzle velocity is improved, and the range is increased, such as the primer of the bullet, the primer of the Dreiser bullet is located in the middle of the bullet, and the firing pin should be very thin and long, and the primer of the Chasebo bullet is changed to the tail of the bullet, and the firing pin does not need to be very long, and the failure rate is greatly reduced. ”

"The performance of the Dreiser's rifles in the war has shown that he has completely fallen behind, so we had a plan to retire a production line after the war, but all this will not be completely replaced until the new rifles identified by Prussia come out." Mayne, director of the Berlin Heshingen Arsenal, said to Ernst, who had come to inspect the factory.

"Well, let's retire this Dreiser! You now have a new task, which is to focus your efforts on the development of new firearms, and this time I have put you in touch with collaborators. Ernst said directly.

Ernst plans to directly move this already backward Dreiser rifle production line to East Africa, which is backward and backward, and there is still a very good market in Africa.

Mayne asked curiously, "I wonder which of our collaborators you are looking for, Your Highness?" ”

"The Mauser brothers of the Kingdom of Württemberg don't know if you've heard of it?" Ernst asked, curious.

"It turned out to be them! I do know each other, mainly because I had a conversation with their father, Anders Mauser of the Royal Arsenal in Württemberg in Oberndorf, Anders Mauser was a famous gunsmith, but he had a lot of children. Mayne said, "I heard that his two younger sons have indeed followed their father's old path, but Your Highness, I don't think the two young men can do much, they seem to have just been kicked out by their partners a few days ago, it can't be that they fooled you again!" ”

This matter also starts with the family of the Mauser brothers, as a family of firearms, the Mauser brothers should have lived a good life since childhood, according to common sense, but their family is a little special, and the old Mauser has thirteen sons, so life is very poor.

As teenagers, the Mauser brothers had to work as handymen at the Württemberg Arsenal in Oldorf to make ends meet. However, the Mauser brothers were also really daring, and they tried to make some improvements to the Dreiser rifle long before the Franco-Prussian War, but the Württemberg arsenal closed down a few years ago.

The Mauser brothers, who were unemployed, were forced to work at the Norris Arsenal. In the Norris Arsenal, there is a "big man" Samuel Norris, who is the European representative of the famous American firearms company - Remington Company. At the Norris Arsenal, Samuel and the Mauser brothers "met late", they based on the Chasebo rifle, combined some of the Mauser brothers' improvements to the Dreiser's rifle, and jointly designed the "Mauser-Norris" rifle, and applied for a U.S. patent, just when the Mauser brothers finally felt that they were ushering in a highlight moment, Samuel tore up the cooperation contract and kicked the Mauser brothers away, and the Mauser brothers had to go back to their hometown to build a handicraft workshop.

The Americans did all the bad things, but they also cheapened Ernst, and just as the Mauser brothers were in decline, Ernst found the location of their small workshop in Ordorf in Württemberg through many inquiries and proposed the idea of cooperation.

The Mauser brothers, of course, had no reason to refuse an invitation from a crown prince, and they agreed to cooperate with the Hexingen Arsenal, but the name of their small workshop, the Mauser Arsenal, was to be retained, which was their last insistence.

Ernst didn't care about this, anyway, the Heshingen Arsenal in Berlin would become a regional firearms research and development center in Germany in the future, so it would have been renamed the "Berlin-Mauser Arsenal".

As for East Africa, well, there is no R&D capacity, to be honest, if the Hexingen Arsenal really moves all to East Africa, it will be abandoned, the production line is okay, only workers are needed to operate, and without a good scientific research environment and talent reserves in Europe, firearms research and development will not be able to play at all.

Therefore, East Africa will continue to be a processing plant at most, and as for R&D, it will still be placed in Germany, and only when East African education develops in the future can the R&D function be moved back to East Africa.

At the same time, it was impossible for Ernst to abandon the Prussian arms market, so the new "Berlin-Mauser Arsenal" continued to produce equipment for the German army.

"Mayne, don't say that, in fact young people always have their own ideas, and I feel good about the Mauser brothers' 'Mauser-Norris', let them improve on this basis, I think the new rifle will be very good, now we just need to give two young people a chance." "And we don't have the capacity to develop firearms, which is a fact, the Heshingen Arsenal is just a foundry, and the Mauser brothers have a mature plan, after all, their previous work was almost adopted by Austria-Hungary." ”

Prior to the development of the Mauser-Norris rifle, the improved Dreiser-Ridier rifle by the Mauser brothers had been noticed by the Austro-Hungarian War Department, but in the end it was not adopted by Austria-Hungary.

Mayne said, "All right! Your Highness, if you really think so, I have no objection, but firearms research and development is a matter that needs to be cautious, and if we take the wrong path, the market will not wait for us. ”

"Hehehe, don't worry! It doesn't matter if the market doesn't approve of it, the Kingdom of East Africa can support the new rifle, and even if there are no other countries to order, we will place the order ourselves. Ernst said.

In fact, the reason why Ernst had no fear was that the Mauser brothers' firearm design had matured, and they had completed the preliminary design of the Mauser M1871 rifle in their previous life in 1869, and now the Mauser M1871 rifle could be made as long as there was a more advanced and perfect working environment.

How about the performance of this gun, it is basically certain that it will not be too bad, so after it is developed, it will not overturn when an order is placed in East Africa.

"In that case, then I won't say much, but Your Highness! Do you know firearms? Mayne asked curiously.

"Of course I don't." "I'm just relying on my instincts," Ernst said. ”

(End of chapter)