King of Beiyang

"Mr. Krupp, does the Krupp company manufacture Maxim heavy machine guns? If so, I need to purchase a large quantity!"

Li Jingyuan asked.

The Maxim heavy machine gun was undoubtedly a deadly weapon on the battlefield in that era.

Faced with such high-rate-of-fire automatic weapons, traditional tactics such as volley fire and even dense assault tactics become suicidal acts.

Especially in defensive operations, heavy machine guns can be a nightmare for the attacking side.

In Li Jingyuan's plan, each infantry platoon will be equipped with a heavy machine gun in the future, plus two heavy machine guns for the company's fire support platoon, so an infantry company will need five heavy machine guns.

If an infantry battalion consists of four companies, it needs twenty heavy machine guns.

Each infantry regiment consists of 3 battalions, a brigade consists of 2 regiments, and a division consists of 2 brigades.

Based on this calculation alone, a division would need at least 240 heavy machine guns.

In addition, the division's cavalry, engineers, supply troops, and even artillery all need to be equipped with a certain number of heavy machine guns.

In that case, a division would need more than three hundred heavy machine guns.

Of course, Li Jingyuan intends to arm the future Marine Corps or new army to the teeth.

Even at its peak, the Japanese army had fewer than two hundred heavy machine guns in a single Class A division.

Not to mention that on the eve of the First Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese had even fewer heavy machine guns.

Li Jingyuan was well aware that the Beiyang Army had a certain gap with the Japanese in terms of individual soldier quality.

Especially in marksmanship, the Japanese soldiers, having undergone extensive training, were extremely accurate.

It is not something that the Beiyang Army can catch up with or even surpass the Japanese in this aspect in a short period of time.

Therefore, Li Jingyuan could only try to improve his firepower.

No matter how accurate the Japanese soldiers' marksmanship was, they would still be riddled with bullets under the suppressive fire of heavy machine guns.

Krupp Jr.'s expression immediately turned somewhat unpleasant.

The reason is that Krupp did not actually obtain the production license for the Maxim heavy machine gun.

Three years ago, Maxim-Nordenfeld had tried to sell the Maxim heavy machine gun to Krupp. However, Krupp's main business was artillery, and it did not manufacture firearms, so it declined.

So much so that now, faced with the large orders offered by Li Jingyuan, Krupp can only express regret.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Li, Krupp does not manufacture Maxim heavy machine guns."

If you wish to purchase, you can do so directly from Maxim-Nordenfeld.

Or I've heard that Ludwig Lewey is in talks with Maxim-Nordenfeld about a license to produce Maxim heavy machine guns within the German Empire.

Let's buy from them after they get their licenses!

Krupp could only watch helplessly as the order slipped through its fingers.

  

Li Jingyuan nodded and accepted the suggestion.

The headquarters of Ludwig Löwede Company was located in Berlin. After his meeting with Krupp Jr., Li Jingyuan immediately traveled to Berlin to visit Isidor Löwede, the head of Ludwig Löwede Company.

During this meeting, Li Jingyuan directly placed an order for as many as one thousand Maxim heavy machine guns.

Furthermore, Li Jingyuan demanded that the first batch of no less than 300 heavy machine guns be delivered before July of next year.

The remaining 700 units can be postponed until July of the following year.

This is undoubtedly a large order for Ludwig Lewey.

Isidor Levey immediately stated that he would supply Li Jingyuan with these heavy machine guns at the most favorable price, and guaranteed that all orders would be delivered on time.

Ultimately, the two agreed on a total of ten million marks for one thousand Maxim heavy machine guns and five million rounds of ammunition.

At that time, such a price was not considered expensive; in fact, it was considered cheap.

In another timeline, a few years later, when the Qing Empire purchased Maxim heavy machine guns from the Maxim Nordenfeldt company, the price was £346 per gun. Not to mention, Li Jingyuan also purchased a large quantity of ammunition.

However, once Li Jingyuan's arsenal is completed and put into operation, he will definitely produce heavy machine guns himself.

At that time, we will also need to purchase a production license from Maxim Nordenfeldt.

Given current technological conditions, water-cooled heavy machine guns are undoubtedly the best technological choice.

Developing an air-cooled heavy machine gun requires further technological accumulation.

It is foreseeable that water-cooled heavy machine guns will remain the mainstream for a long time to come.

The Beiyang Army must have been equipped with an extremely large number of heavy machine guns.

Besides machine guns and artillery, rifles were the most basic equipment.

At present, there is only one rifle suitable for import into the German Empire: the Type 88 Commission Rifle.

If possible, Li Jingyuan would certainly prefer to choose the Mauser Type 98 rifle.

The problem is that the Mauser 98 rifle has not even started development yet.

Although the Mauser 98 rifle was more advanced and more accurate than the Type 88 Commission rifle.

However, at present, the Type 88 Commission Rifle is undoubtedly Li Jingyuan's best choice.

Moreover, although the Type 88 rifle has many shortcomings, its performance is still quite reliable after improvements.

For example, the Hanyang rifle in another time and space was used for several decades, wasn't it?

Coincidentally, the Type 88 Commission rifle was also manufactured by Ludwig Weller.

So when Li Jingyuan proposed to purchase 100,000 Type 88 Commission rifles and a production license, Isidor Weller was beaming with joy.

Isidor Weller stated directly that he could sell 100,000 Type 88 rifles to Li Jingyuan at the lowest price of 60 marks each. In addition, each rifle would be equipped with 200 rounds of ammunition. Including the production license, the total would be 10 million marks.

Li Jingyuan expressed his approval of the price.

However, Li Jingyuan also made a request to improve the current Type 88 Committee Rifle.

For example, the barrel sleeve was removed, the barrel diameter was increased, an upper handguard was added, and the bayonet mount was moved from the side of the barrel to directly below the muzzle. The upright frame-shaped rear sight was replaced with an arc-shaped rear sight. Simultaneously, the bullets fired were changed from round-nosed to pointed bullets.

These improvements not only enhance the reliability and accuracy of the rifle, but also further increase its lethality.

This rifle was used by the Beiyang Army for many years.

Once our own technical capabilities are met, it will not be too late to develop rifles with smaller calibers that are more suitable for the physique of people of Asian descent.

Isidor Weller accepted all of Li Jingyuan's requests.

With Ludwig Weller's technology, making these modifications would not be difficult.

After the two sides reached an agreement, Li Jingyuan suddenly realized that if the Beiyang Army had introduced the Type 88 Commission Rifle, wouldn't that mean they would no longer have the Hanyang Rifle?

Or rather, in this time and space, the Hanyang Arsenal became the Beiyang Arsenal.