Chapter 74 ah navy

In the era when the Revolution of 1911 occurred, the main arms in the world, besides the army, were the navy.Although there were planes, the Air Force was not yet formed or useful.In modernized imperial countries like Germany and Japan, the emperor's first identity is the commander of the navy and army.Generally speaking, land-based countries pay more attention to the army, while sea-based countries pay more attention to the navy.However, the European and American powers are all colonial powers, and colonization is inseparable from the navy, so they pay more and more attention to the navy.In this era, Mahan's sea power thought has been unanimously valued by international powers.

Traditional China is an inland-oriented empire with no navy but a navy.While the Western navy was advancing by leaps and bounds, the navy of the Qing Dynasty remained at the level of the Middle Ages.Since the recovery of Taiwan, the navy has been abolished and marginalized. At most, it can be used to arrest smugglers and thieves.Later, in the process of military modernization, although the start was not too late and a lot of investment was made, the built navy, whether it was the earlier Fujian Navy or the later Beiyang Navy, although they were all quite large, in terms of tonnage and artillery, they were enough to dominate Asia.However, the shortcomings are also obvious: first, there is no sea power thinking, second, insufficient training, and third, it is still a vassal of the army and has a strong sense of land.Such a navy, coupled with a little traditional old military habits, naturally suffered a crushing defeat in the process of competing with the French and Japanese navies.After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, the huge Beiyang naval fleet, those that did not sink to the bottom of the sea, became part of the Japanese navy.

The navy of the Qing Dynasty, which had a relationship with the Revolution of 1911, was rebuilt after the Sino-Japanese War.It is no longer comparable to the scale of the year, but if used in the civil war, it is still a force that cannot be underestimated.There were Haiqi, and four heavy cruisers including Haichen, Hairong, and Haizhu. Among them, Haiqi had a displacement of 4,300 tons and belonged to the second-class cruiser. At that time, there was also a Haitian, but it sank when it hit a rock in 1905.The three ships, Haichen, Hairong and Haizhu, have a displacement of nearly 3,000 tons and are equipped with three 150mm artillery pieces and eight 105mm artillery pieces.At the time of the Wuchang Incident, the Haiqi visited, and the remaining three cruisers, the Haichen, Hairong, and Haichou, were all sent to the Wuhan River. In addition to other warships, almost all of the navy’s assets were taken out. The fleet consisted of Naval Minister Sa Zhenbing personally led.The naval lineup that came to suppress the Wuchang Uprising was truly magnificent, and the Qing government really paid for it.

Li Yuanhong was born in the navy, and Wuhan was close to the river. He knew that the navy would definitely come to suppress the uprising.When he was forced out by the uprising soldiers, he once frightened the soldiers, saying that it was the giant guns on the Hairong and Haichen ships, which could flatten Wuchang with one shot.Of course, what Li Yuanhong said may be an exaggeration, but in terms of firepower, the artillery of the rebel army is definitely not as good as the navy. Most of the artillery caliber is only half of that of the navy.However, the Navy came and that didn't happen.In the first few days, the navy's guns rang here and there, but they did not aim at the target at all. On the contrary, the guns of the rebel army hit the warships, causing some casualties.

Ordinarily, the cultural quality of naval soldiers is relatively high, and most of them are from Fujian and Guangdong, so they should be more inclined to revolution.But in fact, there have not been many revolutionary parties in the navy, and the revolutionaries are not very active in the navy.Perhaps, it was because the activities in the navy were not immediately effective enough to rebel, so they were unwilling to invest capital.However, when the Wuchang Uprising broke out, the navy soldiers generally sympathized with the revolution and were unwilling to work for the Qing Dynasty.Although the revolutionary army kept firing artillery at the navy, the navy's counterattacks were inconsistent. Even if the artillery was fired, it was not aimed at all. The artillery fired all the way to the rear of the artillery positions of the revolutionary army.The foreigners present observed that the Qing army's cannonballs were too unprofessional, either hitting places where no one was around, or exploding at a height of several hundred meters.The revolutionary army didn't care at all, walking around unsuspecting.The waterway traffic of the Wuhan uprising army was unimpeded.The Beiyang Army that attacked Wuhan kept asking for the cooperation of the Navy at the beginning, but it turned out that the Navy could not count on it at all, so let it go.The "Hankou Daily" run by the Germans wrote: "In this revolutionary incident, the most surprising thing is the abnormal attitude adopted by Admiral Sa Zhenbing and his fleet. Some people are right, if this Admiral is in When the revolution started, it was acted quickly, and the revolution could have been extinguished long ago, but in fact the fleet did not act."

The passiveness of the navy is actually related to a series of previous policies of the Qing Dynasty.Originally, the navy was a relatively highly specialized service, and it had been dominated by Fujianese for a long time.Among the Manchus, there are very few people who have studied the navy, and the limited few are also from the pretended Summer Palace Noble Academy.The so-called Naval Academy is just for embellishing the gorgeous garden of the Empress Dowager West. What kind of naval officers can be taught by a big Kunming Lake, a pretentious school, and two small paddle-wheel ships?However, under the policy of the relatives and nobles in power and their own people, these poor Manchu nobles have a prosperous official career.The belts (captain) and side belts (deputy captain) of the main cruiser Hairong, and the belts of the Haichen were all replaced by Manchurians who came from noble schools.These shitty Manchu captains are not only messed up in business, but also have poor conduct. The Manchurian gangs of the Hairong borrow money everywhere on the ship, and they don't pay back what they borrow.The stupid policy of full population of naval officers has aroused, if not angered, widespread dissatisfaction among naval officers and soldiers.For a navy with strong regional characteristics, even if people from other places come in, they will be squeezed out to some extent, let alone full people?What's more, these Manchus have to leapfrog promotion and be the masters of the family?

At this time when people's hearts are floating, it is certainly impossible for Sa Zhenbing to remain unmoved.Sa Zhenbing belonged to the elite of Fuzhou Shipping Academy who stayed in the UK with Yan Fu, Liu Buchan, Deng Shichang and others.Although he was one of the poorer ones among those elites back then, he was not good at learning and had poor grades, but he was not a fool.Li Yuanhong, his former student, wrote to him to persuade him to revolt. Although he refused, he hesitated.At this time, Sa Zhenbing's adjutant staff, Tang Hualong's younger brother Tang Xiangming, and the captain of another warship Du Xigui kept persuading Sa Zhenbing to follow the general trend and stop working for the Qing Dynasty.In this process, the navy's foreign workers actually got the tacit approval of Sa Zhenbing.In the end, Sa Zhenbing agreed to send the fleet to Jiujiang, probably because of "the emperor's grace". Although he was dissatisfied with the imperial court, he did not want to be the leader of the rebel army, and sailing to Jiujiang was tantamount to maintaining neutrality.Soon, seeing that neutrality was difficult to maintain, he left the fleet under the pretext of being ill.Therefore, with the cooperation of the Jiujiang Revolutionary Army that had already revolted, the navy changed.Several Manchu captains committed suicide by diving, and left without dying (a captain may have committed suicide by diving in the river, which shows his professional level), and the fleet commander was replaced by Tang Xiangming.The cruiser hung the Revolutionary Army's iron-blooded 18-star flag and drove back to the Wuhan River.The giant artillery that refused to fire at the beginning, this time it bombarded the Qing army, making the Qing army's artillery positions dumb.This time they shot very accurately, and the foreigners who watched the battle said that the shells fell on the Qing army's positions like raindrops.Some of the gunboats also fought bravely, some were wounded, and are said to be riddled with bullets.If it hadn't been for the dry season in November, when the river water would drop further, the heavy cruiser would not be able to guarantee the draft and would have to withdraw. With such strong fire support, the outcome of the defense of Wuhan would be hard to say.Afterwards, the navy returned to Shanghai, preparing to participate in the Northern Expedition.After the First Sino-Japanese War, the Chinese Navy basically did not fight any battles, and it was the same during the subsequent warlord melee. It was basically a spectator.This battle on the Wuhan River is considered to be quite a large-scale one.It's just that the revolutionary party was fought in the first part of the battle, and the Qing army was fought in the latter part.In any history of war, it would be strange.