America 1881: Legend of the West

"Oh, we just developed a new gun, Gatling, you know, it's similar to that, 'ta-da-da'." Chen Jianqiu made a machine gun shooting gesture, "Someone was working on it before. No. What a strange thing."

"You are so humble, Mr. Chen." Mr. Hunter took a deep breath and said, "Can you let me see the real thing?"

"No problem, but the samples I brought are now in Iquique." Chen Jianqiu said.

"If it's convenient, can my military observers and I go to Iquique?" Ambassador Hunter asked.

"Yes, of course, you are very welcome." Chen Jianqiu nodded repeatedly.

But then, his face looked slightly sad.

"But you have to hurry up, we will be heading back to China soon." Chen Jianqiu spread his hands, "American businessmen are no longer welcome here."

Ambassador Hunter did not take the bait. He just glanced at Chen Jianqiu without making any obvious statement.

"Then we go directly to Iquique with you, okay?"

"Okay, we'll leave in a moment."

The two of them walked out of the general's study together and came to the reception hall.

The general was chatting with Onder Jong and Camilla.

He spoke Cantonese for a while, Spanish for a while, and a few words of English from time to time.

Switching between them is smooth and there is no sense of stagnation at all.

"We are ready to leave, General." Chen Jianqiu said to General Lin Qi, "Mr. Ambassador is with us."

The general nodded.

"After the treaty with Peru is officially signed, we will send people to hand over the corresponding procedures." He said to several people.

Chen Jianqiu and the other two were the first to leave the hall, and Ambassador Hunter followed after briefly speaking to the general.

They walked out of the mansion's door one after another.

"How's it going? Where should we wait for you?" Chen Jianqiu turned his head and looked at Mr. Hunter walking out of the door and asked.

Mr. Hunter looked around, then waved to a young man wearing a flat cap across the street.

Across the street is a church.

The boy was sitting boredly on the steps of the church door looking around.

After seeing Mr. Hunter waving to him, he immediately dusted off his butt and stood up.

He turned around and walked into the church. After a while, he drove a carriage out from the alley on the side of the church.

There was a young man sitting on the carriage, with large and small bags of supplies inside.

Mr. Hunter boarded the carriage and waved to Chen Jianqiu: "It's time to go! Mr. Chen!"

Chen Jianqiu curled his lips.

It seems that the ambassador came well prepared, including people and supplies.

Although Chile's theoretical land area is not large, the entire country has a long and narrow shape.

Taking the road from Santiago to Iquique is about 1,800 kilometers.

Although Mr. Hunter and the young man in the car seemed very eager to see Chen Jianqiu's weapons.

But Chen Jianqiu didn't seem to be in a hurry.

He traveled all the way and spent more than three weeks before he could vaguely see the outline of the Iquique port.

Along the way, Chen Jianqiu chatted a lot with the ambassador and the young man.

The two people were impressed by the unique charisma of this Chinese businessman.

This young man possesses profound knowledge and rich imagination.

Some of them sound like a prophecy.

He actually told them that there was an iron box that could replace infantrymen on the battlefield, and people could even fly in the sky like birds.

There are some things that they cannot accept, such as Chen Jianqiu jokingly telling them that an Indian-origin person may become their prime minister in the future.

Of course, the two men didn't take this seriously.

"You should be a science fiction writer, but I don't recommend that your novels involve politics." The young man in the car said seriously.

"Yes, I am indeed a science fiction writer." Chen Jianqiu said, "Everything is just fantasy."

The young man's expression improved.

Chen Jianqiu learned through chatting that he was the military observer that Hunter mentioned.

He has a resounding last name: Churchill.

"Do you know Winston Churchill?" Chen Jianqiu thought for a while and asked.

If the previous words that were almost prophecies made the two gentlemen seem to be listening to a story, this question immediately frightened them.

"How do you know my little nephew who is less than ten years old?!" The young man looked at Chen Jianqiu with suspicion.

He is the fourth son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough, the younger brother of the British politician Randolph Churchill, and the uncle of Winston Churchill.

"Oh, so he is your nephew." Chen Jianqiu nodded thoughtfully, "He will be very promising."

This goes beyond the scope of a science fiction novelist, and is more like a magician.

"I'm still a fortune teller. In our culture, this is called fortune telling." Chen Jianqiu added as he looked at the two people.

"Then let me lend you some good words." Churchill was doubtful.

After the group arrived in Iquique, Hunter and Churchill immediately asked Chen Jianqiu to take them to see the "killing machine".

But when that black lump of iron appeared in front of them, they still couldn't believe it.

"Can you show us a demonstration?" Churchill asked.

"No problem, but I don't have many bullets anymore. These bullets are specially made in my factory." Chen Jianqiu said.

In fact, in the battles in South America, he actually used Maxim only a handful of times. In addition to killing more than a thousand people who landed on the Iquique beach, he also faced the Peruvian cavalry charge and attacked a seaside on the edge of the desert. Used it during the stronghold.

The former destroyed all the last cavalry of Cáceres, and the latter rained bullets on the Peruvian soldiers hiding in the stronghold.

Chen Jianqiu asked his Chinese soldiers to raise the muzzle of their guns and create a parabola, extending the effective killing distance of the machine guns to more than a kilometer.

Although it is not used often, once it is used, it is a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood.

This caused the Peruvian soldiers to flee as soon as they heard that their opponent was the Chinese army in Iquique.

Chen Jianqiu's two hundred cavalrymen chased them, and they didn't even have a serious encounter.

"The bullets are also specially made?" Hunter and Churchill looked at each other and walked aside.

"You decide." Hunter said to Churchill.

Churchill walked up to Chen Jianqiu and said to him:

"It doesn't matter, just take a look. The demonstration doesn't need to be long."

The final demonstration still took place on the beach.

Li Sifu and another soldier brought a box of bullets over, and Chen Jianqiu went into battle in person.

Maxim began to roar, weaving a barrage in the direction of the beach.

Half the box of bullets was quickly finished, and the wooden box used as a target on the beach a few hundred meters away had been smashed into pieces.

Hunter and Churchill were stunned.

They could imagine how desperate the Peruvian soldiers were on this beach that night and what a tragic scene they faced.

"This is a weapon that can determine the direction of the war." Churchill said categorically to Hunter.

"Should we let the Army experts evaluate it again?" Hunter said, looking at the cooling holes that were still steaming.

Churchill nodded.

"Mr. Chen, I would like to take the liberty of asking you a question, have you sold this weapon to the U.S. federal army?" Hunter asked Chen Jianqiu.

Chen Jianqiu took off his hat and fanned himself, then glanced at Hunter:

"Federal troops? What do you want with this thing? Kill Indians? Or start another war with you?"

Hunter adjusted his hair under his hat to hide his embarrassment.

The independence of the United States is an eternal pain in the hearts of British people.

The Civil War has been fought for less than 20 years, and the Indians are almost dead. The U.S. military does not have that much motivation for the time being.

"Besides, I'm just a small businessman. How can those people in the army's procurement department like me?" Chen Jianqiu snorted.

"You can sell them to us." Hunter extended an olive branch. "Let's order three prototypes first and go back to test them. Do you think it's okay?"

He arched Churchill next to him.

He represents the views of the Army.

"Ah, yes, let's study it."

"I'm ready to stop production. The bullets are specially made by us and don't have saltpeter." Chen Jianqiu sighed, "After this war is over, all the saltpeter mines in Chile will belong to you British! I have no part in it. "

"But if your company is a British company, it will be different." Hunter gritted his teeth. It seemed that he had already made plans with the country. "Mr. Chen, what are your political beliefs?"

"I'm a businessman!" Chen Jianqiu said helplessly.

"Then do you think this will work? Mr. Chen, why don't you move to the UK? We can provide you with an address to build a factory in Kent."

Hunter and everyone in the domestic army took this matter very seriously.

If the United States Federation was not so anxious about this weapon, then the British Empire, which was at its peak at this time, had the opposite attitude.

Europe is shrouded in the clouds of war, and too many overseas colonies of the Empire where the sun never sets are at war.

Chen Jianqiu stared at Hunter's face and suddenly smiled:

"Deal, Mr. Hunter."

"I will build a company in the UK."