CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT in 1867 performed many functions.The machine shop built large chines for armament manufacture were improvised.The upstairs and small military engines,machinery,dock pumps,and lifts; arms shop acquired its own building in 1868.Tseng said its prod- the carpenter shop made all patterns for machinery;the casting uct was as good as any,and in his enthusiastic description of gun- shop housed molding equipment;the wrought iron shop made making talked of bores "as smooth as lard."But he was not con- parts for the plant and the ships;the steamer yard turned out tent with simile,and talked knowledgeably of needing barrel parts for warships and provincial steamers;the boiler shop pro- makers,polishers,bore drillers,threading machines,and so on. duced machine parts in addition to boilers,and later added armor In 1872 the Shanghai British consul wrote of 1300 workmen at plate and bars;there was a gun factory(at first over the machine Kiangnan laboring with"remarkable efficiency"to make Reming- shop),and an engineering bureau that did the necessary bridging, ton rifles,shot,shell (smooth bore and rifled),iron gun carriages, ditching,and housing.s and the like,using a "vast variety of...articles of a complex By 1872,the year of Tseng Kuo-fan's death,the Kiangnan ar- character..”& senal had produced six ships.After the Tien Chi came the Hui During these years improvements in the Kiangnan ships were Chi,built also in 1868,and she was followed in 186g-187o by the introduced or contemplated.The Ts'ao Chiang had iron armor, Ts'ao Chiang,Ts'e Hai,and Wei Ching.These ships were in ap- and the yard's administration was contemplating building com- proximately the same class,being about 2oo feet in length,with posite ships (iron frames and wooden skin)in 1872.There were engines not exceeding 6o0 horsepower.The T'ien Chi and Ts'e problems,however.The ships were expensive to maintain,and in Hai mounted fifteen twenty-four-pound howitzers apiece,all made 1872 Ho Ching,who became southern commissioner after the at the arsenal.One specification of the Hui Chi,probably com- death of Tseng Kuo-fan,was uncertain that he could rent out mon to all of these ships,was a cargo capacity,in the Hui Chi's the Kiangnan ships,and became less active in support of the ship- case 6oo tons.In 1872 a foreigner observed that the Kiangnan building program.In 1872 there came an attack by the conserva- ships had "for some time past"been used to move government tive Sung Chin on the self-strengthening program,and this, stores and personnel.These ships,designed to pay their own way, coupled with the death of the arsenal's mentor Tseng Kuo-fan were not exclusively military.3 and the doubts of Ho Ching,probably encouraged the officials in The sixth Kiangnan steamer was the Hai An of 1871.This charge of the arsenal to shift to the less controversial emphasis on 1800-horsepower,g000-ton vessel carried twenty-six guns,and was ordnance and ammunition.? described by a British consul as a "most creditable specimen of After 1874 plant expansion at Kiangnan favored ordnance and naval architecture."Save for her propeller shaft and cranks,she ammunition.A powder works at Lunghwa,outside the city,was had been built entirely at the arsenal.The Hai An and another added in 1874,which was soon turning out a ton of powder daily. much like her,the Yu An of 1873,were powerful ships by Chinese In 1875 a small-arms plant was put up at Lunghwa.On the other standards,but since they played no part in the 1874 Liuchiu hand,Li Hung-chang,who was one of the directors of the Kiang- crisis with Japan,when naval transport was badly needed,we may nan arsenal,observed that attempts to imitate steel breech-loading wonder about how well constructed they were.In 1875 the arsenal Krupp rifles at the plant were frustrated by insufficient machinery. launched the 1800-horsepower,2800-ton Yu Yian,but after this He recognized that it was difficult to keep up with foreign proto- it virtually ceased to build ships,concentrating on ordnance and types,and that complete retooling would require about g00,o00 ammunition.7 taels,even if the right machines were available,which they were The change to ordnance might have been foreshadowed by the not.The Lunghwa works,he added,were behind in the supply of comment in 1868 by Tseng Kuo-fan that although shipbuilding ammunition.10 had high promise,the immediate need was for guns.At that time certain rearrangements were made so that "by combination and In the 187o's,Li Hung-chang came to be more immediately division"of existing machinery and plant,more than thirty ma- interested in the Tientsin arsenal.In 1866,Ch'ung-hou,then 42 43
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT northern commissioner,set up an arsenal at the "Tientsin joss- and more importantly the help of two other Frenchmen,Prosper house,"under British guidance.When Li Hung-chang became Giquel,also of the customs service,and Paul d'Aiguebelle,a lt. Chihli governor-general in 1870,this modest plant was producing de vaisseau who (with the Chinese rank of brigade general)had a few cannon "with fair merit."Li sent for Shen Pao-ching of the been a member of the mixed force which retook Hangchow from Kiangnan arsenal and made him director of the Tientsin plant. the Taiping rebels.Tso sent D'Aiguebelle to France to gather Shen was also made Tientsin customs intendant,and placed over plans for a shipyard while Tso consulted Giquel.In his memorial coastal defense as well;thus this new man of Li's controlled money, of June 25,1866,already referred to,Tso proposed the construc- arms,and troops.Li asserted that his reorganized Tientsin ar- tion of a shipyard.The year was one of excitement;the Wade-Hart senal,now without foreign direction,would be superior to the proposals about the internationalizing of piracy suppression off the Foochow dockyard,which was under foreigners.Two branches of China coast,proposals which had precipitated Tso's own proposal the arsenal were developed.One,the"eastern branch,"made guns to the court,were taken by the Chinese to presage Western de- for Li's own water and land forces;the other,the "southern mands for the revision of the Tientsin treaties.Peking interested branch,"made cannon and small arms for Honan and Kirin and itself all the more in the lien-chiin,a Western-trained land force "other provincial units." under central officials,and once again strengthened the Taku In some ways,the early product at the Tientsin arsenal was not forts.Tso's shipyard proposal was approved on July 14.The impressive.Halliday Macartney,director of the Nanking arsenal, yard was to be built at Ma-wei,on the Min river below Foochow. in which Li was also interested,visited Li in 1872 to get support Tso wanted not only to build ships,but also to train shipbuilders for adding rockets and torpedoes to the Nanking products.Ma- and naval personnel.14 cartney watched a demonstration of a Tientsin-made rocket,but Late in the summer of 1866,Tso and Giquel drew up a build- the test missile failed to leave the stand,and proved to be made of ing contract.On D'Aiguebelle's return,the two Frenchmen signed bits of tin and similar substances.On the other hand,at the same it,over the seal of the French consul at Shanghai.Tso was dis- time Macartney saw experiments at Tientsin with electric tor- turbed by an edict of September 25 transferring him to the Shensi- pedoes.12 Kansu region as governor-general to suppress the Mohammedan Li continued to buy foreign arms,and learned about them. revolt,but managed to have the order stayed until he got the dock- In 1874 he memorialized on muzzleloaders and breechloaders, yard started.He arranged that Shen Pao-chen,the son-in-law of muskets and rifles,cataloguing Martini-Henrys,Sniders,needle- Tso's old mentor Lin Tse-hsu,and a man trusted in foreign and guns,Chassepots,Remingtons,and others.The best artillery,he native circles,be made superintendent of the dockyard.In mid- wrote,came from England and Germany.He was using Krupp December 1866 Tso left.Shen was then in mourning,and did not ordnance to refit the Taku forts;Armstrong,Whitworth,or Wool- take over at once;Ying-kuei,the Tartar general at Foochow,acted ich ordnance was also good.He wrote of contact,friction,and for him during the first winter.15 electric mines and torpedoes.China could make at Shanghai and Giquel believed that the dockyard would succeed because it Nanking many of the smaller cannon,but not so well as the for- would enjoy Tso Tsung-t'ang's sponsorship,and that Tso would eigners.He hoped that China would buy furnaces,steam ham- be near it,in his capacity as Min-Che governor-general.When Tso mers,hydraulic presses,and that mines would be.opened.13 Thus, knew that he could not be personally present,he tried to arrange by 1875,the Tientsin arsenal was well established and under the for local official and gentry support for the dockyard.There was direction of one of China's chief "self-strengtheners." sure to be opposition,from conservatives fighting modernization, or from political opponents,or even from progressives who de- In establishing the Foochow dockyard,Tso Tsung-t'ang had the sired naval modernization but preferred to buy foreign ships help of the French Foochow customs commissioner De Meritens, rather than build modern naval vessels in China.He tried to meet 44 45
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT some of the opposition by arguing in his original dockyard me- provincial officials about the pending revision of the Tientsin morial that the new ships could carry cargdes in peacetime,and treaties,and Tso Tsung-t'ang,in his response to the court's ques- so pay their own way.He could also rely on his great prestige. tions about the treaty question,inserted his counterattack on Wu The local gentry wanted him to stay at Foochow,and no official T'ang.Tso learned that men were trying to leave the dockyard could ignore the local gentry.Tso established a committee of and that funds were being misused,but Wu T'ang had evaded 100 local officials and gentry to keep accounts and discipline in his questions about these matters.Tso charged that everything the dockyard.One of Shen Pao-chen's prime qualifications for had changed.10 Still,his intervention saved the yard,although the his new post-apart from his having served as governor of Ki- Wu Tang trouble had been intensified by unfriendly agitation angsi-was that he himself was from the Fukien gentry.As super- in Peking by French consular authorities.De Meritens was at intendent,Shen held an imperial commission,with a governor's least able to set Giquel and D'Aiguebelle against each other,so rank.He was to be aided by a permanent high official group con- that in 187o the latter left the yard and went to Kansu to see Tso. sisting of the Min-Che governor-general,the Fukien governor, Even if Hart was correct in saying that D'Aiguebelle was"of no and the Foochow Tartar general.10 account,"this was troublesome.It is small wonder that Shen Pao- Despite his precautions,when Tso finally left on his Shen-Kan chen had been reluctant to accept Tso Tsung-t'ang's invitation to assignment in December 1866,he warned Peking that in absentia take the superintendency of the dockyard.30 he could not prevent trouble.Giquel said that if political pres- By their contract,the two European directors had a fivefold sures closed the dockyard he would refund all advances on the task:to establish workshops and building yards;to set up schools building of the plant.Shen had no illusions;the officials in the of navigation and naval construction and to train foremen;to en- dockyard bureaucracy might be "worse than merchants"-a Con- gage such European staff as was needed;to build a side-launch fucian slur.Local prejudice against the yard was so great that ap- slip of French type;and to set up a metal forge capable of rolling prentices had to be paid as much as government clerks.Giquel iron into bars and plates.The contract ran for five years;there- and D'Aiguebelle suggested that the yard's administrators use after the entire dockyard operation was to be in native hands. Tso's name in their reports.Although the court tried to reassure The contract called for building sixteen ships.Of these,eleven Shen that his fears were groundless,it was arranged that the name would have 150-horsepower engines,and the remainder,eighty- of the absent great founder of the dockyard,Tso Tsung-t'ang, horsepower ones.Two ready-made French engines would be would be affixed to dockyard reports,and this was done until 1875 bought as a start on the bigger ships.Since local construction of and occasionally thereafter.17 the other nine 150-horsepower engines was expected to fall be- Trouble did come soon.Ying-kuei,while acting for Shen Pao- hind the building of the appropriate hulls,it was decided to main- chen,had been told by De Meritens that Giquel had duped Tso tain full operation of the yard by building,during anticipated with his talk of building ships.De Meritens believed that China slack periods,five hulls for the smaller ships,for which five eighty- should buy her navy,as Hart was urging.Aside from De Meriten's horsepower engines were to be purchased from France.21 pressure,Shen feared that Giquel and D'Aiguebelle would be The first machinery arrived from France on December 18,1867 loyal only to Tso,and not to himself.18 There were other problems -the paddy fields on which the plant was to be built having been as well.Wu T'ang replaced Tso as Min-Che governor-general, raised five feet in the meantime.The first keel was laid in January and in 1867 Shen reported that Wu T'ang was"prejudiced against 1868.The opening of the engine shop,which legally started the the shipyard."Wu had tried to intimidate Shen's aides(save for contract period,did not come until early in 1869.32 Hu Kuang-yung,who was Tso's personal agent)by keeping them Although a foreign visitor in the summer of 1868 contemptu- from their posts,by stirring up litigation against them,or by open ously dismissed the“quarter-section of a gunboat'”and the“feeble removal.This trouble coincided with the court's inquiries to the school,"a great change had transpired by the end of the contract 46 47
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT period in 1874.Permanent buildings housed heavy forges and French-language shipbuilders school,which branch was organized rolling mills,a boiler shop,an engine shop,a foundry,and sup- with twelve students in February 1867,Giquel wrote(as it ap- porting shops.Seven 150-horsepower engines had been locally pears in English translation): built,with two others "well advanced,"even though the plant The object sought in this school has been to put it in the power of the was not complete.The smaller shops were also impressive.The pupils to explain to themselves,by the aid of reasoning and calculation, compass shop had supplied all but two ships with"compasses,opera- the functions,the dimensions,and the parts played by the different glasses,barometers,steam gauges,axiometers,graduated measures, parts of an engine,in such a way as to be able to design and reproduce sights for cannon,etc."Even chronometers had been made.All one of its detached members;and in regard to the hulls,to calculate, of this exacting work was entirely in Chinese hands when the to design,and to trace in the molding hall,the hull of a wooden ship not differing much as regards size from those which the Arsenal had to contract ended.28 build.This course of study was amply sufficient to occupy them to the Three sets of stocks and sheds formed the building yard.There limit fixed by our contract,as it is easy for me to demonstrate.Thus, was an "immense"molding loft,and the launching slip could in order to calculate the dimensions of a piece of machinery or a hull, handle a 2500-ton ship.Outside an encircling brick wall there was it is necessary to know arithmetic and geometry;in order to reproduce a brick field for ordinary and fire brick and most of the personnel that object on a plan,it is necessary to understand the science of per- quarters.Plant area had tripled over the first "feeble"days.The spective,which is descriptive geometry;in order to explain the pres- sures exerted on engines and ships,as well as on all bodies,by gravity, number of foreign experts had increased over the contract period heat,and other phenomena of nature,it is necessary to understand the from the stipulated thirty-eight to forty-five.The yard was not laws of physics.Next in order come the movements a body undergoes independent,but ships were built in China.24 under the impulse of the forces to which it is subjected;the resistance Foochow's first ship,launched on June 10,186g,was the Wan which it will need to overcome,the strain which it is able,or ought to Nien Ch'ing.This six-gun,screw-driven 238-footer was.longer bear,which is the science of statics and mechanics;and for these the calculations of ordinary arithmetic and geometry no longer suffice;it than Kiangnan's T'ien Chi,but her carrying capacity of 466 tons is necessary also to possess the knowledge of trigonometry,or analytical was smaller,and her engine was only about half as powerful.Tso geometry,or the infinitesimal calculus,so as not to be any longer bound Tsung-t'ang received many congratulations on the Wan Nien down to reason as to objects of determined form and size,but to be Ch'ing,including one from Ch'ung-hou,the northern commis- able to arrive at general formulae applicable to all the details of con- sioner,who inspected her on her trial run to the north.(Unfor- struction.The preliminary studies were complicated in the case of the tunately Shen Pao-chen was seasick when he rode the ship.)25 pupils at our schools,by the learning of the French language,of the first word of which they were ignorant when they were handed over to The next two ships were of the eighty-horsepower type.These us. were the sister ships Mei Yiin and Fu Hsing,with three guns each, launched on December 6,186g.Like the first ship,they were de- After about five years of this curriculum,the surviving students signed at the dockyard.A third type,the Fu Po,a five-gun,1258- entered the shops for practical work,which totaled fourteen ton.transport,was launched on December 22,1870.About six months by the end of the contract in February 1874.Giquel's months later came a real triumph:the 1005-ton An Lan contained talk of this practical work bristled with talk of"tooth and pinion a 150-horsepower engine built,over a ten-month period,entirely wheels,"the determination of"the respective positions of the pis- at the yard.The Chen Hai,another of the smaller ships,fol- ton rod which moves the crank shafts,and the eccentrics which set lowed.20 in motion the valves for the distribution of steam,"and so on. The yard's training program was in full operation during the Late in 1873,there were fourteen graduates of the School of Naval contract years.In view of the Confucian heritage of the students, Construction,veterans of the first two classes.27 These graduates the task of training shipbuilders was not merely routine.Of the were prepared to manage a shipyard,but Giquel still recom- School of Naval Construction,one of the three branches in the mended four years of advanced study in Europe,with more prac- 48 49
CHINA'S STRUGGLE FOR NAVAL DEVELOPMENT SELF-STRENGTHENING MOVEMENT tical work."China,"he wrote,"does not offer at the present time Another agreement reached in 1873 was to convert the dockyard a field of industrial manufacture sufficient for the forming of for a time to the building of merchant ships.Money was short. engineers..”8 The first ship affected was the Yung Pao,the dockyard's twelfth The French language school also included a School and Office vessel.Before her launching on August 10,1878,her 1391-ton hull of Design,for the study of geometry,arithmetic,descriptive geom- was respaced for passengers and freight.The Hai Ching,Ch'en etry,and "a very complete course in a marine engine of one Hang,and Ta Ya (1873-1874)were also merchant ships,to be hundred and fifty horse-power."This curriculum evidently re- delivered to Li Hung-chang's newly established China Merchants quired only three years,since ten students admitted in 1868 Steam Navigation Company.However,in the Formosa crisis with entered the School of Naval Construction in 1871 apparently as Japan in 1874,Shen Pao-chen,who was placed in charge of the graduates of the design course. relief of Formosa,managed to keep the Ch'en Hang,and she and The third branch of the technical school was the School of Yung Pao and Ta Ya carried Li Hung-chang's Anhwei Army Apprentices,started in the summer of 1868 largely because on- troops to Formosa,so that the shift to merchant ships was not a the-job training of dockyard workers held out little hope of pro- total loss to the defense effort.Significantly,the Chinese at the ducing good foremen.In this school workmen in their teens yard completely built and installed the engines of two of these received attention,and by the end of the contract period these ships. apprentices were having three hours daily of classes,in day and By the end of the contract period in 1874,the Foochow dock- evening sessions,to enable them to read plans,and calculate yard had built fifteen ships.Giquel reported to Shen Pao-chen bulks,weights of engine parts and hull members.This course, that as of the expiration date-February 12,1874-the yard taught also in French,took at least three years.Some forty stu- would be ready for independent operation.The fourteen Con- dents had completed it in 1874,although in Giquel's opinion struction School graduates would superintend the building of they were still too young and inexperienced to become foremen. engines,the plans office,the fitting and setting-up shops,the For these students also he recommended further work in Europe.2 foundry,and the boiler shops.Students had produced seven ship While this training effort,which Shen Pao-chen thought to be designs,along with plans for two engines.Starting with the Yung more important than the actual shipbuilding,was in progress, Pao,hulls were entirely native-built.Although Giquel asked for ships were continually launched.The twelve-gun,1393-ton,250- advanced work in Europe for his best students,most of the for- horsepower corvette Yang Wu was the seventh ship,launched in eigners did depart from the Foochow dockyard,and Shen reported 1872.She was,it was said,"completely copied from foreign war that the contract was fulfilled.3s vessels,"with her engine below the waterline.She was followed During the contract years,there had been a solid achievement by a transport of similar displacement,the Fei Yiin,launched June at the Foochow dockyard.Giquel was about forty years of age 3,1872.This six-gun ship had the standard 150-horsepower engine. when the term ended,and had started with no more than a lieu- After her came two small gunboats,the Ching Yian and Chen tenancy in the French navy by way of professional background. Wei,launched in August and December 1872,both of the Chen His old chief in the Imperial Maritime Customs,Robert Hart, Hai class.30 wrote that Giquel was clever,fluent in Chinese,"a Frenchman On January 2,1878,the Chi An,of the Fei Yiin class,was and mad for glory,and also attached to sycee."Giquel was re- launched.This year an agreement was reached which slightly warded with the Yellow Riding Jacket and a large sum of money changed the contract terms.Whereas it had been originally agreed -but on the other hand was to be made a scapegoat for future to build eleven 150-horsepower and five eighty-horsepower ships, troubles at the yard,of which there were to be many.3 it was now agreed that the added power of the Yang Wu's 250- Shen Pao-chen left the superintendency in 1875.His administra- horsepower engine justified the elimination of one of the smaller tion was probably the most productive the dockyard had.To be gunboats.31 sure,the ships were wooden,most with paddle drive,at a time 50 51