Joseon Needs a Coup - Chapter 355



Only Noblemtl

#2-12. Zhang’s Rising (5)

Originally, no one had thought of introducing this battleship so quickly. From the beginning, there were many restrictions on what a new navy that had just stepped foot onto the sea could do in the powerful Combined Fleet, which was the pinnacle of the Imperial Japanese Navy.

However, the Navy’s will to introduce battleships at some point was clear. In a situation where it had to face potential enemies, the Qing Navy (now the Republic of China Navy) to the north and the Japanese Navy to the south, in the East, West, and South Seas, the construction of a large-scale naval force was essential for economic development through maritime expansion and for protecting maritime transportation routes.

Accordingly, they planned to gradually prepare for the goal of having a fleet of six battleships and cruisers within 30 years to defend at least the west coast where the major shipping routes of the Korean Empire were concentrated.

The plan to unify the seas, also known as the 33rd Fleet, was prepared in perfect accordance with the Navy’s strategic goals of accepting the lessons of the previous war, rejecting enemy infiltration within the operational area in the East Sea, gradually securing a radius of activity, and ultimately securing maritime superiority.

Of course, some radicals went a little off track. They even came up with a Korean version of a tapering interception operation, where they would force Japan’s battleships to enter the West Sea in order to block our maritime traffic, gradually reduce their strength through surprise attacks by a large number of small ships including destroyers, and then win a fleet battle with the 33rd Fleet at the crucial moment.

Of course, it was fortunate that Admiral Jang Gi-ryeom got angry and said, “Are you saying this is a plan against Japan?” and fell down. In a time when there were no aircraft or submarine forces, I could not have imagined that they would bring that up, but if it had been such a time, I would have opposed it with both hands.

In any case, as negotiations proceeded to receive a protected cruiser as a gift from Russia, the need arose to gain experience with large ships and to build up know-how in shipbuilding on our own, so we established a shipbuilding bureau under the Ministry of the Navy and began preparing to build shipyards all over the country.

The first shipyard was established in Busan as Russia, France, and the United States, all of which needed facilities to service ships in East Asian waters, came together to form the Russian Federation.

Since it was a facility capable of building ships of 500 to 1,000 tons, there was no need for a large dry dock, but it was significant in its own way as the first shipyard and was able to move forward on the path to building ships to protect the nation.

Accordingly, in order to build up a force suitable for maritime surveillance and trade destruction, the Navy purchased three protected cruisers and eight destroyers to serve as flagships in each sea area by 1916, and instructed the established shipyards to build six gunboats and ten destroyers themselves.

Excluding the two gunboats that were still under construction, the three protected cruisers, four gunboats, and 24 destroyers were the entire force that our Navy currently had.

“Thanks to this, the naval shipbuilding project itself had to undergo a complete reorganization.”

“At that time, the expression on the face of Chief of Naval Construction, Admiral Shin Sun-seong, was something to behold.”

As he said, these ambitious plans for the Navy were effectively over with the introduction of Russian-made battleships in 1910, when the Director of the Naval Construction Bureau, Admiral Shin Sun-seong, seriously considered resigning. Originally, all military cooperation with Russia had been ‘officially’ terminated by the Treaty of Portsmouth.

Therefore, if Korea had arbitrarily imported ships from Russia, the Anglo-Japanese Alliance would have been in an uproar. The Korean Empire would not have been able to avoid criticism that it was abandoning its duty as a neutral country without actually breaking off its military cooperation with Russia.

But there was one variable here. Immediately after the Japanese Navy occupied Port Arthur and destroyed the First Pacific Fleet, they salvaged four pre-dreadnought battleships that had been anchored in the port, had them repaired in the dock, and then incorporated them into their fleet.

Russia immediately demanded the immediate return of its repaired ships, including the battleships Poltava, Sevastopol, Pobeda, and Peresvet, which had been sunk in Port Arthur, claiming that Japan had shown its ambition to not give up the war in the Far East.

However, Japan salvaged the sunken battleships before the armistice was concluded, and the Japanese army held on to Port Arthur until the end of the campaign, which led to a rather sharp confrontation.

“At that time, His Majesty said that this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and that he would purchase the battleship this time. I don’t know how much effort he put into it.”

There was quite a lot implied in the smiling words of Vice Admiral of the Navy Lee Dong-hwi. As the two countries of Russia and Japan continued to clash diplomatically, the Emperor’s will, which had been persistently demanding the introduction of battleships since the war, and the public’s desire for the introduction of current military power coincided, leading to the preparation of a new proposal to the outside world.

Naturally, the Army, including me, opposed this proposal. The defense sector had expanded due to the South Manchurian issue, and the purchase of battleships was not a good idea as the divisions were being completely reorganized.

The Navy surprisingly showed a lukewarm response and maintained an attitude of just observing the situation. In fact, the Navy only perceived this as a passing breeze.

Without really thinking that the Emperor’s proposal would work, he simply used this as an excuse to see if it would help with the issue of additional introduction of protected cruisers, which was currently under negotiation with Russia. However, contrary to everyone’s expectations, the introduction of the battleships became a reality.

“I didn’t know that His Majesty the Emperor would come up with such a plan, and that it would be accepted. Admiral Jang Gi-ryeom almost fell behind.”

“… In exchange for allowing us to buy one battleship from Russia, you are clearly not in your right mind.”

“When were you ever in your right mind?”

It was literally true. Since it was impossible to receive the actual return of the Japanese Navy, which had arbitrarily salvaged sunken ships and towed them back to Korea for commissioning, an unprecedented situation arose in which permission was received from Russia to purchase battleships as a way to strengthen the naval power of neutral Korea.

And this was actually accepted among the great powers. From the Russian point of view, they needed a second squadron to support their navy, and the great powers, including Japan, also accepted this, judging that a single battleship would not only not be able to upset the balance in the Far East, but would also not threaten them.

“There may be several reasons why the Japanese accepted without complaint, but it was probably cheap in exchange for having four battleships. In addition, since they had to deploy 10% of our entire navy personnel to the battleships, they probably thought they could boldly induce a change in strategy.”

As Lee Dong-hwi said, Japan welcomed this. Considering the suffering they had suffered from our navy’s trade destruction operations in the previous war, there was also a clear intention that if Russian-made battleships were handed over to the Korean navy, they would be able to disrupt trade destruction operations in the future war.

Because in order to operate one battleship right away, the crews of about 20 destroyers had to be turned around. There was also another very important reason attached to it.

“They said that during our last exchange. They don’t really care about one or two Korean Navy battleships.”

To be exact, it is said that Japanese naval captains said such things.

– In the end, the battleships will make everything useless. So our Imperial Navy won’t mind if your Navy buys one or two more battleships. This will continue to be the case. –

The Japanese Navy, having already destroyed Russian naval battleships, seemed to have concluded that our battleships would be easy to deal with. Based on the lessons learned from the previous war, they were confident that they could easily sink them if they launched a surprise attack, and in particular, they had all the information about the Korean Empire’s military ports.

In addition, the era of the ‘dreadnought-class’ battleships, which had already shaken up the history of the world’s navies, was coming. And, it was obvious without me having to explain where the Borodino-class, the last type of pre-dreadnought battleship, stood.

Finally, in 1907, in accordance with the agreement, Russia requested from St. Petersburg the sale of the battleship ‘Orel’ and the full gift of a protected cruiser, under the pretext of ‘rewarding’ the fame and devotion of the brave Korean Navy that had contributed to the victory of the Manchurian Army Headquarters and Admiral Rozhdestvensky.

And the introduction of battleships was a completely unexpected method of getting the Tsar to accept it. The timing was truly extraordinary, as this coincided with issues related to Russia’s naval business.

There was also an intention to quickly get rid of the infamous Borodino-class ships, but since the original purpose of their construction was to build 10 battleships for defense in the Pacific, it seems that they decided it would be much more desirable to give them to the Korean Navy.

… and he even took money for it. Although he said he would sell it cheaply, since it was a battleship in name only, its price was enormous despite our economic power growing day by day.

The amount burned down in one fell swoop was equivalent to about 10% of the total cost the Russian Empire had spent in 1899 on the fortification of Lushun. As a result, the Ministry of Finance and the Imperial Treasury had to shed tears of blood, but the Emperor, the Navy Command, and the entire nation were eager to strengthen the Navy, which was currently in full force, and a fundraising campaign was launched.

“It was really fun back then. Even young students would come to the Navy Department with money they had collected, saying it was a donation to the national defense to purchase a battleship.”

I wanted to ask back, “Wasn’t that all controlled?” but stopped myself. Right now, Japan deducted 10% of teachers’ and soldiers’ salaries as defense contributions and used it to purchase a fleet, and during the Cold War, South Korea also purchased five F-4D Phantoms as defense contributions.

“Thanks to this, we were able to save up and cover a quarter of the total cost in just three months.”

…because of this, 10% of soldiers and officials’ salaries were withheld for several months. Newspapers ran advertisements every day for ‘defense donations’ to purchase battleships, and touching articles were written about ‘ordinary citizens’ who donated their scraps of money.

Here, each governor or county governor competed to see which region would send the most donations. As a result, the purchase of the navy’s battleships had a nationwide effect, to the point that there was a commotion for a while over naming the newly purchased battleships after their own region’s name.

In addition, the Privy Council put great pressure on the Marshal’s Office, saying that now that the Korean Empire had acquired warships and had become a sufficiently powerful nation in Asia, it should strengthen its fleet to match its prestige.

In this way, the battleship issue that had briefly stirred up the Far East in 1910 was resolved.