African Nationhood

Chapter 291 Big Military Industry Order
  Berlin, Germany.

In late spring, the temperature in Germany was still not high. After getting off the Mercedes-Benz, Robin Trudeau tightened his windbreaker.

Because Mercedes-Benz is a German car company, the Model T has become a symbol of Berlin, and there is even a Model T taxi company here.

The cost is twice as expensive as a horse-drawn carriage, but the comfort and novelty make car taxis more popular among people.

After tidying up his windbreaker, he turned back and took out a long wooden box from the carriage and walked up the steps of the Berlin Palace.

Guards wearing pointed hats stopped him, and Trudeau immediately handed over his invitation letter.

This was issued to him by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Naturally, his visit this time was to present to His Majesty the Kaiser a new rifle recently developed by the Herstal Arsenal in Belgium.

This rifle has the barrel of the NH-88 type lengthened from 600mm to 740mm, and is named the NH-90 type.
  The extended barrel is better than the Type 88 in terms of shooting accuracy. At the same time, a rifle of this length is more in line with the tastes of European countries. The NH-90 type has also become the foreign trade version of the Herstal Arsenal.

Trudeau came this time because Boss Shi had corresponded with His Majesty the Kaiser.

He informed the new emperor in the letter that he had heard in Africa that your country's Commission Type 88 rifle was defective, and that my Belgian arsenal had developed a new rifle that was more advanced than your country's standard rifle.

If your country needs it, we can license the patent for the new gun for free, but we must designate the Herstal Arsenal to produce this new gun for your country.

The Kaiser was immediately angry when he heard this, but their Commission Type 88 rifle was indeed very bad and had many problems.

For example, when the gun is opened, the bullets will explode due to the collision between adjacent bullets;

If the bolt assembly is improperly assembled, it may cause misfire;

The Committee's Type 88 can be fired without the bolt cap installed. Soldiers who are not familiar with the operation of the new gun can easily cause misfires;

Because of the bullet problem and the backward jet airflow after firing, the barrel will be deformed;

Because a leaky clip is used for loading, and the barrel sleeve is not fixed to the gun body, the accuracy is very poor.

There is also the problem of missing clips that cannot be reloaded midway...

Anyway, this new gun that was rushed to work was a headache, so although the Kaiser was angry, he decided to see whether what the yellow-skinned Chinese said was true or not, and sent out an invitation.

……

When Trudeau learned that he was going to see His Majesty the Kaiser, he specially arranged his appearance before hurriedly setting foot on German soil.

When he arrived in Germany, someone from the Mercedes-Benz automobile factory picked him up and quickly sent him to Berlin.

As the guards entered the Berlin Palace, Trudeau became more and more cautious, and the air here became more and more solemn.

After the guards led him into a garden, Trudeau saw many people wearing German military uniforms standing in the center of the garden, and he also saw many old-school Junker nobles in tuxedos.

Trudeau's arrival attracted the attention of everyone present, but they only looked at him casually for a few times and then turned away.

Trudeau was moved and relaxed a lot. He found a corner and stood casually. Not long after, a man of medium height and a broad forehead walked up to him and said, "Hello, I am Paul Mauser."

Trudeau has long heard about Paul Mauser, and he once went to the Mauser factory to recruit engineers.

Today is the first time we meet, "Hello, I am Robin Trudeau."

The two sides nodded to each other, and Paul Mauser looked at the long wooden box in Trudeau's hand and asked, "Is this the new rifle designed by your factory?"

Trudeau nodded, "Yes."

Paul Mauser was curious about the advanced features of the other party's rifle, but the other party would definitely not agree to such an occasion. He could only wait patiently for His Majesty the Emperor to arrive and watch together.

As soon as Paul Mauser left, people came over one after another and chatted with Trudeau, mainly by exchanging names.

Trudeau therefore learned that many outstanding designers from German arsenals were coming here to see him today.

He is even more proud now. I will let you all see the strength of our Hestal Arsenal later!
  ……

"His Majesty the Emperor of the German Federation has arrived!"

The officials and nobles present looked at the entrance to the garden, and Trudeau followed suit.

Not long after, a distinguished man wearing a black military uniform and tassels on his shoulders arrived. His trademark straight beard was unforgettable.

This was His Majesty Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. When he came to the entrance of the garden, he habitually stopped and looked around. After observing all the scenes in the garden, he stepped in.

Everyone present bowed their heads to pay tribute to the emperor, and at the same time they chanted in unison: "Your Majesty!"

William II walked slowly to the throne in the center of the garden and sat down.

“With no courtesy, gentlemen, I have called you here today. They are Chinese nobles from far away in Africa, saying that they have designed a rifle with excellent performance.

I gathered you all together to see how good this rifle is. Where is the messenger? "

Trudeau took two quick steps, lowered his head and reported back: "Dear His Majesty the Kaiser, I have brought a new rifle produced by our arsenal, please see it."

The guard officer behind William II came over, took the long wooden box from Trudeau, put it aside and opened the box. He took out a brand new Type 90 rifle. After careful inspection, the guard officer found that there was no bullet in the chamber.

He pulled the gun a few more times to make sure there was no danger before handing it to William II.

William II looked at it for a while and then handed it to the generals and nobles around him. After everyone looked around, he showed it to the gun designers.

After seeing it, the firearms designers were all silent.

Others may only look at the appearance, but these firearms designers understand at a glance how advanced the box and bolt of this new rifle are.

William II saw that the firearms designers were silent and understood a little. He looked at Trudeau and said, "Let's test-fire."

Trudeau took out two bridge clip bullets from his pocket and handed them to the Guards officer, "This is the bridge clip. You can use it to load bullets very quickly. Just press it directly into the gun case when loading."

The Guards officer took the bullet from the bridge clip, then took the Type 90 rifle, pulled the bolt, and directly inserted the bullet as Trudeau said.

"Snapped"

After loading, the bridge clip automatically dropped to the stone slab, causing a crisp sound. The guard officer ignored the fallen bridge clip and quickly pushed and pulled the gun bolt to check the gun's shell extraction capability.

"噌~噌~噌~噌~噌..."

After continuously pushing and pulling the bolt until all five bullets fell, the Guards officer pulled the bolt again and added the bullets from the other bridge clip into the gun case.

"Your Majesty, can we shoot?"

William II nodded, "Yes."

The Guards officer shot at a target far away in the garden, "Bang~~~"

After firing five shots in a row, another guard ran over and brought a target. William II checked and found that all five shots had hit the target, and most of them were close to the bullseye.

"The accuracy of this gun is okay. I thought it was okay after seeing it, but this gun still needs detailed evaluation by the Department of the Army. Can you wait?"

Trudeau quickly replied, "Yes, yes, that's no problem."

……

After waiting for more than half a month, Trudeau went through multiple military departments and finally got recognition from the military department. The Herstal Arsenal's NH-90 is more advanced and has better performance than the German Commission-88.

William II summoned Trudeau again and informed him that the German military had ordered 30 improved NH-90 rifles from the Herstal Arsenal. The bullets were produced locally in Germany. A single valuable rifle sold for 102 German marks (equivalent to £5).

The rifles produced in Germany use Mauser's classic rotating bolt structure, and the Herstal Arsenal produces them according to the original design, but the caliber is changed to the German 7.92 caliber. Therefore, rifles with two different safety devices will flow into the German army. force.

Because Herstal Arsenal successfully entered the German arms market, the shell guns and Maxim machine guns produced by the factory were able to have arms sales channels in Germany.

Many German officers are very fond of the semi-automatic mode of the shell gun. After all, this is the world's first new firearm.

However, the German military procurement department is not willing to purchase this pistol product with an exorbitant unit price, and they do not believe in the product quality of such a complex firearm.

The shell gun still failed to enter the German military purchase order. What a pity!
  ……

The Maxim machine gun was favored by His Majesty the Kaiser. The German military procurement department purchased 100 of them. The German military procurement department also purchased the German patent license for the Maxim machine gun from the Herstal Arsenal.

During this trip to Germany, he obtained a large arms purchase order of more than two million pounds for the Herstal Arsenal. Robin Trudeau was so excited that he almost lost his way.

What made him happy was yet to come. Many countries, such as Argentina and Chile in South America, heard that the German army had purchased products from the Herstal Arsenal, and they also came to negotiate and purchase military products.

As a result, Herstal Arsenal became famous, and sales of shell guns and Maxim machine guns also increased significantly.

Since Herstal Arsenal applied for patents for new gun cases and bolts, these countries requested that Herstal Arsenal help them design new rifles.

These countries have very few requirements. The only requirement is that the standards cannot be the same as those of other countries.

As a result, Herstal Arsenal received another batch of orders for rifles of different calibers, totaling 56 units and 3000 million rounds of supporting bullets, with a total value of 335 million pounds. (Note 1)

With the addition of new orders from Germany, Herstal Arsenal will basically have no spare capacity to receive other orders in the next few years.

In desperation, Trudeau had no choice but to ask Boss Shi for help, and could not push back on the door-to-door business.

Boss Shi ordered Rong Kui to organize manpower to rush for rifle orders from South American countries and at the same time expand the scale of the Harbin Arsenal.

With the help of electricity, the production capacity expansion of Hacheng Arsenal is smoother.

The production capacity constraints of smokeless gunpowder are no longer difficult for Nanhua Company. The large amount of waste gas generated by the new copper smelting plant has been transformed and the production capacity problem of concentrated sulfuric acid has been solved. The only problem is the production capacity of concentrated nitric acid.

What cannot be solved for the time being can only be outsourced. Nanhua Company imports large quantities of raw materials from Europe. Nanhua Company's military industry is developing increasingly rapidly and maturely.

Note 1: New rifles cost 5.5 pounds each and bullets cost 0.0045 pounds each. Because the order quantity is small and the production line needs to be changed individually, the price is slightly higher.

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  (End of this chapter)