The Qing Dynasty

Chapter 568 Wolf Pack Concept
Many people were surprised to hear Teng Yuzhao say that the second fleet to develop a submarine capable of launching torpedoes underwater was the Beiyang Fleet.

In the impression of these people, the imperial court had obviously weakened since the Taiping Rebellion and had become a lamb to be slaughtered by the great powers.

Moreover, they were complacent and always regarded the science and technology of Western powers as weird and gimmicky tricks, and ignored them. How could they have the energy to develop the advanced naval technology of the time?
It even went ahead of most of the great powers and was at the forefront of the world in submarine manufacturing at that time!
Except for Zhou Fu, Li Yulin and Ye Zugui who looked sad, everyone including Sa Zhenbing was greatly surprised by this.

But this is the fact. Teng Yuzhao's heart is filled with mixed feelings and waves of sadness.

In 1863, France built the "Submersible" submarine, which used compressed air in compressed air bottles to drive a piston engine as power. It was the world's first mechanically powered submarine.

In 1880, the Tianjin Machinery Bureau built China's first submarine, making China one of only two countries in the world at that time that could manufacture mechanically powered submarines, with technology ahead of that of Britain and the United States.

The idea of ​​building this submarine for Beiyang was first proposed by a "provincial governor" named Chen. At that time, it was called an "underwater motorboat". Shen, the provincial governor, first designed the blueprints and appealed to Li Hongzhang for support. He also expressed his willingness to guarantee with a contract that if it was proved to be unsuitable after testing after it was built, he would not charge a penny for the construction costs, which would be borne entirely by him personally.

Although Li Hongzhang was also very interested in this type of ship that could dive underwater and it was approved by Li Hongzhang, Li Hongzhang was still at the same level of thinking as the great powers of today who only recognized huge ships and cannons, and was not very optimistic about the prospects of this new type of ship.

Despite this, in the summer of 1880, the construction of this "underwater motor ship" began in the Tianjin Machinery Bureau. Chen Daoyuan personally led more than 10 craftsmen to build a wall in the courtyard of the Machinery Bureau. The wall was heavily guarded inside and outside, and "outsiders were prohibited from spying, and other engineers were strictly prohibited from spying." Even the person in charge of directing the construction did not know the purpose of the wall, so you can imagine how confidential it was.

After a whole summer of intensive construction, this special ship was completed in September of that year.

At this time, it had only been 1863 years since France successfully built its first mechanically powered submarine, the "Diver", in 17.

On September 9 of that year, which was the Mid-Autumn Festival, this "underwater motorboat" conducted a sea trial in the Haihe River in Tianjin.

According to records, "The ship can sail half-floating on the water, which is very agile and useful; when it sinks, the water mark still floats a few feet above the water surface. If it is crossing the ocean, it can make the surface invisible and lay mines as desired. It is a powerful weapon to destroy the enemy."

Judging from the comments when the submarine was launched for trial, the trial construction of China's first submarine was obviously quite successful.

Unfortunately, the fate of this first recorded domestically-made submarine in Chinese history was very short. There is no record of its actual use and no physical object left.

To this day, people still don't know what the propulsion system of this first Chinese-made submarine looks like, or how it ascends or dives.

As for the structure of the hull, there is no way of knowing.

This incident has become an unsolved case in later generations.

Teng Yuzhao was very suspicious in his previous life. What he was most concerned about was who this Taoist Shen was.
A prefect who did not belong to the navy and obviously had not studied abroad, otherwise there should have been some clues left in the records. But such a person could actually see the huge value of submarines and even design and manufacture them by himself!
What's more, judging from the fact that he dared to sign a contract to ensure that the submarine he designed and built would be suitable for use, this Dao Yuan Shen had absolute confidence in the submarine he designed!

This made Teng Yuzhao suspect that this Taoist priest named Shen was also a time traveler like him, or even a time traveler who came to this era earlier than him!
Otherwise, how could he, who had basically never been abroad and lived in such an underdeveloped information era and had never even seen what a submarine looked like, build a submarine!
However, after traveling through time, Teng Yuzao had been in intense combat and had no spare time to inquire about the whereabouts of Shen Daoyuan. It was not until Teng Yuzao returned to Tianjin that he asked Zhou Fu, who knew the Beiyang government best, about this matter.

However, Zhou Fu couldn't explain it clearly. He only knew that this prefectural official named Shen was from Jiangxi, but he didn't know the specific prefecture or county. It seemed that his family was not wealthy. It was said that he borrowed money to buy the position. Moreover, although he had the identity of a prefectural official, for some reason, he had never married. When he built this submarine, he was still alone.

After the new submarine was built, it was widely reported in Shanghai newspapers. Subsequently, the French protested to Cixi, saying that this Daoyuan Shen had stolen their country's submarine secrets.

It is estimated that Cixi thought this thing was useless, and it is not known how she discussed it with Li Hongzhang, but in the end Li Hongzhang ordered the burning of the submarine design drawings and the demolition of the already built submarine.

According to Zhou Fu, Daoyuan Shen fell seriously ill afterwards and then suddenly disappeared.

No one knew where he went, or whether he was dead or alive, but no one ever saw him again.

All I heard was that during his serious illness, a British businessman often visited him.

In order to find and explore the whereabouts of Shen Daoyuan, Teng Yuzhao even sent people to the Ministry of Personnel to look for Shen Daoyuan's files, trying to find out which prefecture or county in Jiangxi Province Shen Daoyuan was from.

Since he donated money to become an official, there must be files left in the Ministry of Personnel. However, during the war, most of the files in the Ministry of Personnel were destroyed or lost, and he did not get the answers he was looking for in the Ministry of Personnel.

Teng Yuzhao was confused and emotional, but he had no choice but to give up.

Teng Yuzhao sighed secretly in his heart and continued.

"For new ships like submarines, the great powers are still in the initial stage of exploration. Moreover, due to the lack of understanding of the technology and the strategic significance of submarines, although the great powers have begun to develop submarines, they do not pay enough attention to them and the progress is extremely slow."

"Until now."

Teng Yuzhao almost blurted out the word "first battle".

".The militaries of the major powers have strong doubts and opposition to the new concept of submarines. In the West, submarines are still regarded as ungentlemanly naval weapons, and even their captured crew members may be treated as pirates."

"As far as I know, the French, American, British, Russian and Japanese navies are now each equipped with several submarines. The Japanese submarines are not developed by themselves, but built for them by Holland."

"That is to say, if we start to put great efforts into developing submarines now, we will be at the same starting stage as the great powers, and we can definitely have the most advanced new submarines in the world."

Teng Yuzhao took a deep breath and looked at Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing.

"Tong Hou, Ding Ming, can you imagine what would happen if we could build a submarine equipped with torpedoes that could travel faster and dive deeper, and suddenly launch a few torpedoes at the enemy fleet at close range underwater without anyone noticing?"

Teng Yuzao's words made Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing feel a little nervous. If the fleet suddenly found several torpedoes coming at it at close range while sailing, not to mention the ironclad ships of several thousand tons, even battleships of tens of thousands of tons would be sunk.

Especially now that the Japanese Navy also has this new type of submarine, the Beiyang Fleet must also have it, and it must be more advanced than the Japanese Navy's submarines.

Ye Zugui said to Teng Yuzao in a serious tone, "Marshal, since the Japanese have submarines, we in Beiyang must also have submarines."

"Correct!"

Sa Zhenbing also said, "Marshal, we must have submarines as well, and we must have more and better submarines than the Japanese. If we can have thirty or fifty submarines, once a battle breaks out, the Japanese fleet will be overwhelmed no matter how many battleships they have. If we can really sink a few of their large ships, it is not impossible to destroy the Japanese fleet."

"Commander."

Li Yulin said with some concern, "How much does this submarine cost?"

The costs of manufacturing weapons and ammunition for the new Beiyang Army's army and navy, as well as logistics and fodder, and the costs of military pay and pensions were all managed and coordinated by Li Yulin and his Military Industry and Logistics Department.

Although for the time being, as long as Li Yulin drew up the accounts, Teng Yuzao would approve them one by one, and Li Yulin was also very clear that Teng Yuzao still had a large sum of money in his hands, but as the general manager of the camp office for more than a year, he was fully responsible for all the expenses and expenditures of the vanguard army, which made Li Yulin develop the habit of careful budgeting.

Especially now, all aspects of Zhili are spending huge sums of money, and it is unknown when the huge railway investment will be rewarded. In this case, even if Teng Yuzhao has a gold mountain, there will always be a time when it will be exhausted. He can't help but worry about Teng Yuzhao.

Teng Yuzhao naturally understood Li Yulin's thoughts. This was a reminder to him that military spending must be restrained. This was also the reason why he insisted that Li Yulin be in charge of the Military Industry Logistics Department. Li Yulin was now accustomed to comprehensively considering and coordinating military spending.

Teng Yuzao smiled bitterly and said, "If we buy it from abroad, even if it is the best submarine that the great powers can build now, it is estimated that one submarine will cost about 110,000 or 120,000 US dollars, which is probably less than 200,000 taels of silver per submarine."

As soon as Teng Yuzao finished speaking, people including Li Yulin, Ye Zugui, and Sa Zhenbing couldn't help but look grim, and the other people in the meeting room also smiled bitterly.

If one ship costs 200,000 taels of silver, fifty ships would be 10 million taels of silver, which is enough to buy two more 10,000-ton large battleships.

Li Yulin glanced at Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing who were somewhat embarrassed, and spoke after a slight hesitation.

"Marshal, not counting these submarines, even if there are only two steel-clad ships of more than 10,000 tons, there are still 30 steel-clad fast cruisers of about 6,000 tons, and ten destroyers of 2,000 to 3,000 tons. Based on the cost of the 10,000-ton large ship that the Marshal just mentioned, I roughly calculated it."

"All these warships combined would cost at least 100 million taels of silver, and we still have other military expenses to pay."

Just now, everyone was just happy and excited when they heard the blueprint that Teng Yuzao had drawn for them. No one thought about how much money it would cost. Now, after hearing what Li Yulin said, everyone looked at each other in bewilderment.

One hundred million taels of silver. Even if the imperial court didn't spend a penny on taxes for a year, it wouldn't be enough to make up this amount!

One hundred million taels of silver is an absolutely huge sum of money no matter where you are, including for the great powers. One hundred million taels of silver is probably the annual military expenditure of some countries.

Even before World War I more than ten years later, Germany, which had the highest military expenditure, only had around 1.2 billion taels of silver.

Teng Yuzhao has money now, but his money still has great uses, such as promoting Westernization and building railways. Of course, his military expenditures must also be taken into account. These cost a large amount of money every year. Where does the money come from?
He can only have a steady flow of funds by making more money with the money in his hands. If he casually takes out hundreds of millions of silver now, he will have no choice but to watch the Russo-Japanese War two and a half years later.

Teng Yuzao, who had been prepared for this, smiled and said to Li Yulin, "Qionglin, we can't spend that much money, you can rest assured about this."

Seeing that everyone still had doubts, Teng Yuzhao had no choice but to explain patiently.

"You should all remember that the great powers still owe us silver. Britain, France, Germany, and the United States owe us 40 million taels of silver, and Italy and Austria owe us 2 million taels of silver, which adds up to 42 million taels of silver."

"It was agreed at the beginning that the great powers would not give us this silver in cash. We can only spend this silver in these four countries."

Teng Yuzhao lit a cigarette, took a puff, and said with a smile.

"Forty-two million is not a small sum. We can't just spend it casually. We can only buy the things we need most. What we need most right now is, of course, the machinery and equipment for the Westernization Factory, and new ships for the navy."

"Since our talks with the Germans went smoothly, the arsenal, shipyard, and steel mill were all built in partnership with the Germans. The equipment purchased to repair and expand the Beiyang Machinery Bureau was also mainly purchased from Germany. Therefore, the money the Germans owed us has been spent, leaving only more than one million taels of silver. In other words, we still have more than 33 million taels of silver."

"Although we also need to build machine factories that can manufacture steam engines, diesel and gasoline engines, as well as machine factories that can manufacture other mechanical equipment, as well as equipment needed by many other factories such as railway locomotives and automobile factories."

"But we have separate expenditures for these, and many factories are joint ventures or have merchants invest in them. It is not easy to use the funds of the Zhili Governor's Office. We will try not to let government funds enter to avoid joint ventures between government and business."

"In this way, we can use the more than 33 million taels of silver to purchase warships for our navy."

Teng Yuzao seemed confident and spoke to Ye Zugui and Sa Zhenbing in a relaxed manner.

"It is true that we are buying things from foreigners, but there are rules for buying things. We can't think that this silver is something we picked up for free. We must remember that this tens of millions of taels of silver was bought with the lives of our soldiers!"

"Moreover, we can't just say that a certain great power gave us a certain amount of silver and then ignore them once we've spent it. That won't work. The silver we've spent on each great power will exceed the amount of their compensation."

"Then the great powers will think more about how to get us to buy more of their products, and even think about earning back the 10 million taels they paid us as compensation. Only then will they think of ways to get us to buy more of their products."

(End of this chapter)