Chapter 1879
Arms Trade
Chapter 1879 Arms Trade
So that afternoon, Li Lu also appeared at the scene of the weapons transaction as a bystander.However, he was a little disappointed that there was no bargaining as he expected, the venue was set at the shooting range of the garrison barracks, and the transaction process began with the inspection of the goods.As for the transaction price and purchase list of the two parties, as Shi Diwen declared in advance, they will not be announced in public.
On the one hand, this is to facilitate Haihan to control the market price and supply of weapons and equipment, and on the other hand, it is also to protect the personal interests of these Ming military leaders and prevent their strength from being exposed in broad daylight.In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Haihan provided a batch of spot goods this time, it is unlikely that these military leaders will gather on Zhoushan Island at the same time, because in the past they all took the form of pre-orders, and there is no need to rush over to buy them like this time.
It is worth mentioning that this batch of weapons and equipment supplied to the Zhejiang Ming army was not produced by Haihan, but the proceeds of the Spanish armed forces seized by Haihan after they occupied Manila.The firearms and artillery manufactured by the Spaniards in the local area are naturally not comparable to the equipment of the Haihan Army, but for the Ming Army, their performance is better than that of the Military Weapons Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Weapons produced by the Stick Bureau.
And most importantly, the price of this batch of second-hand weapons is much cheaper than the real ones made by Haihan, and there is no need to wait for the construction period, and the goods can be picked up immediately after paying the money.For some military leaders who are eager to acquire arms for other purposes, this is definitely a batch of goods worth spending money on.
In fact, after the war in Manila ended, a small part of the Spanish weapons and equipment seized from the local area also flowed into North Korea through the hands of Li Xi.It's just that Li Luo doesn't know the specific situation of the arms trade between his country and Haihan, so this is the first time he has actually seen Spanish-style weapons.
Since it is an inspection, it is natural to randomly select a test shot to verify the performance of the weapon. This link also makes up for Li Wei's regret that he did not understand the content of the transaction between the two parties-you can intuitively understand the purchase of the Ming army through the test shooting. How does the batch of weapons perform.
Compared with the Haihan weapons he had seen at the Datongjiang base before going abroad, Li Wei quickly realized that the weapons sold to Daming were indeed not very good, but they were just the most common matchlock guns.Although there were a small number of flintlock rifles among the rifles delivered to the Ming army, their performance was far worse than that of the rifles equipped by the Haihan army.
However, judging from the reactions of these Ming army leaders, it seems that there is no dissatisfaction with the performance of these rifles. Li Luo felt relieved after thinking about it. This is not a vegetable market where you can pick and choose. People are waiting in line to buy, hesitate for a moment and it's gone, leaving no room for them to complain.If these weapons were sold to North Korea, Li Wei felt that the reaction of Cao Yamen, a soldier of his own country, would probably be similar to that of the Ming generals. No matter whether they were bought at 21 or not, the problem of whether they were available or not could be resolved first, and then they could consider whether they should be used or not.
This batch of guns had been preliminarily screened before being shipped to Zhejiang to ensure that each gun could be used normally, so the test firing of the buyers went smoothly, and the target shooting test was completed soon.
In addition to these rifles, a batch of Spanish artillery was also sold at the same time.The guns that could be towed away from inside and outside of Manila were successively disposed of by the Allied forces after the war.The coastal defense heavy artillery in Manila Port, which were hardly used in the war, were also shipped by the Annan Army and brought back to the country, saying that they were to be equipped with the military port on the Tushan Peninsula as a sharp weapon for guarding the country.
The batch of artillery shipped to Zhejiang for sale was, in fact, just like the rifles, they were defective products picked up by various Allied forces.Haihan only guarantees that it can be used, but the performance and service life are not guaranteed.However, these generals of the Ming army didn't care too much about the performance of the artillery, and their purpose of buying these artillery was not necessarily to arm their troops-as long as these artillery were bought and changed hands, they could double or even increase their value. High prices are sold to the north.
It's not that Haihan doesn't know about this situation, but this kind of resale doesn't harm Haihan's own interests, so he generally won't interfere with the specific whereabouts of these weapons.The more aspects involved in this large arms trading network, the more people will profit from it, and the more stable the business will be.And Haihan can also use this special trade channel to continuously increase its influence within Daming.
After seeing the Spanish cannons brought by mules and horses to the shooting range, Li Wei became more certain of his thoughts. The weapons Haihan sold to Daming were not high-quality goods, and the military strength of Daming was not as powerful as he had previously imagined. as far out of reach as I thought.
In the past 200 years, the Joseon Kingdom under the rule of the Lee Dynasty has always treated Ming Dynasty as the suzerain country, and even the change of king has to be recognized and canonized by Ming Dynasty before counting.The reason is that in addition to the gap in overall national strength between the two countries, there is also a very important point that is the gap in military force.As a result, every time North Korea encounters a foreign enemy invasion and is unable to protect itself, it will immediately ask Daming for help and ask Daming to send troops to help it retreat from the enemy.
Before the rise of Houjin, Daming's asylum was still very powerful.When the Imjin Japanese Invasion broke out in North Korea during the Wanli period, 14 Japanese troops crossed the sea and invaded North Korea. In just one month, they captured the capital of North Korea and expelled the king of North Korea, Li Yan.Then Daming also assembled a large army to enter North Korea to help it retreat from the enemy, but this fight lasted for seven years.
Although in the end it was the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea that won the victory and drove the Japanese army out of North Korea, the national power of Ming was greatly affected by this, and since then it was unable to suppress the Houjin armed forces in Liaodong, leaving room for them to rise.
By the time Li Luo was sensible, Nurhachi had already established the Great Jin Kingdom known as Houjin, and announced the "Seven Great Hatreds" to challenge the Ming Dynasty, and began to publicly oppose the Ming Dynasty.Although he was educated to serve Daming as a suzerain since he was a child, the strength of this suzerain is no longer so convincing in his mind.
After Jin invaded North Korea in 1627, it forced North Korea to form an alliance and pay it old coins. The level of Wanli years.
In the past ten years or so, the suzerain state in Li Mo's eyes has mostly existed in name only, especially after Haihan began to enter Northeast Asia in the past two years, its influence on North Korea began to gradually overshadow Daming.After experiencing this year's anti-Qing war, Haihan was about to replace Daming's position, and Li Wei no longer held much awe of the former suzerain country.
Daming's level of armed forces is no more than that - this is Li Luo's real thought at the moment.But he used Haihan as a comparison object, which is actually quite unfair to Daming. If there was no such a heaven-defying existence as Haihan, then Daming would still be a very powerful country in Northeast Asia during this period.
Even Li Lu, who doesn't know much about the international situation, can imagine why Haihan wants to control the weapons and equipment sold to Daming. After all, the two countries seem to be friendly countries that have established diplomatic relations, but in fact there are difficulties. Reconcile territorial disputes and competing interests of rivals.Haihan wanted to maintain his superiority in force over Ming and at the same time earn profits from the lucrative arms trade, so he could only do this kind of stuff.
But Li Wei felt that North Korea was different. There was almost no direct conflict of interest between Hai Han and North Korea, and North Korea was also very happy to respect Hai Han as its new asylum.After seeing several allied forces supported by Haihan, North Korea also decisively followed Haihan's suggestion and prepared to form a new army.From Li Lu's point of view, the other allied forces that fought in the DPRK were probably stronger than this Ming's force.If North Korea can develop and train the new army in full accordance with the plan formulated by Haihan, it seems that it is not an unattainable goal to have a combat force that is better than the average level of Ming Dynasty in a few years.
The rumble of cannons woke Li Mo from his daydream, and he returned to the shooting range. He saw several artillerymen of the Ming army learning how to use these Spanish artillery pieces under the guidance of Haihan soldiers.In fact, the principle of this kind of front-loading gun is similar, and it is not difficult for experienced artillerymen to learn. The real difficulty lies in how to familiarize themselves with their performance through training after receiving these artillery.
This is easy to say, but it is not easy to operate in practice.The biggest problem is that training needs to consume ammunition and the service life of the artillery, and the training results are exchanged for real money, and even if the troops have artillery, their commanders may not have so much funds for daily drills .
The Haihan Artillery’s investment in the training stage may not be much stronger than that of the Ming Army, but with the artillery training experience of later generations, the relevant training methods and efficiency are far superior to those of contemporary competitors, and the training effect is naturally greater. Big difference.Moreover, the frequent foreign wars gave the Haihan Artillery a lot of practical opportunities to practice. Its battlefield spanned the vast area from the South China Sea to the Yellow Sea. It performed combat missions in various natural environments. The accumulation of combat experience and the improvement of combat skills were natural. It is far superior to the Ming army.
In fact, North Korea also has artillery, but Li Luo has seen the artillery drills in his country before, and he thought it was quite good and majestic at the time. The idea is really a bit of a spectator.
However, Li Min believes that this has something to do with the artillery that North Korea used to have. He has seen the Haihan artillery drill at the Datongjiang base, and the power of the artillery is obviously different, and the range is longer.He believes that if more artillery produced by Haihan can be purchased in the future, it will definitely effectively enhance the combat effectiveness of the Korean army.As for the artillery that is said to be produced in Western countries, since Haihan can safely and boldly sell it to Daming in batches, it is conceivable that the performance will not be much better.
Although Li Luo's thoughts were a bit extreme, they were basically expected.After all, these are the leftovers from the weapons seized in Manila, and there is really no bright spot in terms of performance. If no one buys them from Daming, it is estimated that Haihan can only treat these weapons as scrap iron and return them directly to the furnace.
Of course, if there were people from the Fujian Ming Army present, their attitude would probably be similar to that of Li Wei, and they would not take these Spanish weapons seriously.After the battle in Manila, only the Fujian Ming Army hardly received the captured Spanish weapons, because Xu Xinsu, who was rich and powerful, insisted on using Haihan weapons to equip his troops.Although this requires a huge investment in the economy, the troops under his control do have extraordinary combat effectiveness. Troops equipped with uniform weapons can adopt consistent tactics in combat, and logistics are also easier to complete. Resupply mission.
However, North Korea is unlikely to catch up with Fujian Ming Army in a short period of time. Xu Xinsu allocates military expenditures of up to one million taels of silver every year. It is even comparable to the annual military budget of the Ministry of War.Based on North Korea's current situation, it is estimated that even one-tenth of its funds cannot be provided. It will take a long time to see results if it wants to form a decent new army.
After the artillery shooting is over, the acceptance process of the weapon is considered to have come to an end.The military leaders had already paid the Zhoushan authorities before this, and now they only need to take the bill of lading signed by Shi Diwen and go to several warehouses in the port to receive the goods.
This arms transaction made Li Luo look a little dull. The fierce bargaining between buyers and sellers and the display of advanced weapons he wanted to see did not appear. It was just a boring inspection of weapons.But he can't show any dissatisfaction with this, after all, he asked to come here on his own initiative, and Shi Diwenken's agreement to his request is already a great deal of face.Of course, Li Luo also wanted to understand now that Shi Diwen probably decided that he would not be able to get any valuable information during the delivery acceptance process, so he agreed to his application with confidence and boldness.
Shi Diwen didn't have the time to think about Li Wei's feelings at the moment. Although these weapons were almost a pile of scrap iron to Haihan, the pile of scrap iron has now successfully exchanged 10,000+ taels of silver for Haihan, which can be regarded as Another piece of credit for him.
These weapons were originally meant to be transported back to Sanya for dismantling and disposal, but Shi Diwen mentioned this when Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun went north to North Korea, so he took the initiative to send a telegram back to Sanya, asking them to transport them to Zhoushan .Fuguang and Guangxi can't digest these weapons, but the arms market in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is still at the stage where people are stupid and rich. As long as he spends a little time, he will not worry about not being able to sell them.
But the actual situation was as he expected. After the batch of weapons arrived in Hong Kong, he sent a message to the garrison troops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal areas who had a good relationship with Haihan, telling them that there was a batch of ready-made weapons for sale, and then people from all walks of life brought them to Hong Kong. He came to Zhoushan with silver, and within two or three days, he digested all the weapons that could not be disposed of in the south.
(End of this chapter)
So that afternoon, Li Lu also appeared at the scene of the weapons transaction as a bystander.However, he was a little disappointed that there was no bargaining as he expected, the venue was set at the shooting range of the garrison barracks, and the transaction process began with the inspection of the goods.As for the transaction price and purchase list of the two parties, as Shi Diwen declared in advance, they will not be announced in public.
On the one hand, this is to facilitate Haihan to control the market price and supply of weapons and equipment, and on the other hand, it is also to protect the personal interests of these Ming military leaders and prevent their strength from being exposed in broad daylight.In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Haihan provided a batch of spot goods this time, it is unlikely that these military leaders will gather on Zhoushan Island at the same time, because in the past they all took the form of pre-orders, and there is no need to rush over to buy them like this time.
It is worth mentioning that this batch of weapons and equipment supplied to the Zhejiang Ming army was not produced by Haihan, but the proceeds of the Spanish armed forces seized by Haihan after they occupied Manila.The firearms and artillery manufactured by the Spaniards in the local area are naturally not comparable to the equipment of the Haihan Army, but for the Ming Army, their performance is better than that of the Military Weapons Bureau under the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Weapons produced by the Stick Bureau.
And most importantly, the price of this batch of second-hand weapons is much cheaper than the real ones made by Haihan, and there is no need to wait for the construction period, and the goods can be picked up immediately after paying the money.For some military leaders who are eager to acquire arms for other purposes, this is definitely a batch of goods worth spending money on.
In fact, after the war in Manila ended, a small part of the Spanish weapons and equipment seized from the local area also flowed into North Korea through the hands of Li Xi.It's just that Li Luo doesn't know the specific situation of the arms trade between his country and Haihan, so this is the first time he has actually seen Spanish-style weapons.
Since it is an inspection, it is natural to randomly select a test shot to verify the performance of the weapon. This link also makes up for Li Wei's regret that he did not understand the content of the transaction between the two parties-you can intuitively understand the purchase of the Ming army through the test shooting. How does the batch of weapons perform.
Compared with the Haihan weapons he had seen at the Datongjiang base before going abroad, Li Wei quickly realized that the weapons sold to Daming were indeed not very good, but they were just the most common matchlock guns.Although there were a small number of flintlock rifles among the rifles delivered to the Ming army, their performance was far worse than that of the rifles equipped by the Haihan army.
However, judging from the reactions of these Ming army leaders, it seems that there is no dissatisfaction with the performance of these rifles. Li Luo felt relieved after thinking about it. This is not a vegetable market where you can pick and choose. People are waiting in line to buy, hesitate for a moment and it's gone, leaving no room for them to complain.If these weapons were sold to North Korea, Li Wei felt that the reaction of Cao Yamen, a soldier of his own country, would probably be similar to that of the Ming generals. No matter whether they were bought at 21 or not, the problem of whether they were available or not could be resolved first, and then they could consider whether they should be used or not.
This batch of guns had been preliminarily screened before being shipped to Zhejiang to ensure that each gun could be used normally, so the test firing of the buyers went smoothly, and the target shooting test was completed soon.
In addition to these rifles, a batch of Spanish artillery was also sold at the same time.The guns that could be towed away from inside and outside of Manila were successively disposed of by the Allied forces after the war.The coastal defense heavy artillery in Manila Port, which were hardly used in the war, were also shipped by the Annan Army and brought back to the country, saying that they were to be equipped with the military port on the Tushan Peninsula as a sharp weapon for guarding the country.
The batch of artillery shipped to Zhejiang for sale was, in fact, just like the rifles, they were defective products picked up by various Allied forces.Haihan only guarantees that it can be used, but the performance and service life are not guaranteed.However, these generals of the Ming army didn't care too much about the performance of the artillery, and their purpose of buying these artillery was not necessarily to arm their troops-as long as these artillery were bought and changed hands, they could double or even increase their value. High prices are sold to the north.
It's not that Haihan doesn't know about this situation, but this kind of resale doesn't harm Haihan's own interests, so he generally won't interfere with the specific whereabouts of these weapons.The more aspects involved in this large arms trading network, the more people will profit from it, and the more stable the business will be.And Haihan can also use this special trade channel to continuously increase its influence within Daming.
After seeing the Spanish cannons brought by mules and horses to the shooting range, Li Wei became more certain of his thoughts. The weapons Haihan sold to Daming were not high-quality goods, and the military strength of Daming was not as powerful as he had previously imagined. as far out of reach as I thought.
In the past 200 years, the Joseon Kingdom under the rule of the Lee Dynasty has always treated Ming Dynasty as the suzerain country, and even the change of king has to be recognized and canonized by Ming Dynasty before counting.The reason is that in addition to the gap in overall national strength between the two countries, there is also a very important point that is the gap in military force.As a result, every time North Korea encounters a foreign enemy invasion and is unable to protect itself, it will immediately ask Daming for help and ask Daming to send troops to help it retreat from the enemy.
Before the rise of Houjin, Daming's asylum was still very powerful.When the Imjin Japanese Invasion broke out in North Korea during the Wanli period, 14 Japanese troops crossed the sea and invaded North Korea. In just one month, they captured the capital of North Korea and expelled the king of North Korea, Li Yan.Then Daming also assembled a large army to enter North Korea to help it retreat from the enemy, but this fight lasted for seven years.
Although in the end it was the coalition forces of Ming and North Korea that won the victory and drove the Japanese army out of North Korea, the national power of Ming was greatly affected by this, and since then it was unable to suppress the Houjin armed forces in Liaodong, leaving room for them to rise.
By the time Li Luo was sensible, Nurhachi had already established the Great Jin Kingdom known as Houjin, and announced the "Seven Great Hatreds" to challenge the Ming Dynasty, and began to publicly oppose the Ming Dynasty.Although he was educated to serve Daming as a suzerain since he was a child, the strength of this suzerain is no longer so convincing in his mind.
After Jin invaded North Korea in 1627, it forced North Korea to form an alliance and pay it old coins. The level of Wanli years.
In the past ten years or so, the suzerain state in Li Mo's eyes has mostly existed in name only, especially after Haihan began to enter Northeast Asia in the past two years, its influence on North Korea began to gradually overshadow Daming.After experiencing this year's anti-Qing war, Haihan was about to replace Daming's position, and Li Wei no longer held much awe of the former suzerain country.
Daming's level of armed forces is no more than that - this is Li Luo's real thought at the moment.But he used Haihan as a comparison object, which is actually quite unfair to Daming. If there was no such a heaven-defying existence as Haihan, then Daming would still be a very powerful country in Northeast Asia during this period.
Even Li Lu, who doesn't know much about the international situation, can imagine why Haihan wants to control the weapons and equipment sold to Daming. After all, the two countries seem to be friendly countries that have established diplomatic relations, but in fact there are difficulties. Reconcile territorial disputes and competing interests of rivals.Haihan wanted to maintain his superiority in force over Ming and at the same time earn profits from the lucrative arms trade, so he could only do this kind of stuff.
But Li Wei felt that North Korea was different. There was almost no direct conflict of interest between Hai Han and North Korea, and North Korea was also very happy to respect Hai Han as its new asylum.After seeing several allied forces supported by Haihan, North Korea also decisively followed Haihan's suggestion and prepared to form a new army.From Li Lu's point of view, the other allied forces that fought in the DPRK were probably stronger than this Ming's force.If North Korea can develop and train the new army in full accordance with the plan formulated by Haihan, it seems that it is not an unattainable goal to have a combat force that is better than the average level of Ming Dynasty in a few years.
The rumble of cannons woke Li Mo from his daydream, and he returned to the shooting range. He saw several artillerymen of the Ming army learning how to use these Spanish artillery pieces under the guidance of Haihan soldiers.In fact, the principle of this kind of front-loading gun is similar, and it is not difficult for experienced artillerymen to learn. The real difficulty lies in how to familiarize themselves with their performance through training after receiving these artillery.
This is easy to say, but it is not easy to operate in practice.The biggest problem is that training needs to consume ammunition and the service life of the artillery, and the training results are exchanged for real money, and even if the troops have artillery, their commanders may not have so much funds for daily drills .
The Haihan Artillery’s investment in the training stage may not be much stronger than that of the Ming Army, but with the artillery training experience of later generations, the relevant training methods and efficiency are far superior to those of contemporary competitors, and the training effect is naturally greater. Big difference.Moreover, the frequent foreign wars gave the Haihan Artillery a lot of practical opportunities to practice. Its battlefield spanned the vast area from the South China Sea to the Yellow Sea. It performed combat missions in various natural environments. The accumulation of combat experience and the improvement of combat skills were natural. It is far superior to the Ming army.
In fact, North Korea also has artillery, but Li Luo has seen the artillery drills in his country before, and he thought it was quite good and majestic at the time. The idea is really a bit of a spectator.
However, Li Min believes that this has something to do with the artillery that North Korea used to have. He has seen the Haihan artillery drill at the Datongjiang base, and the power of the artillery is obviously different, and the range is longer.He believes that if more artillery produced by Haihan can be purchased in the future, it will definitely effectively enhance the combat effectiveness of the Korean army.As for the artillery that is said to be produced in Western countries, since Haihan can safely and boldly sell it to Daming in batches, it is conceivable that the performance will not be much better.
Although Li Luo's thoughts were a bit extreme, they were basically expected.After all, these are the leftovers from the weapons seized in Manila, and there is really no bright spot in terms of performance. If no one buys them from Daming, it is estimated that Haihan can only treat these weapons as scrap iron and return them directly to the furnace.
Of course, if there were people from the Fujian Ming Army present, their attitude would probably be similar to that of Li Wei, and they would not take these Spanish weapons seriously.After the battle in Manila, only the Fujian Ming Army hardly received the captured Spanish weapons, because Xu Xinsu, who was rich and powerful, insisted on using Haihan weapons to equip his troops.Although this requires a huge investment in the economy, the troops under his control do have extraordinary combat effectiveness. Troops equipped with uniform weapons can adopt consistent tactics in combat, and logistics are also easier to complete. Resupply mission.
However, North Korea is unlikely to catch up with Fujian Ming Army in a short period of time. Xu Xinsu allocates military expenditures of up to one million taels of silver every year. It is even comparable to the annual military budget of the Ministry of War.Based on North Korea's current situation, it is estimated that even one-tenth of its funds cannot be provided. It will take a long time to see results if it wants to form a decent new army.
After the artillery shooting is over, the acceptance process of the weapon is considered to have come to an end.The military leaders had already paid the Zhoushan authorities before this, and now they only need to take the bill of lading signed by Shi Diwen and go to several warehouses in the port to receive the goods.
This arms transaction made Li Luo look a little dull. The fierce bargaining between buyers and sellers and the display of advanced weapons he wanted to see did not appear. It was just a boring inspection of weapons.But he can't show any dissatisfaction with this, after all, he asked to come here on his own initiative, and Shi Diwenken's agreement to his request is already a great deal of face.Of course, Li Luo also wanted to understand now that Shi Diwen probably decided that he would not be able to get any valuable information during the delivery acceptance process, so he agreed to his application with confidence and boldness.
Shi Diwen didn't have the time to think about Li Wei's feelings at the moment. Although these weapons were almost a pile of scrap iron to Haihan, the pile of scrap iron has now successfully exchanged 10,000+ taels of silver for Haihan, which can be regarded as Another piece of credit for him.
These weapons were originally meant to be transported back to Sanya for dismantling and disposal, but Shi Diwen mentioned this when Wang Tom and Qian Tiandun went north to North Korea, so he took the initiative to send a telegram back to Sanya, asking them to transport them to Zhoushan .Fuguang and Guangxi can't digest these weapons, but the arms market in Jiangsu and Zhejiang is still at the stage where people are stupid and rich. As long as he spends a little time, he will not worry about not being able to sell them.
But the actual situation was as he expected. After the batch of weapons arrived in Hong Kong, he sent a message to the garrison troops in Jiangsu and Zhejiang coastal areas who had a good relationship with Haihan, telling them that there was a batch of ready-made weapons for sale, and then people from all walks of life brought them to Hong Kong. He came to Zhoushan with silver, and within two or three days, he digested all the weapons that could not be disposed of in the south.
(End of this chapter)