On April 2, 1898, after the House of Representatives passed the bill to build the factory at the end of March, the construction of the Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant, which was in the five-year industrial plan, finally began on this day after several days of repeated tug-of-war.

In fact, the planned Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant was supposed to start construction in Anshan and Baoshan the year before last, but the reason why it has been postponed to this day is because a large number of local councilors in China do not approve of the construction of a steel base in the local area. Obviously, the hole in the Hanyang Iron Works made by Zhang Zhidong in the early years really frightened many former gentry. Fortunately, after Sheng Xuanhuai, vice minister of commerce, explained in court in the House of Representatives a month ago, this highly feasible proposal to build a factory was finally successfully passed.

According to the proposal, the new Wuhan Iron and Steel Group will eventually abandon the former site of the Hanyang Iron Works in the former Qing Dynasty and rebuild a new plant in the north of Wuchang town on the south bank. According to the plan, the new Wuhan Iron Works, which is expected to take more than four years to build, will cost a huge budget of 34 million yuan from the government of the Republic of China, and will become the domestic steel production base in China after Avalanche and Anshan on the date of its completion.

After passing the bill on the construction of the Wuhan Iron and Steel Plant, the House of Representatives of the Republic successively discussed and passed the bill on the standard of refined oil content in the domestic gasoline and diesel market.

On 8 April, while the Republic was organizing human resources to actively build up its own industries, on 8 April a fierce battle broke out between the Russian fleet in the Far East and a group of returned warships of the Japanese Navy 120 nautical miles east of the Seris Ryukyus -- the Russians took decisive measures as soon as they learned that the two Fuji-class battleships "Fuji" and "Yashima" that Japan had ordered from the British shipyards two years earlier were about to return home. It dispatched most of its main forces of the Far East Pacific Fleet to annihilate the Japanese "baby fleet" in the western Pacific, and the two sides met at 13:24 p.m. on April 8 in the waters near the Ryukyus, and a fierce naval battle ensued.

The Fuji-class battleship is a first-class capital battleship built by the British Armstrong Shipyard based on the design of its own Sovereign-class battleship, and slightly modified for the Japanese Navy. Although they inherited the tricks that the British had always adopted for foreign arms sales, and compared with the original Junquan-class, the armor of the two Fuji-class battleships sold to the Japanese became weaker and the gun ports were smaller, but it has to be said that the combat performance of the battleships of this class was still not to be underestimated.

These two Fuji-class battleships that almost made the Japanese government lose their pants are equipped with four 305mm/40 times large-caliber naval guns, the side waterline armor has reached an astonishing 350mm, the total length of the battleship is 144 meters, the width is 22 meters, the draft is 8 meters, the standard displacement of the whole ship is 12,533 tons, and the 10 coal-fired boilers can provide an amazing power of 14,500 horsepower for the entire warship when working at full strength, so that the battleship can travel quickly on the sea at a speed of 19.5 knots. In addition, the Fuji-class battleship also has 10 152mm secondary guns and 24 47mm small-caliber rapid-fire guns, and the entire warship's medium, long, and near combat capabilities are very amazing.

The two Fuji-class battleships cost the Japanese government a total of 21 million yen in military budget, which accounted for 1/2 of the total amount of national bonds issued in Britain, and it was precisely because of the existence of these two warships that the previous Japanese government was able to have the confidence to "despise" Chen Zeyu's declaration of the annulment of the Qing-Japan Treaty thrown out by the government of the Republic of China.

When Chen Zeyu received the news of the war between the Japanese and Russian fleets in the Western Pacific, he couldn't help but be secretly happy, what the Japanese didn't know was that the reason why the Russian fleet was able to intercept their naval formation in the vast sea so accurately was because of the intelligence support of the Serisian side.

As early as when the Japanese fleet entered the South China Sea, Seris's Nansha post and naval patrol planes had already spotted them. After that, the Taiwan Strait and the Bass Strait near the island of Taiwan were the only way for the Japanese fleet to sail to the mainland, so naturally their whereabouts along the way could not be concealed from the sight of the Seris side, in fact, their itinerary along the way has indeed been under the close monitoring of the South China Sea Fleet, and the 12 huge main guns of the flagship of the South China Sea Fleet, the "Dreadnought", have also been pointing at the two Japanese Fuji-class battleships returning to China from beginning to end.

While the Japanese fleet was trembling and throbbing through the Bass Strait between Seris, Taiwan, and Luzon, the Russian Far East Fleet, which had come from afar, had already opened a wide net for the Japanese fleet in the waters near the Ryukyus!

The final result of the naval battle did not surprise Chen Zeyu, one side was unprepared, and the other side was premeditated. Moreover, the Russian Far East Fleet can be said to be pouring out, and the two Fuji-class battleships of the Japanese, although their own combat power is good, are too few after all, and they are outnumbered compared to the huge Russian ship group. The naval battle between Japan and Russia lasted from 13 o'clock to 14:47 in the afternoon, and in the end, the Russians, with their powerful fleet formation, fought hard to pay the price of six capital ships, and sent the two Japanese Fuji-class ships to the icy depths of the ocean together with more than 1,400 naval officers and sailors on board.

Chen Zeyu always felt that Vice Admiral Wittgeft, the commander of the Russian Far East Fleet, should thank him, because if it were not for his appearance, his name would have become the greatest shame in the history of the Russian Navy six years later. The Russo-Japanese naval battle in the western Pacific Ocean really cannot be linked to the historical Battle of Arthur Pass, and if you have to compare it, the two Fuji-class capital ships of the Japanese still participated in the battle, but the original sneak attack was changed to a group assault -- the Russian fleet beat two Japanese Fuji-class warships.

Thinking of the long list of Russian fleet's combat sequences sent back by radio from his own South China Sea Fleet, which was watching the battle not far away, Chen Zeyu smiled and unconsciously felt a little sympathetic to the two Fuji-class battleships that died before they could get out of the division.

For this well-planned encirclement and annihilation of Fuji, the Russians sent a total of 15 new armored warships, including a battleship "Rostislav" that they had just built and two Petropavlovsk-class battleships "Poltava" and "Sevastopol", all of which were the latest Russian surface combat ships with a full load of more than 13,000 tons. In addition, the remaining twelve warships were also the main armored warships that were later transferred from the Baltic Sea, and many of them were behemoths with a displacement of nearly 10,000 tons such as the Alexander II class and the Catherine class.

In addition to the slight slowness of the voyage, the powerful lineup of the entire Russian Rush Fleet was enough to crush the two Japanese Fuji-class battleships that had just returned home. In fact, the two Japanese battleships did not perform any miracles, and in the face of the heavy firepower of the Russian fleet in all directions, the two battleships, who were in a hurry to return home, simply repeated the mistakes of their predecessors and sank into the sea. What is even more serious is that the two warships were full of Japan's only remaining naval elite, and it can be said that compared with the two sunken Fuji-class battleships, the collective death of these naval officers and men really made Japan break its bones. Without these last naval combat personnel, even if Japan buys a large number of warships in the future, it will not be able to develop any reliable combat capability for its navy without three to five years of training.

The Russians, relying on their newly powerful Far East Fleet, brazenly attacked Japan's newly purchased returned naval ships in the western Pacific! While this naval encirclement and annihilation battle shocked the whole world, it did not surprise observers from various countries. Since both sides have already fought to this point, it is natural that Tsarist Russia, which wants to conquer the whole territory of Japan at an early date, will not sit idly by and watch the return of two new Japanese warships. But it has to be said that this incident itself still stimulates the nerves of many countries, and the first to bear the brunt is naturally their old rival, the British.

In addition to the damage to several inconsequential Dmitry-class and Pervinetz-class cruisers of the Russians, the two Japanese battleships of the Monarchy-class carefully built by the British shipyard for sale did nothing in the whole naval battle, although the two Fuji-class were the weakened versions of the British Monarch-class, but the result of this kind of naval battle was still a slap in the face of the British!

It is not difficult to imagine what a terrible blow would have been dealt to Britain's own shipbuilding industry when the results of such an encounter were announced. It took 16 months and cost hundreds of millions of dollars to leave the shipyard for the two main warships of the country's signature class, and they had just bathed in the beautiful scenery of the sea, and within a few days, they were wiped out by the Russian fleet. No matter how powerful the original two Fuji-class should have combat performance, at least in the eyes of other countries, the performance of the battleships built by the British shipyard must be marked with a big question mark.

The Ottomans, who were visiting the shipyards in Portsmouth, England, that month and were about to negotiate an order for two British "Edward"-class battleships, soon changed their minds, and the Spanish arms sales personnel who were staying in England at the same time also canceled the orders they had already placed.

Strictly speaking, the two Fuji-class battleships of the Japanese Navy were not without achievements, at least three Russian Dmitry-class cruisers had their superstructures bombarded by their 305mm guns, and one Pervinets-class armored cruiser was sunk on the way back to Hokkaido because of previous injuries. In addition, several Petropavlovsk-class and Yekaterina-class capital ships also suffered some injuries to their hulls after being counterattacked by Japanese ships, and considering that the Russians did not have more than 10,000 tons of repair docks in the Far East ports, these losses will still plague the Russian fleet in the Far East for a long time.

On April 11, the politicians of the empire on the Atlantic Ocean could not sit still, watching the Russian woolly bear in the north repeatedly dazzling its sharp claws. On the same day, the British government announced that it would increase economic aid to Japan and move the base of their Far East Fleet, which was originally stationed in Asia, from Hong Kong to Yokohama, Japan.

Not to mention how angry the Russians were after receiving the news, in such a bustling international environment, the government of the Republic of Seris in the Far East formed another naval unit of theirs in April in an unusually low-key manner, the Seris Pacific Fleet!

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