In terms of large armored cruisers, since the three Windcatcher-class ships of the Chinese Empire had a displacement of 13,000 tons, they were almost equivalent to the battleships of the Navy. The navy is short of funds and can only build three large armored cruisers of about 8,000 tons.

Using 8,000 tons against 13,000 tons is no longer a simple gap, and the difference between the two levels is too great and unequal.

Therefore, the navy finally chose to build two 14,000-ton armored cruisers, abandoning the original plan to build three 8,000-ton armored cruisers.

Three ships were changed to two, and the funds were rich. Considering that the Chinese Empire has already realized the construction of its own 20,000-ton Shengong-class battleships, the naval industry is still at the level of building 6,000-ton warships. In order to localize the Navy, the Admiralty handed over two warships to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries for construction in order to curry favor with Shigenobu Okuma's cabinet.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries was naturally happy to get the order, so it took out the design drawings and graded Tsukuba. The two ships are the Tsukuba and the Ikoma.

According to the plan of the Admiralty, in order to counter the large armored cruisers of the Catcher-class and Hunter-class of the Chinese Empire, the two warships required to be built had the ability to suppress the opponent's firepower. At the beginning, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries purchased some design parameters of the Hunter-class battleships from Britain at a high price, and was ready to imitate them according to the gourd painting scoop. However, this move was soon discovered by agents of the Chinese Empire, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire urgently sent a note to the British side, asking the British Navy to give an explanation.

The British Admiralty, under great pressure from the Chinese Empire, immediately demanded that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries not copy the Hunter-class battleships, but the British took their own money and had to express it, so the British designers gave the Navy a compromise plan.

According to the compromise plan, the British Navy proposed that this large armored cruiser of the Navy be equipped with four 254 mm main guns and 16 152 mm secondary guns. However, the Chinese Empire's Wind Catcher class is equipped with a 243 mm main gun, and the difference between the two is not large. Because of the weakness of 2:3, the Navy did not like this plan. So the British came up with a compromise plan, suggesting that Ben build a second-class battleship, that is, 4 305 mm main guns with 16 152 mm secondary guns, but at the expense of some armor protection and speed. The armor was only 179 mm and the speed was only 20.5 knots.

The Navy eventually adopted this suggestion, and as a result, the Tsukuba-class was positioned as a second-class battleship.

The Tsukuba and Ikoma were built by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, and from the day they were designed, the second ship was destined to be a chicken rib role. The reason is that the Imperial Chinese Navy still thought that the shipboard firepower of the Imperial Chinese Navy had not changed, and still used maroon gunpowder or cotton gunpowder during the Sino-Japanese War, so they put the armor thickness of the Tsukuba-class battleships on top of 179 mm, thinking that it might be able to block the attack of the 243 mm main gun shells of the Catcher. But what they didn't know was that the British, who boasted that their 179 mm surface carbide steel armor could withstand 254 mm shells, was actually only able to withstand 210 mm shells. The Imperial Chinese Stormcatcher's 243mm main gun can easily tear through the armor of the Tsukuba, and the Imperial Chinese Navy has been reequipped with Black Sorkin high-explosive ammunition, and the 152mm secondary gun is enough to severely damage the armor protection of the rest of the Tsukuba.

However, the navy lacked experience in naval warfare in the era of all-steel warships, and the second-class battleship, which was neither high nor low, was quickly confirmed to be a chicken rib ship.

In terms of 5,000-ton cruisers, since the Chinese Empire continued to use the Haiqi-class as its capital ships to supplement firepower, the Navy had experience in dealing with them in this area. The Navy has upgraded and improved on the basis of the new high-class cruisers, and Mitsui Heavy Industries is responsible for the construction of three upgraded cruisers, which are Aso-class cruisers. As a self-built cruiser, in addition to improving the shortcomings of the new high-end cruiser, the Asu is more compact, two knots faster, and its protection capability has also been greatly improved. However, the self-built capacity is too weak, and 80% of the parts have to be imported from the UK, and the high cost makes the Asu class have no more funds for upgrading.

In terms of hunting ships, the navy was subject to the export controls on steam turbines of the Chinese Empire, and the United Kingdom was unable to help the navy because it did not have a patent for steam turbines. As a result, he had to upgrade the original reciprocating steam engine to build high-speed torpedo boats to counter the Chinese Empire's fast hunting ships.

However, he also tried to negotiate with the Chinese Empire, hoping that the Chinese Empire could relax export restrictions and export Parsons steam turbines under Beiyang Technology to Yueben.

For the Chinese Empire, Parsons steam turbine technology at this time had entered the third generation, and the steam turbine had completed large-scale industrial mass production and was equipped for use by Shengong-class battleships. Steam turbine technology will soon be valued by countries all over the world because of the completion of the Shengong-class battleship, rather than export control to let the company develop it successfully, it is better to export low-level steam turbines to the company, which can not only affect the surname of the ship, but also make money.

This best of both worlds eventually led to the Imperial Congress of China easing restrictions on the export of steam turbines. As a result, Beiyang Science and Technology Heavy Industry began to earn foreign exchange for the first time exporting steam turbine equipment, and at the same time, it also hit the relevant research projects on power systems in China, and its own research and development was impacted, and since then the steam turbine has relied on imports from the Chinese Empire, which has brought huge hidden dangers to the national defense and security.

The pace of expansion of the Chinese Imperial Navy naturally attracted great attention from the Imperial Chinese Navy. Originally, the Admiralty planned to ask Congress for funding to build new ships to replace the old and outdated warships of the First Fleet on the mainland, and to suppress the Navy.

However, at this time the focus of the General Staff of the Chinese Empire was on active preparations for war against Russia. Due to the collapse of the Russian Far East Navy, there was no longer a maritime threat from Russia in the Far East Seas, so a large amount of the funds originally allocated to the Admiralty were transferred to the Army and Air Force.

The Imperial Admiralty requested funding to suppress the Navy, but Congress prevaricated on various grounds. In the end, the Admiralty had to embezzle a total of 1.33 million dragon dollars from various funds to salvage the captured warships of the Russian Far East Fleet and the Russian ships sunk in Ulsan Bay, and carry out corresponding repair work, so that they could be quickly put into service with the Imperial Chinese Navy, so as to increase the number of warships and the total tonnage of the navy.

Among them, the captured warships of the Russian Far Eastern Fleet included:

There were six battleships, namely the Oslyabya, which was launched in 1898, Petropavlovsk and Poltava, which were launched in 1894, Sevastopol, which was launched in 1895, Victory, which was launched in 1900, and the American-built Letvizan, which was launched in 1900; an ironclad ship, the Duke of Edinburgh, launched in 1875; three large armored cruisers, namely the Admiral Nakhimov, launched in 1884, the Azov Memorial launched in 1885, and the Twelve Apostles, launched in 1890; four armored cruisers, namely Donskoy and Kornilov, launched in France in 1897, Svetlena, launched in 1899, and Three Saints, launched in 1893; two gunboats, the Thunder and the Valian, both of which were produced in the eighties of the last century; Among the sunken warships, only two battleships were salvageable, one was the Stishslav, which was launched in 1896, and the other was the Peresvet, which was launched in 1898. Other warships, such as the great Sisoa, Rytasrov, Imperial Guard, Gangut, etc., were badly damaged and had no repair value, so they were salvaged and sold to major shipyards as scrap metal.

According to the regulations of the Admiralty of the Chinese Empire, these captured Russian warships were to be renamed and assigned to the First Fleet of the Chinese Empire. For political purposes against Russia, all of these warships were named after women, and the warships used to humiliate the Russian Navy were only vases.

Oslyabya EX (renamed) Suki, Petropavlovsk renamed Sinan, Poltava renamed Nalei, Sevastopol renamed Hongjin, Victory launched in 1900 renamed Jinglan, and the American-made Letvizan launched in 1900 renamed Wanru; The Stitslav and Peresvet were renamed Yuxin and Ina, the Duke of Attenborough was renamed Yingyu, the Admiral Nakhimov was renamed Zishan, the Azov Memorial was renamed Yuwei, the Twelve Apostles were renamed Tanya, the Donskoy and Kornilov were renamed Lingxuan and Lufei respectively, and the Svetlena and the Three Saints were renamed Zixuan and Lunying, respectively.

Originally, the First Fleet of the mainland only had Jiudayuan as the main warship, and the age of the ships generally reached 20 years, and although it had undergone many maintenances, the hull was still seriously aging. These Russian captives filled the gap in the First Fleet, and in a short period of time, the First Fleet added eight battleships, one ironclad, four large armored cruisers, and three armored cruisers, making the First Fleet's strength several times more powerful and a powerful fleet.

The battleship Wanru became the flagship of the First Fleet of the homeland, and the battleship built by the United States for Russia was the best in all its ranks, so it qualified to be the flagship of the Native Fleet. However, Congress rejected the proposal of the Wanru as the home flagship, believing that although the home fleet was only a defensive fleet, a captured warship should not be used as the home flagship, not to mention that the warship was named after a woman, which would damage the majesty of the Celestial Empire.

Thus, after some bargaining, Congress finally approved the listing of the large armored cruiser Daji as the acting flagship of the home fleet. Daji led a group of "female warriors" to be responsible for the security of the homeland, but it was barely appropriate to fight crookedly. After the outfitting of the battleship Shengong is completed, the battleship Shenbow will serve as the flagship of the home fleet.

As a result, the large armored cruiser Daji was assigned to the First Fleet as the flagship, and soon the most powerful battleship was the Divine Bow to be added to the First Fleet, which made the strength of the First Fleet of the Native Fleet soar five or six times over the next few months, only slightly inferior to the Second Fleet's Pacific Fleet.

After the reorganization, the number of capital ships in the First Fleet of the homeland reached 27. Including one Shengong-class battleship, eight former Shenbow-class battleships (Suqi, Sinan, Nalei, Hongjin, Jinglan, Wanru, Yuxin, Yina), four ironclad ships (Yingyu, Weiyuan, Dingyuan, Zhenyuan), five large armored cruisers (Daji, Zishan, Yuwei, Tanya, Lingxuan), and nine armored cruisers (Lufei, Zixuan, Lunying, Jiyuan, Jingyuan, Laiyuan, Zhiyuan, Jingyuan, Pingyuan).

The reorganized First Fleet became unusually powerful, with a total tonnage of 250,000 tons, second only to the Pacific Fleet's 370,000 tons, but also because the Chinese Empire seized the Russian Far East, which tripled the defensive sea area and coastline of the Home Fleet. From the previous four sea areas of the South China Sea, the East China Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the Bohai Sea, the Sea of Okhotsk, the Bering Sea, and the Sea of East and West Beria have been expanded.

The length of the coastline actually controlled by the Chinese Empire increased from 43,828 kilometers (including overseas islands such as the Ryukyu Islands, Caroline Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands) to 58,250 kilometers. The territorial sea area expanded from 17 million square kilometers to 21.2 million square kilometers.

As a result, the defensive coastline and sea area of the First Fleet of the homeland have also expanded dramatically. For this reason, the local fleet was further divided into the Polar Fleet, the North Sea Fleet, the Yellow Sea Fleet, the East China Sea Fleet, and the South China Sea Fleet. Among them, the Polar Fleet is responsible for the defense of the Bering Sea and the East and West Berian Sea, and the North Sea Fleet is responsible for the defense and security of the Sea of Okhotsk. Among them, the Benhai Sea was renamed the Jilin Sea, and the Okhotsk Sea was renamed the Beihai. The Yellow Sea Fleet is responsible for the defense of the Yellow Sea and the Bohai Bay, the East China Sea Fleet is responsible for the defense of the East China Sea, and the South China Sea Fleet is responsible for the defense of the South China Sea.

The five major detachments of the home fleet implement a rotation training and defense change system, and the warships of each detachment take turns to change defenses every other year, so as to alleviate the bitter cold life in the polar regions. Of course, the focus of the home fleet is still on the North Sea, the Yellow Sea, and the South China Sea, and as for the polar fleet, it is generally only equipped with two warships for combat readiness patrols, and the East China Sea Fleet is close to the Pacific Fleet's defense area, so the pressure is very small, and it is generally equipped with three or four warships. The North Sea and the Yellow Sea are equipped with more than a dozen warships, which are responsible for the security of the Gyeonggi gateway and the defense of the Honpo Navy. The South China Sea Fleet was under secondary pressure, mainly defending against the French fleet and the American fleet.

On the whole, after the Chinese Empire fought against Russia at sea, it spent more than one million dragon coins to simply salvage and transform the captured Russian ships, which made the total tonnage of the Chinese Imperial Navy soar to 620,000 tons, and the international ranking suddenly rose to the third place in the world, second only to France's 630,000 tons, and far behind the world's largest naval power, Britain (900,000 tons), reaching 230,000 tons, becoming one of the world's three major naval powers. Although the U.S. Navy has expanded for ten years, its total tonnage is only 360,000 tons, ranking fourth in the world, nearly half the tonnage behind the Chinese Empire. By quickly completing the construction of warships, Russia's total tonnage has increased to 350,000 tons in a short period of time, ranking fifth in the world. The total tonnage of the Navy has also reached 180,000 tons, second only to the German Navy's 260,000 tons, and tied with the Italian Navy for seventh in the world. The Ottoman Empire and Austria-Hungary ranked ninth and tenth in the world with 170,000 tons and 100,000 tons, respectively, while Chile and Argentina were squeezed out of the top 10 naval powers in the world, ranking 11th and 12th, respectively.

In addition to reorganizing the captured Russian ships and assigning them to the First Fleet of the homeland, the Pacific Fleet of the Second Fleet is constantly training under the premise of the current war.

In accordance with the spirit of the Chinese Imperial Emperor Wang Chenhao's instruction to the officers and men of the navy, "I would rather have a cannon with 100 rounds than a cannon with 100 shots," the officers and men of the Chinese Imperial Navy launched a larger-scale live-fire military exercise, with the aim of training officers and men who conform to the spirit of the emperor's training.

In particular, upon learning of the news that the Russian expeditionary fleet had already departed, Lin Jianzhang and other principal officials of the Navy's Pacific Fleet Command immediately ordered the officers and men of the Pacific Fleet ships to conduct a three-month live-fire training.

To this end, the Admiralty temporarily set aside a budget of 8 million dragon coins for the purchase of artillery shells to help the officers and men of the Navy improve their combat capabilities.

Beginning on 5 March, more than 100 warships of the Pacific Fleet, including the main warships, escort and hunting ships, and various supply ships, auxiliary ships, tugboats, and hospital ships, held a large-scale live-fire military exercise codenamed "Sharpening the Sword" in the Pacific Ocean, 100 nautical miles east of the White Beach Naval Base in the Ryukyus.

During the exercise, all ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy carried out strategic and tactical maneuvers against the background of actual combat, launching a fierce attack on the target enemy ship. The target enemy ship is an unmanned target ship equipped with a remote control system, and the target ship is converted from an ordinary merchant ship. The entire merchant ship is suspended with a 280 mm thick Chinese special steel armor baffle, which protects the merchant ship and wraps it like a turtle shell. In this way, its resistance to blows is significantly enhanced. In general, one such target ship can withstand the alternating shelling of the T-shaped array of three battleships at the same time, and when the number of hits reaches the specified limit, or when the steel plate is destroyed, the ship is declared sunk. The staff then conducted an evaluation report on the target ship's hit rate, ballistics, and damage as an assessment of the performance of the officers and men of the Navy who fired live ammunition, as well as the accumulation of experience in the next shelling.

In this way, the Imperial Chinese Navy was able to rapidly improve its combat effectiveness, with more and more accurate artillery shells and higher target ship hit rates. In particular, the target ship with a remote control system can make various maneuvers and evasive actions in the context of actual combat, making the exercise closer to actual combat and more realistic. The effect of fixed target shooting is much better than that of other countries' navies, because the warships of both sides are maneuvering and evading at high speed in actual combat situations, and fixed target shooting is basically not used in actual combat. Therefore, this training method of the Imperial Chinese Navy has brought a huge increase in the combat effectiveness of the officers and men of the navy.

Rear Admiral Diebystrand, the British military attache who participated in the sword sharpening exercise, wrote in his diary: "From these observations, I believe that the combat quality of the officers and men of the Imperial Chinese Navy has reached the level of the British navy in active service. Since the Imperial Chinese Navy fired all live ammunition during training, the target ships could maneuver back and forth to evade them like enemy ships in real naval battles, making the Imperial Chinese Navy closer to the actual combat background when shooting. Comparatively speaking, the British Navy has not experienced the battles of the real steam warship era, so I think that the combat quality of the Imperial Chinese Navy has actually surpassed that of the British Imperial Navy, and it is not an exaggeration to call it the most elite navy in the world. ”

Rear Admiral Dieberland's remarks were then sent by him in the form of a report to the British Admiralty, which attached great importance to his report and immediately formed a [***] force research group to study the equipment and combat capability of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and submitted an assessment report to the British Admiralty and the High Command every six months as a reference for the British military growth of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

(To be continued)