In the memoirs of Hisashi Iida, chief of staff of Japan's Third Fleet, the Battle of the East China Sea began with the first shelling of the Tsushima at 5:27 and ended with the last salvo fired by the Shintaka at 6:45. The new high, which has been replaced with an armor-piercing shell, intercepted the retreat of the Hairong at high speed, and used a salvo to make the warship that fled in panic explode and began to stop the ship, but the German-made warship watertight warehouse design is unconventional, and this warship that has been repeatedly damaged still raises its bow strongly, unwilling to sink!

In the warring sea area of 125.65 degrees east longitude and 28.01 degrees north latitude, the storm had long since stopped, the sun set at 6:09 a.m., and under the sunset, the two cruisers that had been bombarded by shells had been completely paralyzed -- the Haiqi began to slow down after the last bomb exploded, and after taxiing more than 1,000 meters, the ship completely stopped. Sailors who already knew that the warship was about to sink kept coming out from under the burning deck and jumping into the sea in order to get away from the warship before it sank;

Only the unscathed merchant ship was trapped between the Haiqi and the Hairong, warned by the flag of the Japanese warship, and the captain in the uniform of the Renaissance Army could not read the Japanese flag, in fact, he did not disdain the Japanese flag, he only knew that his order was: if the merchant ship could not be brought back to port, then it would be blown up and sunk. After a not-so-violent explosion, the bottom of the merchant ship exploded with the captain's smile, and tons of seawater poured into the merchant ship.

In the fury of the Japanese ships, various small-caliber rapid-fire guns began to fire at the superstructure of the merchant ship, and the captain who was smiling and saluting the national flag was immediately overwhelmed by the fire, and the rest of the crew either blew up or jumped into the sea. The fact that the Shina fleet, which had sailed more than 20,000 nautical miles back and forth in the Pacific Ocean, was finally wiped out not far from home, which sincerely relieved everyone in the Third Fleet. To know earlier today. Some of the wreckage floating out of the Nisshin was found by the search fleet, although it was not clear how the small-tonnage Kaiqi sank the Nisshin. But now he has avenged the Rijin.

The battle on the surface of the sea has ended, but the battle under the sea has not begun. At this time, all the submarines were in a bad position: the Shindaka had bypassed the ambush field and blocked the west side of the fleet in order to intercept the Hairong's approach, while the lagging Tsushima watched the sinking Haiqi from a distance and remained to the east and did not move forward. Only the Kashima, which was close to the ambush position, had the best chance, but because it didn't want to get too close to the Haiqi and didn't want to waste torpedoes, it was just on the north side of the ambush circle, and sent a sampan to slide towards the Haiqi, ready to catch a few officers and sailors on the ship and ask how the Nishin was sunk.

Smoke, flames, sunset, shipwrecks. This qiē fell in the eyes of the Chinese and Japanese navies and was a completely different landscape. In the whispers of the listeners, the sailors on the submarine knew that their three ships had stopped, two were sinking, and the sailors were desperately trying to escape. They couldn't see the sea like the captain, but they could imagine it.

U-52 Captain Hu Qinzhai's heart was hard, and after seeing the Haiqi begin to sink in the flames, he didn't look there a second time, and all his attention was on the Kashima, but the Japanese ship refused to approach the Haiqi. Only two thousand meters behind the submarine. With the 180-degree turn of the submarine, the bow of the submarine was facing the head of the Kashima, and the U-52 constantly adjusted the distance and angle during the movement of the main engine. Prepare to get closer and deal another fatal blow to the Japanese.

The U-52 was moving underwater, and several other U-boats were doing similar movements, but the torpedo trajectory was obvious during the day. Even submarines that had already reached their positions had to wait for the radio order from the team leader, Captain Ouyang Ge: in previous training, only the latent submarines fired torpedoes together. in order to achieve maximum results. The boats slowly adjusted to the optimal position underwater, but Ouyang Ge's order never came. This young captain, who was bent on promotion, did not take the sinking of his own ships on the sea seriously at all, and his current plan was to wait for it to get darker before firing torpedoes, so that he could deal with these three Japanese ships in the same way as he had dealt with the Japanese ships.

Extremely anxiously waiting, Hu Qinzhai cursed and looked at the radio liaison, if it weren't for the radio indicator light that was always on, he suspected that the antenna on the periscope had been broken. At 6:57 a.m., the sun sank below 12 degrees above sea level, and the U-49 boats, which had been waiting for ten minutes, sent a brief "—" and ordered the boats to attack.

"The speed is eight knots, the distance is eight hundred, the depth is six meters, the torpedo speed is thirty-five ...... One, two, ready for launch. The captain corrected the parameters again, and after listening to the prepared report, he let out a suppressed roar: "One launch!" Launch 2! ”

"One launch! Launch 2! The torpedo captain repeated the captain's order, and when the wrench pulled, the two torpedoes quickly broke out of the tube and broke through the water.

"Three, four, ready to launch!" Hu Qinzhai said again.

"Three, four, ready!" The torpedo returned loudly.

"Launch Three! Launch Four! "The order to fire resumed, and two more torpedoes came out of the tube.

"Keep loading!" After firing the torpedoes inside the torpedo tubes, minus the three from the last ambush on the Nisshin, there were three more torpedoes on the U-52. Hu Qinzhai did not want to bring the torpedoes back to Hong Kong, and at this time he wanted to shoot them all at the slightest opportunity.

Although Captain Ouyang Ge was a madman who was not liked by his comrades, his decision to endure ten minutes and wait for it to get completely dark before attacking was undoubtedly correct, the fire on the Haiqi could not illuminate the near sea of the Kashima and its two cruisers, and the torpedo attacks of the five submarines achieved the best effect. The U-52 boat was closest to the enemy ship, and forty-five seconds after the torpedo was fired, the first torpedo hit the rear mast of the Kashima six meters underwater, and there was no waterline armor at this depth. After an interval of three seconds, the second torpedo hit, and another large hole appeared in the bottom of the ship, while the third torpedo hit one after another, and the fourth missed.

There were explosions one after another below the waterline, and even the stupidest sailors knew that the situation was not good, thinking that the Shintaka and Tsushima of Kashima immediately left the current sea, but because their initial speed was too slow, it took a lot of time for the engine to turn and accelerate, especially the Tsushima. Its steam charge has been damaged during the artillery battle, and it accelerates more slowly.

Huqinzhai's U-52 sailed eastward for a while. So he faced the battleship Kashima alone, and the U-49, U-53, U-40 were closest to the Shintaka. And the U-26, which was late in the end, happened to meet the last to face the Ma, so Kashima, whose power system was unhindered, was the first to be hit by the U-52 with the shortest attack distance, and the Shintaka, who also had no faults, faced twelve torpedoes fired by three submarines, and at a distance of 1,300 meters, it was unavoidable and was hit by six torpedoes, and the Tsushima, which already knew that there was a submarine underwater, was also hit by two torpedoes of U-26 because of its slow speed and power system failure.

Shintaka and Tsushima were, after all, small tonnage light cruisers. After hitting a number of torpedoes, the Shintaka sank rapidly, and the Tsushima hull began to tilt and gradually stalled, only the Kashima battleship, which hit five torpedoes in two consecutive shots, was large and thick, and under the command of the captain Keisuke Okada, it sent people to plug the leak while leaving the sea at high speed. At this time, the commander of the submarine formation, Captain Ouyang Ge, who had already risen to the surface, immediately ordered the U-52 and U-53, which were in good condition, to follow him to pursue the Kashima. The remaining U-40s and U-26s, who were poorly motivated, tried their best to rescue their sailors.

But the U-52 was actually unable to carry out Captain Ouyang Ge's orders, and ten of the eleven torpedoes on the ship had been used, and all that remained was the precious long kiss at the stern, as if to pursue. Using that torpedo against a sinking enemy ship would not be worth the cost. At Hu Qinzhai's request, the U-52 boat was allowed to rescue its sailors on the spot.

The captain's decision only puzzled the officers and men on the U-52, even if there were no torpedoes. But participating in the sinking of the battleship Kashima can also raise everyone's merits to a higher level, and look at everyone's disappointment and disappointment. Hu Qinzhai said in a deep voice: "They have done enough, now we have to save them." You can't forget your roots. Without them bringing the Japanese over, would we have been able to achieve such results? If they don't sink, will the Japanese be able to stay around here? In my opinion, although my military exploits are important, the feelings of comrades-in-arms are even more important. ”

Hu Qinzhai glanced at everyone's faces with blazing eyes, and only lowered their heads to look at them, "If the Kashima can escape, then I will definitely chase it." But did the Kashima escape? When we were in Germany, we tried the effect of torpedo attacks, and a few big holes in the bottom of the Kashima couldn't be plugged at all! Comrades, we are the navy, our comrades-in-arms are still in the water, they have sacrificed enough, and now what we are doing is not to grab military merits, but to save people! ”

U-52 approached the half-sunken Haiqi when he was giving a lecture to Huqinzhai, and the submarine sailors who went up to the boat looked at the battleship that was about to sink without half hitting the enemy ship, and they stood at the bow and tail of the submarine and kept fishing up their comrades in the water, some of whom had been soaked for more than half an hour, some of them were alive, and some were dead.

In the silent rescue, a shout suddenly came from the deck of the burning Haiqi, "Someone! Someone! The commander is alive! The commander is here! ”

Cheng Biguang's nephew Cheng Yaoheng shouted loudly outside the command tower, after the command tower was hit by a shell, he risked his life to find his uncle, and among the many bloody corpses, he turned out the still breathing Lieutenant General Moffitt and Cheng Biguang. It's just that there were flames everywhere on the deck at this time, and the Japanese wanted to wait for the Haiqi to sink completely before they came forward to retrieve people, so several of them were trapped there for a while. The explosion of the torpedo attack on the Japanese ship at dark made Cheng Yaoheng excited, but in the flames, he didn't know what the results of the submarine force were, so he could only continue to wait, but just now he heard the voice of the U-52 sailors, and then he began to shout for help.

There were more than 470 officers and men on the ship, plus 493 trainees and other officers on board, and the U-26 that hit the Tsushima caught some, and the U-52 also fished some, and now I heard that the commander is still alive, and the U-40 who was summoned by the signal also came, and there were several Japanese-style sampans with them, but the Japanese on the sampan were driven down by them with guns - when the merchant ship sank just now, these dogs were bombarded with guns, Therefore, they were not at all soft on the surviving Japanese sailors of the new high.

The Haiqi sank faster and faster at this time, before he completely submerged under water, Cheng Biguang and the seriously injured Lieutenant General Moffett was lifted to the U-52, and the military doctor on the boat urgently treated the wound of Vice Admiral Moffett, and shook his head at the people who were looking at him anxiously and said: "The injury has been treated, but you must go ashore immediately for blood transfusion, otherwise you will ......."

"We have blood type O here. Can't you lose now? The commissar asked. The most advanced technology for blood transfusion treatment in the world has been mastered by the Fuxing Army, which is also something that Yang Rui has concocted according to some half-right and half-wrong common sense in later generations. Many people died for it.

"But I don't know who blood type O is." Because there are few artillery battles on submarines, the military doctors on it are inferior to the army after all.

"I know!" The commissar was confident. He doesn't understand medicine but understands the psychology of two knives, he said loudly, "Square face, thick knuckles, temper, speaking like one, two, three, four logic, the conclusion is often put at the end is type O blood, Qian Dazhuang, you are fucking out of the ranks!" Give your blood to the ...... To the commander. ”

"Yes!" The torpedo commander shouted loudly, and with that, he rolled up his sleeves and walked to the foredeck.

After the sinking of the Haiqi, the three submarines rescued a total of 131 people, and the remaining 362 officers and men sank to the bottom of the sea forever. And the fire in the Hairong cabin has been extinguished. The internal water ingress was also effectively controlled, and the repaired warship could sail at a speed of no more than twelve knots until Ouyang Ge returned from chasing the Kashima.

At 8:50 p.m., the two submarines that were pursuing rushed back, in fact, they chased for 20 nautical miles and blocked the Kashima, at this time, the hull of the Kashima, which could not be controlled by the water, had been tilted strictly, and the guide had slowed down, even if no one attacked it, it would soon capsize and sink, but the officers and men of the submarine did not want to let it go. After four more torpedoes, the 16,400-ton battleship sank to the bottom of the sea.

The Battle of the East China Sea ended with the sinking of all three Japanese ships, the sinking of the cruiser Haiqi of the Chinese Navy, and the fact that the Hairong was basically scrapped after returning to Hong Kong due to heavy damage. The merchant ships escorted by the two ships were also sunk in the naval battle. In this battle, the Chinese side lost 485 men, and the highest rank was Colonel Tang Tingguang, the captain of the Haiqi. The three battleships of the Japanese Navy, Kashima, Shimaka, and Tsushima were sunk, except for 37 who were captured by the Chinese Navy. The remaining 1,400 64 officers and men all sank to the bottom of the sea, with the highest rank being Rear Admiral Nakazu Matahachiro, commander of the Third Fleet. It can be said that the Japanese Third Fleet was almost completely wiped out in this battle.

The Japanese Navy did not sink a single ship in the First Sino-Japanese Naval Battle, and the Japanese Navy lost only three torpedo boats in the Battle of Tsushima, but this time only in the face of two light cruisers of the Chinese Navy, one battleship, one heavy cruiser, and two light cruisers were sunk. The Japanese Navy's intention to announce the announcement of such a battle result caused an uproar throughout the world, and the intention of the Japanese Navy to announce it was to emphasize that its defeat was due to the despicable sneak attack of the Shina people hiding under the water, but who expected that the whole world would imitate this despicable behavior underwater, and the United States, Britain, France, and Russia asked to visit the Chinese Royal Submarine Force, and the German Emperor Wilhelm and the bearded Tirpitz finally got the hang of it and began to order fifty Chinese Type A submarines from German shipyards, only the Japanese were hysterical, Believing that the naval battle in the East China Sea was a great humiliation unseen in decades, he began to believe in the theory of the threat of Shina advocated by Prime Minister Katsura Taro, and frequently marched on the island to demand that the government take revenge on the despicable Shina people. It's just that the ships and merchant ships sent by China before were all notified to take refuge in the US ports in the Philippines at this time, and then they were escorted back by the US Asian fleet, so there was no loss at sea.

And Yang Rui, who knew that the submarine could not be hidden, dressed up the submarines he had built in the United States before, and let them go for the foreigners to visit, these test boats with unreasonable design and discounted technical parameters were really praised by the navies of various countries, but after the visit, the foreigners did not buy it, Britain and France and other countries still stood on the side of the Japanese and demanded that China must apologize to Japan and compensate for its losses, on the grounds that the East China Sea naval battle was the first to fire the Haiqi cruiser, and the Philippine naval battle was the first to fire the guns. Because there is no proof that the Japanese ship sank and died, the responsibility for this battle lies with the Chinese Navy.

The situation seems to have returned to the end of the Xinhai year, the Chinese and Japanese armies fought in Mukden, except for the United States to support China, the other powers either ignored or supported Japan, and Germany was not easy to express at this time, once he supported China, then Britain, France and Russia will be even more opposed to China. Unlike the last time China and Japan were at war, China was not fully prepared for war, but it was already unscrupulous. The imported synthetic ammonia equipment and military equipment have all been brought back, and there is no shortage of military raw materials, and even if the Nanyang Oilfield cannot produce oil immediately, it has stored more than 20,000 tons of diesel oil, and it is worry-free to support the operation. What is lacking now is that all the submarines ordered have not returned to China, the railway from Jiujiang to Jiulong has not been completed, and the military production capacity has not been straightened out.

When the Japanese were muttering about revenge, Yang Rui made a big show to commend all the officers and men of the operation, and the 353 surviving officers and soldiers of the ocean-going fleet were taken to the capital by special train to be promoted and awarded, and the American Lieutenant General Moffett, Major General Cheng Biguang, and several other officers will be knighted. Britain, France, and Russia protested extremely against China's posture, believing that the Chinese government was undermining peace in the Far East. Yang Rui, who had no choice but to be unreasonable, still brought these people to the capital to confer knighthood after a little explanation of various countries.

On September 30, under pressure from Britain and the United States, Foreign Minister Xie Jintai began negotiations with Japanese envoys on naval battles in the Philippine Sea and the East China Sea, but the two sides did not have the sincerity to negotiate. At the same time as the negotiations, on the pretext that the Chinese were frequently attacked in Japan, the Chinese government hired American merchant ships and began to evacuate overseas Chinese from Japan on a large scale.

As soon as this move began, the British minister to China, Zhu Erdian, was dumbfounded, he already felt that the Sino-Japanese war was imminent and inevitable, but in order to ensure that Britain's interests in China would not be damaged by the second Sino-Japanese war, he tried his best to intimidate China, and at the same time, he also began to build a foreign ministry to put pressure on Japan. However, the Japanese Katsura Taro cabinet was saved for the Sino-Japanese war, especially Katsura Taro's resentment that Britain did not agree to attack Beijing from Tianjin last time, which made China bigger now, and Japan had borrowed a lot of money from Europe, so it was completely fruitless to put pressure on Japan with Britain; On the Chinese side, the Revival government was not controlled by the British in the first place, and the British wanted China to settle the matter, but Yang Rui blamed the British for favoring its allies, so the situation was sliding in the direction that the British was least happy to see.

It would be fine if both sides lost the war between China and Japan, but as long as one side wins, Britain's interests in China will either be shared or contained. In this way, in addition to slightly strengthening the naval strength of the Far East, what Britain could do was to provoke France and Russia against the current Chinese government, and Sun Wen, who was exiled in Japan, began to rejuvenate again. Sun Wen and Yang Rui are not afraid at all, no matter how he whitewashes, the term Japanese traitor is enough for the Chinese Revolutionary Party, and France threatens Liangguang at most, but according to the original plan, the Furen Cultural Society was originally to be independent in Liangguang; Only Russia in the north had to be extremely careful in dealing with it, and if it was really brought close to Japan and Russia by the British, it would be difficult to carry out the strategy against Japan.

At a time when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing was in a state of confrontation with the Japanese, Yang Rui took an airship straight to Nanjing in late autumn, and he wanted to see the hydraulic press for which 485 people had been sacrificed, and also to see the factories that had been supported and the military factories that had spent a huge amount of money to expand and reorganize.

On 24 October, Cheng Dequan, governor of Jiangsu, Mu Xiangyue, general office of Nanjing Heavy Industry Industrial Park, Chen Zaofan, director of Nanjing Shipyard, Lieutenant General Lin Wenqian, commander of the East China Military Region, and Major General Zhou Sixu, chief of staff, all went to the airship landing site on the outskirts of Nanjing to greet Yang Rui and Xu Huafeng, minister of industry, and their entourage.

In the autumn rain, after getting off the airship, Yang Rui and everyone exchanged pleasantries and then immediately went to Nanjing Shipyard.

Nanjing Shipyard is located at the foot of the Kiln Mountain on the east side of Yuhuatai in Nanjing Jubaomen (now Zhonghua Gate). This is outside the city of Nanjing, 12 kilometers away from the river, not afraid of shelling, and in order to make the 50,000-ton giant ship enter the shipyard dock, the shipyard dock to the Yangtze River section is to dig a 16-kilometer Qinhuai New River. The Chinese spent such a huge amount of money to build the Nanjing shipyard, which shocked Johnston, vice chairman of Bethlehem Steel Company, but after seeing the hydraulic press that should have sunk in the Pacific Ocean actually miraculously appeared in Nanjing, he suddenly felt that this was God's will and began to help the Chinese side install the machine according to the previous contract.

Chen Zaofan, the director of the shipyard, was born in Fuzhou, Fujian, graduated from the Mawei Shipbuilding School, majored in marine engineering, and in 1909 he went overseas with the Minister of the Navy Zaixun and the Navy Commander Sa Zhenbing to order warships. Yang Rui was worried that this person would not be able to manage the Nanjing Shipyard well, but the Ministry of Officials and the Ministry of Industry recommended this person, so he reluctantly agreed. In Chen Zaofan's introduction with a slight Hokkien accent, Yang Rui understands that the hydraulic press has begun to be installed, but although the civil construction and plant have been completed before, thousands of tons of equipment can not be installed in one or two months, and it is estimated that it will take until the end of the year or even the beginning of next year to thoroughly install and debug. (To be continued......)