[Anti-Japanese Iron Blood King] Chapter 654: Chen Shaokuan (Ask for subscription!) , ask for a monthly pass, ask for everything! ）

Chen Shaokuan was born in the navy, grew up in the navy, and devoted the first half of his life to the navy. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

Originally, the Nationalist Government did not plan to let such an important official as Chen Shaokuan go to Tianjin to receive warships, after all, Chen Shaokuan is still the commander of the Navy of the Nationalist Government, and once he has any accidents, the impact will still be quite large. Especially once the news leaks, it is uncertain how many air forces the Japanese will send to intercept them.

However, when Admiral Chen learned that Ma Zheng's unit had captured dozens of Japanese ironclad ships and a large number of transport ships in Tianjin, and that he was willing to hand over these ships to the Nationalist Government, Chen Shaokuan was overjoyed and immediately applied to the Military Commission to personally receive these warships.

Out of concern for his safety, Lao Chiang rejected Chen Shaokuan's request, but overnight Chen Shaokuan sent three telegrams from the front line to the Chongqing camp asking to go north, and in desperation, Lao Chiang had no choice but to agree to let Chen Shaokuan be the person in charge of receiving the Japanese ships this time.

In fact, Chen Shaokuan is so active that he also has his own hardships, and he has to come. Although he is now the supreme commander of the navy, the navy's family is about to go bankrupt, and if there are no ships to replenish it, the Chinese navy will really become an empty shell.

Since the Xinhai Revolution, in addition to receiving the inheritance of the Qing court, the navy did not build a new type of ship in the entire 16 years from 1912 to 1928, and by 1928, when the Nationalist government nominally unified the country, the total tonnage of Chinese naval ships was only more than 30,000 tons, which was less than the tonnage of a large foreign combat ship.

The total tonnage of a country's navy was only 30,000 tons, which is really a shame to say, you must know that at that time, the displacement of a Fuso-class battleship in the Japanese army reached more than 30,000 tons, which means that the tonnage of all the ships of the navy of the Nationalist Government at that time was not as good as a large ship of the Japanese army.

In view of this, after Chen Shaokuan's first expedition to the west, he used all the intercepted 500,000 silver dollars of the Hunan Xinxun tariff to build ships. He first ordered the 500-ton "Xianning" gunboat from the Jiangnan Shipyard, which was the first gunboat to be built since the Republic of China.

Soon after the establishment of the Navy Department, Chen Shaokuan proposed to the Nationalist Government a 600,000-ton shipbuilding plan, citing Dr. Sun Yat-sen's long-term plan for building a seaport and military port in the strategy for the founding of the country, and proposed to take Japan as an imaginary enemy and petition the Nationalist Government to raise more than 2 billion yuan within 15 years for the construction of the navy.

After the plan was sent, it sank into the sea like a stone, and there was no news. At that time, the treasury of the Nationalist Government was empty, the main taxes, customs duties, and salt taxes had been mortgaged to the imperialist countries, and the actual fiscal revenue was pitiful.

The development of the navy is inseparable from military spending, and compared with the army, the navy is a bottomless pit that burns money, and a warship with a small tonnage can range from hundreds of thousands of oceans to several million. The money for the purchase of an additional warship could have been used to build an army of regiments or even divisions, so the annual military budget allocated by the Nationalist Government to the navy was very limited.

Despite this, Chen Shaokuan's financial difficulties did not discourage him, and he squeezed out money from the savings of the navy's monthly budget to build the "Yongsui," "Minquan," "Minsheng," and the 1,500-ton "Yatsen" warships.

Nine. After the 18 Incident, the Admiralty asked the central government to allocate funds to order the 2,600-ton "Ninghai" from Japan, and the Jiangnan Shipyard also built the "Pinghai" of the same ton according to the Japanese schema. From 1928 to 1936, after eight years of hard work, the Admiralty built a total of 7 warships and 10 300-ton Ningzi gunboats, and refurbished 1,400-ton "Jian'an" and "Jianwei" and "Hushan", "Wusheng", "Desheng", "Weisheng", "Gongsheng", "Yisheng", "Chengsheng", "Rensheng", "Yongsheng", "Shunsheng", "Qingtian", a total of 13 ships. So far, the total tonnage of the navy's ships has increased to more than 44,000 tons, and the strength has been greatly strengthened.

However, even so, the Chinese navy is still far inferior to the Japanese navy. Although the Chinese Army is also at an absolute disadvantage, after all, the Nationalist Government can still rely on the large number of people to compete with the Japanese army.

However, the navy is far behind, and compared to the weak Chinese navy, the Japanese navy can be called a giant. At this time, Japan had a world-class naval force designed and produced by itself, and Japan had a complete fleet of capital ships and aircraft carriers that were second to none in the world, with a total of 285 large warships and a total naval tonnage of 14 million tons. China, on the other hand, has only 57 small and obsolete ships capable of operating on inland rivers and along the coast, with a capacity of 59,000 tons. Therefore, in terms of naval combat strength, the Chinese Navy and the Japanese Navy do not even have the ability to engage in head-to-head fire, and can only carry out sneak attacks, explosions, and mine operations.

Despite the huge disparity in strength, in the face of national peril, the Chinese Navy has burst out with unprecedented combat effectiveness. Although all kinds of ships were far inferior to the sworn enemy of the Imperial Japanese Navy in terms of tonnage, performance, and firepower, the navy soldiers were worthy of the military spirit of the Chinese Navy, bravely and tenaciously faced the strong enemy of Fuso, and it can be said that they fought to the last ship and one ship. After some ships were sunk, their weapons and parts were salvaged to continue to fight the Japanese invaders.

But even so, the gap between the Chinese and Japanese navies gradually widened with the full-scale outbreak of war, especially after the Battle of Jiangyin.

Jiangyin, known as Jiyang in ancient times, is the narrowest section of the Yangtze River between Shanghai and Nanjing, with a width of only 1,250 meters. By the spirituality of the Yangtze River water, the small city of Jiangyin chokes the throat of the Yangtze River. The geographical environment is superior, which is convenient for freight transportation and tax collection, and Jiangyin was an important port in the Tang Dynasty. In the Song Dynasty, it was often crowded and bustling. During the Southern Song Dynasty, it was one of the 11 foreign trade ports along the coast of China.

As long as a few large-caliber artillery pieces are installed on both sides of Jiangyin, it is difficult to trace the huge fleet in the river, so it has become the focus of contention between the two sides before the Sino-Japanese war.

1937 year. With the advent of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, Chen Shaokuan, then Minister of the Navy and Admiral of the First Class, launched the most tragic and last brutal sea, land and air battle of the Chinese Navy in World War II. In this battle, the Chinese Navy blocked the Yangtze River channel with the tragic tactic of self-sinking and launched the final battle against the Japanese Navy.

On 12 August, the main forces of the two fleets were assembled on the Jiangyin River, the first large-scale mobilization of the navy after the First Sino-Japanese War, and all the officers and men of the navy were full of high fighting spirit. Swear to fight to the death against the Japanese invaders! However, when the fleet was concentrated on the Jiangyin River, the officers and men who were full of enthusiasm waiting for the flag order that "China deeply hopes that everyone can do their duty" were stunned to find that they were going to witness the largest collective self-sinking of the Chinese Navy. It is ridiculous and heavy that a country's navy should protect its territorial waters in such a tragic way!

The first batch of self-sinking warships were the oldest "Tongji" training ship, the "Datong" and "Ziqiang" cruisers, the "Desheng" and "Weisheng" hydro-engine carriers, the "Wusheng" survey boats, and the torpedo boats with the characters "Chen" and "Su." Most of these warships were old ships left over from the Qing Dynasty.

In addition, the navy also solicited from China Merchants and other steamship companies that 20 steamships, namely "Jiahe", "Xinming", "Tonghua", "Yushun", "Taishun", "Guangli", "Xingshi", "Huaxin", "Hui'an", "Tongli", "Ningning", "Kunxing", "Xin'an", "Maoli No. 2", "Yuanchang", "Muyou", "Huafu", "Daqi", "Tonghe", and "Ruikang", were simultaneously sunk to form the Jiangyin lock line.

Because the Admiralty discovered that the blockade line was incomplete and there were many gaps, it subsequently requisitioned three civilian steamers, "Fair", "Wanzai", and "Yongji," and sank them into the blockade line, and eight Japanese barges seized in Zhenjiang, Wuhu, Jiujiang, Hankou, and Shashi, "Ji'an", "Zhen'an", "Fu'an", "Han'an", "Tai'an", "Yongqing", "De'an", and "Shashi" were also towed to the blockade line and scuttled.

The Admiralty also asked the Executive Yuan to instruct the governments of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, and Hubei provinces to urgently requisition 185 civilian boats and salt ships, which were loaded with stones and sunk into the gaps in the blockade line. A total of 309,400 cubic feet of stone, or 65,020 quintals, were used for these civilian ships. If we add the four cruisers "Hairong," "Haiqi," "Haichou," and "Haichen," which sank on 25 September, a total of 43 old warships and merchant ships sank during the shipwreck closure operation in Jiangyin, with a total tonnage of more than 63,800 tons. And with the self-sinking of the four cruisers Hairong, Haiqi, Haichou, and Haichen, the Chinese Navy lost its main force on that day.

After the main force of the navy was wiped out, Chen Shaokuan became the commander of the light pole, and his mood was extremely heavy, and without the navy, China had completely lost control of the 10,000-mile sea frontier. But he doesn't regret it. Although the main force was all sunk in Jiangyin, the battle to defend the Jiangyin blockade line stopped the Japanese army's attempt to advance west along the Yangtze River, shattered the Japanese army's dream of annihilating China in three months, protected the safe transfer of military and political organs and industrial and mining enterprises in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the rear of Sichuan, and made outstanding contributions to the final victory of the Nationalist Government's protracted war of resistance against Japanese aggression in exchange for space.

This time, hearing that Ma Zheng's department had captured so many Japanese ships in Tianjin, Chen Shaokuan once again saw the hope of the rise of the navy, so he did not hesitate to take the risk to come. (To be continued.) )