What is history: it is the echo of the past to the future, the reflection of the future on the past. - Hugo
In China's modern history, the Hanyang Arsenal played an important role, and the "Hanyang-made" rifle it designed and manufactured was the main infantry weapon until the mid-20th century, and the Eighth Route Army was still in use during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression. To a certain extent, this shows the important position of Hanyang Arsenal in military history.
Hanyang Arsenal was originally called Hubei Gun Factory, guangxu fifteen years (1889), Zhang Zhidong was the governor of Liangguang, he officially prepared for the establishment of the gun factory in Guangzhou, but it was not long before Zhang Zhidong was transferred to Hubei as the governor of Huguang. Just as Zhang Zhidong was leaving Guangzhou, Li Hongzhang, who was far away from Zhili, began to intervene in the gun factory in an attempt to relocate the factory site to Zhili and place it under the control of Beiyang.
Zhang Zhidong was very dissatisfied with Li Hongzhang's move, and tried to move the gun factory and the iron smelting plant to Hubei together with the imperial court, believing that Hubei's transportation was convenient, and the guns and cannons produced were convenient for both the provinces in the hinterland and the coastal transfer. Moreover, the imperial court power figure, The Prince of Alcohol of the Prime Minister's Navy Yamen, Yi Zhen, was also worried that Li Hongzhang's Beiyang clique was too powerful, so he also played Cixi to support Zhang Zhidong. Eventually, the gun factory was relocated to Hubei.
After the relocation of the gun factory, it was renamed Hubei Gun Factory, and officially started construction in the eighteenth year of Guangxu (1892), and two years later it was completed and began to produce infantry weapons. Zhang Zhidong is very strict for the gun factory, the guns and cannons produced must be refined, he ordered many small-caliber rifles and various artillery and other supporting facilities from Germany through the minister stationed in Germany, spent a lot of money to create a type 79 rifle, a caliber of six centimeters to twelve centimeters of fast guns, etc., these infantry weapons became the most advanced infantry equipment in the Qing Dynasty at that time.
Not only in the construction of guns, Zhang Zhidong also expanded the scale of production with the principle of large and complete, produced various types of ammunition with full horsepower, and to a certain extent realized the national production, and its quality was comparable to that of European and American products in the same period.
With the extension of the scale and variety of Hubei Gun Factory, in the thirtieth year of Guangxu (1904), the Gun Factory set up many branches, and its significance also exceeded the scope of "guns and cannons", so Zhang Zhidong played the imperial court to rename Hubei Gun Factory hubei arsenal.
The construction and production of the arsenal requires a large number of materials and a high cost. The purchase of various production equipment alone cost a huge amount of silver 1.72 million; the construction of the plant cost 480,000; the purchase of various raw materials counted 5.23 million silver, and the subsequent normal operating expenses were also about 360,000 taels, which was later increased to 800,000 taels.
Because the Hubei Arsenal is an official enterprise, all kinds of guns and cannons produced by the Qing government have been uniformly allocated by the Qing government, and they cannot enter the private market, let alone generate profits because of this. Over time, it is inevitable that the turnover of funds will not work. Although Zhang Zhidong had repeatedly asked the provinces to give funds, he never got his wish, and Zhang Zhidong, who had no choice but to increase various taxes and cents to maintain the normal operation of the arsenal. In extreme difficult times, Zhang Zhidong also borrowed money from various ocean banks.
Although Hubei Arsenal was founded later than other foreign military enterprises in Shanghai, Nanjing, Tianjin and other places, its advanced equipment and products are the first to come. The rifle it produced, "Hanyang-made", was even more famous, becoming a star product in rifles for decades, and until the Republic of China period, Hanyang-made was still the main weapon in the army.
Since its establishment ten years ago, Hubei Arsenal has produced more than 110,000 rifles of various kinds, millions of rounds of gun ammunition, more than 700 fast guns, more than 120 steel guns for breech, and 630,000 rounds of various flowering shells.
Although the guns and cannons produced by hubei arsenals are advanced, like the military enterprises of the same period, there are also huge loopholes in management. In the twentieth year of Guangxu (1894), a fire broke out at the beginning of the establishment of the new factory, losing hundreds of thousands of taels of machinery and equipment, and also seriously affecting the supply of equipment for the Chinese army during the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War.
But in any case, the Hubei Arsenal founded by Zhang Zhidong is a milestone in the history of modern military industry, which not only laid the foundation of modern industry, but also accumulated rich experience in gun production, and made indelible contributions to later modern military equipment.