Chapter 537: Two thousand five hundred artillery pieces of the army
readx; At the beginning of 1919, the two Yandi-class super warships in the second phase of the Navy's development plan almost stunned the eyes of the domestic people, making the domestic people pay great attention to the navy, and the high enthusiasm for the navy in China directly led to the spring enrollment of the Nanjing Naval Military Academy in 1919, and received more than 3,000 applications from all over the country. In addition to the level of education and physical fitness, the requirements in other aspects are also very high, resulting in not many people who meet the conditions and are willing to join the army and apply for the military academy at the same time, and the enrollment ratio of the naval officer school in the past two years has remained at about five to one, and now there are as many as 3,000 applications for the examination, and the enrollment ratio of the naval officer academy has reached 13 to 1 for the naval officer school, which only enrolls more than 200 people every year. Writing, Fun, and Pavilion www.biquge.info This shows the rapid rise of the navy's status in the hearts of young people.
In the first half of 1919, the navy, land and air force were destined to be the scenery of the Chinese navy, and whenever the generals of the army saw the admiralty generals next door smiling, they couldn't help but despise in their hearts: this group of fake foreign devils who eat steak every day don't know the sky and the earth when they buy two warships!
The Army's contempt for the Navy has been persistent for a long time, and in the Army's own words, if warships can run to land, your Navy will be able to build two battleships every year! It's a pity that warships can't run on land, so although the army has a lot of money, it can't build it!
The Army's attitude towards the Navy and Air Force has always been to regard them as subordinate forces of the Army, and many army generals jokingly refer to the Air Force as the Army Air Force, while the Navy is called the Army Maritime Artillery Regiment. The reason why the army has such an attitude is naturally related to the unshakable and important position of the army in China.
As a continental country, the army is the foundation of China, and the army is the foundation of Chen Jingyun, so in the era of Fujian's military and political axes, Chen Jingyun invested the main forces in the army, and after the reunification of the country, 80 percent of the military expenditure was invested in the army, and the army's military expenditure in 1915 was only 230 million yuan, and in the 1919 financial expenditure budget, although affected by the expansion of the navy, the army's military expenditure increased instead of decreasing, reaching an unprecedented 500 million yuan. It accounted for 28 percent of the 1.7 billion yuan budget for 1919, and even though the navy had increased its special expenditure of 30 million yuan for three consecutive years, the navy's total expenditure in 1919 was less than 90 million yuan, accounting for only 5.8 percent of the total budget for fiscal expenditure, and the navy accounted for about 30 percent of the total financial expenditure during the same period. The Air Force also had a budget of 25 million yuan, and the total expenditure of the Chinese [***] expenditure in 1919 was about 630 million yuan, accounting for 37 percent of the total fiscal expenditure of 1.7 billion yuan.
However, considering the fact that China has already stationed troops in Russia, referring to the example of last year's temporary military spending of 80 million yuan for the army, it is very likely that this year it will need to increase at least tens of millions of temporary military spending for the army to fill the huge hole, so in fact, it is difficult to control the military expenditure for a year below 40 percent, but part of it is only raised in the form of various special funds.
Because after the implementation of the compulsory military system for several years, the salary expenses of personnel have been directly reduced by about 30 percent, and most of the military expenditure in the army is the salary of personnel, and this alone allows the army to free up nearly 100 million yuan every year for other projects, such as equipping the troops with new equipment and improving the training standards of the troops. In particular, the live-fire training infantry also said that the bullet was cheap, but the price of the artillery live-fire training was not ordinarily expensive.
When the salaries of the personnel were used in other directions, the training level of the Chinese army gradually came into line with that of the troops of the great powers, instead of the previous situation where infantry could not fire a few rounds a month and artillery could not fire a few shells a year. More importantly, a large amount of high-tech equipment began to equip the army units in large quantities.
After several years of large-scale rearmament, the field units in the Chinese Army have all been replaced with 1916-style 6.8mm rifles, and the replaced 1912-style rifles are used to equip a large number of local garrison units, and the older Hanyang-made and Type 88 are in good condition to equip local garrison units. The large number of 30-year-old and 38-year-old rifles in China's inventory is not a lot in terms of quantity, but the number of nearly 100,000 rifles was originally intended for the Russian Defense Forces, but the Russian Defense Forces have the support of the entire Entente and the original large amount of gold stocks in Russia, and they are not bad at all, and they don't look down on these old miscellaneous rifles at all. Insisting on equipping them with their standard 7.62mm M1891 rifles, and not even the 1916 rifles in service in the Chinese Army, China had no choice but to mothball these rifles and seek opportunities to sell them out.
Shut down
At the same time as the 1916 rifle, the 1915 6.8 mm light machine gun was also equipped on a large scale, and due to the universal use of bullets, the Madsen 7.92 mm light machine gun that was previously installed in the Nationalist Army was completely replaced, along with the batch of 1912 rifles and Hanyang-made, 88 rifles were equipped with local garrison units, and the field troops were fully equipped with new 1915 6.8 mm light machine guns.
Compared with the comprehensive replacement of rifles and light machine guns, the heavy machine guns in the army have not been replaced on a large scale, and a large number of 1916 heavy machine guns are still used, and this 1916 7.92 heavy machine gun is actually the official number of the MG08 heavy machine gun in the Chinese Army.
And the mortar has not changed much, although the Wuhu heavy weapons arsenal design has improved several new mortars, but these increases are mainly to reduce weight and increase range and accuracy, more importantly, some improvements in the process, the difference between these new and old mortars will not affect the use of troops, the only difference is that in addition to the large-scale installation of 60 mm and 80 mm mortars in the Chinese army, it also began to prepare a large-scale 120 mm heavy mortars in accordance with the 1915 establishment, According to each division, a battalion of 12 guns was assigned to each division with a heavy mortar battalion, in addition to the reading force to form several reading force mortar regiments, the Chinese army is very fond of the power of the 120 mm heavy mortar, although the firing range is not as good as the imitation of the 1915 mountain artillery of the 41 type mountain gun, and it is far inferior to the imitation of the 1916 field gun of the 38 type of field artillery, but its 120 mm caliber gives it a huge and incomparable power. Its explosive power is inferior to the 105-mm howitzers that the National Army is equipped with in large quantities.
Compared with the high price of 105 mm caliber artillery, 120 mm heavy mortars can be regarded as cheap, so this has led to a large number of 120 mm heavy mortars in the Chinese army, not only each division is equipped with a battalion of 12 guns, but also organized into five reading mortar regiments, the total equipment has been as high as more than 800 guns.
At the same time, the Chinese army vigorously develops mortars, and attaches more importance to the development of traditional artillery, through the successive replacement of these three or four years, the artillery regiments of various divisions in the Chinese army have been fully equipped with 1915-type 75-mm mountain guns, 1916-type 75-mm field guns and their same type of artillery, such as some of the 41-type mountain guns and 38-type field guns made in the United States, which is also the result of the current Chinese army and the army is equipped with the same 75-mm army support artillery, of course. I have not received a dime in patent fees from China. And some of the old models of artillery that were equipped before naturally cannot be said to have been thrown away, but they are organized into reading artillery regiments according to their models.
After spending hundreds of millions of dollars in military spending every year, the artillery regiments of each division of the Chinese Army have been equipped with fully equipped artillery regiments.
In addition to the heavy weapons of these divisions, the Chinese Army has also invested heavily in the development of large-caliber artillery, and has successively established a number of large-caliber artillery regiments, including the Reading Field Artillery Regiment equipped with 24 1915-mm howitzers and 12 1916-style 75-mm field guns; The Reading Heavy Howitzer Regiment is armed with eighteen 155-mm howitzers of the 1916 model, the Reading Field Heavy Artillery Regiment is armed with eighteen 105 cannons of the 197 Model, and the Reading Field Heavy Artillery Battalion is armed with nine 155 cannons of the 1918 Model.
As of June 1919, the Chinese army was equipped with nearly 2,000 new and old 75-mm guns, and since last year the simplified establishment was reorganized into integrated divisions, the number of 75-mm guns required has increased substantially, and it is expected to reach more than 2,300 in the next year, in addition to more than 130 105-mm howitzers, more than 50 155 howitzers, more than 50 105-mm cannons, more than 20 155-mm cannons, and more than 20 155-mm cannons. Excluding the large number of mortars, the number of traditional artillery pieces of the Chinese army exceeded 2,500.
And the number of this artillery is still increasing rapidly, the increase is mainly concentrated in the 105 howitzer and 155 howitzer, especially the 105 howitzer due to its light weight, the power is not small, the military has always wanted more 105 howitzers and even directly into the division artillery, but limited by the impact of price and production capacity, this goal has not been achieved, but the army has been going in this direction, sooner or later it intends to keep up with the pace of the great powers so that large-caliber artillery is equipped with the division.
In fact, most of China's military production capacity is used for exports to Russia, and now China's military enterprises can be said to have established a complete set of Russian standard military production system, from M1891 rifles to 122 mm howitzers and various bullets and shells, the production of military materials such as bayonets and military uniforms is almost a one-stop service, and almost all the ordnance materials in the Russian Defense Forces, which have been fighting with the Soviet Army for nearly a year, are provided by China, of course, this is not China's free supply, Rather, the Russian Provisional Axe paid part of it with its own gold stocks, and Britain, France, and the United States jointly paid for the remainder.
Comparing the surging development of the army in recent years, from only 600,000 troops before reunification to more than 1.2 million troops now, and the number of artillery pieces has more than doubled, we will feel that the development of China's navy and air force in recent years has actually been very limited.
Behind this large-scale expansion of the army, what is hidden is the Sino-Chinese war that will break out at any time in the Far East, and now there is a European war that can alleviate the fierce military, economic and trade conflicts between China and the two countries, and once the European war comes to an end, after losing the big market of Europe, then the import and export trade between China and the two countries will almost certainly be hit hard, and then these two countries will concentrate their export trade on raw silk. Countries with light industry and low-tech products will fight for the export market and even China's local market, and the losing side will definitely collapse economically and completely fall, if it does not want to sink here, then the losing side can only do one thing next, that is, provoke a war and forcibly seize markets and resources.
No matter who wins or loses in this economic war, China says that there will be a war between the two countries, and the Far East cannot afford to support the industrial countries of the two countries if it is so big!