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I got my copy of America's 1st Freedom and they had a short article on an interesting Chinese rifle.

In the turbulent years surrounding World War I, many nations experimented with upgrading the traditional bolt-action rifle. One such Semi-automatic was the Chinese Liu. While in charge of the Hanyang Arsenal General T.E. Liu developed a gas-operated rifle with a muzzle gas trap cap, utilizing a hinged block at the rear of the bolt that dropped down for locking. General Liu came to America in 1914 and contracted Pratt & Whitney to produce the machinery neccessary for quantity manufacturing as well as prototype 8mm rifles for testing and evaluation at Springfield Armory. But after the machinery was loaded onto a boat bound for China, the vessel sank in transit. Subsequently General Liu suffered a stroke, and while the recovered shipment eventaully reach Shanghai in 1919, Liu's brainchild was never to see adoption and issue.

But I ask you what if the ship never sank and General Liu never has his stroke? What would be the long term effect of General Liu's rifle being adopted by the Chinese?

Lets say the rifle is adopted as the standered infantry rifle and things go per-OTL and the Chinese eventually end up in a war with the Japanese, do large numbers of Chinese troops equiped with semi-automatic rifles make a difference large enough to change the war to any great degree?

So instead of the Hanyang 88 and Chaing Kai-Shek rifle as the standerd rifles they have the Liu, so the NRA's (National Revolutionary Army) would have the semi-automatic Liu rifle, Chinese copy of the Mauser C96, Chinese copy of the ZB-26, Type 24 (Chinese varient of the water-cooled Maxim heavy machine gun), The Chinese copy of the Mg-34, as well as the Chinese copy of the M18 aub-machinegun. Does the increased fire power among the Chinese troops over the Japanese have any substantial effect on the early battles of the Seconed Sino-Japanese war?
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