In the 1970s, after being invaded by Western powers several times, the distressed Qing Dynasty began planning to build a modern navy to consolidate coastal defense. However, in the era of rapid development of naval technology, all kinds of advanced ocean-going warships emerged in an endless stream, and the start of the Qing Navy was surprising: the Qing government only acquired more than a dozen shallow-water heavy artillery ships after consuming more than 1.2 million taels of silver. They could not sail far, but could only toss and turn in the offshore waters, that is, the Randall gunboat, commonly known as the Mosquito Ship. It consumed people's fat and people's ointment, which also wasted five years of real naval construction in the Qing Dynasty.
As for the reason, some people think that the British did not want China to have a powerful navy, fooling the Qing Dynasty into buying this flashy ship; Some believe that in this deal, as a naval preparatory officer, Li Hongzhang secretly colluded with British businessmen. In order to get the kickback, he chose an embarrassing mosquito ship to equip the Qing navy.
Is this really the case? When the navy was first built in the Qing Dynasty, the British or Li Hongzhang fooled into buying a large number of mosquito ships in order to eat kickbacks?
What is a Mosquito Boat?
To understand this problem, we must first understand what a mosquito boat is. The Mosquito ship was the common name for shallow water heavy gunboats at that time, especially the shallow water heavy gunboats designed by George William Randall of England, that is, the Randall gunboats. This gunboat is called a mosquito ship because of its small displacement and volume, but it is equipped with a large diameter and powerful heavy cannon, like a small mosquito with a blood-sucking needle as sharp as a knife.
Although this ship has good firepower, due to the large gunnery, extremely unstable center of gravity, and poor seaworthiness, it is impossible to go to sea to fight. What's more, its guns were fixed to the hull and could not be rotated. It is difficult to capture the target quickly and accurately, and the aiming of the hull needs to be adjusted. It is indeed an awkward and useful military vessel.
In this case, why would Randall design such a chicken rib battleship?
In the second half of the 19th century, the world naval shipbuilding competition gradually entered a dead cycle: countries were trying to set up enough guns and armor for their naval warships, but it was not easy to balance firepower and protection on a limited body. And there are many artillery pieces and thick armor. In turn, the volume and displacement of the battleship must be required to increase as the water increases. In this way, larger and larger warships are bound to be costly and difficult to manufacture, and it is impossible to equip a large number of them in a short period of time.
In view of this, the famous designer Ofeland Armstrong Shipyard in the United Kingdom, Randall, did the opposite. He envisioned installing only one powerful artillery armor on the ship, enough to penetrate any armor. In this way, warships do not have to build such large and expensive warships, and can also build a large number of small warships in a short period of time to expand their naval power and deter hypothetical enemies.
Through the design concept of the Randall gunboat, it is not difficult to see that this is a typical small and wide concept product. Randall himself designed and presided over the first Mosquito ship, The Stone Dan, with a displacement of only 200 tons and a length of only 22 meters, but equipped with a 228 mm heavy gun, 500 yards (about 457 meters) that could penetrate 20 inches (about 508 mm) of armor – which was definitely enough to give the soul of any large battleship super firepower.
In fact, similar weapons and equipment are not uncommon in human history. In the Third Middle East War, the guided-missile boats (with a displacement of only 70 tons) used by Egypt to sink the Israeli destroyer Eilat (displacement of only 70 tons) were developed in the same concept as the Randall gunboats, that is, to use super firepower output to compensate for their weak size. Because of this, after the advent of the Randall gunboat, it was suddenly favored by western naval powers. They saw it as a unique killer to restrain the imaginary enemy navy's large capital ships, and buyers poured in. Even the world's most powerful Royal Navy bought 12 ships in a single order.
As a new type of ship, the emergence of The Randall Gunboat is inevitable and of practical significance. In the actual use of a large number of devices, various shortcomings have gradually been discovered. After discovering the advantages and disadvantages of this battleship, many navies equipped with The Randall gunboats did not expect the ship to decide the victory or defeat with the enemy's main fleet on the sea, but used it as a weapon to defend the soil, cooperating with the coastal defense batteries to repel the invasion of the enemy naval fleet. For countries with vast coastlines and many ports, this is indeed an efficient defensive warship. At that time, in addition to the United Kingdom (equipped with 26 ships), the Netherlands (30 ships), Sweden (10 ships), Tsarist Russia (13 ships) and other naval powers were also fans of this ship.
Therefore, it is said that this ship was used by the British to deceive the Qing government, Qingyin and Qing naval construction. In 1879, the Zhenbei Andelander gunboats ordered by the Qing Dynasty were built. With the intensification of the contradictions between Britain and Russia in the Far East, the war was coming, and the British facilitated the Qing government to buy back gunboats such as Zhenbei to fight against the Russians, which was enough to explain the importance of this ship in the eyes of the British.
As for buying mosquito boats, Li Hongzhang's kickbacks from foreign businessmen are even more nonsense. Judging from the existing historical data, the process of the mosquito ship coming to the Qing Dynasty was roughly like this: At the beginning of the preparation of the navy, Li Hongzhang naturally thought of buying advanced warships from Britain, the world's largest naval power at that time. However, due to his unfamiliarity with naval affairs, he asked the General Department of Customs and Taxation and the British Hurd, who had worked in the Qing Dynasty for many years, to help.
Hurd also didn't know much about the Navy, and he entrusted his close associate, KimDengan, with handling the matter. After studying the coastal defense situation and economic situation faced by the Qing Dynasty, it was believed that it was more difficult for the Qing Dynasty to build a large fleet, but the establishment of the Randall Gunboat Formation would allow the Qing Dynasty to have coastal defense forces in a short period of time and reject the enemy.
In this way, in 1875, the first four mosquito ships Longxiang, Huwei, Feiting and Cedian entered service. For the record, Hurd and Kinden were very serious in the process. Kim Denggan was still supervising the construction of the shipyard when his wife was ill, and Hurd asked people to drive to Fuzhou after the gunboat was completed and personally inspected.
Later, due to the Japanese invasion of Taiwan, the Qing court planned to send these warships to Taiwan to fight against Japan, but it was soon discovered that the ship was not suitable for ocean combat, and Li Hongzhang was impeached by the Manchu Dynasty. Old Li, who woke up like a dream, realized that it was not enough for Daqingguang to have gunboats, but there must be large ocean-going ships. The lessons of this incident show that the Chinese at that time had an extremely limited grasp of modern naval and ship knowledge, so it was normal for setbacks in the exploration stage of naval construction. If you attack Li Hongzhang, Hurd and others just because you bought a mosquito boat, it would be too far-fetched.
In fact, for the Qing Dynasty, whose treasury was empty, the mosquito ship was a good cornerstone for building a large navy. We often say a century-old navy. No national navy can have a large number of battleships and cruisers. The Navy is not an army. Training qualified naval officers and men is a long road.
It was precisely because of this detour in the purchase of mosquito ships that the pace of Naval construction in the Qing Dynasty finally began to be on the right track, and the real ocean-going warships such as Chaoyong, Yangwei, Dingyuan, Zhenyuan, and Jiyuan gradually entered service, and Liu Butou, Lin Taizeng, Deng Shichang, and others who came out of the mosquito ships later became the mainstay of the Beiyang sailor generals.