Treasure hunt begins in England

Chapter 771 Origin
"Don't you want to say that these cannons were not designed for the Chinese?" After hearing Liang En complain about Baldy and the Three Eastern Provinces, Joan asked curiously.

"No, on the contrary, as far as I know, this thing does look like the style of another Chinese warlord." Liang En shook his head with a smile, and then replied.

What he wanted to talk about was Yan Laoxi, a warlord in Jin Province. This warlord owned the Jinyang Arsenal, which mainly produced mountain guns and field guns, usually with a caliber of 75 mm, and a maximum caliber of 150 mm. About 2300 were produced.

It is a pity that this arsenal did not end well. Around 35 to 36 years, Yan Laoxi felt that the war against Japan was inevitable and that Jin Province would definitely become a war zone. The arsenal was handed over to the central government.

But it’s not in vain. Yan Laoxi opened his mouth and asked the central government to subsidize the Jin Province to spend 8000 million yuan.

The central government sent people to the factory to investigate, but the people who did the investigation had all drank foreign ink in foreign countries. They had seen big foreign factories, and they didn't like this even the largest arsenal in China at that time.

After the investigation, it was agreed that the technology of the factory was backward, the machines were outdated and had no use value.The center is not needed, the center needs to be newly built.

But having said that, it is indeed a sigh to ignore this largest arsenal in China, which can produce nearly 200 cannons and nearly [-] rifles a year, under the circumstances of the imminent war.

That's right, the weapon production level of this factory is indeed a bit suspicious. According to the experiments of the rabbits later, the rifles of the firearms produced by this factory are particularly easy to grind, and the overall quality is comparable to the original imported goods.

But under the circumstances at that time, availability was obviously more important than good or bad, especially since this arsenal also had a newly built steel plant attached to it, and its annual production capacity was equivalent to the sum of the rear steel plants during the Anti-Japanese War.

As a result, the arsenal was bombed at the beginning of the Anti-Japanese War, and it was urgently demolished before Jinyang fell. Part of the machinery, equipment and materials were robbed, and the rest were owned by the enemy.

Yan Laoxi used these equipment to withdraw it to the back of West Qin Province and built two small arsenals to manufacture guns and ammunition, but because the steelmaking equipment could not be transported away in a hurry, he also lost the ability to make guns.

It is worth mentioning that in order to solve the steel problem, Yan Laoxi took advantage of the Japanese invasion of the Central Plains, and the national army was defeated. The central government ordered the demolition of a large section of railway in Henan and sent a division to Henan to demolish a part of the railway.

besides.And some spare rails were also pulled back to get thousands of tons of rail steel, which together with its pre-war accumulation only survived the eight-year war of resistance.But these steels can only make mortars at best.

Although it is said that Yan Laoxi did not end the warlord separatism, the ability and even the idea to unify the country, nor did he have the determination to resist foreign humiliation desperately at the critical moment of the survival of the nation.In essence, it is just a separatist force that colludes with the Japanese invaders and lures wolves into the house.

But purely from a technical point of view, the series of achievements made by Jinyang Arsenal in the 20s were indeed an ideal choice for China at that time.

Therefore, Liang En felt that the artillery on these blueprints might be related to him, so he sent the scanned copies of these blueprints to the Chinese scholars he knew before, hoping to get corresponding clues from them.

To his surprise, he received a call only five or six hours later.The call was made by the curator of the Weapons and Equipment Exhibition Hall of Jinling University of Technology.

The curator told Liang En that after checking with several experts, he can confirm that the drawings he provided correspond exactly to a cultural relic in the collection.

"It's great." After I hung up the phone, Liang En and Joan clapped excitedly in celebration, because this meant that they were now extremely close to the truth after going through a lot of deciphering.

Fifteen minutes later, a series of documents from Huaxia were sent to Liang En and the others via the network, and through these not-so-large documents, they learned more about this artillery.

The artillery mentioned by the other party is a heavy artillery called Jinzao 150mm howitzer. Before that, Huaxia only vaguely knew that this artillery was a work in the 20s.

As for the origin of the artillery, it is even more vague. It only said that the drawings and some equipment "come from Germany", but Jinyang was declared to have fallen after only two artillery pieces were built in time.

However, according to the records, the Jinsui Army successfully transferred the two artillery pieces that had participated in the Jinyang Defense Battle, and kept them in their own hands for the rest of the time.

Until the war of liberating Jinyang in 1949, the two cannons were set up on the city wall by the Jinsui Army and fired. Finally, one was captured and kept to this day.

Since all the design and manufacturing information about the gun in the previous chaos has been lost, and only one gun was obtained, PLA did not use this gun again, but put it in the school as a teaching aid and kept it to this day.

This is also a common practice. After all, there are no spare parts, no blueprints, no matching shells, and even repairs. The artillery that does not know how to repair it is purely messy on the battlefield, and the 1949 PLA is really not good. Such a gun is missing.

"That is to say, that Mr. Frey's father went to China and became a designer of a warlord's arsenal in China?" After confirming that the cannon on the drawing really existed, Joan whispered to Liang En Q&A.

"It's very possible, but it's just a matter of making the job more beautiful. We'd better see if we can collect more clues." Liang En said seriously.

"Fortunately, we found the whereabouts of those cannons and the scholars over there, so I think if we exchange information with each other, the other party should be willing to cooperate with us."

"But before that, I think I need to talk to that Mr. Frey. At least in my opinion, as we get more information, he should be able to find new clues."

For Liang En, since there is a task at hand, it is also a very reasonable way to report the progress of the task in a timely manner. At least it is more convenient for the task planner to grasp the progress of the overall situation.

"Thank you very much, I think my choice should be right." After receiving Liang En's call, Mr. Frey seemed very happy, because Liang En found his target in a very short time.

"It's nothing, since I promised this matter, I will definitely help you." Liang En replied with a smile, "But here I also need your help with some things, the situation is like this—"

"No problem, I will definitely help you with this favor, or this is what I should do." After chatting about the request, Mr. Frey replied immediately.

"Since there is a high probability that my father has gone to Huaxia, I think it is feasible to find relevant files at this time, so please wait for me for a few days, I think I should be able to find more clues."

The reason why the other party said this is also very simple, because many contents of that era were recorded in the secret files. Even though most of these files have been decrypted now, it is almost impossible to check all the paper files. .

Therefore, only when the scope is sufficiently limited and narrowed to a certain extent like now, can everyone find what they are looking for from the decrypted files through manual query.

(End of this chapter)