Chapter 586: The Flying Navy

Lin Zhe didn't quite understand, when did the navy have such great ambitions, you must know that last year when the British Navy was at war because of the Hong Kong issue, the navy was still full of pessimism, before the fleet went to sea to intercept the British fleet, many naval officers participated in the war with a mortal mentality, and even many people had already written a suicide note in advance, waiting to be mailed to their families after they died.

However, it has only been a little more than a year, and the navy has become extremely aggressive, and the slogan used to be only to defend the empire's thousands of miles of sea borders, but now it has become to control the western and northern Pacific.

The two slogans are very different, with the former representing strategic defense and the latter becoming aggressively offensive.

The Navy has even drawn up tactical proposals for the blockade of the Strait of Malacca, which would have been unthinkable before.

In the face of the change in the strategic thinking of Lin Dabiao and other high-level naval officials, Lin Zhe didn't know whether to say it was good or bad, and said okay, the empire's economic strength and industrial scale are so large, it is absolutely impossible to maintain a huge army at the same time, but also to maintain a huge fleet that is enough to compete with the British.

The strength of the fleet is inferior to that of people, this is an obvious objective fact.

Under such circumstances, the Navy shouted the slogan of controlling the Pacific Ocean, and there was a feeling of self-deception.

But to say that it is not good, Lin Zhe can not say that it is a bad thing for the navy to be aggressive, as a big country, the Chinese Empire definitely needs a strong navy that matches the international status, and also as a country with a long coastline. The security of the Chinese Empire's 10,000-mile maritime frontier also needs to be guaranteed, and if you want to defend the empire's 10,000-mile maritime frontier, it is naturally best to directly control the western Pacific Ocean or even the entire Pacific Ocean.

This ideological change within the Navy. Lin Zhe was a little puzzled, after all, although Lin Zhe was the ruler of this empire, he was not a navy after all, and he couldn't understand some changes in the navy itself.

In the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary in the first half of 1866, if the Imperial Navy was full of anxiety and pessimism before the war, then in this naval battle, the Imperial Navy sank the Resistance in one fell swoop. After successfully forcing the Royal Navy's East India Fleet to retreat to Singapore, the inferiority complex within the Imperial Navy was swept away, and many people became blindly confident that in 1866 the Imperial Navy had only a medium-sized fleet. At that time, there were only two Yandi-class ironclad ships, four Pangu-class ironclad ships, and two Nünai-class offshore ironclad ships, with a total tonnage of less than 20,000 tons.

And such a weak navy. But it was able to thwart the East India Fleet. And also sank the ironclad ship Resistance, which undoubtedly gave the Imperial Navy great confidence.

Nowadays, there are a large number of warships under construction on many slipways in the Empire, which has given the Imperial Navy a huge amount of confidence.

With a larger fleet, would the Imperial Navy continue to be trapped on the shores of the Empire, continuing to be a 'port guardian'?

No, many of the generals in the Imperial Navy were not happy with this, and they wanted to see their warships cruising in every corner tower of the Pacific Ocean!

Development of the early decade of the empire. It's a period of laying the foundation, in this early stage. The Imperial Navy had no way to cultivate talents, and at the beginning it could only rely on a small number of foreign students, and at the same time cultivate some low-end talents on its own.

In terms of shipbuilding, only wooden-hulled gunboats could be built in the first few years, then wooden-hulled cruisers of more than 1,000 tons, and then slowly transitioned to offshore ironclads of more than 1,000 tons, ocean-going ironclads of more than 2,000 tons, and Yandi-class ironclads of 4,000 tons.

After this difficult early stage of development, the Imperial Navy was gradually taking shape in 1866, and there was a relatively sufficient reserve of all kinds of talents, especially those of the new type who knew how to conduct naval warfare in the near seas.

This gave the Imperial Navy the basis for the implementation of the first five-year plan, otherwise, the battleships could not be built, and there were not many people who could drive the warships.

The first five-year plan was the beginning of the large-scale development of the Imperial Navy!

In this phase of the plan, the Empire will build a large number of new warships, and will join the active service of the Navy in the following years.

It has been launched, is undergoing the final outfitting, and is expected to be able to officially enter the naval service at the turn of spring and summer next year, this early years has only been the "eight-year armor ship" this code name of the test ship, although after many years of twists and turns, from 1863 to the beginning of the preliminary technical design verification, to 1864 officially started, has been more than four years, in these four years, the imperial navy has been in service Pangu-class ironclad ship, Yandi-class ironclad ship.

Now, this warship with the goal of testing various new technologies is almost completed, and the addition of this test ship may not be able to directly improve the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Navy in a short period of time, but it can train more new talents for the Imperial Navy, bring experience in the use of advanced warships to the Imperial Navy, and even practice some tactics that could not be tested before.

In addition to the Tianwu, there are also a number of warships under intense construction on the slipways of many shipyards in the empire, and the 10,000-ton ironclad ships Chiyou and Fengbo are carrying out hull construction at the No. 4 dock of Qingdao Naval Shipyard and the No. 1 dock of Baoshan at Shanghai Shipyard respectively.

As the follow-up mass production model of the Tianwu test ship, the Kuafu and its sister ship Houyi are also under construction at Shanghai Shipyard and Guangzhou Shipyard respectively.

In addition to the five capital ships mentioned above, the empire also has two fast cruisers and two protective cruisers under construction, among which the Kunming fast cruiser built at the Qingdao Naval Shipyard has undergone final factory trials and will be delivered to the Navy next month.

The above warships are all standard ocean-going warships, in addition to these, in fact, the Imperial Navy has also built other warships, such as the offshore ironclad ship Emperor, this offshore ironclad ship was specially built to replace the mission vacancy of the Snail.

Then there are a number of small ironclad ships with a displacement of less than 1,000 tons, river gunboats, and various auxiliary ships, which are only fast communication ships, and the navy is in the five-year plan. put forward a plan for the construction of four ships in one go, you must know that the fast communication ship cannot participate in the battle at all, but it runs a little faster. However, the Navy still plans to build so many, and the Navy plans to build several fast coal carriers and supply ships.

In the past, the navy directly used old warships as training ships, but now the development of warships is too fast, and the new officers and sailors of the navy cannot get in touch with all kinds of new equipment on those old training ships, which makes it difficult to transition to new warships in the future, so the navy simply plans to build two training ships. And the displacement is not low, they are all big guys of more than 1,000 tons, but they are steam-sail hybrid ships with iron ribs and wooden hulls. However, it will still be equipped with new weapons such as rear-loading guns.

Among the second-tier warships and auxiliary warships in this series, it is worth mentioning the Zhenguang-class gunboats.

Although the Zhenguang-class ironclad ship is small, its performance is also very average, and it is not very good. Even the artillery was still front-loading rifled guns. The speed is only eight knots, but in the past three years it has been active in all seas of the empire, not only along the coast of the empire, but also as far north as Kamchatka, south as Cam Ranh Bay in Vietnam, east as Edo in Japan, and even in the Hawaiian Islands.

Moreover, the ship participated extensively in the Hawaiian War, a series of naval battles between the Empire and Russia in the North Sea, and also participated in the world-famous Battle of the Pearl River Estuary.

If later generations want to study the naval battles of the mid-19th century, the early development of ironclad ships and the decisive battle of the fleet, as the only naval battle between the two ironclad ships in contemporary times, the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary and the Battle of Lisa are of equal significance.

Later, when the world studied the naval battle at the mouth of the Pearl River. It is inevitable to talk about this seemingly inconspicuous small ironclad.

By the time of the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, a total of eight Zhenguang-class small ironclad ships had been produced. After the Battle of the Pearl River Estuary, a great discussion of technology and tactics broke out within the navy.

The shortcomings of the Zhenguang class, such as the low freeboard, which are not suitable for the ocean, are also criticized, so in the follow-up orders, the Navy's ship administration department has simply made a certain degree of improvement, improving the freeboard, mainly to improve the seaworthiness of the ship, and at the same time increase the coal reserves to increase the range, the displacement of this improved model has exceeded 500 tons, but it is still called the Zhenguang class, and has been in service for a total of four.

There are still orders for up to four ships under construction or in the pipeline.

And in last year's navy's classification of warships, the Zhenguang class was officially classified as gunboats because of its small tonnage, called offshore gunboats, although they are all gunboats, but they are still different from those inland gunboats.

Although the classification has been changed, the Zhenguang class is still the original Zhenguang class, and the navy is very satisfied with the ship.

Although the performance is average, the cost is quite cheap, because the technology is mature old technology, coupled with the large order output to form a certain mass production advantage, this price can be described as very cheap, the purchase price of the Imperial Navy is not even 70,000, the purchase of 20 ships, it is about the same as the purchase price of an armored cruiser.

In addition to being cheap, this thing is very simple to produce, and the technical requirements are very low, and it can be produced by large-scale private shipyards, such as Hanyang Shipbuilding Company, Nanjing Shipyard, Tianjin Shipbuilding and even Songhu Shipyard, which have produced Zhenguang-class gunboats.

Moreover, the speed of construction is relatively fast, not much fuller than a civilian ship, basically less than a year of construction period to be able to carry out sea trials, and the navy has more experience in using this kind of warship, and the subordinate personnel do not need to run in, and they can be sent to Japan directly by pulling it out.

The total number of orders for Zhenguang-class gunboats has reached as many as 16, and the Navy still maintains a great interest in similar gunboats of the Zhenguang class, and is now designing and developing a follow-up model of the Zhenguang-class.

In addition to the advantages of the Zhenguang class itself, the reason why the Imperial Navy continues to purchase the Zhenguang class and subsequent models on a large scale is also related to the serious shortage of warships in the hands of the Imperial Navy.

Although there are already several capital ships under construction on the slipway, not to mention that these capital ships will take several years to be built and put into service, even if they are completed, it is impossible for the Imperial Navy to arrange these precious capital ships in a disorderly manner.

Of course not, those capital ships will not be easily transferred most of the time except for normal training on weekdays, and once they are transferred, it means that war has broken out.

Basically, the capital ships of various countries are stared at every day, for example, the Imperial Navy is in Singapore, and spies are stationed in several ports in India all the year round, and their task is to keep an eye on the capital ships of the East India Fleet, and once they leave the port, they will immediately send a secret message to the country.

At this time, the Zhenguang-class offshore gunboat is a reflection of its value, as a low-sea gunboat that has not performed well, although it has been towed, but it is also an offshore gunboat that has been to Hawaii, and naturally cannot be counted on in the decisive battle of the fleet, but there is no problem in the usual port offshore patrol, coastline patrol, and in Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and other Asian countries to show force or anything.

In the two seas of the North Sea and Hawaii, it has served as a capital ship.

You must know that the flagship of the Imperial Navy's Hawaiian task force is now a Zhenguang-class offshore gunboat!

Although the main force of the Imperial Navy is those Yandi-class and Pangu-class ironclad ships, the warships of the Imperial Navy that are most frequently used and can be seen by outsiders are those Zhenguang-class gunboats.

A number of capital ships are being built, and a large number of various auxiliary ships are also being built and put into service, which means that the first phase of the Imperial Navy's five-year plan has achieved initial results after more than a year of implementation.

Of course, it will take some time to truly achieve the Navy's own strategic goals, that is, to control the sea supremacy in the western and North Pacific, to demonstrate force in the Central Pacific and other waters, and even to blockade the Strait of Malacca.

At least after the completion of the first five-year plan, we will not be able to negotiate and strive to achieve these strategic goals.

Now, Lin Dabiao and other high-ranking admirals have just said this goal in advance, and although Lin Zhe is a little surprised by this, he still supports it.

After all, he didn't want the Imperial Navy to be as unenterprising as the Navy in the late Qing Dynasty in history, and only waited until the naval battle was defeated to find the reason, but after a few years of development, he forgot the pain and shame of defeat, that is, he returned to mediocrity, and then waited for the next defeat.

Lin Zhe still hopes that the navy can maintain a stable state of development, maybe after the first five-year plan, there will be no more radical activities, but at least the fleet must be kept normal and new.

It's just that the pressure on the central finance is relatively large, although the empire's economic development is rapid, but the empire's expenses in all aspects are not small, and the military expenditure is also spent on the army, after all, the army is the foundation of the empire, even if it is not a sampan, but the empire cannot do without a strong army.

In this case, there will not be much military spending left for the Navy.

How to use the limited funds to develop the largest fleet is something that the senior admirals of the Imperial Navy and Lin Zhe need to consider. (To be continued.) )