Chapter 62: Armored Car

  "Scar 6? Are you sure the person who came claimed to be Scar 6?"

  Gao Chuanliang was shocked when he heard the name "Pockmark Liu" and jumped up, asking Ma Si in surprise.

  "Director Gao, I asked more than a dozen people present at the scene, and they all said that at the time, the person was holding a human head and claiming to be called Pockmark Liu, no mistake."

  Ma Si's reply was respectful and reverent.

  "Alright! I've got it. Let the brothers of the guard team strengthen their defenses. I reckon we can't hold on for a few more days, and someone will come knocking on our door soon. At that time, we'll still have to rely on you brothers to keep the factory safe, Ma Si will be relying on all of you then."

  Jian Gaochuan heard the name of Pockmark Liu and seemed somewhat abnormal. Sima waved his hand and said, "It seems that the master has already found the door."

  "Don't worry, boss. As long as there's still one person left to guard the factory, I'll never let those bandits set foot in it, even if it means sacrificing my own life."

  Although he understood the level of his brothers in the factory team, when Ma Si heard the boss say this, he hurriedly bowed his waist and clasped his fists, saying that since the boss trusted him, he had to live up to the boss's trust. Since he had eaten the bowl of rice given by the boss, he had to be worthy of this bowl of rice.

  "Fourth Horse! Tell the brothers, this time the company's survival depends on them!"

  After holding onto Ma Si's arms, Sima patted him and said: "Sima felt that he had been very lucky all along, at least until now. None of the people he trusted had ever let him down. Although Ma Si wasn't a qualified military officer, there was no doubt that he was a reliable person, at least from what could be seen now."

  "Boss! Don't worry, Ma Si will never let you down."

  It's pointless to say anything now, Ma Si only knows that it's time for him to repay his boss. The factory guard team is also needed at this time.

  "Ma Si, take my order to the machine gun company and mount the machine guns on the watchtowers! The time has come, every three watchtowers will be equipped with one, remember to pile up sandbags around the watchtowers, they must be piled up solidly. We'll use the nine heavy machine guns placed on these watchtowers to guard our factory."

  When Ma Si was about to leave, Sima arranged for the machine gun to be set up. Even if others had already known about this matter, it was just in time to put the machine gun in place, so as not to wait until they arrived at the door and were unprepared.

  Originally, when encountering something he didn't understand, he would go ask a professional. Regarding how to defend the factory, Sima had once asked Ma Si, the team leader of his own factory defense team, who was the only person in the entire factory with military experience and had served as an officer in the Qing dynasty's Shandong New Army, but the answer he got was "Just set up machine guns on the frame and sweep them away."

  This sentence almost choked Sima to death. In the end, Sima had no choice but to lock himself in and make a car from scratch, extracting knowledge from the movies he had watched before. At least for now, Sima really had no other way to do it.

  Every three watchtowers were equipped with a heavy machine gun, and the distance between two heavy machine guns was exactly one kilometer. Nine heavy machine guns were set up on six-meter-high watchtowers. In this era, for bandits who had no artillery or machine guns, they were simply harvesters of death.

  This Taisho 3rd year type machine gun is the latest equipment of the Japanese army, and Sima looks at the appearance and the old movie Japanese devils used heavy machine guns are generally similar in appearance. Although I don't know if the heavy machine gun used by Japanese soldiers during World War II was this kind of machine gun, using this machine gun to arm the sentry post is at least the most suitable for now.

  Although it is unknown how much the bandits will pay for attacking their own factory, at least Sima knows that even if it is twenty years later, he does not know how many Chinese soldiers will fall under the Japanese devils' artillery. It seems that those bandits are not as good as the battle-hardened armies of later generations, and one artillery can block an entire battalion, so these nine machine gun outposts should be no exception.

  As for the three sentry posts between the two machine gun towers, a small team of guards was arranged to use rifles to make up for the lack of machine guns. When the enemy approached, they could throw hand grenades. Although it's not as effective as the machine gun tower, it's better than nothing.

  "Lao Gao, is that scar on Liu's face from being slashed by Hong Er?"

  After arranging these things, Sima asked into the house. At this time, Gao Chuanliang was already pale-faced. Just by looking at Lao Gao's face, Sima already knew the answer.

  "Master, it seems that the matter can't be hidden anymore. This scarlet six is a first-line red flag's sixth master. He has come to our doorstep, and it won't take long before the Scarlet One brings a large group of people here."

  Thinking of what had happened in the past, Gao Chuanliang felt increasingly panicked. He thought that he had finally managed to build up his family business with great difficulty, and by riding on the coattails of the young master, the Gao family was now well-known outside. But now they had offended such a person, how could he not worry?

  "Come on, old man, it's no big deal. This thing has already blown up in our faces, so being afraid won't do any good. We might as well go all out and see if we can fight our way out of this. Who knows what will happen?"

  Although that's what he said, Zhen still couldn't help but ask a question, after all, now there is only one direction to point to, and that is the grass floating on the water.

  "It seems... it hasn't worked out, looks like we're in for a bad outcome this time."

  Some desperate old Gao, pale-faced, sat in a chair and said.

  "Otherwise, Old Gao, you take your family on the train to Zhangjiakou and avoid the storm for a while. By the way, let's take a look at our business in Kouwai?"

  Seeing Lao Gao was already in his fifties, he still had to go through such a fright, Sima then mentioned it with a hint of intention.

  "Young master, I am indeed afraid, but to abandon my master and leave is something that Old Gao cannot bring himself to do. If I were to do such a thing, I wouldn't be able to show my face in public without being spat on until I drowned. Please don't mention this matter again, young master."

  Although he was a businessman, Old Gao had also led camels to make a living outside the city. The men of this place valued their dignity, and Gao Chuanliang refused Young Master's suggestion without hesitation.

  "Lao Gao... Ah! Well, in that case, let's go take a look and see if Shi Daomu has fixed those cars yet."

  Seeing Lao Gao return his good intentions, Sima knew that saying anything else would not change Lao Gao's mind, so he stood up and asked Lao Gao to go with him to the factory for a look.

  A few days ago, after the weapons purchased from Matsumoto Trading Co. were transported back, when he saw those twelve heavy machine guns, Sima, who had originally planned to install all the machine guns on the sentry towers, changed his mind. Although this type of heavy machine gun requires one person to operate the gun and another person to be responsible for loading the ammunition board on one side, this thirty-round copper hard ammunition board, although it seriously affects the firing speed, has no problem with basic use. Looking at these machine guns, Sima had an idea at that time. So only three heavy machine guns were left behind, and only nine heavy machine guns were installed on the sentry towers.

  "Mmm... yeah..."

  As soon as he walked into the workshop, Sima heard the ear-piercing sound of a cutting machine cutting steel and saw the bright light produced by an electric welding machine.

  "Slow down, slow down, yes! That's the position."

  From a distance, Sima heard Shi Daomu's slightly hoarse voice. Shi Daomu's seriousness about work was something that Sima admired the most. It seemed that in his later years, Sima had never met anyone as serious about their work as Shi Daomu. Most of the time, many people were just going through the motions at work, rather than actually working, and under such circumstances, it was pointless to talk about being serious.

  "Alright! Weld this steel plate firmly."

  Shi Daomu, who was focused on the work at hand, apparently hadn't noticed Sima and Gao's arrival, and was still directing workers to position the steel plates.

  "Boss! Lao Gao! How did you two come? Sorry for not noticing your arrival."

  After seeing the workers had put down the steel plate and started welding, Shidao Mu turned his head to see Sima and Gao Chuanliang standing beside him, saying in surprise.

  "It's okay, Sidoum, the progress is pretty good now! However, we must speed up the progress, or else others will catch up with us in no time."

  Simar looked at the armored car in front of him, which had already taken shape, and said that this armored car was Sima's family heirloom, carefully crafted after much thought.

  The chassis of the armored car is a Dongfeng EQ240 truck that Sima brought from modern times. After removing the epoch-making devices such as the transmission, artificial leather seats and other epoch-making devices in the driver's cab, he brought it over.

  After one operation, almost the entire EQ240 truck was dismantled. The entire shell was removed and then re-welded with 3-9mm thin steel plates to form the engine compartment and driver's compartment. Now the driver's compartment and engine compartment look angular, at least now from the outside it looks similar to armored cars of various European countries during this period.

  The whole vehicle has now been transformed into an integral armored car, which looks very similar to the US M3 half-track armored car that Sima saw in a magazine during World War II. Of course, these six-wheeled trucks are not half-tracks, but Sima drew sketches largely based on the appearance of the M3 half-track armored car.

  If there's anything different, it's that behind the armored driving compartment is a semi-enclosed machine gun turret. The armor of the machine gun turret only covers the front half, and the rear is completely open. This was done because there simply wasn't time to create a rotating machine gun turret. In fact, the armor of this machine gun turret was directly welded onto the heavy machine gun mount, looking very similar to those used by US forces in Iraq on their Warthog-type machine gun turrets.

  As for the machine gun, it was directly fixed to the vehicle body by clamping the tripod of the heavy machine gun, because the gun mount of the Taisho 3rd year type machine gun can be extended to a height of nearly one meter, so there is no need to modify the tripod. The most difficult thing was the feeding of the machine gun, because this Japanese-style machine gun was fed with a 30-round ammunition board, and if this brass-made ammunition board was inserted into the machine gun, it might become loose due to the bumps during driving, and finally only by welding a steel plate under the ammunition board to make a cartridge holder, which solved the problem, but made feeding slightly more troublesome.

  "Now these three vehicles are basically all renovated, only the rear main armor steel plate is not yet completed, and once these steel plates are welded, these three armored cars can be put into use. This is truly a perfect armored car."

  Shidao pointed to the three armored vehicles that had already taken shape and said, "In the past few days, since receiving Sima's drawings, Shidao has devoted all his energy to modifying these three armored vehicles. Now, after working hard for several days, they are almost complete."

  "Tell Ji Yuan to set up a temporary platform between each sentry post in the courtyard, so that if gunfire support is needed later, the machine gun car can be driven onto the platform and fire at the bandits outside the wall. The entire factory area's wall is only a few kilometers long, from one end to the other it's just a few minutes' time."

  Simar explained to Lao Gao, this is the intention of Sima leaving three machine guns. Of course, using them as mobile supplementary firepower is only one aspect. More importantly, if needed, these three armored vehicles can be sent out to chase and attack the bandits on horseback. Sima didn't believe that the four legs of the bandit's horses could outrun the six-wheeled military vehicle of later generations. Even if the machine guns couldn't hit accurately, they would still manage to ram and kill a few.