Reborn as King of South America

Chapter 370: The Age of Ironclad Battleships
The Han Dynasty's affairs in the Far East were gradually coming to an end.

At the end of July, the Nanyang Corps first returned the occupied port area of ​​Halong Bay to the French colonial army stationed in Annam. Later, the two sides exchanged prisoners and supplies in accordance with the peace agreement.

The Sino-French Annam War ended in a compromise manner. The French colonial army in Annam gained the initiative in Annam and Cochinchina at the cost of thousands of casualties and the cession of sovereignty over French Polynesia.

After the lessons of the Annam War, the French government realized that the strength of the French colonial army in Cochinchina was not enough to deal with the chain reactions brought about by the annexation of Annam, Cambodia and Laos.

The Nanyang Army was the first threat to France's establishment of an Eastern colonial empire. As the Nanyang Army gradually withdrew from northern Annam, the Qing court, as the suzerain state of the Kingdom of Annam, became the main enemy of the French colonial army in Annam.

After losing Myanmar and several vassal states in the northwest border, the Kingdom of Annan and the Kingdom of Korea, the two countries most deeply influenced by Chinese culture, had become the bottom line that the Qing court could not easily give up.

The Kingdom of Korea was located on the flank of the Northeast region, which was related to the security of the Northeast region and the Forbidden City. Unless the Qing government lost the war with the enemy country, it would not allow Russia and Japan to occupy Korea.

The Kingdom of Annan borders Yunnan, Guizhou and the Guangxi region. Through the Annan coastal waters and the Red River shipping route, the entire southwest region can be brought under threat. Therefore, in order to maintain the stability of the financial center in the southeast and the hinterland of the southwest, the northern part of Annan must not be occupied by the enemy.

The French government's annexation of Annam was not only due to the need to plunder the resources of the Cochinchina region and lay out a global colonial strategy, but also one of its main purposes was to use the Kingdom of Annam as a foothold to bring Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong and Guangxi under its direct colonial rule or indirect economic colonial rule.

In order to achieve this goal, the French government approached Japan through various diplomatic channels such as Beijing, Paris, Berlin, and Tokyo, attempting to conclude a military alliance with Japan against the Qing government, hoping that when the French government took annexation action against northern Annam, Japan would be able to launch a military offensive from another direction and share the military pressure of the garrison in Cochinchina.

On July 1881, 7, when the French Foreign Minister met with the new Japanese Minister to France, Hosu Kamodai, in Paris, he stated: "In dealing with the Qing Dynasty, France and Japan have common interests."

The French Foreign Minister also linked this issue with the Japanese government's treaty revision issue, and expressed his willingness to help the Japanese government with the revision issue.

On July 7, Hachisuka Modai reported this in detail in a secret report to Japanese Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru. On July 20, 1881, when French Acting Minister to Japan Vial Cantel visited Japanese Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru in Tokyo, he again linked the issue of the "Franco-Japanese Alliance" with the issue of the Japanese government's revision of the treaty, in order to test the Japanese government's intentions.

He also said: "The neighboring country Qing is a stubborn country and is not worth cooperating with. Only your country is familiar with our national conditions and can work with us. Considering your country's future policy towards my country, I think it would be beneficial rather than harmful if we could unite and consult with each other. As the saying goes, France and Japan have the same interests and similar urgency, which will surely help the civilization of the East."

Since July, the French government has approached Japan several times and is eager to conclude a military alliance with Japan. In order to impress the Japanese government,
The French government brought up Japan's greatest wish since the early Meiji period - the issue of revising the unequal treaties. It tried to lure Japan into an alliance with it by seeming to promise the "key points" that the Japanese government particularly wanted, so as to jointly deal with the Qing government in the Far East.

There is no doubt that this is the diplomatic strategy of the French government. However, this carefully planned diplomatic strategy of the French government was quickly discovered by the Japanese government.

On July 1881, 7, the Japanese government held a special cabinet meeting to discuss the dispute between China and France over the Vietnam issue and Japan's foreign policy issues.

Although there were indeed people within the Japanese government who advocated accepting the French government's suggestion on concluding a "Franco-Japan Alliance" and concluding an alliance with France as soon as possible to take joint military action against China, this proposal was opposed by the majority of participants.

After the meeting, Japanese Foreign Minister Inoue Kaoru pointed out in his transfer order to the Chinese ambassador to France, Hachisuka Motoyoshi: "The French government believes that Japan and France have common interests on the issue of so-called vassalage advocated by the Qing government.

The French government wants to know the intentions of the Chinese government on the Tokyo (Kitazaki) incident, and also wants to know the key points that the Chinese government particularly hopes to see in the revision of the articles. On the one hand, the French government wants to help my country realize its long-cherished wish, but on the other hand, it hopes that my country will use the Tokyo incident as an opportunity to conclude an alliance with France to deny the Qing Dynasty's vassalage. Based on this speculation, this is just a French strategy. "

Therefore, Shang Xin further pointed out that "In recent years, Japan and Qing have had disputes over the Korean issue following the Ryukyu incident, and the Qing government's resentment towards my country has deepened.

Our government should have made efforts to preserve the peace in the East, however, the current incident has nothing to do with our country. For example, if we openly ally with a Western country because of the distant "Tokyo Incident", it will surely make the Qing Dynasty even more angry. After thinking it over, we cannot easily agree to France's proposal at the moment, nor can we publicly expose our intention to confront the Qing Dynasty over the "Tokyo Incident".

Regarding the joint action between Japan and France, please note that although our government cannot publicly express its approval, it can privately support France's proposal and criticize Qing's vassalism until Qing is willing to give it up. Please convey this intention to the French government in a tactful manner. "

The Japanese government certainly did not reject the French alliance request because it was worried about destroying the good situation of peace in East Asia. The reason why Inoue Kaoru and other Japanese officials quickly reached an agreement on the Annan issue was that the comparison of naval power between China and Japan had changed significantly. After the Taiwan incident in 1874, the Japanese government ordered three new warships from Britain in May of the following year: Fuso, Kongo, and Hiei. Among them, Fuso is a central gun hull ironclad ship with a displacement of 5 tons, a speed of 3777 knots, and is equipped with 13 4mm guns, 240 2mm guns, and 150 4mm guns. In 120, these three warships were successively put into service, making the Japanese navy rise in the Far East overnight and forming an absolute advantage over the Qing Dynasty navy.

In the same year that Japan ordered the above-mentioned three ships, Li Hongzhang also ordered four warships from the British Armstrong Company. These were the four mosquito gunboats (also known as Randall gunboats) that were later named Longxiang, Huwei, Feiting and Cedian.

In 1878, when the three ships Fuso and others were commissioned, Li Hongzhang ordered four more mosquito gunboats from Britain. These were Zhenbei, Zhennan, Zhenxi and Zhendong. Together with Zhenbian and Zhenzhong purchased by Shandong Province, Fusheng and Jiansheng purchased by Fujian, Jinou built by Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau, Haidongxiong imitated by Guangdong and Guangxi, and Haijingqing purchased, the Qing court had a total of 15 ant gunboats.

The so-called mosquito gunboat is a new concept of warship in the 19th century. Its basic feature is that it is a small boat equipped with a cannon. Its mission is to serve as a mobile water artillery for port defense, so it has a small tonnage and slow speed, and is only suitable for activities in shallow waters near the coast.

As for the 15 gunboats mentioned above, in terms of tonnage, the smallest one, such as Jinou, was only 195 tons, and the largest ones, such as Zhenzhong, Zhenbian, and Haidongqing, were no more than 440 tons; in terms of speed, the slowest one, such as Haidongqing, was only 7.5 knots, and the fastest ones, such as Liuzhen and Jinou, were no more than 10 knots.

但却都装备了强大的主炮，龙骧、虎威的11英寸主炮在试射时取得了274米距离上击穿326毫米铁甲的成绩，飞霆，策电的12.5 英寸火炮试射时则取得了274米距离上击穿414毫米铁甲的成绩。

The purpose of its design is to use this artillery to restrain the enemy's armored warships. This design concept is exactly the same as the later ramming cruisers, torpedo boats, and missile boats, all of which hope to take advantage of offshore defense and destroy large ships with small boats.

The mentality of buyers is often to pursue quick results, hoping to spend less money to achieve great things, and find a shortcut to the end. In essence, it reflects the killer thinking.

But cruel facts have proved that the modern navy is a systematic project. If you have it all, you will regress if you don’t make progress. If it is only for offshore defense, in the era of the revival of land power, it is better to build land-based artillery and railways to enhance the mobility of the army.

Once the navy is developed, there will be no navy that can only fight in the mouth. Moreover, although the firepower of mosquito gunboats is strong, they are slow, poorly protected, have poor artillery accuracy, slow firing rate, short effective range, and extremely low actual combat effectiveness.

Especially with the development of machine guns and small-caliber rapid-fire guns, weapons such as mosquito gunboats can only launch suicidal attacks with a low success rate in front of large warships.

If the enemy launches a landing on the coastline far away from the port and launches a long-distance roundabout attack on the naval port on land, the small ships can only watch helplessly.

Due to the lack of strategic, operational and tactical awareness, Li Hongzhang and others never clearly understood the fatal flaws of the mosquito gunboat. The reason why he stopped buying new mosquito gunboats after 1878 was not because he had realized the flaws of this weapon, but since the moment Japan purchased the Fuso, the Qing court had formed a public opinion that "Japan actually has an ironclad ship."

Ironclad ships are like aircraft carriers in the 21st century. They were recognized as the strongest warships in the world at that time and a symbol of great power status.

Under such circumstances, a consensus quickly formed within the Qing court to purchase powerful ironclad ships and re-establish its naval hegemony in East Asia.

In the context of extremely fierce budget competition among regions, no matter how Li Hongzhang viewed the ironclad ships, he did not want such a large sum of money to fall into the hands of other governors. Therefore, once he found that the central government was willing to pay for the purchase of the ironclad ships, he immediately took the initiative.

In December 1879, Li Hongzhang ordered two new ramming cruisers, named Chaoyong and Yangwei.

In December 1880 and May 12, Li Hongzhang ordered two large ironclad ships from the German Vulcan Shipyard, the famous Dingyuan and Zhenyuan. These two ironclad ships, with a displacement of more than 1881 tons, had super strong defense and were equipped with four Krupp 5mm main guns, making them the top ships in the Far East at that time.

With the incorporation of Chaoyong and Yangwei into the Qing navy and the signing of contracts to build Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, Japan mobilized the entire country to develop its navy, and the brief naval advantage gained from this quickly disappeared. Under the threat of Qing naval power, the Japanese government gave up the idea of ​​forming an alliance with France and once again plunged into the wave of nationwide donations to purchase warships.

The arrival of the era of ironclad battleships forced countries around the world to pay attention to the role of the navy. The naval arms race among European powers began to show signs of happening. In the Far East, the Qing Dynasty and Japan were secretly competing for dominance in East Asia. In South America, with the stabilization of the situation at home and abroad, and the three Brazilian ironclad ships captured earlier about to be retired from active service, the Han Dynasty's monarchs and ministers also launched a major discussion on naval development.

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(End of this chapter)