About 1887 Japan definitely decided to draw all her Q.F. guns, 6-in. or 4.7-in., from Elswick, and all heavy guns from Canet. Krupp’s pieces were discarded. This resolution was adhered to till 1902-03, so far as Elswick was concerned, but Canet guns were given up some years ago. Elswick guns were, in 1890, shipped to France for the Itsukushima and her sister. At present (1904) new guns are on the Vickers model.

Following the Takao, Yokosuka launched the despatch vessel Yayeyama in 1899. She was designed by M. Bertin. Her dimensions, etc., are:—

The engines were provided by Messrs. Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. of England, and, instead of the horizontal compound previously fitted in Japanese-built ships, are horizontal, direct-acting, triple expansion. The boilers are of steel; there are six of these—cylindrical.

Over the engines and boilers a ½-in. steel deck is carried, affording, in conjunction with the bunkers, some slight protection.

The Onohama Yard laid down a vessel in this year, the Oshima. She was launched in 1890. Particulars:—

There is no protection to the machinery. The engines were built at Yokosuka.

Meanwhile, shipbuilding abroad had been proceeding apace, but disaster attended both the earlier vessels. The first, the Unebi, a cruiser of 3650 tons, with four 6-in. Q.F. as her principal armament, mysteriously disappeared while on her way out to Japan[15] and still in the contractors’ hands. Her loss was officially attributed to instability, and seems to have inspired the Japanese authorities with a profound distrust for French shipbuilding; at any rate, the Chiyoda, a vessel generally resembling the lost Unebi, was given to Thomson Yard at Clydebank for construction. She will be described in due course later on.

The second French-built ship, upon the same general plan as the French Milan and Japanese Yayeyama, was the Tschishima, of 750 tons displacement. In appearance she was nearly identical to the French Milan. She met with disaster in the Inland Sea almost immediately after the Japanese took her over (1892), and all her crew were drowned. The Tatsuta was ordered from Elswick to replace her.

The Itsukushima, the first of the “Bertin cruisers,” so-called after their designer, was launched at La Seyne in 1889. Captain Ingles, R.N., naval adviser to the Japanese, had strongly persuaded them against ironclads; they had been advised against the big gun also. However, they were bent on mounting a gun able to pierce any armour in the Chinese Navy or in foreign warships likely to come to the Far East. By the irony of fate, these big guns contributed nothing to the victory of the Yalu; however, the decision of the Japanese to have them cannot be condemned, in view of the fact that naval construction everywhere in ’88 was based upon the big gun. Having a full idea of their requirements, the Japanese settled upon the Italian Lepanto as embodying the most useful type of ship for them, and the Itsukushimas were ordered on that principle.

Particulars of the Itsukushima are as follows:—

For protection there is a steel deck 1½ ins. thick on the slopes. With this is associated a cellulose belt and coal protection. The total protection, so far as penetration is concerned, is not, however, more than equivalent to what a 6-in. belt of old iron armour would afford, and it would keep out nothing above a 4.7-in. shot, and that only at long ranges. Over the engine hatches is a patch of thick steel armour.

The heavy gun barbette is a strip of 12-in. Creusot steel, with a 4-in. steel shield over the breech of the gun. There is an armoured hoist that affords some support, but, speaking generally, the gun is more or less at the mercy of shell bursting underneath it.

The Hashidate was built from the same designs at Yokosuka, and is practically identical with the Itsukushima, save that the battery guns aft are in small unarmoured sponsons, and obtain thereby a slightly greater angle of fire. She is further distinguished by a red band; the Itsukushima, being the first of the class, has, of course, a black band.

Grave doubts were soon entertained as to the seaworthiness of these two ships, and the Matsushima being a little more behindhand than the others, her design was altered. She carries the big gun aft, which makes her a better sea boat. The battery is shifted forward in the main deck. In place of the single 4.7-in. that her companions carry in the stern, the raised fok’s’le of the Matsushima contains two of these pieces, firing through recessed port.

Her small quickfiring armament is also different, there being sixteen 3-pounders.

All three ships have a single tripod mast abaft the funnel, with a couple of tops on it. Each now carries three signal yards.

The Itsukushima was launched on July 11, 1889, and commissioned in Japan in 1891. The Matsushima, launched on January 22, 1890, went out in 1892. The Hashidate was not launched till March 24, 1891, but early in 1893 she was in commission.

It had been hoped that these ships would attain speeds of 17.5 knots; none of them, however, ever reached it.

Torpedo Boats. 1891.

In 1891 Japan had built for her by Normand at Le Havre a 75-ton torpedo boat, 118 ft. long, two tubes, and a trial speed of 23 knots. She is a twin-screw boat.

Two other boats, 90-tonners, were also launched in Germany at Elbing. Length, 128 ft.; trial speed, 23 knots; one screw; armament, three tubes and three 1-pounder Q.F.

China in 1890 launched a home-built diminutive of the Itsukushima, the Ping Yuen. The Japanese took her at Wei-hai-wei, but she has never been of any use to them, and she now does duty as a gunnery hulk. Particulars of this craft are:—

The old 6-in. Krupp are now replaced by a couple of 45-calibre Elswick 6-in. Q.F. for drill purposes. The old 10-in. gun remains, and, being always cocked up in the air at an extreme elevation, is the most noticeable and characteristic feature of this ship, which every Japanese regards as a standing joke. An enormous dragon adorns each broadside. Japanese officers who come to Portsmouth always, by the way, christen our Hero “the British Ping Yen.”

The Ping Yuen was begun as a 16-knot, 2850-ton ship, a copy in fine of the Stettin-built King Yuen. In an early stage of construction, however, her length was much reduced, for economical reasons. She appears to have had much the same machinery as the King Yuen originally. This, however, was tinkered in fitting, and some of her boilers were stolen, or otherwise dispensed with! On trial she made 10.5 knots for a short period, but, after being taken care of by the Chinese, soon sank below that modest speed. It is doubtful whether she made as much as 6 knots at Yalu.

There is a 2-in. steel protective deck in places; amidships and under water there is a small patch of 8-in. compound armour. The barbette is a 5-in. strip of armour; the conning-tower has the same thickness. A thin shield—removed during the war—covers the big gun.

On June 3, 1890, the third-class cruiser Chiyoda, built to replace the lost Unebi, took the water at Clydebank. Particulars of her are as follows:—

She was the first ship in any navy to be fitted with water-tube boilers, which were barely coming into existence in those days. Hers are of the Belleville type.

For protection she depends on a 4¼-in. chrome steel armour belt, 200 ft. long, amidships. Forward and aft of this is a protective deck 1½ ins. thick on the slopes. Throughout the entire water-line is a cellulose belt, and she is divided into 84 watertight compartments. The guns have no protection beyond the ordinary shields. They are, however, very well disposed.

In 1898 she was practically re-boilered, the old tubes being replaced by some specially large ones, in order to enable her to burn Japanese coal, which sooted the ordinary tubes.

In 1890 the Akitsushima was laid down at Yokosuka. It was at first supposed that she was a sister to the Matsushima. The Yoshino was contracted for at Elswick towards the end of this year. Both were launched in 1892, and commissioned just before the war with China.

The Akitsushima was the last ship to be built in Japan with imported material. She is practically a small copy of the U.S.S. Baltimore. Details of the two, for comparison, are as follows:—

The Akitsushima mounts 6-in. guns in the foremost and aftermost sponsons; four 4.7-in. are carried amidships, the fifth on the forecastle, and the sixth astern. She has thus a broadside fire of two 6-in. and four 4.7-in., against two 8-in. and three 6-in. in the Baltimore. Assuming that ship’s guns to be now replaced by Q.F., the Akitsushima would bring the equivalent of a 6-in. gun less.

The Yoshino, when new, was the swiftest cruiser in the world, and very few ships are equal to her yet. Particulars of her are:—

The normal coal supply, at 4150 tons displacement, is about 400 tons. Bunkers are disposed amidships in the usual fashion above the armour deck. Amidships this deck is 4½ ins. thick on the slopes (= c) and 2 ins. on the flat. Allowing for the additional resistance of the coal, nothing under a 10-in., or modern 9.2 or 9.4-in., could penetrate to the engine-room, and then only with solid shot. The watertight compartments are exceptionally numerous. With natural draught the ship has made 21.6 knots.

The 6-in. guns are thus distributed: one on the forecastle, one on the poop, the other two in the foremost sponsons. The other broadside guns are 4.7-in. and 3-pounders. The bow and stern chasers have an arc of fire of 270 degrees, the 6-in. guns in sponsons fire 3 degrees across the bow and 60 degrees abaft it.

The aftermost 4.7-in. fire 3 degrees across the stern and 60 degrees before it. The broadside guns have an arc of about 120 degrees. Each of the fighting-tops carries a couple of 3-pounder Q.F., four on each bridge, two under the forecastle forward, two under the poop well aft, the remaining six between the guns amidships.

Towards the end of 1893 a violent agitation against the Navy filled the Japanese newspapers. The existing types of ships—particularly the Chiyoda and Itsukushima class—were unfavourably criticised. The personnel was not free from these attacks; it was in some quarters demonstrated useless and inefficient. In the midst of these attacks the war with China loomed and broke out. After that war nothing further was heard on the subject of the personnel’s “defects.”

The primary result of the agitation was a new shipbuilding programme. The only ships actually under construction at that time were the Suma, building at Yokosuka, and laid down in March, 1893, and the Tatsuta, ordered to replace the lost Tschishima, building at Elswick. The new programme embodied “two first-class battleships of the most powerful type,” a cruiser at Yokosuka of the Suma type, and a sloop Miyako, laid down at Kuré in 1894. This programme was also a subject of attack in a portion of the Japanese press.

Before, however, anything could be done, the battle of Asan and the affair of the Kow-shing precipitated the war with China. Consequently, on the outbreak of war, the Tatsuta, launched at Elswick on April 6, 1894, and hastily completed in August of the same year, was stopped as contraband on her way out at Aden.

The Tatsuta is a torpedo gunboat. Particulars as follows:—