There are two main motives for the Ming Dynasty's decision to build new warships, the first is from Japan, and the second is because of Britain. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Japan's First Sino-Japanese War was mixed up by the Ming Dynasty, and finally turned into an absurd farce, and it cannot be said that the Japanese gained nothing, except for not getting war reparations, they basically got everything they wanted, that is, the independence of Korea.

At that time, the Ming and Britain pressured Japan to withdraw from the mainland, and at the same time also gave Japan a promise to meet the requirements for Korea to get rid of the status of a mainland vassal state, the Japanese thought that Korea would become theirs, but who knew that the Russians did not buy it, and the Ming and Britain recognized the independence of Korea, and after the Ming and Qing dynasties announced the merger of the Ming and Qing dynasties, they did not claim the rights of Korea, and no longer revisited the issue of the status of Korean vassal states, but used the equal diplomatic relations between the Ming Dynasty and Korea in the past, replacing the suzerain-vassal relationship between the Manchus and Korea.

Originally, Japan was slowly operating after the First Sino-Japanese War, but when Russia opposed it, Germany suddenly intervened in Korea, making it difficult for Japan to continue to expand its power.

Japan originally planned to forcefully squeeze out Germany, but because of the strong support of the Ming Dynasty, Japan had to give in.

Japan is a complex country, let's say that he has strong self-esteem, he can take the Americans who forced them to open the country as benefactors, say that they have no self-esteem, the strong sense of shame makes them have a strong desire to become a strong country, but no matter what, we have to admit that Japan is a very competitive country.

They saw that without the consent of the Ming Dynasty, Japan could not expand its power in East Asia as it pleased, and the greatest pressure that the Ming Dynasty exerted on Japan was the huge navy of the Ming Dynasty, and the reason why Japan was forced to make concessions to Germany was because the Ming Navy suddenly went north and cruised in Japanese waters. At that time, Japan did not even have an ironclad ship, and there was no way to resist this pressure, and at this time, the naval strength of the Ming Dynasty, coupled with the strength of the German army, Japan knew that it had no chance of winning, so it could only make concessions like the intervention of the three countries.

They saw this concession as a great humiliation, and the humiliation came from two countries, one was the Ming Dynasty and the other was Germany, and at one point they even began to get closer to Russia.

Germany is thousands of miles away, but the Ming Dynasty is close at hand, and the Ming Dynasty started from the Ryukyus and went straight to the hinterland of Japan, so that Japan has no sense of security.

The measure they took in this was to start a new round of naval expansion.

Historically, after the intervention of the three countries to return Liao, Japan began to expand its navy, which was aimed at the Russian Pacific Fleet, but now they are undoubtedly targeting the Ming Dynasty, or Germany. In the same way, Germany is thousands of miles away, and the most direct feeling is still the Ming Dynasty.

Since the opponent was the Ming Navy, which was more powerful than the Russian Navy, the 66 Fleet plan in Japanese history was also changed to the Double 12 Plan, which was also the cornerstone of the Grand Fleet plan with 12 battleships and 12 armored cruisers as the main force.

It's a crazy plan, and no matter where Japan gets its money, it's clear that he's feeling the pressure.

Because once these 24 warships are built, the Ming Navy will not have any advantage over the Japanese Navy, and even out of complete disadvantage, at least in the case that the Ming Dynasty does not carry out new naval construction, because compared with these newly built warships in Japan, the Ming warships are relatively outdated.

The reason for this is that the progress of naval technology in recent years, or the United Kingdom, which has led the technological progress, decided to redesign the warships because the British Navy fleet exercise in 1888 exposed some flaws in the design of the ships.

And this time the design directly subverted the technology of the ironclad era, they adopted a lot of new technologies to design a warship called the Sovereign, and instead of naming the ironclad, they picked up the name of the battleship again.

The battleship Sovereign began design in 1888, construction began in 1889, was launched in 1891, and commissioned in 1892.

After this warship was put into service, it showed unprecedented performance, with a much higher speed than the previous main ironclad ship, but a great saving of coal. The most important thing was the adoption of a new gun layout, equipped with 4 343 mm large-caliber guns, and 10 152.4 mm rapid-fire guns in the secondary guns, all of which were deployed on deck batteries, eliminating the flashy side guns.

The armor was greatly improved, with a thickness of no less than 457.7 mm, a thickness of 127 mm for the upward extension, and a 76.2 mm thick protective deck, which was almost completely protected.

After reducing the side guns, the freeboard was raised to 5.48 meters, which had the advantage of greatly increasing stability, and the Russian battleships during the Russo-Japanese War had poor stability due to design defects originating from France, and one battleship was sunk under only one Japanese shell.

After the appearance of the Sovereign, with the fastest speed, the thickest armor and the strongest firepower, it was immediately recognized as the most powerful capital ship of the time. At the same time, because the British recovered the name of the battleship, the capital ships of various countries later designed after the Sovereign were also called battleships. Thus ending the era of ironclads and allowing the world's navies to enter the era of battleships.

When the Sovereign was commissioned, the Ming Dynasty was at war with the United States, and the Navy immediately noticed this new technology, but unfortunately did not have time to design and apply it.

However, the navy was very interested in the monarch class, so when the British sent four monarch class ships to deter the Ming Dynasty and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, a large number of officers of the Ming navy applied to board the British warships to visit.

After the Ming Dynasty withdrew the tariffs from the British, the relationship between the two countries fell to the bottom, and the common interests of the two countries against Russia ceased to exist under the British policy of containing the Ming Dynasty, and Britain began to obviously enter with Japan, which made the Ming begin to feel threatened, and the construction of new ships was put on the agenda.

At that time, Japan only ordered two battleships in Britain, the Fuji and the Yashima, which were originally built for the Manchu Qing Dynasty, but unfortunately they could not catch up, and the First Sino-Japanese War broke out, and the Japanese defeated the Beiyang Naval Division with cruisers. But the two battleships continued to be built, technically referring to the Sovereign, but with some reductions, the Sovereign had a tonnage of more than 14,000 tons, while the two battleships were only 12,000 tons.

The first phase of the Ming Dynasty's naval budget only allocated a budget for four battleships, which can be said to be overwhelming Japan's shipbuilding plan.

One of them was built by the British, one by the Germans, hoping to be close to the latest Western technology, and the remaining two were built by the Ming himself. Daming's shipbuilding ability is not bad, and the design ability is already there, but the new technology of this era is always the first to be developed by the West, so Daming is always out of the state of introduction, so it is always necessary to let the West, especially the United Kingdom, which leads the technological trend, help build one or two.

But soon the Ming Dynasty and Russia temporarily reached an agreement on the northern territories, and Britain went into confrontation over tariffs, and Japan also announced a shipbuilding plan, and the pressure immediately became greater, and the navy's call for expanding the shipbuilding program became louder, and the Ministry of War also increased the budget for the new shipbuilding plan.

But at this time, the Franco-Russian alliance was suddenly made public, which immediately cast a shadow on the shipbuilding plan, and the second phase of the budget was rejected.

Because after the Franco-Russian alliance was made public, in addition to the huge pressure on Germany, Daming also felt strong pressure.

Although the Franco-Russian alliance, in terms of content, was primarily directed against Germany, it was a failure of German diplomacy.

In the Bismarck era, through slick diplomacy, Russia was always pulled in, so that Russia could not openly get close to France.

But at the economic level, France has opened a gap and is getting closer and closer to Russia.

In the eyes of later generations, Bismarck made a stupid move, that is, he suddenly blocked the Russian financing channel from the Berlin financial market by decree, so that Russia had to start relying on French financing.

Bismarck's approach was mainly due to the trade war, sanctioning Russia's high tariffs on German industrial products, and the cause of the trade war was also Germany's responsibility, because Germany raised taxes on importing Russian agricultural products, and Bismarck raised taxes on agricultural products because he was forced by the Junker landlord class at home, and Bismarck himself came from this class, which was the ruling class of Germany, and he also had to suffer as a last resort to raise tariffs on agricultural products.

However, in Bismarck's time, he was able to maintain relations in the political field while fighting Russia in the economic field.

After Bismarck was ousted from politics by Wilhelm II, Germany's diplomatic relations began to change, and it was Germany that voluntarily severed the treaty of alliance with Russia, which, although complicated and ineffective, was always able to keep Russia from getting close to France.

In 1890, when Russia wanted to extend the reinsurance treaty between the two countries for six years, Germany refused, and Germany began to make overtures to Britain, believing that distancing itself from Russia would win the hearts and minds of Britain in its confrontation with Russia. As a result, instead of winning over the isolated Britain, Russia was pushed over to the side of France.

The French, who had been suppressed by Bismarck's isolation policy for more than 20 years, eagerly went to make overtures to Russia. After Bismarck's refusal to provide funds to Russia, France immediately filled the vacancy, and in less than three years, from November 1888 to 1890, the French consortium signed a total of six loan agreements with the Russian government to continue to provide loan support to the Russian government. In 1891, France began to secretly discuss the possibility of an alliance with Russia, and in 1891, France sent a naval fleet to Russia, and the Russian tsar visited the ship, and played the French Marseillaise, a revolutionary song that fought against the French monarchy, to express respect for the republic.

A breakthrough was made in relations between the two countries, and in August 1891, the two countries signed a treaty of military alliance, which stipulated three articles:

First, if France were attacked by Germany or Italy, or Russia by Germany or Austria-Hungary, both Russia and France should fight Germany with all their armies; secondly, if the countries of the Triple Alliance mobilized their troops, France and Russia, as soon as they received this information, did not need any prior agreement, and should immediately mobilize their troops at the same time; Thirdly, the French army against Germany should be 1,300,000 men, and the Russian army against Germany should be 700,000 or 800,000 men, and all of these troops should be immediately joined in the battle, so that Germany would have to fight on two fronts at the same time.

This treaty was adjusted twice after that, and the number of troops was increased successively, but the general content remained unchanged, but it has been in a state of secrecy since then, mainly because Russia demanded secrecy, and the French did not dare to disobey Russia's demands, so it was France that needed Russia to counterbalance Germany, not that Russia needed France.

The French believe that the reason for Russia's demand for secrecy comes from the economic field, because when Bismarck was in office, he attacked Russia economically, but politically wooed Russia, after Bismarck stepped down, Germany's diplomatic approach turned around, but began to politically alienate Germany, courting Britain, and at the same time compensating Russia with economics, they gave up high tariffs on agricultural products, signed a new tariff agreement with Russia, and ended the trade war between the two sides.

France has some reason to believe that Russia is reluctant to open its military alliance because it wants to maintain its grain export interests to Germany. In October 1894, Prime Minister Kapleví, who had pursued a new economic policy to win over grain-exporting countries such as Russia, stepped down, and conservative forces such as the Junker landlords and agricultural interests put pressure on the government, and the German government reimposed extreme protectionist measures such as a monopoly on grain imports from 1894 to 1896.

This angered the Tsar, so in mid-1897, after negotiations failed, an agreement was reached with France, and the two sides made the Franco-Russian military treatise public, and the Franco-Russian alliance was made public to the world.

Germany felt the military pressure, and so did the Ming Dynasty.

For Germany, the Franco-Russian alliance was directed against Germany, and for the Ming Dynasty. Although the Franco-Russian alliance does not seem to be aimed at the Ming Dynasty, if the Ming Dynasty goes to war with one of the two countries, it is difficult to guarantee that they will not adjust their policies at any time. Russia now occupies Manchuria, in the north of the Ming Dynasty, France still occupies Cambodia, also maintains a presence in Saigon, and in the south of the Ming Dynasty. The Franco-Russian alliance allowed Germany to fight on two fronts, but also for the Ming Dynasty. What's more, the Franco-Russian alliance has remained secret for a long time, and who knows if France and Russia still have a military treaty against the Ming Dynasty, but it has not been made public.

Under this huge land military pressure, the Ming Dynasty found that its international diplomatic situation was very bad, and some expansions that had to be carried out in recent years offended almost all the surrounding forces.

Having fought with France in the south, France was reluctant to withdraw from Cochinchina, so there was still the possibility of war with the Ming Dynasty. In the north, Russia continued to move south, having annexed Xinjiang, controlling the whole of Mongolia and Heilongjiang in the northeast. As long as Russia continued to move south, even if the officials of the Ming Dynasty did not have Zhu Jinglun's strong belief that Manchuria-Mongolia was China's undisputed territory, the civilian government of the Ming Dynasty judged that Russia would have to go to war with the Ming sooner or later.

In other aspects, the United States, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, fought a super-large-scale sea and land war with the Ming Dynasty a few years ago, and Japan withdrew from the East Asian continent under the pressure of the Ming Dynasty, and neither of these countries will be friendly with the Ming Dynasty. Because of the merger of the Manchu Qing Dynasty and the resumption of tariff powers, relations with Britain fell to the bottom.

As far as the eye can see, the Ming are almost all enemies, and with the opening of the Franco-Russian alliance, this sense of loneliness is even stronger. The only allies were the Ryukyus, Vietnam, and Siam, but these three countries really couldn't help the Ming Dynasty, and they only had economic significance and no military benefits.

In this case, a fool can judge that although the Ming Dynasty is in danger on land and sea, the problem is that the financial situation of the Ming Dynasty cannot allow the Ming Dynasty to expand on both land and sea, and if it has to give priority to one side, the mainland countries have no choice but to choose land.

Therefore, the Ministry of Household vetoed the second phase of the navy's budget for building eight new battleships, but agreed to the army's budget to expand the reserve resources and allocate funds to the army, so that the army could establish a unified regular army and reserve forces throughout China.