On August 19, the fifth year of Qing Tongzhi (1866), Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, established the Fuzhou Shipbuilding Bureau in Mawei, Fuzhou, which was the first modern shipbuilding enterprise in China.
A corner of the Fuzhou Shipping Bureau
There were iron mills, mawei shipyards and ship administration schools under the Shipping Bureau, and in addition, Fujian, Guangdong and other places had the tradition of "going to the South China Sea" before this, so for a long time, the Chinese naval officers were mainly from Fujian Province. Due to their early start and deep qualifications, Fujian officers have occupied important positions in the navy since the end of the Qing Dynasty, and after the establishment of the Republic of China, this situation has continued to be inherited, and it continues to control the central navy, and there are even rumors that "non-Fujian provincial personnel are not allowed to board the ship." Whether true or false, it is also an indisputable fact that officers from Fujian are in charge of the navy.
Chen Shaokuan is the Minister of the Navy and the leader of the new generation of the Fujian Navy
After the Northern Expedition of the Nationalist Government, although the Central Navy of the Fujian Dynasty returned to justice and thus gave birth to the Navy of the National Government of Nanjing, the Navy under the control of the Min Dynasty has become an independent kingdom within itself, which continues to control all aspects of the Navy, and the National Government has never been able to intervene too much in naval affairs, and the two sides are actually in a state of mutual vigilance and vigilance.
Naval Lightning School Badge
In order to change this situation, after the 1932 128 Incident, the Nationalist government suddenly announced the construction of a naval educational institution called the Naval Lightning School. It is not difficult to see that the name "electric mine" mainly cultivates naval talents mainly based on mines and fish, which is also in line with the traditional path of the government at that time due to insufficient funds, temporarily abandoning the development of large-scale water warships, but developing the idea of low-cost and powerful "alternative equipment", and this "alternative equipment" is submarines, fish speedboats, and aircraft. However, the Fujian navy lacked experience in this regard, and it is not difficult to see that Chiang Kai-shek pre-used the electric mine school as a breakthrough point to reshuffle the control of the navy.
Photos of German S-boats ordered by the Electric Thunder School when they were commissioned from the factory
Unlike other naval schools at that time, the Naval Lightning School was not subordinate to the Admiralty, and in addition, the person who presided over the school's teaching affairs was not a Fujian officer, but Ouyang Ge, a provincial officer who had some enmity with the Fujian Navy at that time.
Ouyang Ge, a native of Yihuang, Jiangxi, graduated from the tenth class of the Yantai Naval School, participated in the Dharma Protection Fleet, and was appreciated by Chen Jiongming for following Sun Yat-sen during the shelling of the Presidential Palace. On September 18, 1923, he was appointed to the Navy of the Grand Marshal of the Army and Navy. In 1926, he was appointed vice president of the Naval School of the National Revolutionary Army, specifically in charge of school affairs. In 1932, he became the principal of the Naval Lightning School and was awarded the rank of rear admiral. At the Fifth Plenary Session of the Kuomintang In 1934, he was elected as a member of the Supervision Commission. After the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War in 1937, he served as the commander of the Jiangyin River Defense Command; on June 28, 1938, Minister of the Navy Chen Shaokuan ordered the arrest of Ouyang Ge on charges of ineffective combat. During the trial, Ouyang Ge denied allegations of ineffective combat, retreat without fighting, and embezzlement, but was eventually executed in Chongqing in August 1940 on charges of embezzlement.
Floor plan of the Electric Mine School, Source: Naval Academy
During the establishment of the school, the instructors and students tried their best to avoid Fujian nationals. Of the 50 cadets in the first phase, 18 were directly selected and transferred from the second phase of the Whampoa Military Academy, and the remaining 32 were selected from local students, and the provincial nationality was mainly concentrated in Jiangxi, Zhejiang, Sichuan and other places. The lightning school also selected 220 cadets while recruiting the first batch of students, and the education of officers and soldiers was precisely the common mode of professional training in torpedoes at that time. And because most of the school personnel at that time came from the Whampoa Military Academy, the school was also known as the "Whampoa Military Academy in the Navy" at that time.
Graduation certificate of Li Yuxi, the first nautical student of the Lightning School
At the beginning of the establishment of the lightning school, because most of the students and cadets recruited did not have experience in naval service, the teaching content was basically based on basic subjects such as navigation, aeronautical arts, and artillery, and then began to teach advanced subjects such as mines, electricity, and torpedoes. In order to allow the trainees to have practical navigation experience, Ouyang Ge took advantage of his convenience of concurrently managing the Zhejiang Provincial Marine Police Force and successively seconded ships such as "Haijing". Since then, teaching auxiliary ships such as "Fulong", "Tongxin" and "Free China" have been added successively.
The "Haijing" warship, because it did not understand the relationship between the Lightning School and the Admiralty, Zhejiang Province actually sent a report to the Admiralty in order to retake the ship, which attracted ridicule in vain
After purchasing a number of teaching auxiliary ships, the Lightning School customized 14 55-inch torpedo boats to the British Sannick Loft Company in 1935, and sent officers to the United Kingdom in the same year to learn the use and tactics of CMB boats. In 1936, the first batch of 8 ships arrived in China for delivery, and the Lightning School SpeedBoat Brigade was formally established, each squadron had 4 torpedo boats, all squadrons were named after the national heroes who resisted foreign aggression in history, and the torpedo boats under the squadron were composed of squadron names and numerical numbers. The first 8 ships were divided into two squadrons, namely Shi Kefa and Wen Tianxiang Squadron. The last 6 ships ordered, because the start of construction was late until 1938, arrived in China, and at this time the Sino-Japanese War had already broken out in full swing, and finally the Hong Kong and British authorities exchanged 2 transport vehicles urgently needed for the War of Resistance, and the remaining 4 were transported to Wuhan via the Guangdong-Han Railway, and then transferred to Yueyang, Hunan, where they were organized as Yan Gaoqing's squadron.
Attack on "Izumo" after sinking in the "Shi Yi 02" near the Pujiang Pier on the Bund
In 1935, the Naval Lightning School was officially renamed the Lightning School of the Ministry of Military Affairs, and at the same time, Chen Shaokuan, who knew the purpose of the establishment of the Lightning School, attacked the Lightning School and protested that the Lightning School obeyed the orders of the Ministry of Military Affairs instead of the Navy but wore naval clothing. Under pressure from the Admiralty, the Ministry of War and Politics finally ruled that the Lightning School should be dressed in the Army.
CMB torpedo boats in service in the Royal Navy
CMB Torpedo Boat (55 inch) Basic Parameters:
The displacement is 11 tons, the total length is 18.28 meters, the waterline is 16.76 meters long, the width is 3.35 meters, the draft is 0.91 meters, the speed is 34-42 knots, and the endurance is 300 nautical miles. The boat is equipped with two 18-inch white-headed torpedoes and two twin-mounted 7.62 mm Lewis machine guns.
Electric Mine School CMB Torpedo Boat
At the same time that the Lightning School ordered CMB boats from Britain, it also ordered four torpedo boats (S2 type) and a torpedo mothership "Qi Jiguang" from Germany, and sent students to Germany in 1936 to learn the use of German-made torpedo boats. However, with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the German government, in order to support the Franco regime of the Nationalist Army, gave priority to Spain the S2 boats built for China. As compensation for China, Germany soon supplied China with three more advanced S7 torpedo boats, organized as Yue Fei's squadron. After the first three boats, the Nationalist government ordered 8 more advanced S30 torpedo boats from Germany in the early stage of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, which were prepared for Lu Xiufu and Xu Yuan. Then, with the deepening of German-Japanese relations and the establishment of diplomatic relations between Germany and the puppet state of Manchukuo, Germany unilaterally cancelled this order, and the 8 boats and the previously ordered torpedo mothership "Qi Jiguang" were incorporated into the German Navy.
S7 type torpedo boat
Basic parameters of S7 type torpedo boat:
The displacement is 80 tons, the length of the boat is 32.4 meters, the width is 4.9 meters, the draft is 1.21 meters, and the speed is 35 knots. Equipped with two 533 mm torpedo tubes and a 20 mm anti-aircraft gun.
The German requisitioned ship "Qi Jiguang" was renamed "Tanga", and after Germany's defeat, it was compensated to the Danish Navy
Basic parameters of the "Qi Jiguang" torpedo carrier:
The standard displacement is 2190 tons, the full load displacement is 2620 tons, the length of the ship is 96 meters, the width is 13.5 meters, the draft is 3.7 meters, and the speed is 17.5 knots. It is equipped with 2 88 mm anti-aircraft guns, 2 twin 37 mm anti-aircraft guns and 4 20 mm machine guns. In addition, the ship can carry 24 torpedoes and 72 depth charges to supply S-boats.
The main entrance of Qingdao Naval School, now No. 77 Dengzhou Road
In 1937, the troops directly under the Lightning School and the Jiangyin Fortress and other defensive forces formed the Jiangyin River Defense Command, which was under the jurisdiction of the Torpedo Boat Brigade and a number of practice ships. A night attack was launched against the flagship of the Japanese Navy's Third Fleet, the Izumo, but failed. In December of the same year, the Electric Thunder School was evacuated to Yueyang, Hunan. On 28 August 1938, it was ordered to cease operations, and the remaining instructor students were merged into the Qingdao Naval School in Yichang. After the Battle of Yuxianggui in 1944, the remaining 9 torpedo boats were all lost in this battle, and at this point, all the main forces of the Electric Mine School and the Electric Mine School were turned into the dust of history.
Lightning School enrolls four students, but only the first and second students graduate, and the third and fourth students are merged into Qingdao Hai School before graduation:
The first period (recruited in July 1932, opened in January 1933, graduated in December 1934): 50 students in the navigation class and 300 cadets
The second period (from January 1935 to 1938): 55 sailors and 300 cadets
The third period (recruited in June 1936, entered at the end of 1936): 132 students in the navigation class and 400 cadets
The fourth period (entered at the end of 1936): 134 students and 400 cadets in the navigation class