Volume 1: The Battleship Yitian Changes into the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 Chapter 92: The Old Fox's "Krupp" Complex
"Krupp's armor materials will arrive soon." Ma Yue said to Sun Gang, "I heard that the navy has sent two ships to transport them."
"I was worried. The Germans didn't sell us ships last time. Will they sell us cannons and armor this time?" Sun Gang said happily, "I didn't expect the old man to be able to do it so easily."
"You don't know? The old man and Krupp have had a long-standing relationship." Ma Yue said.
"Is it true? I really don't know." Sun Gang said in surprise.
After listening to the information Ma Yue collected from the Military Intelligence Department, Sun Gang realized that the Krupp family and the "Bismarck of the East" had such a deep connection.
As early as June 27, 1866, China's first diplomatic mission visited Germany. After returning to China, Zhang Tai, a member of the delegation, reported to Li Hongzhang his deep impression of Alfred Krupp - "He is warm and hospitable. Unlike the British and French, he does not despise our long gowns, jackets and long braids. He politely entertained us Chinese ." Li Hongzhang had long admired Alfred Krupp, the "king of cannons" who made great contributions to Prussia's victory in the Franco-Prussian War. He asked his men to prepare a list of the quality of cannons from cannon factories in various countries around the world. After careful review, selection and comparison, he believed that the cannons of the Krupp family were superior to those of the United States, France, Spain, Portugal and other countries. In the future, if there is a war, "the difference between the sharpness and dullness will be huge if there is a slight advantage." In 1871, under the instigation of Cologne businessman Frederitz Perl, Li Hongzhang bought 328 Krupp cannons of various calibers from the Krupp family in one go, and deployed them in forts such as Dagukou, Beitang, and Shanhaiguan, first to stabilize the defense security of Beijing. In 1874, just as Li Hongzhang was ambitiously running Westernization and "stressing foreign products" and was glad that China had "flowering cannons", the Japanese army suddenly armed and occupied Taiwan. It turned out that Li Hongzhang wanted to join forces with Japan to fight against the invasion of China by Western powers. After this "wishful thinking" dream was shattered by the ruthless reality, Li Hongzhang had a strong anger and revenge mentality. On the one hand, he asked German military personnel Hannagan (who later served as the chief artillery instructor of the Beiyang Army) to design the Lushun and Weihaiwei artillery forts as models for China's southeastern coastal defense artillery. At the same time, he sent special envoys to Germany to negotiate with the Krupp family , believing that Krupp had an obligation to fund the training of artillery experts for China, so that China would continue to purchase Krupp family artillery. Otherwise, China would move closer to another European arms seller, the "Bohong Association". In the spring of 1877, Alfred Krupp agreed to Li Hongzhang's request in this arms competition - the first batch of Chinese students, Bian Changsheng, Cha Lianbiao and seven others, went to Essen, Germany for free training.
Under the suggestion of the Krupp family , the Chinese military delegation signed a contract with the German Vulcan Shipyard to build the "Dingyuan", "Zhenyuan" and "Jiyuan" ships of the Beiyang Navy. The main reason for choosing this warship factory was that Li Hongzhang believed that the keels, armor plates and main guns, secondary guns, ammunition, armor-piercing shells, etc. of the warships produced by the factory were all produced by the Krupp Arsenal. Among them, the main guns of "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" are all 305mm twin-mounted giant guns of the Krupp Arsenal, with long range and powerful firepower. At that time, the most advanced warships of the Japanese Navy, such as "Fuso" and "Kongo", could not match them. In August 1886, after "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" traveled thousands of miles from the German Vulcan Shipyard to China, Li Hongzhang ordered the Navy Admiral Ding Ruchang to drive the ship and assemble other warships of the Beiyang Navy, first sailing to Vladivostok, and then returning to the Japanese waters to show the military power of the Beiyang Navy of the Qing Dynasty to the Japanese Navy! This action terrified the high-ranking political and military leaders in Japan, and there was an uproar! Li Hongzhang ordered China's new warships to drive straight into Japanese waters. Although he also "let out a long breath of national anger!", it exposed China's strength and made the Japanese decision-makers prepare to build special warships. (Information from the Krupp Historical Archives in Essen, Germany shows that in the early spring of 1887, a large Japanese military delegation came to the Krupp Artillery Range in Essen, Germany to watch the test firing of the huge 305mm Krupp cannon. After obtaining all the cannon information and data on the scene, they immediately hired the proud student of the French warship design master Wilder, Bai Laoyi, at a high salary to design a more advanced "super warship" for Japan to deal with and destroy the "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" ships.)
Alfred Krupp and Li Hongzhang had a close personal relationship. In 1876, he presented Li Hongzhang with a model of a multi-headed train. In 1888, he helped Li Fengbao, the Chinese ambassador to Germany, and Chinese students to obtain the refining method of the German Bützkap black-headed torpedo phosphor bronze (the main material of the torpedo shell. Because steel is easy to rust when used as the outer shell of a torpedo, the German Bützkap company added phosphor blue to the gunmetal used by Krupp to produce artillery, thereby removing impurities in the copper and making the copper stronger and more corrosion-resistant. The copper produced in this way is called phosphor bronze, which is specially used for torpedo shells. This was a secret at the time), enabling China to have certain technical conditions to produce torpedoes on its own.
This time, under pressure from Britain, the German government did not sell battleships to China, which made German arms dealers very worried about losing China as a major customer. This time, Lord Zhongtang came to the door again, and Krupp Arsenal was of course overjoyed. Li Hongzhang issued a purchase list through Xu Jingcheng, the Chinese Minister to Germany, including fortress guns, coastal guns, field guns, naval guns, armor materials, large-explosive shells, armor-piercing shells, etc., which made Krupp make a fortune. Li Hongzhang took the opportunity to propose that Chinese military technicians go to Germany to study the design and manufacture of ammunition fuses (mainly for Sun Gang’s "armor-piercing shell" plan), and help contact to learn the manufacture of torpedoes and introduce corresponding equipment. Krupp agreed.
Because Li Hongzhang got the 240mm large-caliber rapid-fire naval gun from Krupp (the largest caliber that rapid-fire guns could achieve at the time), the personnel sent by the French Ghana Company to repair the guns felt a huge sense of crisis. Fearing the loss of this big business, they "tried their utmost to seek improvements and perfections, and strived to ensure that the Chinese could not find any faults." After "torturing" the French to the point of "death ecstasy", after many test firings, all faults were eliminated, and a new type of recoil device was added that could quickly reset the gun body. The fastest theoretical firing rate reached one shot every three minutes. After watching it, Sun Gang expressed his "great satisfaction", and the people of the French Ghana Company finally let go of their worries.
The main gun model of the "Long Yang" was decided.
With the materials for making armor in hand, Briand finally began his "epoch-making" design, integrating the armor design into the hull structure. Since Krupp armor was much heavier than American Harvey steel armor, Briand insisted on using a full-protection design for the "Long Yang". Sun Gang was very worried that China's first-class battleship would become a big iron can on the sea (in order to emphasize the survivability of the battleship, the French insisted on using a full-protection design in many battleship designs, and the thickness of the armor on other parts of the hull was thicker than that of the Krupp armor). The waterline armor belt can't be much thinner. For example, the "Prince" battleship built for the Tsarist Russian Navy had 4,000 tons of armor installed on an 11,000-ton battleship, accounting for more than 36% of the total tonnage! Survivability is a big deal, but whether it can run fast is another matter. The armor weight of the more than 14,000-ton "Monarch" class battleship accounts for at most 32% of the total tonnage), so he repeatedly emphasized to Briand that full protection is fine, but don't sacrifice too much speed, and make the "Long Yang" have a speed of no less than 18 knots.
Perhaps his nagging hurt the master's self-esteem, so Briand answered him like this, "I will show you that your battleship will have the fastest speed and the strongest protection in the world. She will become the eternal nightmare of her enemies. Whenever they think of her, they will tremble all over. She will become the pride of the Chinese people and a glorious page in the history of French ship design. Perhaps one day, the history of the world will be changed because of her."
Sun Gang did not expect that just two years later, the master's "prophecy" would become a reality.
