Chapter 44: Schmeisser Submachine Gun

  Actually, the performance of the SDEN gun, especially its reliability, is not as good as that of famous guns like the PPSh during World War II. However, compared to the main force submachine gun of the Red Fifteenth Army - a Chinese imitation of the world's first submachine gun MP18 from World War I, known as "Huajiang", it has a significant advantage. Its compact design and relatively light weight make it extremely agile, its low recoil makes it very beneficial for mobile attacks on the battlefield, and its rate of fire and power are also superior to those of the "Huajiang". Moreover, its production cost is only one-tenth that of the "Huajiang", which led Liu Ding, who was in charge of technical work at the Su District Arsenal, to immediately abandon his original plan to produce the "Huajiang" and instead focus all his efforts on testing, inspecting, finalizing, and producing this new submachine gun. The fact that Hu Weidong was able to design such a practical weapon without using any advanced technology made Liu Ding admire him greatly, and he quoted someone's saying: "It is very easy to design a complicated weapon, but it is extremely difficult to design a simple one." This also had a profound impact on young military engineers like Wu Yunzheng...

  Although the smooth production of the Sten gun caused a stir in the arsenal, Hu Weidong was not very interested in it and didn't even give it a name, simply calling it the "Border Region-made" submachine gun. Because the Sten gun had many major defects due to its hasty design, such as jamming easily and accidental discharge, which could be fatal in combat. Moreover, the 9×19mm Parabellum cartridge used by the Sten gun was popular in Europe and America, but on the Chinese battlefield, the most common handgun cartridge was the 7.63x25mm Mauser pistol cartridge due to the popularity of the "Box Cannon". Considering that submachine guns were big consumers of ammunition, capturing them was still important for the Red Fifteenth Army, so Hu Weidong hoped to modify the Sten gun's caliber to 7.63mm and adjust its design accordingly to use the 7.63x25mm Mauser pistol cartridge. If it could directly use a twenty-round magazine, that would be even better. Since Hu Weidong was not a firearms expert, he entrusted this task to Wu Yunzheng as his first test. However, considering Wu Yunzheng's current age, Hu Weidong did not put too much pressure on him, giving him relatively ample time and allowing him to make any modifications to the gun type without increasing production costs or reducing production speed, giving the young man a great deal of freedom...

  Due to the simplicity of the production process of the Suomi KP/-31 submachine gun, if half of the workforce in the Soviet district's arsenal were put into this, at least thousands could be produced every month. Unfortunately, due to the slow production of bullets and the fact that this type of gun was only a short-term transitional product in Hu Weidong's eyes, only a small portion of the workforce was allocated, producing 5-10 guns per day. Nevertheless, these "Border-made" submachine guns greatly enhanced the close combat firepower of the Red Fifteenth Army, which was particularly evident in street fighting...

  Although the Su District Ordnance Factory had entered a period of rapid development since its establishment, Hu Weidong was disappointed that when he tried to establish a production line for mass-producing various caliber shells, he encountered several insurmountable difficulties. Firstly, there was a lack of necessary machinery and equipment, with only a handful of ordnance factories in the country having this production capacity. The Red Fifteenth Army was strong, but not strong enough to dare to go wild in big cities like Shanghai, Nanjing, and Taiyuan. Secondly, mass-producing shells required a large amount of explosives and other key raw materials, which were far more than what was needed for producing bullets. Relying solely on confiscation would be difficult to meet the demand. Thirdly, there was a severe shortage of talent, which was also a problem that plagued the combat troops that had expanded rapidly. Although it was possible to cultivate talent, the Su District leadership had little energy to promote education in the base area due to its late establishment and harsh environment. The dozen or so counties in the Min-Zhe-Gan-Su District were mostly poor and backward mountainous areas, with a literacy rate of less than 10%, lower than the national average. Hu Weidong wanted to select talent but had to teach those young people to recognize characters first, which was an inefficient process that left him speechless. He also had to hurry up to the north to resist Japan, where did he have time for this?

  "It seems that when the Red Army lost the Central Soviet Area, what was lost was not just a piece of land...", Hu Weidong sighed, and deeply congratulated himself on his foresight in bringing almost all the educated youth from the old Soviet area with him. At the same time, he became even more determined to "rob" talent wherever he went, "Even if I bear the infamy for this, I must accelerate China's modernization and industrialization as much as possible..."

  At the same time, however, Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing was forced to order the Nationalist armies of Fujian, Zhejiang and Jiangxi provinces to switch from offense to defense due to their heavy losses. He urgently summoned General Xue Yue, who was responsible for pursuing and eliminating the Central Red Army and taking advantage of the situation to get rid of the warlord of Guizhou, to ask for his advice: "General Xue, now that the Zhu-Mao Red Army is in a desperate situation, but the bandits in Jiangxi have risen again and are making a big noise. You must have heard about it too. At present, the Japanese are pressing in step by step. If we don't pacify the red bandits and stabilize the country first, how can we resist Japan? But unexpectedly, these red bandits are so difficult to eliminate. What do you think about this, General Xue?"

  Actually, many high-ranking officials in the Nationalist Party knew that the Red Army rose mainly due to political problems within the government. However, as a prominent general commanding 200,000 troops, Xue Yue was not supposed to get involved in politics. He only provided his analysis from a military perspective: "Your Excellency, if the battle reports and rumors are true, this band of Reds is not simple. If we send too few troops, not only will we be unable to eliminate them, but also many of our captured soldiers may be swayed by them, causing their forces to swell like a snowball. Therefore, either we don't fight at all, or if we do, we must have the confidence to win. It's best to concentrate 300,000 or even 500,000 troops and wipe them out in one swift campaign."

  Chiang Kai-shek furrowed his brow, the National Army had a nominal strength of several million, but the number of idle personnel was not small. The actual troop strength was only over 20 million, and more than half of them were local miscellaneous troops that he could not fully control. Among the one million Central Army, 200,000 elite troops followed Xue Yue to pursue and suppress the Central Red Army on the Long March. Tens of thousands of people were also used to blockade the Hubei-Henan-Anhui base area, and tens of thousands of people were used to blockade and suppress the Red Army guerrilla forces led by Item Ying and Chen Yi in the central Soviet area. In addition, the Red Army base in northern Shaanxi had attracted a large number of National Army troops. Furthermore, regular army troops needed to be stationed in key cities, and some troops needed to be left behind to deter local warlords and prevent Japan from causing more trouble. In just a few months, the 15th Red Army Corps had eliminated tens of thousands of people. The National Government now found it difficult to mobilize even 200,000 troops immediately, let alone 500,000 or 300,000. Chiang Kai-shek tapped his middle finger on the conference table with some irritation, "Can't we just ignore them?"