Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 770 History
Although the news Mr. Frey got here is not optimistic, the search work will continue. Fortunately, because of these clues, Mr. Frey sent a copy of the notebook the next day.

A copy of this notebook was found from the Swiss archives, and there was no name on it, but during this round of searching, Mr. Frey recognized that the note on it was his father's handwriting.

"This thing should be a manufacturing note. It should have belonged to Krupp's factory in Switzerland at first, but later the Swiss authorities confiscated it during the liquidation after the end of World War II." Just as the information was passed on, Mr. Frey also called Liang En. made a phone call.

"It's just because these things have been completely outdated even during World War II, so the notes have been kept in archives management after they were confiscated, and they have not been discovered until now."

To be honest, if Liang En hadn't been able to narrow the target to such a small area through the drawings this time, even Mr. Frey would not have been able to find these important clues like a needle in a haystack.

This notebook is a daily work note, and all the records in it are related to the production of artillery. This also caused Liang Liang to have to spend money to ask professionals to analyze this document again.

What he didn't expect was that the other party gave Liang En a more accurate answer in less than an hour, pointing out something suspicious in the notebook.

"There are some problems with the metal used in the cannon." Pierce's voice came from the phone. "Under normal circumstances, after entering the 20th century, the artillery is made of alloy steel, but these artillery are all made of carbon steel."

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a major upgrade of artillery materials, and alloy steel with better performance began to be put into practical use, replacing the original carbon steel with poorer performance and heavier weight.

In particular, the first outbreak greatly accelerated the evolution of weapons. In addition to new weapons such as aircraft and tanks, alloy steel in the field of traditional weapons has also rapidly become popular, and carbon steel artillery has been eliminated.

As we all know, materials science is a subject that requires a lot of time and a little bit of luck to produce results, especially the production of high-performance military steel requires repeated exploration and long-term experience accumulation.

This has also led to fewer and fewer countries that can produce artillery and even firearms after entering the 20th century. After all, countries with such human, material and financial resources are originally a minority in this world.

So when you see those drawings that indicate that the artillery is made of carbon steel, everyone will feel strange, because countries that can industrially produce 150mm heavy artillery often represent a certain level of industry. In this case, the artillery can be produced but there is no raw material. It always feels weird.

After all, for normal countries, they may choose to buy artillery, or they may choose to make a full set of artillery, but they choose neither. It is naturally strange to choose this kind of non-standard approach.

"That's right, this matter is indeed somewhat unreasonable. It's true from various angles." Joan Liang En, who looked at him curiously, explained in a low voice.

"But in many cases, only fiction needs to be reasonable, but facts don't. As far as I know, there was a country in that era that really chose to take this path."

The country that Liang En is talking about now is Huaxia, a country that only produced less than 100 cannons in the eight years of the Anti-Japanese War.

If you read the history books today, you will find that in the late Qing Dynasty, it was able to make various types of army and navy artillery. In 1905, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau successfully imitated the 75mm Kirby Mountain Cannon. In 1913, the Hanyang Arsenal successfully copied the 75mm Kirschner Field Cannon.

From 1896 to 1911, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Plant produced a total of 37 53MM, 57MM, 75MM and 988MM artillery pieces. Although it is incomparable with those industrial countries, it is not too far behind.

Even the Jiangnan General Administration of Manufacturing has produced the "Thirty Born Four Seven Six" caliber cannon, that is, the 12-inch heavy artillery. Although this level was lagging behind in the world at that time, it was no more than five years behind the mainstream level.

But when the Japanese devils invaded more than 30 years later, there were no new guns available in China, and even many troops were still using the Keshi Mountain Cannon with the Tuanlong emblem at the beginning of the War of Resistance, and this was because of the alloy steel revolution.

It took 20 years of continuous investment in the late Qing Dynasty to make the steel products of the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau catch up with the advanced level of the foreign powers, and it was necessary to start all over again, which was obviously impossible in the turbulent Beiyang era.

The bureaucrats of the Beiyang government intensified and completely abandoned the concept of independent defense industry. In order to get kickbacks, even ordinary carbon steel was purchased. Therefore, all the arsenals built with great painstaking efforts in the late Qing Dynasty were all reduced to processing with supplied materials. factory.

In 1925, the Hanyang Arsenal actually ordered 20 pieces of walnut gun stock blanks from the foreign firm. The production of the Ishii Armory in Guangdong was completely in accordance with the instructions of the foreign firm. shutdown.

Many people say that Baldy is a comprador government, but Beiyang is the real comprador government in terms of arms procurement.After all, Baldy at least no longer takes kickbacks as his main consideration in foreign military purchases.

Especially after Yu Dawei took over the Ordnance Industry Administration, the Ordnance Industry Administration was fully responsible for foreign military purchases, ordnance production, and equipment inventory guarantees. Relatively speaking, it was a rare and clean department in that era.

After the Central Plains War, the Chinese government at that time began to reorganize its armaments. However, the first step was stuck in steel. In 1932, it planned to build the Pukou Iron and Steel Plant. As a result, the initial planned investment amounted to 8000 million silver dollars, which was obviously unaffordable at the time.

It was not until 1936 that Huade signed a Hebulou barter contract in which the German side provided credit loans for the Chinese side to purchase, and the Chinese side could use ore sand and agricultural products to compensate, and the new special steel plant construction plan was put on the table again.

On June 1937, 6, Huaxia signed a contract with Krupp through Hebulou Company to invest 25 million marks (5800 million legal currency) in Xiangtan to build a special steel plant. 7800 days later, the full-scale war of resistance broke out.

Although Krupp actively delivered the goods, all coastal ports were occupied when the first batch of equipment arrived in 38, and the last batch of equipment could only be sold in Yangon.

As a result, the Huaxia War of Resistance became a war without alloy steel. The only steel factory in China that could produce alloy steel for military use was the Yuzhou Electric Power Steelworks (No. 24 Arsenal).

The factory's two 2-ton small furnaces have an annual output of more than 3 tons, barely supplying the production of machine rifles, so at that time, except for the 1000 anti-tank guns processed with supplied materials, only mortars were produced in the entire Anti-Japanese War.

Obviously, the 150mm gun paper that Liang En and the others found should not be provided to the bald man. After all, these guys have high eyesight and low hand, and they should look down on this kind of artillery that is too high to be low, and they have indeed never manufactured it in history. this kind of stuff.

However, if you exclude the bald guys who pull the hips, you will find that powerful factions everywhere are also making weapons, and they are doing better than the bald guys. For example, from 1924 to 1931, the arsenal in the three eastern provinces produced more than 1000 two hundred artillery pieces.

The mountain guns, field guns, flat-fire guns, and howitzers it produced (150mm howitzers were mass-produced, and even 240mm howitzers were being trial-produced in September [-]th) were basically the best in caliber and quality during the Republic of China.

It is a pity that after 918, all these things were handed over to the Japanese devils. At the same time, the arsenal became one of the four major military factories of the devils, and became a booster for the devils to invade.

(End of this chapter)