Chapter 311: 1885

It was not easy for Maxim, who had successfully led a group of military industrial experts to develop the Maxim M1884 rifle, because he still needed to set about modifying his machine gun to develop a new generation of machine guns compatible with smokeless powder cartridges.

The discovery of smokeless powder was a huge change for rifles, and the change for machine guns might be even greater than that for rifles.

Because machine guns rely on high rates of fire for fire suppression, this also means that the smoke produced when a machine gun fires is much greater than that of a rifle.

As long as the smoke problem can be solved, the power of a machine gun can at least be doubled. If one also counts the increase in bullet power from smokeless powder, a machine gun capable of using smokeless powder cartridges would definitely be several times more powerful than one loaded with black powder cartridges.

It must be admitted that Maxim indeed had an extraordinary obsession with machine guns.

Two and a half months after the rifle was developed, Maxim submitted the design drawings and samples of the new machine gun to the defense department.

Like the rifle bullets, the caliber of the machine gun was also reduced to cope with the multiplied logistical pressure.

Machine guns are "bullet-consuming monsters"; every small reduction in caliber represents a huge reduction in the consumption of Spanish bullets and logistical pressure.

In any case, the main role of a machine gun is to form a fire net at the front to suppress the enemy's massed charges. In this situation, the size of the machine gun's caliber is not important; what matters is the rate of fire and the stability of the firepower.

Unlike the previous generation of machine guns, in order to cope with the heating problem during high-speed firing, Maxim specifically developed two types of machine guns with different cooling capabilities.

The previous generation of machine guns were air-cooled, relying on natural wind for cooling, and their cooling capacity would be affected during high-intensity combat.

The second-generation machine gun is water-cooled and has an additional water tank to help the machine gun dissipate heat. Of course, the cooling of a water-cooled machine gun relies heavily on water sources, which is also a burden for marching and combat.

Therefore, Maxim did not completely cancel the air-cooled machine gun. The second-generation machine gun can freely choose between water-cooled or air-cooled; the defense department can simply order whichever type it needs.

The successive birth of the new rifle and the new machine gun was, of course, good news for Spain. The only slight worry might be whether the defense department's military budget could support a large-scale re-equipment, but this was not something that could be completed in a short time, so the defense department naturally did not need to shell out a large sum of military funds in a short period.

With the new rifles and machine guns, the next task for the Spanish army was to quickly adapt to the new weapons and continuously carry out relevant training.

New firearms can indeed effectively improve the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army, but the premise is that Spanish soldiers must be proficient in using these firearms.

In the first two years of weapon replacement, the Spanish army would certainly have to go through an adaptation period. The machine gun was fine; the rate of fire and the loading method did not change much, and the only major change was the bullet.

The rifle was different. The original Vitali M1872 rifle had a maximum rate of fire of only 15 to 20 rounds per minute, while the latest Maxim M1884 rifle quickly increased this to over 30 rounds per minute.

This increase in rate of fire is something soldiers must master, as it can ensure that the army can conduct fire coverage within a certain range and suppress enemy attacks even without heavy firepower such as machine guns and artillery.

Among all the Spanish armies, the first to be equipped with the new rifles and machine guns was naturally the most elite Guard Division.

This was not because Kaluo favored the Guard Division; it was mainly because the production capacity of the Royal Military Factory could not be increased in the short term. Delivering a few thousand rifles at a time did not make much of a difference for the Royal Army, which had a total of over 100, 00 personnel.

But the Guard Division was different. The Guard Division only had 15, 00 people after all, and after removing those who did not use rifles, such as officers, artillerymen, and machine gunners, the final number of rifles needed for replacement was just over 10, 00.

The Royal Military Factory's production capacity could quickly meet the needs of the Guard Division in a short time, which was just right for conducting small-scale field tests within the Guard Division to see how this rifle, which performed excellently in tests, actually performed in real combat.

While the Guard Division began large-scale replacement of the new rifles, the defense department was also working on disposing of the old weapons.

The good news is that there are currently many small and medium-scale wars around the world, and it is not difficult to dispose of these weapons.

Just one month after the birth of the new rifle, the Spanish side contacted a country in northern Vietnam and signed a very cheap weapon export order with them.

Spain would sell 30, 00 second-hand Vitali M1872 rifles in one go, gifting 50 bullets with each rifle, selling these eliminated products in a "half-buy, half-gift" manner.

In addition, the Lanfang Republic also purchased 20, 00 rifles at once. Although these rifles were second-hand, they had at least been tested by the Spanish army, and with the bullets gifted with the rifles, it could be said to be a very cost-effective deal.

Besides Asian countries, Spain also took its business to the Americas.

Of course, not the United States, but those countries in South America.

Although the countries in South America were once colonies of Spain or Portugal, this does not mean that the relations between these American countries were good.

Especially the three relatively powerful countries in South America—Brazil, Argentina, and Chile—whose relations could only be described as tense.

Although they had not yet reached the state of war, local conflicts and border skirmishes were not few at all. Historically, when European countries were engaged in a vigorous naval arms race, the three South American countries were also engaged in a South American naval arms race, which is enough to show the tense relations between these three countries.

Since the relations were tense, it was very necessary to stockpile a batch of weapons and equipment to strengthen their military power.

As the former master of this land, although these South American countries did not welcome Spanish rule, they still welcomed Spanish industrial products.

Especially the rifles sold at almost half price, which caused a rush among South American countries.

It was mainly because Kaluo had repeatedly instructed the Spanish industry during its construction that, while prioritizing quality, although Spanish industrial products could not be "cheap and good," the quality was absolutely guaranteed.

This batch of second-hand rifles, being sold at half price, could barely be considered "cheap and good." The rifles produced by the American countries themselves could not achieve such performance and such a price, which was the reason for their rush.

What surprised Kaluo was that while only 50, 00 rifles were sold in Asia, more than 60, 00 rifles were easily sold in the Americas.

In this way, Spain not only cleared out all the old rifles in stock but was also forced to eliminate and sell a batch of rifles that the army was currently using.

This also led to several divisions of soldiers having no rifles to use for the time being; they could only temporarily train in other items besides target practice, waiting for the Royal Military Factory to work overtime to produce more.

However, this could also be considered good news. When the new rifles were produced, they would certainly be prioritized for these armies that had no rifles.

They could be considered to have gained from a misfortune, being able to become the first army under the Royal Army system to prioritize the use of the new rifles.

The entire year of 1884 had the theme of European countries frantically devouring the big cake of Africa, and ended with Spain becoming the biggest winner.

Why is it said that Spain was the biggest winner of 1884?

Because Spain successfully obtained the Trucial States in the colonial conflict with the United Kingdom; although they had not yet occupied them, this was already Spanish land.

In addition, Spain's colonial merger plan had already succeeded halfway. The Bam Kingdom, Yoruba, and other places had been incorporated into Spanish colonies, and the connection between the Gold Coast, the Congo Territory, and the Guinea colony was just around the corner.

Of course, other countries were not without gains.

In addition to Southwest Africa, Germany was also actively exploring colonization in West Africa. After successive failures in colonizing the Cameroon and Togo regions, the Germans set their sights on the area between the Spanish and French colonies and took the land of the Mandé people.

The Mandé people are a large ethnic group with a total population estimated to be between several million and tens of millions. This ethnic group once created the Ghana Empire and the Mali Empire in Africa; these two empires were regional hegemons in the African region and were once powerful for a time.

However, with the demise of their countries, these Mandé people had to migrate to the Atlantic coast, which is why they were targeted by the Germans.

With a large population, located right by the coast, and far from the French and Spanish colonies, they would not be interfered with by other great powers.

It was under such circumstances that the Germans quite easily took this land and became neighbors with Spain and France.

Of course, the German colony had another neighbor, which was the Republic of Liberia established by the descendants of American immigrants.

While called American immigrants, they were actually descendants of American blacks.

Before the American Civil War, blacks in the Americas were slaves with no human rights. This was the country established by these blacks after they fled back to Africa; the meaning of Liberia is precisely about freedom and liberation.

Strictly speaking, Liberia was more like a colony of the United States. However, because blacks were not valued by the U. . government, coupled with American isolationism, the Americans did not vigorously develop Liberia, which was quite a "laissez-faire" approach.

Because of the relationship between Liberia and the United States, although it was entirely populated by blacks, it was not targeted by European powers.

Germany obviously did not intend to conquer this land; in any case, there was a coastline on the Mandé people's land, which did not affect the German colony's outlet to the sea.

Speaking of this country established by the descendants of American blacks, one has to mention the inherent flaws of these blacks.

In the United States, they were the lowest of the low, slaves who could be bullied by anyone. After fleeing to Africa, they turned around and began to oppress the local African blacks.

The method of oppression was also very simple, almost completely copying the oppression of them by white Americans. This also led to the fact that racial discrimination existed not only in the United States, an immigrant country composed of various ethnic groups and races, but also in Liberia, a country composed entirely of blacks.

Yes, Liberia also had racial discrimination, and it was severe racial discrimination.

The descendants of blacks who immigrated from the United States highly discriminated against the local black population of Africa.

But they never thought that they, or their ancestors, were actually brought to the Americas by Europeans.

The severe racial discrimination within Liberia even led to civil strife and resistance, but this was not very important to world history.

In addition to the merger of the Gold Coast and the Congo Territory, Spain was also facilitating the merger of the West African colony and the Sierra Leone colony.

Compared to the former, the merger of the latter was actually much simpler.

After all, the straight-line distance from the Gold Coast to the Congo Territory was over a thousand kilometers, and the straight-line distance to the Guinea colony was also over 900 kilometers.

The latter was different; the southernmost part of the West African colony was only a little over 300 kilometers away from the northernmost part of the Sierra Leone colony, and there were no colonies of any European country in between, which meant that almost no country would interfere with Spain's colonial merger plan.

Under such favorable conditions, Spain's West African colony successfully expanded southward by over a hundred kilometers, forcing the Muslim theocratic state named Futa Jallon in the south from a coastal country into an inland country.

Thanks to this, the merger of the West African colony and the Sierra Leone colony would soon be realized. According to the report given by the Colonial Affairs Department, it is expected that in the new year, the West African colony will successfully complete the merger plan and become one of Spain's important colonies in Africa.

The only colony in Africa where Spain had no movement was the South Morocco colony.

There was no way around it; the geographical location of the South Morocco colony was simply too poor.

The Sahara Desert was almost uninhabited, and Spain only occupied cities in the desert with a certain population, without setting foot in the other vast areas of the desert.

Because it was desert to the south and east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the expansion of the South Morocco colony could only be to the north.

To the north was Morocco, and at this time, neither the French nor the British were willing to let Spain swallow Morocco alone.

This also meant that the South Morocco colony could hardly expand, and without the possibility of expansion, the South Morocco colony naturally would not have any actions.

Of course, it could not be said that there were no actions at all.

As a region that Spain would localize in the future, the policy of the South Morocco colony was completely different from other colonies.

Spain had even been gradually sending immigrants to the South Morocco colony; in the future, the South Morocco colony would build Spanish cities of various sizes, and Spaniards would also become the main population here.

Agadir, the capital of the South Morocco colony, had already become the city with the most Spanish immigrants.

More than half of the Moroccans here had emigrated, and among the remaining population of less than 100, 00, there were over 50, 00 Spaniards.

The entire city center had also been almost rebuilt, and a large number of modern buildings with Spanish style had sprung up; even the city hall and the parliament showed colors of Spanish style.

If the localization went smoothly, the entire South Morocco colony would become a major region of Spain, still with Agadir as its capital.

The city council of Agadir was the best example; it would fully imitate the structure of mainland Spain and completely localize it.

Once the state parliament and state government were built, it would be about time for the South Morocco colony to announce the completion of its localization construction and become the newest major region.

The Berlin Conference, convened because of the colonial conflict between Spain and the United Kingdom, also successfully ended at the end of 1884.

The reason why this conference took so long to negotiate was that the European powers used this conference to discuss their respective spheres of influence in partitioning Africa and reached certain agreements and compromises.

Although Africa is large, there were many powers partitioning it. This led to every power wanting to take a big bite of this big cake of Africa, and some places were even targeted by several powers at the same time.

In the colonization of Africa, Spain and the United Kingdom could be considered two countries with relatively clear goals.

The United Kingdom wanted to achieve the Cairo-Cape Town connection; in other words, they wanted to annex the entire East African coast.

Spain's appetite was smaller than that of the United Kingdom, but it also had considerable requirements and ambitions for Central Africa and the West African coast.

Then there was France, whose colonial actions were not small at all, even spreading across North Africa, West Africa, and the East African coast.

However, compared to the United Kingdom and Spain, France's colonies were more scattered, and the scale of individual colonies also looked smaller.

After the Berlin Conference ended, all countries tacitly accelerated the partition of Africa again.

After the Berlin Conference divided the general areas for each country to colonize Africa, if they wanted to get more land, countries could only go deep into the African interior to explore the depths of Africa where almost no one had set foot.

Regarding the land inside the African continent, countries still held some hope.

The Sudan invaded by the United Kingdom and the Congo Territory occupied by Spain were basically obtained in the African interior.

This also meant that there were still many lands with great development value in the African interior; although they could not make full use of maritime transport like the coast, as long as railways were built, those rare resources could still be transported out.

If one were to speak of the biggest difference between this Berlin Conference and the one in history, it would likely be the ownership of the Congo region.

In history, because no country had actual occupation of the Congo territory during the Berlin Conference, it ultimately allowed the obviously weak Belgium to take advantage.

But now, Spain had long since established actual occupation of the Congo region, so the other great powers naturally had no excuse to refute Spain's rule.

This also resulted in small countries like Belgium and the Netherlands having basically no gains. It was only Portugal, because they had colonized Africa long ago, that their East African colony area was still very large.

Coupled with the compensation received for land seized by the British, Portugal could be considered the country that gained the most land among all non-great power European countries in this conference.

The Luanda Kingdom, the Buwonda Kingdom, and the Luba Kingdom—these three indigenous kingdoms in the southern Congo—added up to several hundred thousand square kilometers in area; combined with Portugal's West African colony and Mozambique colony, the scale of Portugal's existing colonies was second only to Britain, Spain, and France, and even ranked ahead of Germany.

As time entered 1885, the re-equipping of the Spanish Army officially began.

A large number of phased-out rifles and bullets were urgently shipped to Asia and the Americas, to be sold off before the wars ended.

On the Spanish side, the soldiers who received the new weapons were also incredibly fond of this new rifle.

Although the original Vitali M1872 rifle was also quite good, because the barrel was long and heavy, carrying this rifle for physical training was a burden.

Now that it had been replaced with a shorter and lighter rifle, for the soldiers, it would make their daily training much easier.

Moreover, people almost all have a psychology of preferring the new and disliking the old; after personally experiencing the powerful performance of this new rifle, how could the soldiers still think of that previous-generation rifle they had used for several years?

The weapons of the colonial troops were not updated; for one, the output of the Royal Arsenal could not keep up, and for another, there was no need for the colonial troops to be equipped with such powerful rifles.

However, for the sake of smooth subsequent operations, the Guofang Force still equipped the colonial troops with a certain number of machine guns.

Yes, machine guns.

In an environment like Africa, the role of machine guns is even greater than that of artillery.

The biggest difficulty faced in conquering these natives was not the firearms or artillery in their hands, but their endless supply of manpower.

Small countries like the Bam Kingdom and Togo were fine, because the population was only at the million level, and the indigenous army they could scrape together was only a few tens of thousands.

But the slightly larger Sokoto Caliphate was different. Because the population reached tens of millions, the army they could scrape together could easily be over a hundred thousand or even several hundred thousand.

At this time, machine guns could play a huge role; the natives, not knowing the power of machine guns, would certainly swarm to attack the Spanish army's positions.

Spanish soldiers could then rely on the firepower of the machine guns to easily harvest the lives of the natives.

To achieve the best results, the Guofang Force transported over 50 machine guns from the mainland and also equipped them with millions of rounds of ammunition.

From this point, one could also see the attitude of the Guofang Force; facing the swarming manpower of the natives, Spain naturally did not need to save bullets.

In the remaining time of 1884, Qiaodi, relying on the manpower transported from various colonies to the Congo territory, plus the officers transported from the Spanish mainland, successfully formed 2 colonial divisions.

After these 2 colonial divisions were established, they immediately eased the manpower burden of the Congo territory. At the same time, it also allowed the Congo territory and the Guinea colony to draw out more troops.

In the new year, the troops that could be scraped together from just the Guinea colony and the Congo territory reached 3 colonial divisions, approximately 60, 00 troops.

Coupled with the several colonial garrison regiments in the Huang Jinhaian, a force of over 70, 00, let alone dealing with a tiny Sokoto Caliphate, even if these indigenous countries in the Jineiyawan united, the Spanish army would still be fully capable of a battle.

If the Sokoto Caliphate could be defeated, Spain's ruling position in the Jineiyawan would no longer face any danger.

Under such circumstances, the merger of the Huang Jinhaian and the Guinea colony would be just around the corner, and Spain's layout of four major colonies had hope of being realized within the year 1885.

6, 00-word two-in-one chapter, seeking support!

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(End of this chapter)