Chapter 279 Coastal Defense

Shanghai doesn't have much history. Compared with Yanjing, Xi'an and other ancient capitals, Shanghai is young.

There should be no vicissitudes when you are young.

Maybe it's wrong. In modern history, even in the "paradise of oriental adventurers", even if she was drunk and full of bruises.

The Huangpu River took a detour in Shanghai and converged north into the Yangtze River. The place to enter the river is Wusongkou.

In the 60 years after the Opium War, the Qing Dynasty once paid attention to coastal defense. Like many forts in Dagukou, Guangzhou and Xiamen, it began to strengthen the construction of Wusong Fort, and built four forts in the southeast, north and south of Wusongkou and the Lion Forest. A new type of resump gun, or a Knup gun purchased from Germany, or an imitation gun from Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau has been added, achieving the purpose of locking the river with Jiangkou Fort.

After the restoration, in view of the fact that the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River are the lifeblood of China's economy and industry, there is no naval ruling axe facing possible external interference at any time, and the Wusongkou Fort is too backward to block the attack of foreign ships. The shore cannon must be updated. The Wusongkou Fort has become a long sword to defend Shanghai, strangling the throat of the Yangtze River estuary to the sea.

The General Staff of the Restoration Army immediately approved the plan, and the Wusong Fort was expanded again. Although the new artillery was insufficient, it used reinforced concrete to realize the fortification and fortification. It adopts cement base, ten-wood structure, position soil cultivation, camouflage with turf and paint, waterproof insulation in the ammunition depot, sealed doors and air ducts, and moisture-proof equipment. On the basis of the original ancient fort, retaining walls, sound insulation walls, drainage ditches, etc. were built, making the Wusong fort a new look.

Compared with the exposed turrets in the past, the main guns of the turret at this time are all in the hemispherical steel plate shield turret, medium and small caliber guns below 150 mm, or equipped with hemispherical steel plate shield turrets, or in the reinforced concrete fortress.

All artillery in the battery can be fired in a 360-degree ring. There are also dozens of machine gun bunkers and two fortress ring-shaped defensive trenches around the fort. There is also an underground troop transport road connected to the barracks in the large shelter. After months of repair, the artillery and positions of Wusongkou Fortress have become the first-class coastal fortress, and the firepower has been significantly strengthened.

During the "tariff incident", a new type of rapid-fire shore gun was shipped, with a diameter of 152 mm and a diameter of 120 mm, with a range of more than 10 kilometers, posing a threat to the enemy ships above the medium-sized. However, after the firepower of the east-west turret, there was still an empty block of about 2,000 meters, and the enemy ship could pass smoothly. It can't form a fire blockade network.

Jiang Fangzhen, the chief of staff of the Guangfu Army, personally sat on a naval ship and inspected the terrain of Wusongkou in detail. He took a small reef in the middle of the sea, called Chicken Bone Reef. So he decided to build a shore fort on the Chicken Bone Reef, so that the east and west forts and the middle forts of the Chicken Bone Reef can completely block the channel. The chicken bone reef is in the middle, which can not only be exchanged with the firepower of the East Battery, but also with the firepower of the West Battery, becoming a latt guarding the gate of Wusongkou.

But it is not easy to build a fort on the chicken bone reef. There is only one on the sea, and the bottom is a reef plate composed of three reefs. It is on the tip of the storm, and the construction is quite difficult. The task of building this fort fell on the naval engineering brigade. The initial construction was fruitless. The poured cement was poured at night, swept away by the waves during the day, watered during the day, and swept away by the waves at night. Every time, only a few steel bars were left to tremble in the waves.

The fort has to be repaired when the navy can't defend the sea territory. No matter how difficult it is, it has to be repaired. The most important thing is that an old turret finally came up with a clever plan to use an old ship to rush into the central sea area of three reefs at high tide, and then drill a hole in the bottom of the ship, drill into the steel brazed, and pour cement into the cabin. Even the ship and cement are fixed on the reef, becoming the link connecting the three reefs. Then gradually take advantage of the opportunity of the receding tide to expand outward and pour cement continuously, so that the base will continue to expand and strengthen, and become the foundation of the fort. With the foundation of this platform, everything else is easy to do.

There is a drizzle in the old world, but there is a light in the dark at the mouth of the river. The mixer is roaring. The naval engineers in raincoats are sticking steel bars and nailing the plate racks along the base castle, and the anti-seawater cement concrete is constantly falling into the frame that has been made up to four meters thick.

A ship moored next to the fort construction site lifted the base of several tons and dozens of tons of armored turrets to the base. In this bright light, hundreds of soldiers were as busy as worker ants. When they were busy, an officer on a beautiful [***] ship that had just entered Wusongkou was in a sea. What is depicted on the picture.

"Humen in Guangdong, Xiamen in the Pearl River in Fujian, Dinghai in Zhejiang, Zhenhai, Wusongkou, Jiangyin, Zhenjiang, Shofu Mountain... Almost half of China is building fortress forts!"

Put down the map in your hand, Paul? Jones frowned. This time, during his expedition along the coast of China, he accidentally found that all of China was building a coastal defense fortress. When he bit his pencil, he took another look at an English newspaper he bought when he was in Hong Kong.

"The Chinese Ministry of the Navy ordered 15 double 12-inch armored turrets for ships from Armstrong and Knup..."

The report in the newspaper confused him. Is China going to build a warship?

Paul, who thought so, shook his head again. China does not have the technical strength to build warships now, but why did they order these turrets for these ships? "Completed and delivered before February 1st..." Paul, puzzled, looked at the small turret again. He always felt that China now seemed to be in Prepare something, or prepare for something. "I came to Germany to ask us about the principle of machine operation and the research methods of science and technology. They always tirelessly study various institutional structures and hope to return to China for development. The bureaucrats of the Qing Dynasty didn't seem to be interested in all this. They just asked the surname of the gun and the price. All they cared was about was whether the foreign machine they bought was worth it. Therefore, it is bound to be the winner.

Perhaps it is due to the short-sightedness of the Qing Dynasty that, to a certain extent, China's military machinery is not lagging behind other countries in the world. After several months of expansion, the Jiangnan Naval Manufacturing Bureau in Shanghai has become the only one in China that can provide heavy ships. The factory of the shore fire cannon is the largest steam hammer in Asia. It is a 3,000-ton steam hammer purchased from Germany more than 20 years ago. Thanks to this large steam hammer, China can manufacture 150mm rapid-fire gun and 305mm coastal defense gun ahead of Japan in the past eight years.

However, this large steam hammer, which can be called a giant in China, has not been fully used in the past few years, and even the forging pressure decreased due to poor use and maintenance. Until the demolition of the northern battery of the Xinchou Treaty, the navy had no need to replace the rapid-fire gun. This large steam hammer was semi-wasteful until it was restored. After spending hundreds of thousands of yuan to repair it, the steam hammer of the gun factory of the Jiangnan Naval Manufacturing Bureau roared again.

In the steam hammer workshop of the gun factory, the steam hammer hoisted by the track pulley roared. The red nearly two-foot thick gun billet was splashed under the forging of the steam hammer, and the material of the gun billet became more and more detailed. In the steam hammer workshop, several processed blanks that had been processed not far away were waiting to be lifted to the polished car. Between.

"Complete the manufacture of a 305 mm...mm coastal gun billet every day. By the beginning of next year, at least 36 305 mm coastal guns can be added to the coastal and riverside forts!"

Although he has been back to China for several months, Zheng Zixi occasionally refers to the millimeter as a secret, staring at the pipe blank that needs at least 8 hours to complete the hammer forging. This new long-range coastal gun is made with reference to the long-range coastal gun designed by him in the United Kingdom. The 52-fold body tube adopts a 7-layer tight type, with 2 and The liquid gas re-entering machine and the re-retiring machine. The double armored turret has a total weight of 620 tons and is connected to the ring seat with a ball bearing made in Germany. The reading pitch of the three body tubes, the high and low firing range is -5-+25 degrees, the electric bomb pusher is loaded, the rate of fire is 1.5-1.7 rounds per minute, and the range at the maximum elevation angle is 24,000 meters, which can far exceed the main gun of any warship in the world.

"15 double 12-inch armored turrets are arranged in 15 forts along the coast from Guangzhou to Wusong. They form a coastal defense fortress system with old guns and new small and medium-caliber guns and machine guns, but... the defense of the sea still depends on the navy!"

Xiao Lie, who is responsible for designing the re-inforcement and retreater, shook his head helplessly and sighed. Relying on those fortified and fortified forts, they can only be defended along the coast and are far from meeting the needs of the sea.

"Zike, we don't have a navy now! In the customs case, although the great powers did not interfere in the end, who can guarantee that they will not interfere in the future? Now we have to prevent the problem from not burning. It only takes a few months to train the artillery, but it can be a few years or even more than ten years to build a navy that defends the sea.

Zheng Zixu continued to say that he straightened the old-fashioned and fashionable gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"Although this gun refers to the design of the British 25-nautical-mile long-range coastal gun, you and I used the design of the warship armored turret without exception. This is not just for survival, but also to lay the foundation for the design and manufacture of warships in the future. With this experience, it is easy to build a bigger one in the future. Artillery is not!"

He took a thoughtful look at the blanks, and Xiao Lie nodded.

"The armored turret was commissioned by Germany and the United Kingdom. According to the contract, 15 turrets were handed over to Shanghai, Guangzhou Port, Xiamen, Fuzhou and Shanghai before February. The question now is whether Krup can deliver the railway gun base that can rotate 360 degrees before March next year. The 203mm gun is not a big problem. The problem is the 360-degree firing boundary of the 305mm railway gun. If this problem cannot be solved, the whole North China can only rely on the ground cannon to defend the coastal defense.

The Xinchou Treaty stipulates that the Dagu Fort and the forts that hinder the passage from the capital to the sea will be flattened, so that the North China region is truly defenseless, and these must be solved by railway guns.

"The problem of artillery should be solved by the Germans, but what about the problem of railway? This problem needs to be solved by ourselves!"

"Isn't the Pinghan Railway being built now? I believe that the transportation and use of railway cannons should have been taken into account.

(to be continued)