#History Cold Story##9/18 Incident ##抗日战争 #
About the large mirror box gun and the 65th rifle in the Northeast Army
The weapons of the Northeast Army were very mixed, and at the beginning they were Soviet, German, Japanese, and Italian. However, with the expansion of the arsenal in the three eastern provinces, its rifle production capacity reached an annual output of 40,000 pieces. Therefore, by the time of Zhang Xueliang, the whole army had basically been re-equipped with a homemade 7.92 mm Liao thirteen rifle.
However, among the weapons lost by the arsenals in the three eastern provinces of the September 18 Incident, there were 120 "Intended To Make 65 Rifles". This was one of the tens of thousands of Italian rifles purchased by the Feng army during Zhang Zuolin's reign. What few people know is that during the warlord melee in the 1920s, the "Yizuo 65 rifle" was actually the main weapon of all warring parties in China at that time, especially the Fengzhi and direct warlords, and its total number of equipment was even as high as 180,000-200,000.
First, the truth about the six-five rifle
The so-called Italian 65 rifle is actually the Italian Carcano M1891 rifle. From this stereotype of 1891, we can know that this is a very old weapon, even before the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. In a word, this is the originator of the smokeless rifle, and it is the world's first small-caliber full-power rifle.
And since the history is so long, the gun naturally has some unique features. The first feature is its length, which weighs 3.8 kg and is as high as 1285 mm in total length, with the typical characteristics of the early "long rifle". In contrast, the Japanese Type 38 rifle, known as the "38 Spear", has a total length of only 1276 mm, which is actually longer than the 38 type.
In addition, the second feature of the gun is its small caliber. Compared to the smoked rifle cartridge of about 11 mm and the smokeless rifle cartridge of about 8 mm in the same period, the gun fired a 6.5×52 mm Manlisha-Carcano rifle cartridge (not common with the Japanese 6.5*50 Yusaka bullet). The qualification of the bullet is even older, introduced in 1890, belonging to the round warhead bottomless edge bottle rifle bullet, the warhead weight of 10.5 grams, the maximum kinetic energy can reach 2572 joules.
The use of small calibers is not without benefits, because the bullets are thinner, so the Carcano 1891 can be loaded with one more round, the gun is supplied with 6 rounds of leakage clips, which is also an advantage for most bolt-action rifles with only 5 bullets. Because of this feature, the gun is also called "Six-Grain Rifle Made in Italy" in China.
Second, the order of Italian rifles during the Beiyang government
The gun was produced in large quantities during World War I, and there was a large surplus after the war that needed to be disposed of urgently. Therefore, although the Italian government also joined the 1919 arms embargo against China by the great powers, they violated the law and sold arms to China on a large scale during the embargo. In order to be able to win over China's large customers, the Italians did not hesitate to use the method of "early delivery and local sales".
First, in order to circumvent the embargo, the Italians engaged in the trick of "hanging sheep's heads and selling dog meat". In December 1919, Tianjin Mazzelli shipped as much as 4,011 tons of Italian ammunition to China. The foreign company circumvented supervision, first allowing the goods to be re-exported in Kobe, Japan under the name of "Japanese toys", and then shipped to China. When declaring customs in China, these "Japanese toys" were transformed into "military uniforms" for the Italian embassy guards, which naturally exempted the Inspection of Chinese Customs.
And such a huge amount of arms naturally needs to be sold quickly, so the Italians have targeted the Warlords of the Feng and direct families facing each other in northern China at the same time, planning to sell weapons on both sides for profit. Both sides are also immediately purchasing in small quantities to try to observe performance. Before the Zhiwan War (July 1920), Duan Qirui first purchased 60 tons of them, and then another 10 tons of arms were purchased by Zhang Zuolin.
The remaining arms were temporarily without buyers, so the Italians transported 2434 tons of them to Shanhaiguan, and the remaining 1507 tons arrived in Tianjin, and began the riot operation of "temporarily storing, waiting for the price to be sold, and waiting for customers to come to the door".
Third, the Feng department first bought:
At that time, the arms were not worried about selling, and Jiang Taigong was naturally hooked in fishing. The first to strike was Marshal Zhang Zuolin, who lacked ordnance. In addition to the 10 tons of arms imported into Shenyang in 1919, Zhang Zuolin purchased 1,500 Italian Mauser pistols from Tianjin in the same year, with 300,000 rounds of ammunition.
The Italian Mauser pistols were not made in Italy, but were ordered to Germany by the Italian Navy in 1899, when they ordered 5,003 from the Mauser Company, which flowed into China and received the nickname "Big Mirror".
The reason why the gun is called a large mirror is because there is no trademark or inscription on both sides of the gun body, that is, a flat and smooth piece of light and tiles, excellent technology plus baked blue, so that the side of the gun body can shine like a mirror. This was originally a means of simplifying the process in order to save the process, but after entering China, because of its obvious characteristics and high appearance, it has become a unique shell gun brand, which has achieved excellent reputation and is deeply loved by Chinese officers at all levels.
At that time, the "big mirror box" was so famous and expensive in China that even the Mauser company, which originated in Germany, could not sit still. They also picked up the remaining 25,000 large mirrors they had produced before 1902 and repackaged them and sold them to China at a high price.
After the Feng family first purchased the gun, it was also praised after using it, and it was copied in the Tianjin Dagu Arsenal, which was already controlled. It is worth mentioning that in order to distinguish it from imported goods, the large mirror box of Dagu Factory is end-to-end, which is called "full of large mirror". And all the imported German large mirror boxes, in fact, are not satisfied with the groove.
The quality of the shell gun of Dagu Factory is excellent, and it is a first-class brand-name product in the domestic shell gun. Later, General Yang Jingyu, the hero of the Anti-Japanese Alliance, used a copy of the Tianjin Dagu Arsenal with a "big dog head, a tongtian file, and a large mirror box full of golden chickens." The general used it in the last moments of his life to engage the enemy in a gun battle and achieved a record of hitting the enemy two or three hundred meters away.
In addition to the large mirror box, Zhang Zuolin also purchased a large number of Italian weapons in 1920, and arrived in Huludao in January 1921, including:
6.5 mm Carcano rifle 27 000,
6.5*52 bullets 4 4 million rounds,
75 mm field guns 24,
24,000 rounds of 75 mm shells (an average of 1,000 rounds per gun).
Judging from the number of these weapons, it is basically possible to equip 3-5 divisions. Moreover, the ammunition is as high as 4400/2.7 = 1630 rounds per shot, and the average shell is 1000 rounds per gun, which can be said to be very well stocked. At that time, the main weapon of the Bong Army, in addition to the tens of thousands of Russian Mosin Nagant rifles bought by the Czech Legion and the 40,000 Japanese-style 38 rifles obtained by the interception incident in 1918, was the newly purchased Italian 65 rifle.
The first Italian arms of the direct lineage
Since the Feng clan bought a large number of Italian arms, the direct family of the old rival naturally could not sit back and watch its development, and they also bought tens of thousands of M1891 rifles in the same period. First, in 1920, the Beiyang Government's War Department made a deal with the Italian businessman Ke Niuliang, spending a huge amount of 5,688,000 yuan to buy 1,507 tons of world war surplus munitions in Tianjin, including:
40,000 6.5 mm rifles for 35 yuan each
50 6.5 mm machine guns, 2000 yuan each
65 rounds of 30 million rounds, 80,000 yuan per million rounds
24 75 mm field guns, each company 110,000 yuan.
12,000 shells, 16 yuan each
24 65 mm mountain guns, 64,000 yuan per company
12,000 rounds of artillery shells. 14 yuan per round.
The delivery of the arms was slow, and it was not until 10 months after Feng Zhi obtained a large number of Intended weapons that on November 21 and 22, 1921, 80 trucks transported some of the arms at Shanhaiguan. According to the report of the British liaison officer, the munitions had 30,000 rifles, 3 million rounds of ammunition, 6 sets of 75mm field guns, 4 guns per group, with 24,000 shells, 50 Fiat machine guns and 30,000 rounds of ammunition.
In addition, in 1920, Zhang Jingyao, the overseer of Hunan, also paid a deposit of 312,000 yuan to Mazzelli Foreign Bank through the Belgian Overseas Bank to buy a batch of Italian arms. The total value of the weapons was $1 million, including 10,000 Italian rifles, 1,500 Mauser pistols, 4 machine guns, 1.2 million rounds of rifle ammunition, and an unknown number of pistol cartridges. Judging from the number, it is likely to be the rest of the Contract of the Beiyang War Department.
5. The First Direct War
And these Italians sold goods to two families, and quickly provoked contradictions between the direct families, and the two families were new and old hatreds surged into their hearts, and the relationship took a sharp turn. At first, the two clans jointly launched Jin Yunpeng to form a cabinet, but later Zhang Zuolin repented and forced Jin Yunpeng to step down, and instead supported the more pro-Japanese Liang Shiyi as the state premier. Moreover, due to the uneven division of the spoils between the Two Sides in the Zhiwan War, the contradictions between the two clans quickly intensified.
In April 1922, Zhang Zuolin, who could not sit still, sent 120,000 Feng troops south to attack, and the First Zhifeng War broke out. This Feng army, which had 27,000 Italian-made 65 rifles, and the Zhi army with 30,000 new rifles of the same, began fierce battles in Machang, Gu'an, and Changxindian. The rifles on both sides are 27,000:30,000, and the artillery is also 24, it should be said that the Italian profiteers sell two goods and the balancing tactics of the two ends are very good.
However, although this marshal first provoked the war, he was not strong enough. At that time, the Fengjun army was only a grass-based group formed by an emergency expansion, and the leaders were even mostly from the grass, although the weapons were not backward, but the tactics were still stuck in the old era, and they were not the opponents of Wu Peifu's elite regular army. With high morale, the Feng army, like the Boxers, stormed the modern positions of the Wu army using mines, barbed wire grids, heavy machine guns, and artillery support, resulting in serious losses of the main force. Soon after, the war ended with the defeat of the Fengjun army on both the eastern and western fronts, and the direct family won a complete victory.
At that time, the 120,000 troops who entered the customs were killed in the battle, more than 20,000 people were defeated and fled, and more than 40,000 people were captured by the Zhi army, and then President Xu Shichang also ordered zhang Zuolin to be relieved of his post as an envoy to the three eastern provinces. On June 18, the representatives of the two sides signed an armistice treaty on the British warship Kellyu off the sea of Qinhuangdao, and the two sides used Shanhaiguan as the dividing line between the two armies, and all the Feng troops withdrew from Guanwai, and most of the Zhifeng troops also withdrew to the original defense, and the first Zhifeng War was declared over.
The total strength of the Feng army that returned to the northeast still had more than 200,000 troops. After this fiasco, Zhang Dashuai was dissatisfied, and he immediately bought ordnance everywhere and began a new round of armament expansion.
The immediate family that won the war and held the power of the government was not far behind, and both families set their sights on Italian businessmen who regarded the embargo as nothing and had a large number of weapons in China, and began a vigorous "wave of weapons purchases". The Italian profiteers took the opportunity to make profits at both ends, pit this pit and that family, and lived like a fish among the warlords, making a lot of money.
Resources:
Archives of the Beiyang War Department
History of Modern Chinese Military Engineering
History of the 918 Kingdoms
The Biography of Zhang Zuolin
The Biography of Wu Peifu