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"Stop keeping it aside, say it quickly!" Zhou Tian urged.

"Sister is so majestic, I'll just follow the order." Zhou Hao replied with a smile, "Originally, we wanted to open an electrical appliance branch in New York, but we happened to encounter a crisis and some companies were sold at low prices. Liu Chenghai and I took people to inspect some nearby electrical appliance factories near Xiaozhou, and wanted to select a few good conditions to acquire and strengthen our electrical appliance companies. Unexpectedly, we heard some news about Remington's going bankrupt in the process."

"Remington was a very famous arms company even in our era. After hearing this news, I paid attention to proof of it. As a result, I learned that the famous Remington company is indeed on the verge of bankruptcy. And through my investigation of some military factories in Connecticut, which produces arms, I found that not only Remington, but the United States' arms industry is generally in a downturn. The companies controlled by the government are still a little bit more likely to be said, and there are still military orders to maintain. But those privately established arsenals were originally difficult to maintain, and now with the impact of the crisis, many companies are facing bankruptcy. Lao Zhao, I think this is an opportunity for us."

"The opportunity is definitely an opportunity, but we must consider what name to take over. If we Chinese come forward, even if Chinese people who have obtained American nationality come to buy military factories, it will attract close attention from the US authorities." Zhao Zhenzhong pondered.

"This is indeed a problem." Zhou Hao nodded in agreement, "Old Zhao, can we come forward to handle it through Courtman, White and Fatty? Anyway, they also have an artillery factory and provide mortars for the US Army, which should not attract the attention of the authorities."

"Those three guys may have all the artillery factories lost to the stock market now, so don't be smooth in the end." Zhao Zhenzhong said with malicious speculation, "I can't say anything about White and Fatty, but Courtman will definitely come to us. After all, he still has some shares in Sihai Industrial, which is his final hope of turning things around. However, let's put the matter aside for the time being. Xiaohao, you should talk about the situation you understand about the arms industry first, so we have a clear idea."

"Okay, I'll tell you what I know." Zhou Hao nodded, "If you want to talk about the US arms industry, it really made a fortune in World War I. However, their life was not easy after World War I. After the war, there were too many war materials left. Although the market price of the m1903 rifle after the war was about $30 and there were about 200 bullets, it was the price of the US military publicly dealing with the remaining war materials shortly after the war ended. After the failure of the Soviet revolution, some arms dealers even sold arms at cost in order to recover funds. At that time, many arms companies went bankrupt."

"The bullet production line I brought back to China was flowing out after the bankruptcy of Winchester in the previous years. You should know that Winchester made a lot of efforts in World War I, producing more than 500,000 P14 rifles, more than 200 million bullets, and nearly 2 million shells for Britain alone. At the same time, Russia and France also purchased a large number of m1907 and m1910 rifles. After the United States joined the war in 1917, Winchester produced more than 50,000 m1907 rifles and even received orders for bar rifles. With such achievements, Winchester should develop well, but in the post-war arms industry, it was ultimately unable to escape the fate of recession and was taken over by the Western ammunition company of the Olin family in the past few years."

"Although Remington, although it made a lot of money in the first World War, produced a lot of equipment for France and Britain, they also produced a large number of 1891 Mosin-Nagan rifles for the Russians in World War I. It was precisely because the Russian government delayed payments after the Russian Revolution in 1917 that Remington was once on the verge of bankruptcy and almost followed the footsteps of Winchester. In the whole 20s, Remington had struggled several times, and now it has been baptized by this crisis. If there was no major turnaround, it would be inevitable that it would be acquired."

In fact, the fate of Winchester and Remington is not an exception, but a common phenomenon in the US arms industry after World War I.

World War I stimulated the development of American industry, and the military industry was particularly prominent. At that time, arms transactions accounted for the majority of the commercial exchanges between the United States and the Allies, and the arms transaction volume reached 1.29 billion US dollars in 1916 alone. During the entire World War I, the United States was almost a super-large military factory, producing a total of 1,000 tanks, more than 4,000 artillery pieces, 3.5 million amphibious guns, 20 million shells, and 3.5 billion guns.

After World War I, due to the loss of dumping targets, the US military industry declined sharply and was in a state of decline for a long time. Many large arsenals reduced their scale and only produced some pistols and hunting rifles. Even the arsenals in several major U.S. countries closed many production lines, and the remaining ones were only maintained at the minimum production capacity.

The arms industry is in a downturn, and a large number of military factories will naturally inevitably suffer losses and bankruptcy. Even during the term of Harding's presidency, the large chaebol Andrew Mellon, who served as Finance Minister, and his younger brother Richard Mellon, jointly established a large military factory in Pittsburgh in just a few years after the war, which caused losses of $156 million to the two brothers.

This is true for the national arsenals and the arsenals of the chaebols, and the situation of other privately established small and medium-sized arms industries is naturally even more unbearable.

In fact, from the end of World War I to the mid-to-late 1930s, due to the backlog of remaining combat materials after the war and the economic crisis, the US arms industry almost stopped and hovered for 20 years.

After World War I, the only factory in charge of tank trial production and development was the Rock Island Arsenal, and this work only accounted for a small part of the entire work of the factory. During this period, the development and production of American artillery were also relatively backward. At that time, there were four main arsenals engaged in artillery production: the Waterfleet Arsenal was the only company that manufactured artillery for the army after World War I; the Water City Arsenal produced coastal artillery and anti-aircraft artillery mounts; the Rock Island Arsenal produced artillery and other components; the Frankfort Arsenal mainly produced various shooting control instruments. Most of the production equipment of the arsenals in these countries was purchased during World War I, and by the late 1920s, it seemed very old, and the artillery production from after World War I to before World War II was very low. It can be said that although the US weapons industry before World War II had a certain scale, it was still a big gap compared with France, Germany, Britain and other countries.

In terms of firearms, Garland designed and manufactured a famous semi-automatic rifle in 1929 and handed the sample gun to the Aberdeen test site to participate in the selection test of the new rifle of the US military. However, due to the impact of the economic crisis and the meaningless changes in the design requirements of the US military, this rifle was not officially put into production until 37 years ago and became a standard equipment for the US military. The dilemma of the development of the arms industry at that time can be seen.

Of course, what Zhou Hao can understand is the general situation of the US arms industry under the impact of the great crisis. He is not clear about some specific matters and the direction of the US arms industry in the next few years.

However, these situations also surprised Zhao Zhenzhong. He sighed: "I didn't expect that the US arms industry is in such a situation now."

"Who said no? I was shocked when I first learned about it. I couldn't believe it was true." Zhou Hao smiled bitterly, "In the past, from books and films, I got the impression that the United States acted as an Allied Arsenal during World War II, but in this state, how could it look like an Allied Arsenal?"

"You are wrong. What you know is the current situation of the US arms industry, not during World War II." Zhao Zhenzhong shook his head and said, "It is not wrong for the United States to provide a large amount of war supplies to the Allies during World War II. What you know now should be correct. From these two aspects, you can better see the huge potential of the United States and the United States. Shortly after Roosevelt implemented the new policy and led the United States out of the impact of the great crisis, it could regain its strength with the industrial foundation seriously weakened by the great crisis and become a world factory again. The strength of the United States can be seen."

Zhou Hao woke up after hearing what Zhao Zhenzhong said, and said stutteringly: "When you say that, that's true. This American family background is too awesome, right?"

Zhao Zhenzhong sighed: "What's the solution? Since the Civil War, the United States has basically not had any major turmoil in the country. Instead, it has continued to expand and develop outward, and has achieved success. After the Spanish-American War, it established its status as a great power and became a powerful country after the First World War. This is a real accumulation. And we can't even start now, and at best we have a foothold. Of course, we also have our own advantages."

"Old Zhao, don't sigh! Anyway, I think our future will not be wrong! You should first talk about what military production line you are going to buy this time."

"What we want to buy this time is apart from the rifle and machine gun production line, the shell production line." Zhao Zhenzhong explained, "In the next few years, our overseas students will not be able to return to China in large quantities, so we do not have the conditions to develop and develop weapons systems by themselves. We can only process and produce some firearms and ammunition through existing formed production equipment to supplement consumption. Of course, we will improve the artillery production line based on the information obtained in the next few years, order or produce relevant equipment by ourselves, and establish our own production line."

"That's true." Zhou Hao nodded in agreement, "Anyway, the number of artillery we have now is already quite considerable in China. There should be no need to increase within 3 or 5 years. And we can completely build our own production line in 3 or 5 years."

After thinking about it, Zhao Zhenzhong said: "However, although we don't need some arms production lines, there are still people who need them. At least, we can help Mr. Situ and the Zhigong Party. Take this opportunity to help them get two more guns and ammunition production lines. If possible, you might as well get them a cannon production line."

"If you have these things as a foundation, I think Chen Jiongming will be very confident and it will be much easier to form a team. The implementation of the Nanyang National Founding Plan will be much smoother in the future."
Chapter completed!