Chapter 352: This Gun Is Very Good

"Not only Governor Xu's Du Biao Battalion needs to replace foreign guns and cannons, but also Governor Ye's Fu Biao Battalion and my Ti Biao Battalion need to buy some.

Governor Xu and Governor Ye have observed the training of the Yue Yong Battalion and were very impressed by this kind of quick-firing gun that can fire by itself. They ordered me to come and purchase some guns and ammunition." Hong Mingxiang said.

Biao Battalion can be simply understood as the field army in the Qing army's Green Camp combat sequence.

After the world was settled, the main task of the Qing Dynasty's regular army changed from military operations to defense of the people.

The Green Camp soldiers of various provinces were stationed in various garrisons and used as public security police.

The number of people in each garrison was the same as that of a battalion. There was no fixed number, ranging from a small garrison with only a few people to a large garrison with dozens of people.

As for how many people there were in each garrison, it depended on the importance of the garrison.

Although the Green Camp was called a garrison, it was difficult to see a Green Camp stationed and trained in a garrison unit during the Kangxi period.

The reason why the Qing government split the Green Camp soldiers into small units and dispersed them in various garrisons was to maintain its own rule.

The population of the Bannermen was small, and the pampered Bannermen did not like to leave the colorful world of the capital to garrison in various places, so the number of garrisoned Eight Banners in various places was very limited.

It was obviously not enough to rely on these sparsely populated garrisoned Eight Banners to maintain rule.

Therefore, the Qing Dynasty had to use the more numerous Han Green Camp to maintain public order in various places.

But they did not trust the Han people, and they were always on guard against the Han people, so they split the Green Camp into small units and dispersed them in various garrisons to maintain public order.

Even if these Han Green Camps wanted to rebel, each Green Camp was scattered in various places as a unit of garrison, and could not gather many people. The garrisoned Eight Banners in various places could also easily extinguish the flames of rebellion.

Facts have proved that this move by the Qing high-level officials was successful, and maintained their own rule at a relatively small cost.

However, this measure also has a very fatal flaw, that is, these green camp soldiers who lack training and have no experience in coordinated operations are no longer suitable for use as field military forces, and have completely become public security police.

Even if the battalion officers in various places summoned the soldiers from various stations to perform tasks during the war, the battalion officers did not know the soldiers they had received, resulting in a situation where the soldiers did not know the generals and the generals did not know the soldiers.

This is also why the 7,000 British troops were able to traverse the Qing sea borders as if they were in an unmanned area, and the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom's mob was able to march all the way from Guangxi to Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Anhui, and finally take Nanjing.

The main force in the Opium War and the early suppression of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Movement was these battalions that could still fight.

The so-called 800,000 Qing troops faced by the British army were actually 800,000 public security police responsible for filling the line.

In actual combat, the difference in the number of combatants between the British and Qing armies was not as exaggerated as people imagined. The British army could even use its mobility advantage to create a numerical advantage in local battlefields and then encircle and annihilate the Qing army.

Liang Yao's second uncle Deng Yan served in Guan Tianpei's Ti Biao Battalion in his early years. This Ti Biao Battalion was annihilated by the British army at Humen Fort.

There were four types of battalions in the Qing Dynasty.

One was the Du Biao Battalion and Fu Biao Battalion of the civil official faction, which were the personal soldiers of the governors and governors of each province, and the mobile forces that the governors and governors could directly mobilize.

Generally speaking, the Du Biao Battalion had 2 to 5 battalions, with a number of people ranging from one thousand to four or five thousand. The number of the auxiliary battalion in the Qing Dynasty was quite flexible. It was very normal for the number of people in the same unit to differ by several times.

The Fu Biao Battalion had a slightly smaller establishment, with only 2 to 3 battalions, and the number of people ranged from a few hundred to two thousand.

Because the civil officials held the right to speak and the power to allocate local finances, the Du Biao and Fu Biao were often the most elite military forces in a province.

As for the Du Biao Battalion (3 to 5 battalions) of the admiral of the military officer system and the Zhen Biao Battalion (2 to 5 battalions) of the general, although from the perspective of establishment, they were superior to the Biao Battalion of the governor and governor.

But the soldiers of the Du Biao Battalion and the Zhen Biao Battalion were not as well treated as the governor's battalion, and their combat effectiveness was also slightly inferior.

If the Guangdong Du Biao, Fu Biao, and Ting Biao wanted to purchase foreign guns and cannons from him, the quantity would still be very considerable.

"I'm afraid that Governor Xu and Governor Ye wanted to add foreign guns and cannons to the battalion for more reasons, right?"

Liang Yao took Hong Mingxiang, Liang Shaoqiong and their entourage to board the special train to Sacramento.

This was not the first time that Hong Mingxiang, Liang Shaoqiong and others took a train. The two of them had arrived in San Francisco in mid-April. Before Liang Yao returned to California, they had already taken a train to travel around California.

Therefore, they are now used to taking trains and are not too surprised.

"Brother Liang's eyes are still sharper. In the second year of Emperor Xianfeng (1852), Brother Liang surrendered the Japanese pirates with only two or three thousand soldiers and made them sign the Nagasaki Treaty and the Edo Treaty (US-Japan Amity Treaty). Governor Xu was very surprised. He didn't expect that there was such a warlike country besides England among the Western countries.

In addition, the Taiping rebels had already taken Jiangning and occupied half of the southeast. Governor Xu was worried that one day the Taiping rebels would go south to Guangdong and Guangxi, and it would be difficult to deal with them." Hong Mingxiang found a seat and sat down, shaking the copper bell skillfully and ordering a cup of tea.

"That makes sense. I wonder how many foreign guns and cannons General Hong is ordered to purchase this time?" Liang Yao took out a match, lifted one leg and rubbed the match head on his leather shoes, then picked up the lit match and lit the cigarette in his mouth.

"I wonder how much the foreign guns Brother Liang sold cost?" Hong Mingxiang asked Liang Yao about the unit price of foreign guns.

"Foreign rifles that use paper shell bullets are sold at $25 each, and foreign rifles that use metal shell bullets are sold at $30 each." Liang Yao quoted the price of the guns and added.

"If it is General Hong who wants to buy, Liang will suffer a loss. Each gun comes with 100 bullets."

As the production of guns increases, the manufacturing cost of guns has also decreased. The manufacturing cost of the Walter M1851E is $13 and 40 cents per rifle, and the manufacturing cost of the Walter M1851 is $18 and 70 cents per rifle.

When it was just put into production, the manufacturing cost of the Walter M1851E was $15 and 25 cents per rifle, and the manufacturing cost of the Walter M1851 was $20 and 30 cents.

Compared with the Springfield M1842, which is currently commonly equipped by the American army and sells for $8 per rifle, the Walter M1851 rifle, which has been put into mass production, still has no price advantage.

So far, only a few colonels in the United States have ordered a small number of Walter M1851E rifles to equip their troops, and Robert, the president of the West Point Military Academy, has ordered 500 Walter M1851E rifles as teaching aids.

This type of firearm is not successful in the domestic market of the United States, and the cumulative sales in the United States currently do not exceed 5,000.

In the US army, only Liang Yao's Arizona Infantry Regiment is rich and powerful and fully equipped with this type of firearms. As for the California Infantry Regiment, the standard weapon currently equipped is the Delyse needle-fired gun.

Liang Yao also needs to expand overseas markets and sell his arms to relieve the pressure of the Sacramento Arsenal and strive to make the Sacramento Arsenal profitable.

If you want to make the arsenal profitable in a relatively short period of time by relying on large-scale arms sales, it can only be achieved by selling arms in the international market.

As for the colonels in the United States, they would rather spend $8 to buy an outdated smoothbore rifle to equip their soldiers than spend $25 to buy a breech-loading rifle to equip their soldiers.

Liang Yao is currently optimistic about two major customers in the international market, one is the French Army, which is in urgent need of replacing standard light weapons, and the other is the Green Camp and Hexiang Yong of the Qing Dynasty.

Liang Yao asked Hu Jinchen to take a Walter M1851 rifle from the accompanying guards and give it to Hong Mingxiang for inspection.

Hong Mingxiang played with this well-made and well-maintained rifle and praised it highly.

"Good gun, good gun." Hong Mingxiang put his eyes close to the muzzle, "This gun has a yin-yang line? Is this the reason why this gun is so accurate? I saw Guangdong warriors using this gun, and it was as easy as taking something out of a bag to hit a target 50 meters away."

The old matchlock guns equipped by the Green Camp were simply a pile of scrap copper and iron compared to the foreign gun that Hong Mingxiang was holding in his hand. Not to mention the target 50 meters away, even the target 5 meters away, it is common to miss the target.

"That's right, this is why the price of this gun is more expensive than other foreign guns. This yin-yang line is not easy to cut. Take Liang's Sacramento arsenal as an example. When cutting the yin-yang line of ten gun barrels, one or two of them are often scrapped, and the materials used for the gun barrels are all good materials." Liang Yao said.

"To be honest with you, Brother Liang, I really like this gun, but the price is too expensive. The one that shoots paper shell bullets costs 16 taels of silver (the US dollar-silver exchange rate in the mid-19th century was about 1 US dollar to 637 taels of silver). Can it be cheaper?" Hong Mingxiang began to bargain. "It can't be any cheaper. If it's any cheaper, I won't make any money. When Gui Lao wants to buy guns from me, I sell them at the price without giving them bullets." Liang Yao shook his head and said, "For the sake of our friendship, I have given 100 bullets to each gun. These bullets are not cheap."

Hong Mingxiang was about to bargain again, but Liang Yao interrupted her and asked her, "How about this, General Hong, just tell me how many guns you want to buy this time."

Hong Mingxiang thought for a long time, and then said, "5,000 guns, the kind that shoots paper shell bullets, but the kind that shoots metal bullets is too expensive."

"General Hong, how about this? If you buy these 5,000 guns at the price, Liang will give you an extra 200 guns." Liang Yao said.

5,000 guns is not a small deal, the total price reached US dollars.

This is the largest order since the establishment of the Sacramento Arsenal.

It has exceeded the sales volume of the gun in the United States since it was put into production. Liang Yao can give Hong Mingxiang an additional 200 guns.

"That's great." Hong Mingxiang thought about it and agreed.

After discussing the sale of the gun, Hong Mingxiang asked about the price of the cannon: "I wonder how much the foreign cannon produced here is priced, brother Liang?"

"Cannon? Cannons are much more expensive than guns." Liang Yao said, "Rifled cannons and unrifled cannons, large-caliber cannons and small-caliber cannons, front-loading cannons and rear-loading cannons, the price difference is not a little bit."

"I know this, how can the prices of different cannons be generalized." Hong Mingxiang said, "Brother Liang, tell me the truth first, so that I can have an idea in my mind."