Chapter 586 Abyss
During the Russo-Japanese War, the Siberian Railway was attacked many times, and the Yenisey River Bridge was also blown up. It took more than three months to repair it.
A large part of the supplies that George hoarded in Constantinople came from Amur.
Amur's industrial products are not only exported to the Balkans, but also to St. Petersburg. After the single track was upgraded to double track, there are as many as 110 trains running on the Siberian Railway every day. Today's Siberia is described as an artery. The importance of railways to the empire cannot be overstated.
After George became Lord of the Navy, he had transferred the jurisdiction of the Siberian Railway to the Ministry of the Interior, so this was not George's fault.
After gaining access to the Black Sea, the role of the Siberian Railway for Amur is no longer as important as it was ten years ago.
On August 7, the ocean-going cargo ship "Hercules" from Vladivostok arrived in Constantinople.
The "Hercules" has a displacement of up to 20,000 tons. This ship does not use traditional transportation methods. The entire ship is filled with containers.
Containers are not an invention of Amur. As early as the 18th century, people began to use wooden boxes to transport goods. However, these boxes were small in size and had irregular specifications, which did not greatly improve the transportation capacity.
Due to the different sizes and specifications of the goods, a large number of dock workers were needed to move the goods at the dock. Sometimes it would take a week to load and unload a ship.
Amur's containers have the same specifications, 10 meters long, 2.5 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. After being transported in stacking mode, the "Hercules" loaded a total of 300 containers.
Since this is the maiden voyage of the "Hercules", 300 containers is far from the limit, and there is still a lot of room for improvement.
Accompanying "Hercules" to Constantinople were 300 Chinese workers from the Qing Empire.
After the fall of the Qing Empire, Datou, who had a large number of soldiers, was elected as the president, and his relationship with Amur also changed accordingly.
In March last year, Datou and Mario negotiated a series of rights and interests including the Kanto Railway.
After a long six-month tug-of-war, Amul retained a series of rights and interests on the premise of agreeing to pay taxes in accordance with relevant regulations.
According to the original agreement when building the China Eastern Railway, Amur will gradually transfer all rights and interests along the China Eastern Railway and its affiliated lines by 1940.
George arranged for all 300 workers to work in the arsenal that had just resumed production.
The arsenal left by the Ottoman Empire has a good foundation. It can not only produce bullets and shells, but also guns and artillery.
I have to say here that compared with the Russian Empire, the weapons and equipment of the Balkan countries are simply a hodgepodge.
Taking the Kingdom of Bulgaria as an example, rifles come from the Russian Empire, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, France, and even Italy.
The production period ranges from 1844 in the last century to the present, and it can be called a museum of all nations.
The caliber ranges from 6.5 mm to 13.9 mm.
With so many weapon models, the pressure on logistics is catastrophic. Many weapons are no longer produced because they lack spare parts and cannot be repaired.
George equipped the 14th Army with all Russian standard weapons.
In order to meet the demand, some technical transformation of the arsenals left by the Ottoman Empire also needed to be carried out.
Vladimir Fedorov, an engineer from St. Petersburg, was responsible for the transformation of the arsenal. Alexey served as a recommender and presented George with the automatic rifle developed by Fedorov.
As early as 1905, Fedorov modified the Yuriev rifle into a semi-automatic rifle.
Unfortunately, this rifle did not attract the attention of the top management in St. Petersburg, and it is still in the warehouse of the Artillery Academy.
Federov was not discouraged. In 1907, he developed a new 7.62 mm semi-automatic rifle. This rifle also did not attract attention.
Last year, Fedorov even developed bullets as well, designing a new 6.5 mm bullet and a fully automatic rifle.
After George personally tested the automatic rifle designed by Fedorov, he made some suggestions to Fedorov.
Compared with the 7.62mm bullets being used by the Russian Empire, although the performance of the 6.5mm bullets has been improved somewhat, there is no qualitative improvement. Therefore, in order to adapt to the empire's military industry system, George suggested Fedorov It is still designed based on the 7.62mm bullet.
The automatic rifle designed by Fedorov has a complicated mechanism and too many parts, which is not conducive to large-scale mass production and maintenance. At the same time, because the structure is too complex, there may be some reliability problems. These All need improvement.
However, in terms of design ideas, George still spoke highly of Fedorov. He not only gave Fedorov a reward of 5,000 rubles, but also provided financial support for Fedorov's subsequent research and development.
As an officer, Fedorov's monthly income after the George Military Reform was about 110 rubles, which was also among the high incomes in St. Petersburg.
The reward of 5,000 rubles made Fedorov overjoyed. He proposed to George that he hoped to communicate with his colleagues in Amur.
George is very happy, the more such talents the better.
At the same time George was also sad.
The Russian Empire is really not without technology. Among the people, there are still many buried talents like Fedorov. The so-called technological backwardness of Russian products in Europe is pure slander. In the field of science and technology, The R&D level of the Russians is absolutely world-class.
George arranged for Fedorov to go directly to Vladivostok to find Karpov. The two of them should have a common language.
The transformation work of the arsenal has been partially completed. At present, the bullet factory and the artillery shell factory have gradually resumed work. It will take some time to produce rifles and artillery. George is not in a hurry now. Constantinople has stocked up 50 Tens of thousands of rifles, rifles produced in Vladivostok are still being sent in a steady stream.
St. Petersburg also has a lot of rifles hoarded. As far as George knows, it is at least 1.2 million, which can satisfy at least the first round of mobilization.
George personally handled this job after the military reform began, so George is very familiar with the relevant situation. However, it was at this link where problems were least likely to occur that a big problem arose.
After the empire began its first round of mobilization, Nicholas Jr. was surprised to find that there were less than 400,000 new rifles left in the munitions warehouse in St. Petersburg.
Little Nikolai was furious and directly asked Sukhomlinov, where was the missing rifle?
Sukhomlinov was also helpless.
The missing rifle was sold to Britain and France by Nikola.
The British Army has only 100,000 troops. These 100,000 troops are stationed in overseas colonies around the world and are not mobile forces.
After Austria-Hungary began mobilizing, although Britain did not start mobilizing, Secretary of War Horatio Kitchener still smelled the smoke of gunfire, so he made some preparations in advance.
Kitchener decided to raise 100 troops after the British began mobilization.
With Britain's current military industry capabilities, it would take a full year to produce 1 million rifles.
Isn’t this funny? The Germans will not wait until Britain produces 1 million rifles before declaring war.
So the British started thinking about the Russian Empire.
Kitchener did not come forward himself, but asked King George V to personally send a telegram to Nicholas, expressing his feelings and understanding, asking Nicholas to provide help.
Everyone knows that Nikolai’s ears are relatively soft. The big cousin from Berlin almost rides on Nikolai’s head and dominates him. Nikolai can tolerate it. The British have repeatedly asked him in recent years. The Russian Empire's loan helped the Russian Empire alleviate its financial difficulties. Due to both emotions and reasons, Nicholas could not refuse George V's request.
After George learned about this, he didn’t know what to say.
It’s no problem to help. There are still some obsolete Berdan rifles in the warehouse in St. Petersburg. It’s no problem to give those unsold Berdan rifles to the British.
Seeing that the war is about to break out, the imperial warehouses are almost emptied by the British and French. What do you want to do, Tsar?
What makes George curious is that even if Britain goes to St. Petersburg to buy weapons, why does France also come to join in the fun?
France is a country with a large army, and George does not believe that the French have no inventory.
Indeed there is.
But the French inventory cannot meet France's demand.
Unlike the Russian Empire, the French Congress is eager to break into eight pieces for a penny, so France's arms inventory has always been at a relatively dangerous level, which is just enough.
Although France's military industrial capabilities are stronger than those of the United Kingdom, the pressure faced by France is also much greater than that of the British.
Although Britain promised that if Germany attacked France, Britain would send an expeditionary force to France to assist the French army in fighting.
But if the war goes badly, the British can just slap their butts and run away, but where can the French run? North Africa?
In Xiafei's plan, the first phase of mobilization of the French army will require the recruitment of 1.5 million troops.
The British and the French were quite generous and offered a good price. In peacetime, it would make San Da Le smile.
The newly recruited soldiers of the empire did not have guns to use, so they had to make do with wooden sticks for training.
After George learned of this situation, he immediately transferred 400,000 rifles from the warehouse in Constantinople to St. Petersburg. At the same time, he ordered Mario to produce at full capacity. The workers worked in three shifts, and the machines never stopped. , the new factory must also start construction immediately.
Mario has increased production capacity to the extreme. Even the machines in the Japanese arsenal were brought to Vladivostok by Mario.
Don’t ask why it’s not produced locally in Japan.
The question is the single colonial economy.
Japan's current role is the same as that of Goryeo, providing human resources for Amur.
Sending 400,000 rifles to St. Petersburg, the originally abundant inventory was suddenly stretched.
The first batch of soldiers mobilized by the Kingdom of Bulgaria exceeded 100,000 people.
The Kingdom of Romania and Greece are also mobilizing, and they also need weapons from George.
The house leaked and it rained all night. On August 9, the Austro-Hungarian Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Serbia. The news immediately spread throughout the world.
I have to name German Prime Minister Bateman and Foreign Minister Gottlieb Jagow here.
After Gisele left Belgrade, William II, who was on vacation, wrote a letter to Joseph I. In the letter, William II happily said: The Serbs have surrendered, and Gisele should return to Belgrade. The reasons for war are disappearing.
Bateman and Jago did not send the letter to Joseph immediately.
So after a few hours, the world finally slid irrevocably into the abyss.
(End of this chapter)