Starting My Treasure Hunting In England

Although the news Mr. Frey got here was not optimistic, the search work still had to continue. Fortunately, because of these clues, Mr. Frey sent another copy of the notebook the next day.

The copy of this notebook was found from the Swiss archives. There was no name on it originally, but during this round of searching, Mr. Frey recognized that the notes above were his father's handwriting.

This thing should be a manufacturing notebook. It should have belonged to Krupp's factory in Switzerland at first, but it was later confiscated by Swiss officials during the liquidation after World War II. Just when the information was passed over, Mr. Frey also called Liang En Made a phone call.

It's just that these things were completely backward even during World War II, so the notes were confiscated and kept in archives until now.

To be honest, if Liang En had not been able to narrow the target to such a small range 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 was a daily work note, and all the records in it were related to artillery production. This also resulted in Liang En having to spend money to hire professionals to analyze this document again.

What he didn't expect was that within an hour, the other party gave Liang En a more accurate answer and pointed out the suspicious parts of the notebook.

There are some problems with the metal used in artillery production. Pierce's voice came on the phone. Normally, after entering the 20th century, artillery pieces were made of alloy steel, but these artillery pieces are all made of carbon steel.

At the beginning of the 20th century, there was a major upgrade in artillery materials. Alloy steel with better performance became practical, replacing the original carbon steel with worse 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 was also rapidly popularized in the traditional weapons field, and carbon steel artillery was eliminated.

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

This has also resulted in 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 already in the minority in this world.

So when you see those drawings indicating that this 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, they can make artillery but they don’t have the raw materials. It always feels weird.

After all, a normal country may choose to purchase artillery, or it may choose to produce a full set of artillery, but it would naturally feel strange to choose neither of the two.

Yes, this matter is indeed a bit unreasonable. From various angles. Looking at Joan of Arc and Liang En, who looked at him curiously, he explained in a low voice.

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

The country Liang En is talking about now is China, a country that has only produced less than 100 barrel artillery pieces in the eight years of the all-out war of resistance.

If you read history books today, you will find that in the late Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty had the ability to make various types of army and navy artillery. In 1905, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Administration successfully imitated the 75mm Kirschner mountain cannon. In 1913, the Hanyang Arsenal successfully imitated the 75mm Kirschner field cannon.

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

Even the Jiangnan Manufacturing Administration produced the Thirty-Sheng 476 caliber giant gun, which is a 12-inch heavy gun. Although this level lagged behind the world at that time, it was no more than five years behind the mainstream level.

But when the Japanese invaded more than thirty years later, China had no new artillery available. Even at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, many troops were still using Kirschberg cannons with the regimental dragon emblem. This was because of the alloy steel revolution.

It took twenty years of continuous investment in the late Qing Dynasty to enable the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau's steel products to catch up with the advanced level of the great powers. It was suddenly necessary to do it all over again. This was obviously impossible in the turbulent Beiyang era.

The bureaucracy of the Beiyang government went even further, completely abandoning the concept of independence in the defense industry. In order to receive kickbacks, even ordinary carbon steel was outsourced. As a result, all the arsenals built with great pains in the late Qing Dynasty were reduced to processing with supplied materials. factory.

In 1925, the Hanyang Arsenal actually ordered 200,000 walnut gun stock blanks from a foreign company. The production of the Ishii Arsenal in Guangdong completely followed the instructions of the foreign company. It just bought the steel number of a certain part. shutdown.

Many people say that Bald Man is a comprador government, but Beiyang is the real comprador government when it comes to arms procurement. After all, at least Baldy no longer considers rebates as its main consideration in foreign military purchases.

Especially after Yu Dawei took over the Ordnance Industry Department, the Ordnance Industry Department was fully responsible for foreign military procurement, military industry production, equipment inventory support, etc. 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 amount reached 80 million silver dollars, which was obviously unaffordable at the time.

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

On June 25, 1937, China signed a contract with Krupp through the Hebulou Company to invest 58 million marks (legal currency 78 million) to build a special steel plant in Xiangtan. 20 days later, the full-scale Anti-Japanese War broke out.

Although Krupp actively delivered goods, when the first batch of equipment arrived in 1938, all coastal ports had been occupied. In the end, this batch of equipment could only be sold in Yangon.

As a result, the Chinese War of Resistance became a war without alloy steel. The only steel plant in China that could produce military alloy steel was the Yuzhou Electric Power Steelmaking Plant (No. 24 Arsenal).

The factory's two small 3-ton furnaces had an annual output of more than 1,000 tons, which could barely supply the production of machine rifles. Therefore, except for the 98 anti-tank guns processed from supplied materials, the entire Anti-Japanese War only produced mortars.

Obviously, the 150mm artillery papers found by Liang En and the others should not be provided to bald men. After all, these guys have high ambitions and low abilities. They should look down on such high-quality artillery, and they have indeed never made it in history. That kind of thing.

However, if you exclude the bald men with crotch pulls, you will find that powerful factions in various places are also manufacturing weapons, and they are better than the bald men. For example, from 1924 to 1931, the arsenals of the three eastern provinces produced more than 1,200 artillery pieces.

The caliber and quality of its mountain artillery, field artillery, flat-firing artillery, and howitzers (150mm howitzers were mass-produced, and even 240mm howitzers were being trial-produced during September 18th) were basically the best 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 Japanese devils, and became a boost for the Japanese invaders.