Republic of China: German-equipped divisions massacred as warlords guarded the nation's borders

May 26, 1925, Ma'anshan Heavy Industrial Base.

A military train, belching white steam, screeched as it braked on the brand-new tracks and slowly came to a stop at the special platform of the Ma'anshan Military Industrial Zone.

When Chen Zijun stepped out of the carriage, he almost didn't recognize the place in front of him.

He glanced down at the system panel.

[Host: Chen Zijun]

[Unlimited spending system in operation... Current fund acquisition speed: 1.5 pounds/second]

Current available funds: £3,645,800

[Recent major expenditures: Advance funding for the raw silk defense campaign (£500 million), Ma'anshan Phase II expansion project (£18)]

[Recent Income: Systemic organic growth, fourth batch of payments received for smuggled medicines from Europe (£42)]

Three and a half million. Even after deducting the five million poured into the raw silk market, the system is automatically replenishing itself every second. This never-ending money-printing machine ensures Chen Zijun never has to worry about the prices of ammunition and steel.

But at this moment, numbers were no longer what stirred his emotions the most.

What shocked him was the land before him.

Six months ago, when he first set foot on Ma'anshan, it was just a desolate hill with overgrown weeds and a few dilapidated mine shafts.

And now.

Eight colossal blast furnaces rose from the ground, soaring into the sky, spewing orange-red flames and billowing smoke. The sound of molten iron flowing was like the roar of a wild beast, causing the ground beneath their feet to tremble slightly.

A network of narrow-gauge railways crisscrosses the factory area, with dump trucks loaded with ore and steel ingots constantly moving about. More than 30,000 shirtless workers wield shovels and steel picks, their sweat glistening in the sunlight, chanting in unison.

In the distance, dozens of brand-new, standardized factory buildings stand in neat rows, and the black smoke billowing from the red brick chimneys gathers into a dark cloud that blots out the sun.

This is no longer a construction site, but a steel behemoth that is breathing, roaring, and expanding at a visible speed!

Chen Zijun took a deep breath of the air, which smelled of sulfur and rust, and a genuine smile finally appeared in his eyes.

This is true confidence. Guns can destroy, warships can be sunk, but once a country's heavy industry is established, no force can uproot it.

"Young Marshal!"

A middle-aged man in gray overalls, his face covered in oil and coal dust, jogged up to greet me. It was Liu Zhenliang, the director of Jiangnan Shipyard. He also serves as the technical director of the Ma'anshan Military Industrial Zone. These days, he's been shuttling between the two places, and he's lost a lot of weight, but his eyes are strikingly bright.

"Old Master Liu, well done." Chen Zijun patted his dusty shoulder. "Take me to see him."

"Young Marshal, please!" Liu Zhenliang led the way excitedly. "You've been waiting for this day for half a year. Today, you can finally see our treasures with your own eyes!"

Surrounded by dozens of heavily armed guards, the two passed through three heavily guarded barbed wire fences and checkpoints and entered the core area of ​​the Ma'anshan Military Industrial Zone.

Factory Building No. 3

This unassuming red-brick factory building, unremarkable from the outside, is surprisingly spacious inside. Bright lights illuminate the entire workshop, where a dozen precision machine tools imported from Krupp in Germany are neatly arranged, their motors humming. Chinese technicians in blue overalls are intently operating lathes and drilling machines, metal shavings flying like golden snowflakes under the lights.

Deep inside the workshop, a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed German was bending over, holding calipers, repeatedly measuring a long metal tube that had just been processed at the end of the assembly line.

Felix.

This comprador from a foreign firm, who had almost been shot dead by Chen Zijun, was now the chief German advisor at the Ma'anshan Arsenal. Although he had never worked for Krupp, his German background and fluency in Chinese made him the perfect intermediary between German engineers and Chinese technicians. More importantly, his years as a manager in a foreign firm gave him the expertise to manage and coordinate personnel, allowing him to effectively manage hundreds of German engineers and tens of thousands of Chinese workers.

Hearing footsteps, Felix whirled around. Seeing Chen Zijun, he instantly stood at attention and shouted in heavily accented German Chinese, "General! The first batch of finished products has passed final testing!"

"Show me." Chen Zijun walked to the end of the assembly line.

Felix carefully took a metal tube with a bluish-green sheen from the shelf and presented it to him with both hands.

Chen Zijun took the gun barrel.

The moment he held it, a heavy, icy sensation shot straight to his head. He could clearly feel the density and texture of the steel. This wasn't some crudely made homemade cannon barrel; it was a standard military barrel, forged, rifled, and heat-treated to the exact specifications of a Mauser 98k rifle!

Chen Zijun raised the gun barrel and looked at the bore under the workshop lights. The four clear, straight rifling grooves reflected a breathtaking light under the illumination.

"Official business?" Chen Zijun asked.

"All within plus or minus 0.05 millimeters!" Felix puffed out his chest, his tone filled with pride. "Your Excellency, I can vouch for your reputation: the quality of these barrels fully meets the standards of Krupp's Essen factory!"

"Was it forged from special steel produced in Ma'anshan?"

"One hundred percent!" Felix exclaimed, his face flushed with excitement. "The quality of the steel smelted in your blast furnaces far exceeds my expectations. The carbon content and chromium-molybdenum ratio are controlled with extreme precision, and the balance between hardness and toughness is practically perfect. To put it bluntly, the quality of this batch of special steel is now comparable to that of the best steel mills in Germany's Ruhr region!"

Chen Zijun remained silent.

He simply gripped the gun barrel tightly in his hand, his knuckles turning slightly white.

From the first day of spending exorbitant amounts of pounds to purchase original German weapons through the system, to now, finally being able to manufacture gun barrels of comparable quality using our own steel, our own machine tools, and our own workers.

It took him a full year and a half to take this step.

But the significance of this step is greater than that of sinking the Izumo armored cruiser or even the battleship.

From this day forward, the Chen family army's guns and cannons will no longer be at the mercy of anyone else!

"Let's go." Chen Zijun put the gun barrel back on the rack and said in a deep voice, "Let's go check on the cannons."

……

Factory Building No. 5 is three times larger than Factory Building No. 3.

This is the heavy artillery workshop.

In the very center of the workshop, a brand-new 105mm field howitzer stood silently. The gun body still retained the residual heat from when it came out of the kiln, and the silver-gray anti-rust paint emitted a pungent chemical smell.

Chen Zijun slowly walked around the cannon.

The gun barrel was as straight as a javelin, the breechblock was perfectly fitted, and the hydraulic lines of the recoil and breech mechanism were neat and orderly. The base was firmly welded, and the gun wheels used solid rubber tires. Every detail exuded German precision and meticulousness.

"Has the cannon been tested yet?"

"Not yet." Liu Zhenliang rubbed his hands together, sweating nervously. "We're just waiting for your personal order! The test firing range is in the valley north of the factory area, and the targets have already been set up."

"Walk."

Twenty minutes later, in the closed valley north of the Ma'anshan Military Industrial Zone.

The domestically produced 105mm field howitzer was moved to its firing position. Six artillerymen, trained by German instructors, quickly took their positions, loaded, calibrated, and locked on.

Two thousand five hundred meters away on the mountainside, three targets welded from scrap steel plates reflected a blinding light in the sunlight.

Chen Zijun stood ten meters behind the gun position, arms crossed over his chest.

Everyone held their breath.

Liu Zhenliang was so nervous that the veins on his forehead bulged. Felix gripped his pocket watch tightly, his knuckles turning white.

If the shot is muffled, explodes, or even misses its mark, it means that months of hard work and hundreds of thousands of pounds invested have all gone down the drain.

Chen Zijun did not hesitate at all.

"fire."

The gunner yanked the firing cord!

boom--!!!

A deafening roar echoed through the valley!

A powerful blast of air whipped up clouds of dust and debris. The orange-red flames spewing from the cannons traced a dazzling arc through the air.

Two thousand five hundred meters away, the steel plate target in the very center was hit head-on by a 105mm howitzer shell! The entire target was torn into countless fragments instantly, as if punched by a giant, and scattered in the fireball of the explosion!

"Hit!"

Liu Zhenliang was the first to jump up like a madman, shouting at the top of his lungs, "Hit! Bullseye! The barrel is intact! No barrel explosion! No deviation!"

Felix pulled out his pocket watch, glanced at the initial velocity data, and froze on the spot. After a moment, the proud German suddenly took off his hat and bowed deeply to the cannon.

"Incredible..." he murmured to himself, his voice filled with disbelief and awe. "The Chinese... accomplished this in less than six months?"

Chen Zijun, on the other hand, did not show any extra expression from beginning to end.

He simply watched quietly as the smoke from the distant battlefield slowly dissipated, something burning deep within his eyes.

Just then, a long-lost, refreshing electronic notification sound rang in his mind.

Ding--

[Congratulations, host! Achievement achieved: Basic military self-sufficiency!]

[Achievement Effect: The purchase price of all light weapons (rifles, machine guns, pistols, mortars) in the system shop will be permanently reduced by 30%!]

[New Unlocked: Intermediate Heavy Weapon Exchange Access Now Available! Includes: 105mm Howitzer Production Line Blueprints, 150mm Heavy Cannon Design Blueprints, Semi-Automatic Rifle Prototype Blueprints (A Revolutionary Tech Tree)]

[Host's Comments: You are no longer just a warlord who only spends money buying guns. From today onward, you are an industrialist capable of manufacturing guns and cannons. Continue onward, great conqueror.]

As Chen Zijun looked at the system notification, a genuine smile finally crept onto his lips.

Primary military industry self-sufficiency.

These four words are heavier and more precious than any medal, any title, or any pound sterling.

From this day forward, Chen Zijun's Chen Family Army will no longer be nouveau riche who only know how to wave checks to buy guns and cannons from foreigners. He owns his own steel, his own machine tools, his own workers, and his own gun barrels and cannon barrels.

The era when the Chinese were subject to foreign arms sales began its countdown with this single cannon shot!

"Old Master Liu."

"Young Marshal!"

"For the first batch of finished products, give me 50,000 Mauser rifle barrels. What's the monthly production rate for 105mm field howitzers?"

"Currently, our two production lines can produce ten units per month! If we expand with two more lines, we can produce over thirty units!"

"Expansion." Chen Zijun said decisively. "I'll approve the funding. Felix, use your old connections in the Ruhr region to bring over another batch of high-precision lathes. My goal is to produce 100 infantry guns and 20,000 gun barrels per month by the end of the year."

Felix nearly bit his tongue. One hundred units per month? That terrifying production capacity was absolutely unthinkable in China today. But looking at Chen Zijun's cold, uncompromising face, he could only swallow hard and nod vigorously.

"Yes, Your Excellency!"

……

After the inspection, Chen Zijun drank some cold tea at the temporary command post of the Ma'anshan Military Industrial Zone and, unusually, closed his eyes and rested for a while in a chair.

Four o'clock in the afternoon.

A burst of hurried footsteps broke the brief silence.

The on-duty communications soldier rushed in, clutching an urgent telegram that had just been torn from the telegraph machine.

"Young Marshal! An urgent coded telegram from Staff Officer Moranzhi in Shanghai!"

Chen Zijun opened his eyes and took the telegram.

There are only a few short lines of text above.

"Young Master: Mitsui Trading's Fujiba Shotaro has gone mad. He has urgently transferred an additional 30 million yen from the Tokyo headquarters, attempting to continue his frenzied short selling on the international market, aiming to completely drive the price of raw silk down to zero. Sister Huixin has already entered the London and New York markets simultaneously with the first batch of funds to buy up and crush the market. The two sides are currently hedging their positions one transaction at a time. Please give instructions."

After reading the telegram, Chen Zijun slowly curled his lips into an extremely cold smile.

Thirty million yen?

He quickly did the math in his head. At the current exchange rate, 30 million yen was roughly equal to 3 million pounds sterling.

On his system panel, the numbers, which were jumping every second, were growing infinitely at a rate that made all his opponents feel hopeless.

Chen Zijun casually grabbed a pencil from the table, scribbled a few words on the back of the telegram, and handed it to the communications soldier.

"Send it to Sister Huixin."

The communications soldier took the telegram, looked down at it, and his legs suddenly went weak.

It says:

"Use pounds! We have plenty of pounds! If not now, when?"

Yes, our pounds are practically falling from the sky. With such a great opportunity, let alone three million pounds, even if it's four or five million, as long as we throw it in, who cares where my pounds come from?

Money in the stock market, regardless of where it comes from...