In fact, since the establishment of the "Korean Naval Armament Academy" in 1890 and the training of naval officers in the name of Korea, in the following nearly nine years, the navy, which seemed to have grown rapidly, seemed to have made great progress, but its actual performance appeared to be very chaotic. In this regard, Colonel Han Cheh, who was commissioned to set up www.biquge.info the Naval Tactical Research Center, believed that the then Secretary of the Navy and the committee system could even be said to be inexcusable, and proposed the establishment of a new branch of the Navy General Staff in the Admiralty, which would be responsible for studying the naval forces of potential adversaries, drawing up plans for naval construction, and formulating various necessary organizational principles and measures for the preparation of war.

As a matter of fact, from the day he set up the Naval Tactical Research Center, Colonel Han Cheh, who had just completed his round-the-world ocean-going training, had his ambitions "clearly exposed" -- his purpose was by no means limited to the "research center." Just one year and seven months later, on July 13, 1898, the Governor's Office took his advice and formed the General Staff of the Navy.

Moreover, the members selected to join this organization to draw up a grand blueprint for the Chinese Navy are some young naval officers who have received a rigorous naval education and are full of vitality. It's hard to imagine how a group of young officers with an average age of less than 24.4 years could use their vigor to create a fleet that never existed before, but they could have moved so quickly.

It was from there that a kind of enterprising spirit of working hard and being brave after shame was surging in the entire Northeast Navy. It was as if this spirit alone could create a great fleet illuminated by the "Sun and Moon Flag" (the flag of the Northeast Navy).

Unfortunately, things have never been so simple!

When people in later generations read many history books or biographies of some celebrities, they can often see such words: "After hard work and hard work." Finally a dream come true". For example, King Chuzhuang, who woke up in a blockbuster story, Qin State in the Warring States Period, and so on. The most common thing that young people have is to have magnificent dreams. Under the inducement of these books. I often unconsciously think that my life will be a very pleasant narrative of "through hard work, I will achieve success".

However, as long as you have a strong enterprising spirit, as long as you work hard, you will be able to succeed, the idea is too superficial and naïve. You know, the biographies of famous people in those history books omit too many details, reduce history to a formula-like narrative, and don't know how many people have been misled into choosing the wrong path in life - they could have been happier. The real history is never something that can be shown in a few words, and the road to realizing the dream is definitely not like "xxx after hard work".

The sun and the moon rise together, and China will shine forever. It's not just a matter of blood, it's something that can be forged. The hardships may only be experienced by the people of that era......"

History of the Chinese Navy

It was late at night, in the war room of the General Staff of the Navy, and it was another sleepless night, and on the edge of that huge naval tactical sand table, several young officers, apparently young officers who had just graduated from the naval school, were pushing the model of the warship. Despite the fact that the Navy studied Anglo-American. But this did not prevent the Navy from introducing Prussian "war games".

“…… First of all, one thing that is well known is. Russia is a huge empire that spans two continents, and the special terrain makes it very difficult for them to support each other with three fleets that are far apart, belonging to the Baltic Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Pacific Fleet. ”

Vice Admiral Han Cheh, who is the chief of the Navy's General Staff, is very imposing because of his extremely young connections, and in fact, two years ago, when his American wife pursued China from the United States, this young admiral was called "the most handsome general" in the newspapers, and of course, this also has a lot to do with his age - but at only 34 years old, he is perhaps the youngest vice admiral in the world, and he only needs to go one step further to reach the pinnacle of his life.

At this time, Han Che, who was wearing a standard navy white uniform, stood in the middle of the sand table, with a group of staff members of the Navy General Staff standing on either side, and a group of young staff officers on the opposite side. At this time, the entire war room seemed silent, and the people standing by the sand table stared at Vice Minister Akiyama who was speaking. A serious and tense air fills every corner.

"Among the three fleets, the most powerful should be the Baltic Fleet, which currently has ten combat ships and four armored cruisers, followed by the Pacific Fleet, which has been strengthened over the past eight years, with eight combat ships and six armored cruisers, as for the Black Sea Fleet, subject to the restrictions of the treaty, its fleet cannot enter the Mediterranean Sea through the straits, and can not consider its threat, that is, we need to consider the Russian fleet with eighteen combat ships and ten armored cruisers as the core!"

Any naval officer should know the strength of the imaginary enemy well, and Akiyama, the deputy chief of staff who did not change his name after naturalization, knows the Russian Navy in his bones, and two years ago, he even applied to be a military attache in Russia, and lived in Russia for a year, so that he can intuitively understand the Russian Navy.

"Your Excellency, I think we should consider 20 combat ships and 14 armored cruisers! Do not forget that Russia currently has two new battleships under construction, as well as four battle cruisers! ”

The words of a young staff officer made the atmosphere in the room tense again, yes, apparently, Vice Minister Akiyama ignored this.

"I think that before the arrival of the X-day, Russia will most likely complete the construction of these warships, so this needs to be taken into account!"

"I agree!"

Han Che looked around at the people present with his piercing gaze.

"We need to take into account the worst-case scenario, okay, let's get them in!"

Well, two new battleships and four battle cruisers were so "easily" classified into the camp of the Russian army, without any hesitation at all.

We also have warships under construction...... Of course, at this time, everyone was silent. No one dares to express their opinions lightly. In accordance with the operational principles of the General Staff. The side has never considered building warships -- no one can predict before the arrival of the "X-day". There is no need to think about whether the side will be able to complete the construction of the warship, but why think about the enemy?

The reason is very simple, maybe the imaginary enemy is building faster, maybe they are rushing to work, maybe they have the initiative, in short, there are countless reasons to "excuse the enemy". Eventually, the result is that each time, the imaginary enemy is getting stronger and stronger, so much so that everyone is overwhelmed.

To be more precise, it is the pressure of the navy that is out of breath, and now in the face of this arms race, the navy is completely at a disadvantage, in the face of the enterprising Russian navy, not to mention the weak Northeast Navy. Even the British Royal Navy is helpless.

"There are only two routes from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean. The first is Suez Yunhe, but because of the draft, it cannot pass through warships of more than 12,000 tons, which means that all large warships of all types, especially battleships, can only make a detour to the Cape of Good Hope......"

When Akiyama Shinyuki mentioned this, he had mixed feelings about the group of generals in the disbanded Admirals' Council, and their preparation plan was very reasonable, because warships of more than 12,000 tons could not pass through the Suez Canal, and needed to bypass Cape Town, South Africa, far away to reinforce East Asia, and now only Britain had coal storage and ports on the shipping lanes, so as long as Britain remained neutral in wartime, it was practically impossible for large warships to reinforce the Far East. Therefore, the naval conference of that year believed that if the reinforcements were ships below the cruiser that could pass through the Suez Canal, then China only needed to build four warships that were overwhelmingly superior in terms of attack volume and defensive strength, plus the Zhenhai-class that had already been commissioned, to be able to control the sea in East Asia, and the navy had further added eight "Jingbo" class battle cruisers, thus gaining an overwhelming advantage over the Russians.

However, this view reached by the naval conference was completely overturned by Han Che, and the reason for his overturn was very simple-since back then"

During the Russo-Japanese War, the Russians could send warships to the Far East, and now they can also send larger fleets to the Far East.

It is for this reason that the General Staff of the Navy has made the entire fleet of the Russian Imperial Navy, and not just the Pacific Fleet and its cruisers, an object of war. However, despite this, it is still a fleet that "1+1" does not equal two, and for the navy, geographical factors allow the navy to "calmly" solve the two fleets.

For the Navy, all that needs to be considered is how to defeat these two fleets. When the plans for the Pacific Fleet came out one after another, in the face of the Russian reinforcement fleet, the problem naturally arose.

After returning from studying in the United States, Han Che's proposal to circumnavigate the world gave the navy rich experience in the ocean, so that the navy understood that the ocean-going voyage must ensure three points, the first is that the ship needs to be repaired, the second is to ensure morale during the voyage, and the third is to maintain the training level during the voyage.

As we all know, the British Empire has maintained maritime supremacy for nearly 200 years, and absolute maritime supremacy has been maintained for hundreds of years. So how did the British Empire do this? What a unique geographical environment, what a good naval tradition, in the end, equals a strong navy. But in fact, through several years of continuous ocean voyages, the Northeast Navy knows that the strength of the British Navy lies in the fact that it has various strategic bases around the world as supply and forward bases.

Britain is the only country in the world that has been able to maintain a strong fighting force after such a long voyage. One of the reasons is. Britain could use the strategic locations provided by its colonial empire as relay stations to keep its ships well supplied with herbicides in these well-equipped ports, so that long-term ships could be properly maintained. Britain relied on the strategic points scattered around the world, supplemented by a powerful navy, to control the earth's oceans.

This was not possible for the Russians, because the Russians had no colonies at their disposal on their way to Asia, and that was why the Naval Council did not think that it would not send a large fleet of reinforcements, and that the last war was under a different strategic circumstance - when the whole of Europe was sympathetic to Russia, and was willing to provide logistical assistance to it, both under popular pressure and emotionally, but now that Russian expansion had aroused the vigilance of Great Britain, it was impossible to help the Russians again.

However, the Naval Staff still stubbornly judged that the other side would definitely be huge, and it could even be said that it would send out reinforcements in order to defeat the Northeast Navy, and it was for this reason that the most important topic of the Naval General Staff now was to study how to defeat the two Russian fleets.

After all, everyone knows very well that if the Northeast loses this naval battle in the future, even if the army wins the land war, the Northeast will lose the war -- the naval battle decides everything, and this is a consensus that has been reached a long time ago. It can be said that naval warfare will be the "winner or loser" of this future war, and it is precisely for this reason that the General Staff of the Navy holds a special tactical research meeting on this issue almost every day.

"Okay, today's topic, how to defeat the Russian fleet in the 'X2' sea area, and ensure the safety of key sea areas!"

The so-called key sea area refers to the local sea area, more precisely, the safety of the Dalian-Incheon coastal industrial belt, and even the safe navigation of the Tsushima Strait, in this local sea area, the Dalian-Incheon coastal industrial belt concentrates 70% of the northeast's steel production and 80% of the shipbuilding capacity, of course, as for locomotive manufacturing, overseas trade, many factors make this area extremely important to the war situation, and it can even be said that it is the lifeblood of the northeast, so it is natural to protect it.

As for the safe navigation of the Tsushima Strait, this is also related to the future operations of the army in Japan; although the main direction of the army's operations is mainly to fight on the mainland, according to the plan, there will still be a partial division to "liberate Japan," and this unit will need to carry out sea-crossing operations, and their logistical support can only be supplemented by the Tsushima Strait, and the navy will need to undertake the task of escorting the transport fleet at that time.

The former is the guard of the sea area, and this task can be completed by strengthening the forts, but the escort of the latter requires the navy to invest a certain amount of warships, which in turn means that the navy needs to allocate not many warships, which will obviously affect the overall combat strength of the navy.

"In general, it's still a matter of escort, how about it, do you have any new ideas!"

After a slight pause, Han Che turned his gaze to everyone, his expression still looking very serious.

"Alright, let's each have their own opinions!" (To be continued.) )