Volume 1: The Battleship Yitian Changes into the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 Chapter 73: Seeking Self-Control
"Bad guy! Let people see us!" She said coquettishly, and stopped his action with her hand, saying: "I have had this premonition before. Think about it from another angle. If the British sell battleships to you today, aren't they afraid that you will use these battleships to fight them one day?"
"You are right," Sun Gang said. "I never expected that the Germans would succumb to the pressure from the British this time."
"So I kept an eye out and looked for shipbuilding technicians and workers for you." Ma Yue said, "I can't get in touch with other countries for now, but France and the United States are OK. I found my former classmates who studied in France and asked them to help contact them. Then I asked the Military Intelligence Department to contact American shipyards through people who studied in the United States. But we don't even have a trace of our shipyard now, so it's not certain whether they can come."
"Yes, this is a good idea. We can't always buy from others. We must be able to build our own." Sun Gang nodded and said, "But there are still many problems if we want to build it ourselves. For example, the current domestic steel production capacity is limited. Although the Fuzhou Shipyard has built battleships and has accumulated experience and technology, it is the first time to build a ship of more than 10,000 tons, especially a battleship. I know the general data of the "Monarch" class, but I am not very clear about some key points. There are too many aspects involved in building a self-made battleship."
"I wonder if this is a good idea?" Ma Yue said, "You should sort out all of this, including the analysis of the current situation in various countries, and report it to Lord Zhongtang first to hear what he has to say. After all, 'using barbarians to control barbarians' is their old trademark. Then we should list the possible problems we may encounter and solve them one by one from easy to difficult. It would be best if the Beiyang Shipyard also starts construction when the Fuzhou Shipyard starts construction, so that we can accumulate experience while building the ship. When the ship is completed, we will also have the experience."
"You are such a person that I wouldn't trade you for a president." Sun Gang hugged her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. The prime minister was promoted to president this time.
After his beloved wife left, Sun Gang calmed himself down, made his thoughts clear, and began to write a letter to Li Hongzhang.
He carefully recalled the major international events that occurred during this period and the international situation that China was facing. Although Britain was trying hard to maintain its maritime superiority, it was increasingly unable to do so. From the series of wars that occurred during this era, it can be seen that the high cost of maintaining the navy made it difficult for the "sun never sets" empire with a large number of overseas colonies to bear. Therefore, Britain was wary of emerging naval countries and wooed Japan in the Far East to confront Russia and maintain its dominant position in China. In Europe, in order to deal with the traditional continental hegemon France, Britain supported the emerging Germany to contain France from the continent and appropriately took care of Germany's interests at sea to ensure the balance of power on the European continent.
This is also why the Germans listened to the British this time.
However, Germany was not necessarily willing to be the "little brother" of the British forever. After Germany was unified under the famous "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck, Bismarck pursued a conservative naval strategy called "Germany is safe without a navy", because Germany had neither vast overseas colonies to patrol nor fortified ports to accommodate and protect large naval fleets. At this time, Germany needed a coastal defense navy rather than a large fleet capable of ocean-going attacks. The primary task of the German Navy was to protect the safety of the coastline rather than attract the attention of maritime powers such as Britain. Putting its navy in a weak position and conserving its strength could buy precious time for the German shipbuilding industry to explore and complete the accumulation and update of technology at a lower cost, so that it could compete with maritime powers such as Britain in the future. From a strategic point of view, Bismarck's strategy was brilliant, allowing the originally weak German Navy to survive the dangerous period and lay a solid foundation for future development and growth. But after German Emperor Wilhelm II ascended the throne in 1888, he was unwilling to be always suppressed by the British. The emperor, who admired Mahan's "The Principles of Sea Power", was very dissatisfied with Bismarck's "hide one's capabilities and bide one's time" policy. So the young emperor with great acting talent put on a big drama of singing praises in front of the shrewd but aging chancellor, and then let the old man go home and eat rice in 1890. Then he began to spare no effort to develop the navy and prepare to actively expand overseas. The incident of cooperating with Russia to ask China to lease Jiaozhou Bay a few days ago has already shown that Germany's foreign policy has undergone a major change.
Li Hongzhang, the "Bismarck of the East", would not have known all this.
In fact, China's current situation is somewhat similar to that of Germany, but also different. China's coastline is currently facing threats from Russia, Japan and even the United States, and a coastal defense navy capable of protecting this long coastline has not yet been fully formed (except for the Beiyang Fleet, the strength of the Nanyang, Fujian and Guangdong fleets has been strengthened, but it is still very insufficient.), how to maintain a mobile maritime combat force without arousing suspicion from the powers and buying time for China's future development is indeed a very headache application problem.
In the letter, he explained the current situation in detail and also said that if the purchase of ships failed, he would go all out to seek self-production. Finally, he said: "Britain allies with Germany to control France, and allies with Japan to control Russia, in order to achieve a balance of power. The Japanese secretly ally with Britain, so even if we lose this battle, we will not be destroyed. But our country is caught in the gap. We want to buy huge ships to build up our navy, but we are threatened everywhere. We want to make strong allies, but we are afraid that we will be controlled by them in the future and lose the game. This is a dilemma. How should we make a plan? I am confused. Please give me your advice."
After writing the letter, he asked the Military Intelligence Department to send someone to Beijing to hand it over to Li Hongzhang, while he himself began to consider the matter of planning to build a shipyard (Beiyang Shipyard).
If possible, just as my beloved wife said, while relying on the Fuzhou Shipyard to build battleships, the Beiyang Shipyard should also be established at the same time. In the future, China will be able to build giant battleships on its own and will no longer be controlled by others.
In fact, the butterfly effect of being able to build a giant ship by himself was much greater than he imagined. He only experienced this many years later.
Since the idea of purchasing battleships from foreign countries had basically disappeared from his mind, the idea of building a shipyard now became extremely strong.
At least this time it was not as simple as getting a few red flowers for making a ship model in elementary school. What he wanted to play with now was a real steel giant ship, and one that weighed more than 10,000 tons. For him, a Minister of the Navy who came from a bank clerk, it was simply an impossible task.
But he himself could not explain what supported him to build the largest shipbuilding company in the Far East that later shocked the whole world.
He discussed it with his wife and prepared to start planning. At this time, the strange man named "Find Passbook" from the Military Intelligence Department came to help. He had several friends in Tianjin Machinery Bureau who were responsible for ship repair (Tianjin Machinery Bureau had the ability to manufacture smaller ships, such as the sunken underwater motorboat, and some ships of the Beiyang Navy were also maintained by Tianjin Machinery Bureau.), Sun Gang brought them all over, as well as personnel from the Lushun Ship Machinery Bureau, and Wen Junfeng's friends who helped him build submarines. Some foreign officers of the Beiyang Navy also came to give advice and help contact foreign countries. For a time, the momentum was huge, and Sun Gang, who was immediately overwhelmed, was crazy for a few days. He first set up a staff group on building a shipyard and began to formulate a plan for the shipyard, which ended this chaotic situation.
It sounds like a joke that a
After several days of discussions and learning with them, Sun Gang also learned a lot about shipbuilding and factory construction.
The first is the issue of site selection.
After everyone looked around the map for a long time, Sun Gang decided to stay close to Dalian Bay. Qingdao was actually a good choice, but Sun Gang was too lazy to go that far, so he finally decided to stay in Dalian.
He didn't know that it was a good thing he didn't choose Qingdao, otherwise he might not even be able to save his life in a few years.
What happened two years later showed that his title of “the lucky star” was quite accurate.
Now that we have the place, we need the personnel and equipment.
In terms of personnel, the problem was not big. The Fuzhou Shipyard was established with the efforts of Shen Baozhen (Lin Zexu's nephew-in-law), Yi Yige (French consultant) and the full support of Zuo Zongtang. This largest shipyard in Asia has more than 3,000 employees (the Yokohama Shipyard in Japan at the same time had less than 100 employees, why is the gap so big?), but due to the traditional ideological class's indifference to the ocean and sea power, this shipyard, which foreigners called a miracle of the Asian Industrial Revolution, quickly declined and relied on building some civilian ships and small warships to maintain its operation. Many technicians were left idle. According to the people of the Lushun Ship Machinery Bureau, if the Beiyang Shipyard was established, there would be no need to train technicians now, and these people could be found.
If that's not enough, the Jiangnan General Manufacturing Bureau (which also has a shipyard) can also provide it.
As for equipment, in addition to some that could be provided by the Fuzhou Shipyard and the Jiangnan Manufacturing General Bureau, the Tianjin Machinery Bureau and the Shandong Machinery Bureau could also help. However, the people from the Ship Machinery Bureau suggested that since they were going to build new large ships, it would be better to import the latest equipment from abroad. Moreover, according to them, the largest slipway of the Fuzhou Shipyard was about 5,000 tons. If they wanted to build a 10,000-ton giant ship, they would have to enlarge the slipway and rebuild the dock. Therefore, if the Beiyang Shipyard aimed to build a 10,000-ton giant ship from the beginning, the slipway and dock must be built larger.
Now that he had a basic idea, his confidence gradually recovered.
Sun Gang roughly estimated that the construction cost would probably be at least 500,000 taels of silver, but this was no longer a problem for him at the moment. The key was equipment and shipbuilding technicians.
These two items are the most important.
China actually decided to build ironclad ships on its own in 1885, but due to insufficient technical strength at that time, the shipbuilding industry was still in the exploratory stage, and the understanding of modern naval ships was very vague. For example, battleships, armored cruisers and armored gunboats were all called ironclad ships. As a result, there was a lot of blindness in imitating foreign ironclad ships. Take the "Pingyuan" ship for example. Its prototype was actually the French "River of Tear", "River of Styx" and "River of Hellfire" class coastal defense armored cruisers. Although it was called an ironclad ship, it was actually an armored variant of a coastal defense gunboat (because the ship was small and the gun was large, it was also called a water gun platform or mosquito boat). It was okay to use it for near-shore defense, but it was a bit mysterious to use it for sea operations.
But this time, with him, a half-military fan, here, China will definitely not make such a joke again.
Because this time his target was firmly locked on "royal power".
