Expedition to Europe

One deliberately takes care of the other carefully caters to the other, and the talks go particularly smoothly.

In just two days, a rough framework has been determined, with only some minor details left to fill in.

Lan Fang will provide the Beiyang government with weapons and ammunition including artillery and tanks, as well as a large amount of food and grass supplies, as well as military advisers and military instructors, and arm the Beiyang government with a force of about 100,000 people to quell the rebellion at home.

After the rebellion is quelled, Lan Fang's goods will have the most-favored-nation tariff treatment when entering the Republic of China, and Lan Fang can also immigrate to the "National Control Area" without setting an upper limit on the number of people.

To be honest, there are not many things in the Republic of China that Lan Fang can look up to. After obtaining the iron ore in the Pilbara region, Lan Fang has almost no shortage of ore raw materials. Lan Fang now has much more resources than the Republic of China. As for the little things in the Republic of China, Lan Fang really doesn't look down on them.

The only thing that Lan Fang envies about the Republic of China is its population.

However, this problem will be fundamentally improved over time. What Lan Fang needs now is just time.

In fact, Lan Fang has started to immigrate from the Republic of China since two years ago.

After two years of hard work, the current Chinese population in Lan Fang has exceeded 15 million, of which nearly 10% are children under the age of two. These children were born after the immigrants moved to Lan Fang, which shows the reproductive capacity of the Chinese.

As long as the Chinese with a stable life are given time, it is not uncommon for each family to have three or four children. It is normal to have five or six children, and it is not impossible to have seven or eight children.

In time, even if Lan Fang does not immigrate from the Republic of China, Lan Fang will have enough population.

Of course, if the Koreans are included now, the population of Lan Fang will move towards more than 30 million.

This does not matter. The Koreans are migrating to the northern border area, where the demand for population is more urgent.

Qin Zhiyuan is not worried about the negotiations. The right time, right place, and right people are all in place. If a good result cannot be achieved, then Lu Zhengxiang and Huang Bohan can go home to take care of their children.

On the first day of the negotiations, Qin Zhiyuan and Foch took a special plane to Pontianak in Wanghai Prefecture to inspect the arsenal there.

The current Pontianak area has become the military industrial base of Lan Fang. There are more than 20 large and small arsenals near Pontianak, which can produce all the materials needed by the Lan Fang army.

At the same time, there are several research institutes in Pontianak. From the most common light weapons to the most advanced battleship main guns, you can find corresponding research departments here, which will greatly promote the development of Lan Fang's military industry.

The main purpose of Qin Zhiyuan and Foch's visit this time is to test the B-2 rifle that has just been developed by the Light Weapons Research Institute.

"The current rifle is good enough to use. It is a perfect combination of range and power. With various light and heavy machine guns, the firepower level is already very good. The B-1 rifle is a standard weapon. If you want to replace it, the cost is extremely expensive. You have to think it over." Foch's thinking is still conservative.

"Bolt-action rifles will always be eliminated. Pulling the bolt after firing a shot is not only inefficient, but also destroys the continuity of the soldiers' technical movements. We need to be more efficient, especially without the cooperation of machine guns. Compared with rifles, machine guns are always too heavy. We need to make ordinary soldiers more efficient, especially in single-soldier combat." Qin Zhiyuan knew the trend of military development and never relaxed for the research and development of weapons.

"Well, I read your idea. To be honest, the idea is good, but have you considered the cost? The continuous-fire rifle does have advantages in combat, but soldiers have to carry more bullets and have higher requirements for logistics. If it is replaced in ten years, it will be great, but if it is now, I don't think it is necessary." Foch still disagreed.

Foch was used to thriftiness in his life. The French Army Department had never given Foch an almost unlimited budget, so Foch was always used to living within his means. Foch's ideas are also consistent with the current general military ideas. In the current world, the large-scale application of new weapons such as tanks and airplanes has caused the status of ordinary infantry to decline again. It seems that ordinary soldiers with only one rifle have really become consumables. No one pays attention to ordinary soldiers.

Qin Zhiyuan's ideas are different. Qin Zhiyuan has a deep understanding of automatic weapons, and also a deep understanding of the role of tanks and airplanes. There will always be some terrains that are not suitable for the deployment of armored forces, and there will always be places that bombers cannot cover, and even there are situations where machine guns are not suitable for use. At this time, infantry needs to use their own strength to solve the problem.

No matter when, the human factor is the most important.

"We now have an opportunity. The Republic of China requires us to support weapons and ammunition. We can take this opportunity to support the Republic of China with the current B-1 rifle, and then we can replace it with new weapons. This does not require too high a cost. At least because the Republic of China takes over, it can make up for some of our losses. At the same time, maintaining the advanced nature of individual weapons is also conducive to our troops to exert stronger combat effectiveness. The two are not contradictory." Qin Zhiyuan has a way to pass on costs.

"Okay, okay, let's take a look first. If it's really as good as you say, then it doesn't matter if I change my clothes." Foch agreed with reservations.

The current Lan Fang is no longer the Lan Fang that even needs to import ore from Annan. Iron ore from the Pilbara region is continuously imported into Lan Fang. Although Qin Zhiyuan paid money on the surface, because of "Angel Jack", it is equivalent to transferring money from one pocket to another. What he paid is not as much as it seems, and it is even much cheaper than importing iron ore from Annan.

With sufficient iron ore and the steel mill that is about to be put into production, Lan Fang's military enterprises are on the right track.

At least it is on the right track.

While talking, the car Qin Zhiyuan and Foch took arrived at the shooting range of the Light Weapons Research Institute in Pontianak City. Director Zeng Ruiqi and rifle development team leader Louis Julian were waiting in the shooting range.

Zeng Ruiqi was originally from Tianjin. His ancestors used to work in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau. Later, the Tianjin Machinery Bureau was demolished during the Boxer Rebellion. Zeng Ruiqi's grandfather, father and two uncles all became wandering gun repair masters.

Yes, it is a gun repair master. There is really such a profession.

In the late Qing Dynasty, chaos reigned, and the number of weapons in the civilian population was actually very large, especially in the Kanto region, which had been ravaged by war several times. There were all kinds of guns, from old-fashioned handguns to modern rapid-fire guns.

One obvious problem was that most people who used those weapons did not know how to repair them, so when those weapons that were on the verge of being eliminated had problems, the profession of "gun repair master" came into being.

Although the profession of "gun repair master" could barely make a living, it was not a long-term solution after all. So when the Beiyang government organized a labor team to go to Europe, Zeng Ruiqi joined the labor team and became one of the hundreds of thousands of Chinese who went to Europe.

The original text is in Liu # 9 @book/bar!

After arriving in Europe, Zeng Ruiqi quickly joined the Renault factory with his family's craftsmanship and became a member of the design department led by Jean Pierce.

With this background, Zeng Ruiqi became the director of the Light Weapons Research Institute after returning to Lan Fang.

As for Louis Julian, he was a good friend of Zeng Ruiqi and had worked under Jean Pierce. After Zeng Ruiqi returned to Lan Fang, he paid a large sum of money to hire Louis Julian to Lan Fang. Of course, after living in Lan Fang for a year, Louis Julian had applied for Lan Fang nationality, otherwise he would not have been the leader of the rifle development team.

Zeng Ruiqi and Louis Julian were very excited to see Qin Zhiyuan and Foch, especially Louis Julian. When he introduced the B-2 rifle to Foch, he was a little stuttering, like a fan seeing his idol's servile look.

"The B-2 rifle is the first rifle we designed independently... No, no, it was the first rifle designed under the guidance of His Majesty... His Majesty made a request, and we perfected the design. Strictly speaking, His Majesty is the designer of this gun... When we saw His Majesty's ideas, we once organized a demonstration, because we didn't know whether it could be realized, and then we decided to give it a try..." Louis Julian was a little excited, and he didn't get to the point after talking for a long time.

Foch's status among the French is unquestionable. It can be said that the current French presidents may not have as high a prestige as Foch in people's hearts. For this reason, when Foch wanted to come to Lanfang, Raymond Poincaré agreed without much hesitation.

Yeah, if Foch wants to run for president next year, it is estimated that he will be more likely to be elected than Clemenceau.

So Louis Julien's excitement after seeing Foch is understandable.

Qin Zhiyuan ignored Foch and Louis Julien, went directly to the shooting position, and picked up a B-2 rifle to watch.

That's right, just like Qin Zhiyuan remembered, the gas-operated principle, double-row steel leaky magazine with 8 rounds of bullets, strictly speaking, this is the M1 Garand rifle used by the US military.

Of course, when it came to Qin Zhiyuan, the "click" sound of this rifle that was once widely criticized has been effectively improved. When the gun has fired all the bullets, the ejector will not eject the magazine, but remind the shooter to load the bullet without resetting the bolt.

"In fact, we prefer to use the B-3 type. Relatively speaking, the B-3 type has more perfect shooting, more ammunition, and better firepower sustainability. The only disadvantage is that the B-3 requires too many bullets. If the B-3 is used, the soldiers need to carry more bullets, which increases the burden on the soldiers. Of course, relatively speaking, the range and power of the B-3 are not as good as the B-2, so we have been hesitating before. Now please decide which weapon to use as our standard weapon." Zeng Ruiqi explained beside Qin Zhiyuan.

So Qin Zhiyuan saw the B-3...

This is not a B-3 at all, it is clearly the former PPSh submachine gun.