Chapter 8: The Kingdom of Guns
Pakistan, Darra
Located 40 kilometers south of Peshawar, in the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, is a small village that can't be found on any map. Although it's very small, it has gained notoriety worldwide because around 500,000 guns flow out from here every year.
No matter what kind of gun, the craftsmen in the village can imitate: American M16, German G3, Belgian FAL... But the most famous imitation gun is still the AK-47 automatic rifle, whose imitation craftsmanship is almost indistinguishable from the real thing.
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The entire village has over 50 stone houses with workshops for making guns, all of which are fake AK-47s. Every day at 9 am, people gather on the street to buy guns, and the sound of gunfire can be heard constantly, with single shots, bursts, and continuous firing, filling the air with a strong smell of gunpowder.
Zha Zi Yang, disguised as a guest with Angel, walked on the village street, his eyes constantly looking left and right at the large and small shops, his eyes full of incredulity. He even saw fake domestically-made 95-style assault rifles in several stores.
Apart from handguns, rifles, submachine guns and heavy machine guns, there were even various portable rocket launchers for sale, leaving him speechless.
"Angel, doesn't anyone ask about this? For example, the Pakistani government. As far as I know, the Pakistani government has very strict control over civilian firearms and ammunition." Zhao Ziyang asked Angel.
Angel had a headscarf wrapped around her head and a veil covering her face, dressed like a Middle Eastern woman. No way out, if her appearance were to appear in this place, it would absolutely become the focus in an instant, and it would be inconvenient wherever she went.
"Dara Village is located in the autonomous region of the Pashtun tribe, where the power of the Pakistani government police is not accepted, and their own tribal police are in charge. In the 19th century, Afghanistan was occupied by Britain, and the British army encountered fierce resistance from the Pashtuns living across Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the craftsmanship of making guns has been passed down since then."
The autonomous region of the Pashtun people has had its own laws - customary law and police, since ancient times. After Pakistan's independence, all this was also recognized by the government and continued to this day. Most importantly, the Pakistani government needs a lot of help from the Pashtuns in replacing firearms for the military, because their gun craftsmanship is better than that of the government."
Great place! This is a great place!
Xin stepped into a store, Zhao Ziyang looked at the wall with interest, where rows of rifles were hung. The owner immediately stood up enthusiastically when he saw Zhao Ziyang and An Qi'er walk in, smiling as he presented various guns to Zhao Ziyang.
"A guest from afar, welcome to Darra, welcome to the land of guns. You can call me Karl." The shop owner's face lit up with a smile as he took down an AK-47 from the wall and skillfully pulled back the charging handle, showing Zhao Ziyang the internal mechanism of the gun. With a proud expression, he said: "My AK rifle is one of the best in the world. The charging handle, gas cylinder, piston, piston rod, gas tube, return spring, bolt carrier, firing pin, trigger... every single part of this gun has abandoned the conventional stamping process and is entirely handmade. You can try it out."
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Taking over the AK rifle from the shop owner's hand, Zhao Ziyang weighed it and repeatedly pulled the trigger with his hand, listening to the sound of the gun mechanism coming out.
"It's very cheap, just one thousand US dollars and this handmade AK-47 rifle will become a sharp weapon that you must have for home and travel..." The shop owner saw Zhao Ziyang fiddling with the gun with great interest and immediately quoted the price of the gun.
When mentioning this price, Zhao Ziyang almost burst out laughing: One thousand US dollars? You must be kidding, business people are indeed not honest, you have to let them cut the price in half first before negotiating.
This gun is indeed well-made, but absolutely not as exaggerated as the shop owner said. Except for the precision parts such as the hammer and firing pin that are handcrafted, everything else is made by stamping and then manually polished. The most important thing is the barrel, this gun's rifling is made by a small-sized stamping machine, which is definitely a mass-produced product.
Zhao Ziyang stretched out two fingers, smiled at the shop owner and said: "Two hundred US dollars!"
"My goodness, you think you can buy this rifle for $200? You must be dreaming! Let me tell you, someone once offered me $2,000 for this handmade rifle and I didn't sell it. If I hadn't seen that you're an Oriental, I wouldn't even sell it to you!" The shop owner said loudly with a very unwilling face, as if he had suffered a great loss.
Two banknotes were snatched into the shop owner's hands, and the rifle was slung over Zhao Ziyang's back.
"If this rifle's barrel is made with a broach cut or combination of ring cuts, or even if it was made by a water jet machine to create the rifling, I could give you $1,000 for it. But this one is made by a press-fit machining process, which not only doesn't change the thickness of the barrel but also reduces its lifespan. If my estimate is correct, this rifle will be worn out after firing 5,000 to 8,000 rounds at most, so $200 is a fair price."
The shop owner held the two hundred US dollars that Zhao Ziyang had thrown to him, stunned for a moment, then reluctantly put away the money. However, he immediately revealed a smile on his face and introduced other guns to Zhao Ziyang.
The base has Pandora, the former Remington company's chief firearms consultant, which is enough to allow Zhao Ziyang to judge the pros and cons of various firearms in a short period of time. Such an AK rifle, with a market price of around $300, still has room for profit as a manufacturer at $200.
Now Zhao Ziyang knew why Angie brought him out of the base without equipping weapons, it turned out that any firearms could be bought here.
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"Sniper rifle." Angel's cold voice came out.
"Got it!" The boss responded with a smile, walked to the innermost part, took down a PM sniper rifle from the wall and threw it to Zhao Ziyang.
However, as soon as the sniper rifle was handed over to Zhao Ziyang, he glanced at it casually and threw it back, shaking his head at the shop owner.
"Don't give me these inferior products that you sell to child soldiers in the Middle East or Africa, I want good ones, understand? I want real high-quality goods."
The shop owner looked at Zhao Ziyang and smiled.
"There is a good product, but..."
"Money is no problem!" Zhao Ziyang readily pulled out a stack of colorful US dollars from his pocket and said to the shop owner, "Don't try to cheat me with inferior goods again."
"Haha... how could it be? Come with me!" Seeing the US dollars in Zhao Ziyang's hand, the shop owner burst out laughing and waved at the two to follow him, heading towards the workshop behind the store.
There were three workers in the workshop making rifles, with semi-finished products and various parts scattered on the ground around them. After seeing the shop owner bring in Zhao Ziyang and An Qi'er, they just took a glance and continued to busy themselves with their work, as if they had already gotten used to it.
"Very few people buy the PM sniper rifle, because basically all the armed forces that come here to purchase firearms are buying in bulk. There are also individual purchases or custom-made ones, but they usually don't know much about manual shooting and aren't very interested in the PM sniper rifle." The shop owner said while rummaging through the corner, pulling out a gun barrel and some accessories.
"There's no finished PM sniper rifle, but this barrel is enough." The shop owner tossed the barrel to Zhao Ziyang, gesturing for him to take a look.
The bore of the barrel was roughly pulled and polished about 70 times, and the precision was quite good. After Anqi nodded in approval, Zhao Ziyang handed the barrel over to the shop owner, indicating that he should start work immediately and complete the production of this PM sniper rifle.
He took a thick stack of US dollars and without saying another word, the shop owner chased out several workers and began to work on making the gun.
In a short time, an SAS sniper rifle was assembled and presented to the two men, with the label of accuraternational company smashed on it.
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The overall length is 1.124-1.194m, the barrel length is 655mm, and the weight of the gun is 6.5kg. It fires NATO 7.62mm ammunition. The aluminum alloy receiver, 10-round magazine, adjustable bipod, are almost identical to the real thing.
"Want to try it out?" The shopkeeper suggested.
"Alright." Zhao Ziyang nodded.
Two people followed the shop owner and walked to a place about 1,000 meters behind the village, where there was a large rock that served as a target for testing guns.
It was almost noon at this time, and many shop owners who bought and sold guns were surrounding the shooting range, taking the final step of trying out the guns.
"Rat-a-tat-tat..." "Bang! Bang! Bang!..."
Bursts, single shots, and continuous firing of guns kept ringing out, lively like the Afghan battlefield. The large rock was full of small bullet holes, I don't know how many rounds of ammunition it had withstood.
Most of the people who try out guns are in groups of three to five, but there are also dozens of people together. This is usually a large buyer making a bulk purchase and has established a certain friendly cooperative relationship with this place, otherwise it would not be allowed for so many people to bring guns in.
The most conspicuous group of people were on the right front side of Zhao Ziyang and his party, this group of people from facial features are obviously Muslim Pashtuns. From their conversation and behavior, they are very familiar with the Pashtuns in this village, obviously often buying guns here.
"A pro-US mutiny has emerged among anti-government forces in southern Afghanistan, these are the mutineers from the anti-government forces." Angel stood behind Zhao Ziyang and continued to whisper into his ear: "They support the US government, support the Afghan government under US patronage, which is unbearable for the anti-government forces in the south."
"Oh?" Zhao Ziyang's eyebrows furrowed slightly as his eyes turned towards that group of anti-government armed personnel.
"They are Pashtuns, and have always gotten along with the Pashtuns in this village. What you will be facing is a vendetta from these Pashtuns." Angel continued to whisper: "The southern anti-government forces hired us to take out this rebel faction, remember, terrain like this is perfect for sniping..."
"What?" Zhao Ziyang heard something inexplicable, but he had a bad premonition in his heart.
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Bang!
The muffled sound of a sniper rifle rang out, and the head of an Afghan man in the innermost circle of the rebel group was pierced. The explosive bullet blew half of his head off, splashing blood, flesh, and brain matter into the air, and the entire person fell heavily to the ground under the powerful penetration force of the bullet.
At the same time, Zhao Ziyang felt that there was something more in his hand. He looked down and saw that it was the PM sniper rifle he had bought for Angie, with a hot barrel.
As the Afghan insurgent was killed, the whole scene erupted into chaos, with everyone holding a gun and immediately turning their attention to the direction of the gunfire.
"Anqi'er!" Zhao Ziyang shouted loudly for Anqi'er, but found that Anqi'er had already disappeared in the chaos.
"Damn it!!!" Zhao Ziyang cursed in a fluster, and under the pressure of the moment, he pulled out a grenade from his waist and threw it fiercely into the crowd, shouting loudly: "Fire in the hole!"
With a loud bang, the crowd of people holding guns fell to the ground one after another to avoid the explosion of the hand grenade.
At this time, Zhao Ziyang rushed desperately towards a mountain valley thirty meters away: he had been outsmarted by An Qi'er!
He never thought Angel would use this method to take revenge on him, but now thinking about it is useless, first save his life and then talk.
"Rat-a-tat-tat..." The explosive sound of gunfire erupted the moment Zhao Ziyang crested the valley, with over a hundred guns opening fire on him simultaneously. The entire valley instantly transformed into an intense battlefield.
As soon as the villagers heard the gunshot, they rushed out immediately, regardless of men, women, old and young, each holding a gun in their hands, shouting loudly as they chased after Zhao Ziyang.
The Pashtuns, with their exceptionally bold and unruly nature, have their own rules. They absolutely do not allow anyone to kill people with guns on their territory, otherwise they will be pursued relentlessly. Guns are the commodities that they live by, when these commodities become instruments of murder in their place, no one will dare come to buy guns again, because there is no safety and no guarantee.
Zhao Ziyang was facing a pursuit by over a hundred people, with gunfire ringing out incessantly. The bullet heads behind his buttocks were almost driving him mad. He finally discovered that this Anqi'er was also an abnormal person, and when it came to being abnormal, she was even more extreme than Pandora!
Run! Preserving your life is the most important thing!!!
