The situation faced by the unified and industrialized empire was similar to that of the later republics in the late twentieth century.

However, the modern empire still has too many advantages over the later republics, at least in terms of industrial technology, there is no unbridgeable gap between the empire and Britain and France.

The development of industrial technology was mainly concentrated in the second half of the nineteenth century and the early part of the twentieth century, and in the 1870s, the rapid development of industrial technology was still in the initial stage.

This era was the last chance for the backward countries to complete their industrialization and become one of the great powers.

Otherwise, by the time the 20th century dawned, the major powers had basically been finalized and had established huge industrial and technological superiority, and it would have been very difficult for the backward countries to catch up.

For example, the development of ironclad ships in the empire has only taken ten years, but this time is also the time for countries to develop ironclad ships, well, at most, it is a few years later than the British and French.

The technology used in ironclad ships is not as cross-domain as the battleships and aircraft carriers of World War I and World War II in later generations, and you don't need to innovate and develop, at least the difficulty of copying and copying is not so great.

As long as you go the right way and are willing to spend money, then you can still see the results.

After ten years of technical preparation, the service of the Chiyou represents that the empire has barely caught up with the pace of the British in the manufacture of ironclad ships.

Although some subsystems, such as the steam engine, were slightly inferior in technical performance compared to the products of the British. But this gap was already tolerable, and the designers of the battleship improved the ship type. A few performance trade-offs were enough to get the Chiyou to run at 14.5 knots.

The service of the Chiyou. It also led to a new round of reform of the Imperial Navy's establishment!

After the parade ended, before Lin Zhe left Shanghai, he had already signed the plan submitted by the Admiralty to rectify the existing fleets of the Navy.

The plan will adjust the current fleet models and create new fleets.

At present, the model of the Imperial Navy is still relatively complex, with the First Fleet, the South Ocean Fleet, the Eastern Fleet, the North Sea Fleet, the Pacific Fleet (stationed in Japan), and the Hawaii Task Force.

The First Fleet was the essence of the Imperial Navy, which was used for fleet decisive battles, while the South Fleet, the Eastern Fleet, and the North Sea Fleet were originally intended to be used only as local sea fleets. But in practice, the North Sea Fleet has gradually evolved into an ocean-going fleet.

In addition, the Pacific Fleet and the Hawaiian Task Force are also out of ocean-bound operations, between local defense.

Then, because the First Fleet was stationed in Shanghai and other places, it replaced many of the tasks of the Oriental Fleet, resulting in the current Oriental Fleet already existing in name only, and most of its tasks were directly concurrently held by the First Fleet.

In this regard, the Imperial Navy will readjust the above-mentioned fleet.

The first is to re-emphasize the nature of the Imperial Navy's mission, that is, to fight a decisive battle with the Imperial Navy, so the Imperial Navy hopes to separate the tasks of coastal patrols, port patrols, and garrisons from the main fleet. In order to avoid the participation of capital warships in conducting offshore patrols.

To this end, the Imperial Navy also split the existing Nanyang, Dongyang, and Beihai fleets, and all the ocean-going warships, as well as the Bifang and Diyu offshore ironclad ships, were transferred out and then arranged into the main fleet.

At the same time, the three fleets will also be split. Establish a number of 'coastal defense fleets', which will be specialized in coastal defense, port defense, and so on. and has a strong regional nature, if not necessary. There will be no inter-zone transfers.

The 'First Coastal Defense Fleet' was established, with its headquarters in Guangzhou. The fleet is responsible for the coastal defense of Guangdong and Fujian (including Taiwan);

The 'Second Coastal Defense Fleet' was established, with its headquarters in Ningbo, which was responsible for the coastal defense of Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces;

The 'Third Coastal Defense Fleet' was set up, with its headquarters in Lushun, which was responsible for the coastal defense of Shandong, Zhili, and Liaoyang provinces.

The 'Fourth Coastal Defense Fleet' was established, with its headquarters in Vladivostok, and the fleet was responsible for Jilin Province (including Sakhalin Island).

The 'Fifth Coastal Defence Fleet' was established, with its headquarters at Temple Street, which was responsible for the coastal defense of New Eastern Province.

In order to avoid confusion with the regional fleet and the ocean-going fleet in the past, the navy has emphasized that the authority of the above-mentioned coastal defense fleet is only to guard the ports and conduct daily patrols along the coast within its jurisdiction, and in principle it is not worthy of ships with ocean-going navigation capabilities.

For example, the First Coastal Defense Fleet will set up a number of defense zones, such as the Guangzhou Coastal Defense District, the Taiwan Coastal Defense District, and the Fujian Coastal Defense District.

After the three major fleets of the South Sea, the East Ocean, and the North Sea were abolished, and the five coastal defense fleets were reorganized, all the ocean-going warships that were vacated joined the main fleet.

The main fleet will be based on the first fleet, and the second and third fleets will be added.

The first fleet will still be the decisive battle fleet, the second fleet will be the second-tier force fleet, and the third fleet will be the reserve training fleet.

In addition, the Pacific Fleet (stationed in Japan) and the Hawaii Task Force will not be changed too much due to their special characteristics, but the name of the Pacific Fleet has been changed, and the Pacific Fleet has been renamed the "Japanese Task Force".

Most of these changes in the navy's establishment are improvements in the administrative establishment, and there will not be too many changes in the specific tactics of the navy and the use of warships.

However, there are also certain problems from time to time, for example, in the past, the North Sea Fleet independently undertook the maritime defense of the Aleutian waters and even Alaska, but now the North Sea Fleet has been abolished, and the replaced Fifth Coastal Defense Fleet is only a few offshore gunboats, which naturally cannot undertake the operational affairs of the Aleutian waters.

Therefore, the Navy will draw a detachment from the First Fleet or from the Second Fleet to the north of the port of Bide and then participate in the war in this direction.

The same thing happened in the South China Sea, such as Vietnam, Thailand and other coastal coastal defenses, such as occasionally sending a warship to bully the Thais, etc., which used to be the responsibility of the Nanyang Fleet, but now it is also necessary for the First Fleet and the Second Fleet to take responsibility.

Most of these warships dispatched to the waters of the North Pacific or the South China Sea are named after temporary task forces or mobile fleets.

In this way, another situation has gradually been created, that is, the First Fleet, the Second Fleet, and the Third Fleet have gradually evolved into a purely administrative structure, and they will no longer be specifically responsible for naval warfare, and specific naval battles will be entrusted to subordinate special task forces or mobile fleets.

It is worth noting, however, that although the First Fleet is under the management of the Admiralty Minister, the operations of the task forces are under the responsibility of the Chief of the Naval Operations Department, who is not responsible to the Admiralty but to the High Command, that is, to the Emperor.

Lin Zhe promoted the separation of military and political and military orders, which has nothing to do with whether the combat effectiveness of the troops is improved or not, and the most important thing is to strengthen his own control over the troops.

The starting point of any move to promote the separation of military and government and military training and military orders is certainly not to improve the combat effectiveness of the army, but to increase the degree of control of those in power over the army.

The same is true of Lin Zhe's promotion of these reforms of the navy, and this reform also represents that the independence of the navy has been greatly weakened.

In particular, the actual power of Lin Dabiao, the Minister of the Admiralty, has been greatly weakened, and he, the Minister of the Admiralty, is nominally responsible for coordinating all naval affairs, but in fact he can only manage the administrative affairs of the Navy, and the Navy's operations and training affairs have bypassed him, and Lin Zhe is vertically in charge of the Minister of Naval Operations.

At the same time as the navy promoted administrative reform, the empire's Houyi second-class ironclad ship was also officially commissioned with the Chiyou, and the service of the Houyi not only further strengthened the strength of the imperial navy, but also announced that the empire officially ended the construction and development of second-class ironclad ships into the city.

The Houyi is the second ship of the Kuafu class, and it is also the last second-class ironclad ship built and commissioned by the Imperial Navy.

After the Houyi, the Imperial Navy had already fully turned to the development of armored cruisers, and after the Chang'e, its sister Jingwei armored cruiser was also under construction in 1869.

Not only that, in order to find a replacement for the ironclad ships between 3,000 tons and 5,000 tons in the past, the Imperial Navy promoted and developed small-tonnage protective cruisers based on the Chang'e-class armored cruisers, but the detailed design has not yet been completed.

Now the navy still has relatively big concerns about the protective cruisers between 3,000 tons and 5,000 tons, for fear of following the old path of the second-class ironclad ships, if the protection and speed are weak, then there is not much difference with the Cullen-class cruisers, but if the armor and speed come up, then what is the difference with the previous second-class ironclads?

Therefore, the development of new warships within the navy, the development of battleships and armored cruisers is relatively unified, but for those medium-tonnage warships, there are inevitably many differences.

Especially for warships of the class between 3,000 and 5,000 tons, some people think that it is better to develop unprotected cruisers, which are cheaper and can go out to the open ocean to protect the interests of the empire in the open ocean. There are also people who think that it is better to develop protective cruisers, although the price will be more expensive, and the speed may be reduced, but the combat effectiveness will be relatively strong. (To be continued.) )