The arms dealers from all countries have taken out their respective companies' trump weapons, with dozens of pieces, which really makes Wang Chenhao confused.

Wang Chenhao transferred more than a dozen weapon testers from the Tianjin Machinery Bureau to conduct high-intensity firepower tests on weapons from various countries, and then generated technical reports as bidding data.

In terms of rifles, the German Mauser 88 rifle was first defeated by the British Enfield rifle and the Netherlands Manlisha rifle, and was even worse than the Norwegian small-caliber anti-Mauser Krag-Jorgensen rifle.

Faced with the failure of the test, the representative of Mauser Company was afraid that the order would be taken away by other companies, so he was preparing to take out a new Mauser gun for testing, but he needed to ask the headquarters for instructions.

Mauser did not want to come up with the new Mauser rifle, because one was afraid of imitation from other countries, and the other was that the Mauser Type 88 rifle had just been promoted for less than six years. The launch of new products would impact the old product market, and even the Mauser Type 88 production line was related to the danger of shutdown.

However, Mauser thought that China would start training the new army and would have a huge weapon market share. Driven by huge profits, the company finally agreed to take out a new Mauser rifle for testing.

But then the representatives of Mather's company in China used the new rifle set in 1894 to test it. Wang Chenhao could see at a glance that this Mauser rifle is the famous Mauser 98 rifle in history. It was also the most advanced rifle at present. Soon, this new rifle improved all the problems of Mauser 88 in the test, and defeated the test rifles of other countries in the test, and finally passed.

In order to unify ammunition and facilitate supply and maintenance, Wang Chenhao also chose the Mauser 98 short-barrel model as the cavalry gun on the cavalry.

Since the Mauser 98 rifle was launched on the market three years in advance, the famous Type 98 rifle in history disappeared, replaced by the Mauser 95 rifle.

Regarding price issues, due to fierce competition among countries, Mauser Company did not know the market acceptance ability of this Mauser 95 rifle, so it did not dare to make too high the price. In the end, the order for 16,500 rifles and 3,500 rifles were finalized at a price of 9 taels of silver per piece. All guns were equipped with an additional 20 base bullets, which cost a total of 300,000 taels of silver.

In addition to rifles, the second largest weapon is artillery. In terms of artillery, Wang Chenhao knew that France had an advanced 75 field gun at this time, but France did not provide such artillery, but only took out a 80-infantry gun with a mount.

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The artillery of various countries participating in the artillery bidding did not have a retractable type, so in this case, Wang Chenhao could only choose the German Krupp 80 infantry artillery and 150 heavy howitzer with good quality and long life, because the best steelmaking technology of countries around the world is Krupp Steel.

Wang Chenhao wanted to connect a new army of reorganized divisions and at least one artillery regiment. 36 light artillery selected the 80 infantry artillery and 18 150 heavy howitzers from the Krupp Factory in Germany. 54 cannons were equipped with 54,000 shells, with a total price of 700,000 taels of silver.

Such a high price is painful for Wang Chenhao, but Wang Chenhao knew that this was the price that the Germans had discounted, otherwise he would not be able to get this discount even if he added 200,000 taels of silver.

In the words of German Minister Seng Ke, this is a discount given to Wang Chenhao's preparation for the training of the German army and the huge weapons market in the future. Otherwise, the equipment from ten years ago would not be available for purchase at this price.

Wang Chenhao originally planned to assemble a Maxim heavy machine gun for each infantry squad, but considering the shortage of funds and the inability to lack of firepower of the machine gun, he eventually bought fifty Maxim heavy machine guns and equipped each infantry company with two.

The main purchase of weapons is this step, including three major items: cannons and cavalry, other war horses, swords, military uniforms, quilts, and carry-on military items. Beiyang itself does not require extra money.

The weapons purchase cost Li Hongzhang gave Wang Chenhao was only 1 million taels, and all the guns and cannons were used up. However, Wang Chenhao still misappropriated other funds to fill the 50,000 taels of silver spent on fifty heavy machine guns.

The bidding ended, Germany won 1 million taels, France won 50,000 taels, and the British were in vain.

The British Times published a slightly jealous article on the day the bid ended, saying that the British could not compete with Germany in army weapons and equipment, and it was reasonable to fail the bid. However, in terms of naval equipment, the British's current level of shipbuilding is currently unmatched. A warship is worth millions of taels of silver, which is far higher than the Germans' profits. They are looking forward to the meeting between Marquis Stregan and Li Hongzhang.

The weapons purchase order for the newly built army of Beiyang has come to an end, and Germany and France will deliver all weapons to Wang Chenhao in the next three months.

During the weapons bidding period, the Qing court also had constant turmoil. The imperial party led by Weng Tonghe took the opportunity to attack Wang Chenhao, saying that Wang Chenhao was favored by foreign countries and put the domestic arsenal production equipment without using it, and all weapons were purchased. This is a typical style of giving silver to foreigners.

Emperor Guangxu naturally stood on Weng Tonghe's side. He issued an order to blame Wang Chenhao without asking any questions, and even Li Hongzhang was criticized.

Wang Chenhao is now in this position. Even if he does not want to participate in the mutual struggle between court officials and does not want to breathe the smoky and chaotic atmosphere in the court, he has to defend himself.

Then Wang Chenhao gave a "Self-blame" called "Self-blame", but in fact he shouted injustice everywhere. Wang Chenhao said that self-blame was to give Guangxu face, and he could not directly say that he was wronged in front of the world. It would be no good for anyone to slap Guangxu in the face.

Weng Tonghe only knew one thing but not the other. He knew that the Hanyang Arsenal completed the introduction and laying of the Mauser rifle production line in April last year, and could produce the Mauser 88 type imitation rifle, which is made in Hanyang.

However, what Weng Tonghe didn't know was that the Hanyang Arsenal had just started production and all the equipment was destroyed. If you want to repair and operate it, you have to wait until next year. Moreover, the output is insufficient. Obviously, it is impossible for the new army to continue to have new equipment.

Then, Wang Chenhao listed a series of disadvantages of the official arsenal. For example, the funds were allocated by the Ministry of Revenue of the Qing government, but the production of the arsenal did not take into account costs, economic benefits, and lacked momentum for development. It adopted feudal yamen-style management, used the method of managing the army to restrain workers, workers lacked production enthusiasm, product quality was not guaranteed, etc.

There were also some problems of bureaucracy and corruption in the arsenal. As a result, when Zhang Peilun helped him write the memorial, he deleted the words and told Wang Chenhao that he was not strong enough now and dared not offend those people.

Although the following words were deleted, Wang Chenhao's meaning was clearly expressed. After the memorial was put on, Guangxu felt very embarrassed, so he issued an order to affirm Wang Chenhao's actions, and then scolded Weng Tonghe fiercely.
Chapter completed!