After the short-lived economic boom after the war, the world economy fell into a trough, and China's shipbuilding industry, which developed rapidly during World War I, was the hardest hit. The domestic shipbuilding industry had a pre-war construction capacity of less than 100,000 deadweight tons per year.
It has expanded to more than 900,000 deadweight tons per year, basically reaching the same scale as the Japanese shipbuilding industry.
The economic cold wave hit. In 1921, except for 22 orders for passenger and cargo ships from several domestic and Nanyang Chinese shipping companies, the Chinese shipbuilding industry did not receive a single order from abroad.
One country, one leader. Now the China Renaissance Party, with Lin Shuo as its leader, has obtained an absolute majority in the Congress.
In order to ensure that major domestic shipyards maintain basic production, Lin Shuo instructed the Navy to submit a new batch of naval expansion bills to Congress. According to the new naval expansion bill, in the 1921 fiscal year, the Navy will build 16 new frigates, 12 destroyers and
6 cruisers to meet the increasingly urgent need to safeguard the country’s maritime rights and interests.
Since its reconstruction, the Chinese Navy has regarded Japan as its imaginary enemy, and the Japanese Navy's newly-built "Honkaze" destroyer is obviously superior to the "Fangchang-class" destroyer previously built by the Navy in all aspects. For this reason, in the new class of destroyers
In the construction and design requirements, the Navy Ministry clearly referred to the data of the "Honkaze" class destroyer published by the Japanese Navy Ministry.
German ship designers took out the already mature 1916 fleet torpedo boat, and based on the requirements of the Navy Ministry, in order to increase seaworthiness, they changed the ship type to a long forecastle based on the British V-class and W-class fleet destroyers.
With high freeboard, the bow also adopts a new flying shear bow to improve seakeeping.
In the end, the Navy Department adopted the Wuhu-class destroyer designed by Wuhu Shipyard based on the German Type 1916 fleet torpedo boat, later called the "Wuhu-class" destroyer. Finally, the "Wuhu-class" destroyer reviewed by the Naval Equipment Bureau of the General Armament Department was 118 meters long and 10.8 meters wide.
meters, draft 4.2 meters/4.9 meters, design displacement: 2630 tons/3350 tons, power: four heavy oil high-pressure boilers, two AEG-Volcon steam turbines, dual-shaft propulsion, maximum power 52,000 horsepower, design speed: 33
Benefiting from the large number of German engineering and technical personnel who came to China, as well as a large number of German industrial enterprises that signed secret equity agreements with Chinese enterprises, the country has made leaps and bounds in metallurgical technology, metal processing technology, etc., including Krug.
Xinyu Iron and Steel Company, in which Bo Company had a stake, basically monopolized the supply of ship armor steel in the early days, while Fujian Jinggong Machinery Company located in Luoyuan Port became the preferred supplier of naval guns.
Thanks to Krupp's shareholding and technology introduction, Fujian Jinggong Machinery Factory gradually mastered the manufacturing process of large-caliber naval guns.
The manufacturing process of large-caliber naval guns is different from that of army artillery. Mountain guns or howitzers used by the army can sometimes directly use high-strength cold-drawn seamless steel pipes produced by steel mills. However, this steel pipe is not suitable for ships with much higher chamber pressures than army artillery.
It's really too fragile for a cannon.
The manufacturing capability of naval guns basically requires strong comprehensive industrial capabilities and technical equipment levels.
Naval guns require the use of high-strength alloy steel. The guns manufactured by the German Krupp Company generally use high-strength nickel-chromium alloy steel. This first requires the factory to have superb metallurgical technology and the production capacity to manufacture large steel castings.
Take the 152mm/L50 naval gun being developed by Fuzhou Luoyuan Heavy Machinery Factory as an example. First of all, the cast steel ingot weight of each barrel before processing is as high as 32 tons. In order to cast it in one go, the steelmaking branch of the heavy machinery factory only needs
The steel refining furnaces include one 150-ton open-hearth furnace, two 50-ton refining converters, five 30-ton converters, and three 10-ton converters, which can meet the shipyard's demand for steel castings.
The cast alloy steel ingots are first quenched and then transported by a large overhead crane to the 3,000-ton free hydraulic forging machine with a height of more than 20 meters in the forging plant to be forged into a cylinder of more than 10 meters long, so that the internal metal structure is uniform and dense.
to improve the overall structural strength.
The forged steel column is quenched twice and then sent to a large cutting machine to cut off the uneven stress at both ends in the forging press. The cut cylinder is then sent to a large horizontal drilling machine to drill a diameter of 100
mm steel core, this is just the completion of the rough blank manufacturing.
The processed rough blank is sent to a carbon monoxide heating furnace for preheating, and the red steel pipe is sent to a large hydraulic press for secondary forging. The forged steel pipe is then quenched at low temperature to eliminate the metal stress generated by the forging process.
The entire forging process must be carefully inspected. If even a tiny flaw is found in the forged barrel, the entire barrel will become a scrap.
The rough barrel blank that has passed the inspection is sent to a large milling machine to mill out the precise outer wall of the barrel. The shaped barrel is then sent to a large boring machine to boring out the precise and smooth inner wall. This is just an inner barrel. According to
The above steps also require the processing of an outer barrel. Because nickel, chromium and other metals are scarce and expensive, the outer tube material is generally made of tungsten-manganese steel. The two processed barrels require extremely precision.
The processing precision enables them to be tightly fitted together.
The outer wall of the combined double-layer casing is precisely cut, and three layers of high-strength manganese-tungsten alloy steel wire are tightly wrapped on the outside on a large winding machine to increase the strength of the barrel. An outer layer is also installed on the outside.
layer casing.
In order to improve the life and strength of the barrel, a layer of casing is added to the muzzle and breech. Then a large precision rifling machine is used to draw 21 rifling lines on the inner wall. This is the most precise part of barrel processing.
, the processing accuracy of the rifling directly affects the shooting accuracy. After the rifled barrel is engraved and the processed gun bolt is installed, the processing of a barrel is completed.
This is just a 152mm gun barrel weighing only 15 tons.
The construction of warships and civilian ships are definitely two different things.
China can now build large cargo ships with a displacement of 35,000 tons, but it will never be able to build a cruiser with a displacement of more than 5,000 tons.
Although there was a construction plan for six cruisers in the 1921 naval construction plan, it was still very difficult to implement. Since there was no experience in building large warships, it was impossible for various shipyards to design and build cruisers independently.
The Navy Department had to seek help from the Americans.
There is a "Bethlehem Contract" for mutual cooperation between the Chinese and American navies.
In 1922, the Republican Navy proposed to the Bethlehem Company that it would build two cruisers with this American company.
The Americans responded quickly, and the Bethlehem Shipyard quickly proposed six alternative cruiser construction plans. The number of cannons equipped on the warships ranged from 6 to up to 16, and the displacement ranged from 6,000 tons to 10,000 tons. They were all diverse and eye-catching.
Dazzled.
Minister of the Navy Li Dingxin is very fond of the American design of a heavy artillery cruiser equipped with four quadruple 152mm main guns and a full load displacement of more than 11,000 tons. Regarding this thing, Lin Shuo can only admire the imagination of the Americans.
But he rejected this plan without hesitation.
The "seven-turret monster" Agincourt built by the British for the Brazilians was enough to arouse the ridicule of people all over the world. He did not want his navy to become the object of ridicule by the navies of other countries.
In the end, under the advice of German shipbuilding experts, the plan selected by the Navy was a four-turret cruiser with 10 main guns, with a standard displacement of 7380 tons/9560 tons, and 152 mm/L52 main guns in three and two turrets at the front and rear.
One each, six MK4 twin-mounted 75mm 50-caliber secondary guns, and two quadruple-mounted 533mm torpedo launchers.
A total of 6 light cruisers, later named "Fuzhou Class", were built, 2 were built by Bethlehem Shipyard in the United States, and the other four were built by Chinese shipyards with technical data provided by Americans.
The finalized "Fuzhou-class" cruiser became the first-class cruiser built by the Republic Navy, with a length of 172 meters, a width of 17.3 meters, and a draft of 6.1 meters. The final design determined the standard displacement of 7,650 tons, the maximum power of the main engine is 88,000 horsepower, and the four-axis
Propelled by four propellers and twin rudders, it has a maximum speed of 33 knots, an endurance of 7,600 nautical miles/12 knots, and a standard capacity of 512 people.
The biggest difference between the "Fuzhou-class" cruisers and the cruisers built during World War I is that they are equipped with two catapult-launched Curtiss seaplanes to perform reconnaissance missions.
The first ship "Fuzhou" and the second ship "Hangzhou" of the "Fujian class" cruisers were built at Bethlehem Shipyard in 1924. In August 1926, the first ship "Fuzhou" was delivered to the Chinese Navy in the United States.
The "Fujian Class" is the beginning of the Chinese Navy's construction of large surface ships and is also a successful product of Sino-US cooperation. Later, the U.S. Navy slightly modified it and built its first-class light cruiser "Omaha Class" that was started after World War I.
", the U.S. Navy built a total of 12 warships of this class, making it the largest number of large surface warships built from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s.
The last three "Fuzhou-class" cruisers, "Nanchang", "Anqing" and "Taiyuan", are built by Luoyuan Shipyard, Shanghai Jiangnan Shipyard and Hudong Shipyard respectively. The large equipment required for shipyard transformation is produced and provided by Bethlehem Company
With technical support, through the construction of the "Fuzhou class", the Chinese Navy has gradually mastered the design, construction technology and technology of large surface ships, and has gradually taken a leap forward.
In this era, there is no arms embargo or technological blockade. How wonderful!
With the deaths of Feng Guozhang in 1919 and Ni Sichong in 1921, the influential Beiyang warlords in the country basically lost their local control, and the Beijing regime was showing unprecedented strength.
Since Sichuan returned to the central government, the Yunnan Army retreated to southern Sichuan and lost control of Artesian Wells, a financial and taxation center in Sichuan Province. How to maintain the expenditure of 70,000 to 80,000 Yunnan troops has become a headache for Tang Jiyao, commander-in-chief of the "Yunnan, Guizhou, and Sichuan Allied Forces"
.
In July 1921, Xiong Kewu was dispatched by the Kuomintang, gathered his old troops in Luzhou, and "raised troops to attack the forest" in the name of "reviving the Republic of China." Tang Jiyao ordered Gu Pinzhen, the Yunnan Army entrenched in southern Sichuan, and Zhao Youxin's troops were organized into the 1st and 3rd Yunnan Army.
The 2nd Army launched an attack on Ziliujing, and at the same time ordered Liu Xianshi to send Wang Wenhua's troops of the Guizhou Army to attack Qizhou and Chongqing from Guizhou.
The morale of the Eleventh Army of the Republican Army, which had just been reorganized from the former Sichuan Army, was at its peak. Commander Liu Cunhou ordered the commander of the 31st Division Zhou Daogang to defend Chongqing, while he led the commander of the Liu Xiang Division of the 32nd Division and the Lai Xinhui Division of the 33rd Division to face the Yunnan Army. Later,
Li Hanming led the Sixth Army of the Republic of China to attack the Guizhou Army from Chongqing.
Yang Sen, chief of staff of Zhao Youxin's Second Army of the Yunnan Army, defected to Liu Xiang and led the Sichuan army to attack Luzhou. When the Yunnan army guarding the gate of Luzhou saw its chief of staff leading people into the city, they thought he was bringing reinforcements, so they opened the city gate and sent Yang Sen
The troops were released from the city.
After entering the city, Yang Sen led his men to storm Zhao Youxin's headquarters in the city. The Yunnan army was defeated in the chaos and was chased by Liu Xiang's troops outside the city. Zhao Youxin was killed in the chaos. The general died in the battle, and the Yunnan army was defeated.
The 2nd army was defeated.
Seeing that the situation was not good, Gu Pinzhen led his men to abandon southern Sichuan and fled back to Yunnan.
The allied forces attacking Sichuan, Yunnan and Guizhou were defeated. Here, Li Yunlong led the two divisions of Hunan's 15th Army to invade Guizhou. Wang Wenhua was in a dilemma and announced that he would accept the central government's reorganization. Guizhou guard Liu Xianshi took the initiative to step down and return to his hometown in Xingyi to "repair graves."
The army was reorganized into the Seventeenth Group Army of the Republic Army, with Dai Kan as commander, Zhang Chengli as chief of staff, and Wang Wenhua, Yuan Zuming, and Xiong Qixun as commanders of each division.
Tang Jiyao was suspicious of the Yunnan troops returning to the province, so Gu Pinzhen, Deng Taizhong, Yang Zhen and others decided to join forces to overthrow the Tang Dynasty.
Ye Quan of the 8th Army of the Yunnan Army was the first to attack and failed to attack Kunming. Tang Jiyao sent troops to encircle and suppress Ye Quan with all his strength. Ye Quan retreated towards Guizhou, with the Tang Army in hot pursuit.
Kunming has become an empty city.
Gu Pinzhen led his troops into Kunming, and Tang Jiyao had no choice but to escape from Kunming and take a train to Vietnam.
In view of the unstable situation, Gu Pinzhen went to Beijing for rescue and sent a message to all armies in Yunnan Province to accept central reorganization. The Sixth and Fifteenth Army Groups of the Republican Army entered Yunnan. The "Er Li" took control of the overall situation in Kunming, and the southwest was unified.
At this time, only the Guangdong and Guangxi regions and Fengtian in the northeast were left in the country, and Jilin was still outside the central unified military order.