#Historical Cold Stories##Those Things of the Republic of China##二战 #
Box Cannon Series 20: Side Door Box Explained in Detail
After the founding of the Spanish company Wincetta, they copied a variety of Browning pistols and made improvements aimed at reducing costs. They later became one of the manufacturers of the French Ruby rupee pistol and earned their first pot of gold with an order of 150,000 units.
After that, the Wen family developed the M400 "cigar pistol" that ate all 9 mm bullets, and mass-produced the M300 pistol of smaller calibers. It is reasonable to say that at this time, the Wen family has no need to go to the cottage anymore.
First, the Wen family followed the trend and imitated the shell gun
However, this country is easy to change and difficult to move, how can the Wen family, which started by relying on cottages, watch the money and not earn it? Moreover, the biggest problem faced by the Wen family was that the Spanish gun company was very involved at that time. Especially in the Basque Country, where the Wen family is located, there are many gun factories of all sizes. And thanks to the huge order of 710,000 pieces brought by the "Rupee Pistol", these dozens of strong men have been raised by the French gold lord to get fat and strong, which is called a fierce competition in the Red Sea.
And there was a big problem in that era, that is, these people did things without a bottom line. At that time, everyone's common idea was: anyway, everyone started by "copycats", so as long as anyone has a new product, then they will rush up to imitate it, regard intellectual property rights and patents as nothing - how does this scene feel so familiar? Therefore, this foreigner is no more of a high quality than us, there is nothing new under the sun, and in the primitive accumulation stage of capital, no one is more noble than others.
Let's go back to Spain in the 1920s. After the end of World War I, french gun orders were gone, and the good times of the companies were over. Inconceivable, everyone can only return to the old road of imitating famous brands, and barely rely on disorderly low-price competition to earn a bowl of porridge.
At this time, the Bei Brothers Company, which was originally in derby with the Wen family, was extremely anxious in this depression, and stared at the famous C96 pistol of the German Mauser, imitating a batch of Spanish cottage goods with nails. However, such a group of ugly-looking and simple and rough "Mazi Yangyi" sold to China, which was in urgent need of weapons, but they also earned a lot of silver dollars.
And this money-making method of Bei's was quickly targeted by the Wen family. Although at this time, the old Wen did not lack food and clothing, holding the Spanish standard military Astra 400 cigar pistol, and the size of the Astra 300 self-defense pistol to eat full of fat, but this big fish and meat are used to eating, and do not mind to order porridge and small dishes. So he lowered his body and began to grab the bowl of porridge in Bei's family to make a living.
Second, the Wen family of independent brand agent sales
Because it is a replica of Mauser's counterfeit product, the Wen family's Astra box gun entered the market late. They began to develop around 1926 after BH Company's success in exporting barge guns, and only around 1927 did they come up with finished products to start mass production, and began to export box guns in large quantities around 1928.
In order to quickly open up the Chinese market, Wincetta has a unique way, on the one hand, they use their mature "Astra" trademark for brand marketing, on the other hand, they use the general agency system, using the Japanese foreign firm that has been deeply rooted in China to dump to China.
1. Consistent "Astra" star card
Among the small and medium-sized gun companies in the Basque Country of Spain, BH's Beit Brothers was the first to enter the Chinese market. However, while constantly improving and reducing the "hemp" on the surface of their products, they also adopt a multi-brand strategy. In order to sell more goods, the Beishi brothers have registered different trademarks such as "ETAI", "ROYAL", "AZUL", "SUPAR AZUL" and "MM31", "MM34", etc., in addition to a considerable number of unbranded "whiteboard goods" - in short, Beishi is as long as there is a slight improvement, it will get a new trademark out, and then recruit a new sales team.
Speaking of this point of Bessie, it is quite the style of the Maozi Sukhoi Design Bureau in previous years. This family old Su na is from the Su 27, what Su 30, Su 32, Su 33, Su 34, Su 35, Su 37, etc. emerge in an endless stream, the number of numbers is not enough to add the letter suffix, what S, M, MK, SMK almost used up the alphabet. In short, it makes you feel that people are big companies, that is a big business and big products.
The regular Western famous factories, in fact, do not have so many heads. They generally have only one trademark, such as Colt, Browning, Mauser, Springfield, HK, and many years of hard work is this brand. In this way, as long as the quality is guaranteed, it will naturally attract the attention of old customers after the new product. To paraphrase the modern network vocabulary, that is, people are mixed into big IP, and when they enter the market, they bring their own traffic. From the perspective of marketing strategy, this is actually the right way. The same was true of the Wenceta Company at that time, and their imitation of the box cannon this time adopted their long-established "Astra" trademark.
2. Japan general distributor.
However, this Wen family knows that they have shallow roots in China, and it can even be said that they have no market foundation at all. Therefore, this time they were engaged in a general distribution system, and the sales power in China was uniformly granted to Japanese businessmen -- to say that the Japanese were deeply rooted in China at that time, and there were many foreign compradors everywhere. After receiving the agency of the Star Card Box, they immediately began to publicize it vigorously.
The Japanese had a strong sales ability at that time, and the selling point for the Astra box was very impressive, and the new product was immediately accepted by the market, and it is said that 23,000 pieces were sold in a short time (including different varieties such as the Astra 900 and 901). This good sales performance not only made the Japanese people make a lot of money, but also greatly encouraged the Wen family.
3. The so-called "Japanese system" box
At that time, China was superstitious about foreign goods, and when the government purchased Mauser pistols, it specially marked the outside of the magazine with "German-made" to distinguish it from counterfeit products from various countries. This Wen family was also a famous brand factory at that time, and naturally did not want to fall behind. They took the abbreviation of the old name of Spain "Cisi Bania" and stamped the Chinese character "Japanese system" on their 900 series pistols.
According to current historical records, the serial numbers of these "stamped" guns range from 26501-26700 and 26805-27899, for a total of only about 1300 guns. Because these guns are sold by Japanese agents, they are considered to be made in Japan by some Chinese, and there is a misinformation of the so-called "Japanese-made shell gun". According to Astra, a large part of these "Japanese-made" box was not actually exported, but sold to the Basque Autonomous Government (Euzkadi) during the Spanish Civil War.
In addition to the exclusive trademark and general agent sales system, the Spanish Wencetta is also not unusual in structure, they have created a unique "side door box", the basic structure of which is completely different from the Mauser pistol.
Third, the Mauser series pistols that are not easy to maintain
As we all know, the internal structure of this original Mauser C96 is very precise and complex, and the various parts with high machining accuracy are connected to each other in the form of mortise, bulges, etc., and when opened, they often give people the feeling of appreciating Swiss watches, and are deeply shocked by the beauty of machining. However, from this, the Mauser pistol parts are difficult to process, time-consuming and laborious to produce, not only the manufacturing cost is high, but also inconvenient for maintenance.
If the ordinary pistol is a "fool" structure, normal people may disassemble and maintain it with a little training, and the maintenance of the box gun must be professional, and it must be carefully maintained on time. And even with this care, shell guns often have various malfunctions. Yang Zirong, a famous bandit hero on the mainland, was dud because of the failure of the shell gun, and the last generation of sharpshooters died under the gun of an ordinary bandit, which was really painful!
When BH Company imitated, it abandoned Mauser's overly precise structure and directly combined the parts with various pins, thereby greatly reducing man-hours and costs.
But in this way, it also leads to a lot of "pins" on both sides of the gun body, which not only seriously affects the value of the face, but also makes it more difficult to maintain in actual use - to open the gun body to wipe a part, it is necessary to slowly remove the nails one by one, not only decomposing is extremely cumbersome, but also requires a variety of special tools, which is very inconvenient for daily maintenance.
Therefore, although the price of the Spanish box in the early days was cheap, it left a bad review of "not easy to maintain" in the market.
Fourth, the side open door box with many selling points
And this Wen family keenly discovered this problem before entering the market. Therefore, their newly developed box cannon is actually only the shape of a shell gun, but it is completely a new peerless macho man of "left green dragon, right white tiger, old cow at waist, dragon head in chest".
1. Zuo Qinglong - open the door box next to it
The most creative thing about this Wen family designer is that in order to facilitate maintenance, they specially designed a side sliding plate on the left side of the gun body. When it is necessary to clean and oil daily, as long as the triangle depression at the tail of the left gun body is stuck, the side plate can be removed smoothly, and then the maintenance is carried out quickly. And just "convenient maintenance" was an extremely important advantage in China at that time. After all, for the massive demand of such a large country, "leather durability" is the overriding hard truth.
2. Right White Tiger - Seven Nail Box
In response to the complex structure of the box gun, the Wen family took the length of the two families and the short of the two families, and their Astra M900 pistol redesigned the internal structure, canceled the original rivet connection design of the BH family, and changed the two sides of the large screw to the pin fixing on one side. In this way, there are four large, four small and eight pins on the right side of the gun body (the actual nine on the ammunition magazine), and the other side becomes a completely smooth plane, which is relatively improved a lot. As Bess's products gradually canceled pins, the name of this "seven-nail box" was gradually snatched up by Astra.
3. Old cow at waist - large flat box
In addition, Astra has also made a technical simplification of the appearance. Like Mauser's naval "large mirror box", Wen's products also eliminated the block weight reduction groove on the side of the receiver, in addition to eliminating the "weight reduction groove" on the outside of the bolt movement reinforcement guide groove. In this way, the entire outside of the gun body of this Astra box is actually a large plate. If you want to talk about the difference between it and the large mirror box, it is only the eight pins on the right side of the four large and four small ones - if you insist on calling it a "seven-star large plate", it seems to be barely OK.
In order to be beautiful in symmetry, the Wen family also added two or three rows of densely packed inscriptions on the left cover of the gun body, which not only made the nails on the right side look less abrupt, but also coaxed the people who believed in foreign languages to be stunned - so many foreign character codes, a look is the high-end stuff of foreigners! Please, this is not to identify bronzes, not the more inscriptions the better!
4. Dragon head on chest - dragon scale texture on the cover plate
Well, if the first three articles are more or less valuable, then the last one is purely a riot operation on the appearance of the Wen family in order to increase the value of the body - everyone knows that the original Mauser pistol is precise and complex, and the internal mechanical structure is full of the beauty of the clock when opened, which is also a sign that some Chinese insiders judge the merits and disadvantages of the barge gun. And this Astra shell gun is simple and rough inside, once opened is a horizontal seven vertical nails, that look very low-grade ah, this can be done?
To say that this old Wen na is very cunning, in order to make the inside of the gun look good, just in the side sliding flat plate and the interior of the receiver, all of them are polished with exquisite scaly texture, far away looks like rows of exquisite, like the surface of the movement of a high-end mechanical watch! Although this is actually a hair embryo room, it looks very tall at first glance (the one who came to learn the mounting craft of the family).
As a result, this Astra box relied on this hairy internal "dragon scale pattern", won the favor of many "insiders", and won a lot of praise and praise.
In order to appear authentic, the size of the Astra box has a round hole in the nose, which was called the "double phoenix eye" box gun in the same year, and this "dragon and phoenix Chengxiang" is also a big plus.
So to sum up, this Astra star barge of the Wencetta company, if you give it a nickname, it can be called like this:
Double phoenix eyes, dragon scales, seven-star large flat box gun next to the door!
This dragon and phoenix are auspicious, seven stars and good things, guest officer, you do not come to one? Such a guy with noodles, it is simply unreasonable not to sell!