There were more and more external, internal work and personnel changes. The puppet president originally served as Degui was gradually no longer suitable to continue to hold the highest leadership position in Taiwan. So on September 8, 1897, Taiwan's first president Yu Degui
Resigned due to physical problems
, resigned from the post of Taiwan's first president after having served for two and a half years. On the same day, Liu Fu, who had been hiding behind the scenes for eleven years, reluctantly stepped onto the stage, in the former Taiwan Governor's Office, which was transformed into the Taiwan Presidential Palace.
, took over as Taiwan's second president and concurrently served as Minister of Defense.
The first thing Liu Fu did when he took office was to reorganize Taiwan's government. First, he established more governments.
Fu can only use departments to clearly divide the scope of work. This time, a total of 6 departments were established: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of National Defense, Ministry of Civil Affairs, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, and Ministry of Transportation. Among them, the Ministry of National Defense was the original staff department, which was internally divided into the Army
, the navy and the air force are divided into three parts. The air force was formed under the instruction of Liu Fu.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs is mainly composed of stormtroopers and is divided into two departments: intelligence and police; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Transportation and the Ministry of Civil Affairs are also new departments.
The staff is still being deployed. We will first set up a structure and then slowly expand it.
The whole of Taiwan is governed according to the original Qing government
The division of fu is three prefectures, eleven counties, three halls and one state. This time Liu Fu made a slight change, changing the three prefectures: Taipei Prefecture, Taiwan Prefecture, and Tainan Prefecture to Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan Prefecture, and canceled Tamsui County.
under the jurisdiction of Taipei City;
Three Halls: Keelung Hall, Penghu Hall and Puli Social Hall were changed to Keelung City, Penghu County, and Puli Social Hall were merged into Taichung City; Taitung Zhili Prefecture was changed to Taitung County, and the formerly undivided central Taiwan mountains were also merged into Taichung City.
It is placed under the jurisdiction of Taitung County.
In this way, Taiwan has become the four cities of Taipei City, Keelung City, Taichung City, Tainan City, and Yilan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, Changhua, Yunlin, Chiayi, Fengshan, Hengchun. Before the holiday, Taiwan’s intelligence agency sent a telegram from Hong Kong
, it was said that several US warships were docked in Hong Kong for unknown purposes. When Liu Fu received this news, he was a little confused. Why did the Americans come to Hong Kong for nothing? Are they here for themselves? But David did not
No news from the United States
Fu wants to deal with his own news?
In order to find out the purpose of the U.S. fleet coming to Hong Kong, Liu Fu ordered Taiwanese intelligence personnel lurking in the European "Sandru Pharmaceutical Company", the American "Sandru Electric Company" and the Qing Dynasty's "Golden Elephant Pharmacy" to step up their efforts.
Collect information on this.
After being busy for more than two months, Liu Fu received news from the intelligence department from Sandro Electric that the United States and Spain were at war. The cause was that an American warship, the USS Maine, was bombed and sunk in Cuba. After a
After many months of wrangling, Spain and the United States declared war on each other on April 24th and 25th.
In the following days, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines all became battlefields between the United States and Spain. Coupled with local rebels, the war ignited. Although this war was a battle between two major powers for overseas colonies.
, has nothing to do with Taiwan, but Liu Fu doesn't want the United States to win too easily, because the Philippines is too close to Taiwan. Although he can't blatantly help Spain, he can still do some mischief secretly.
Through intelligence coming from Hong Kong, the U.S. Asia Squadron set out south on April 27, probably heading to the Philippine waters. Therefore, Liu Fu ordered the Taiwan Navy's Second Submarine Group to dispatch 15 "Tuna-class" submarines to converge
The submarine that has been tracking the U.S. fleet is trailing behind the U.S. fleet.
Since there are foreign technical personnel in many departments such as Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense, Liu Fu asked the Ministry of Internal Affairs to carry out this operation secretly. The submarines participating in the war were all under the guise of going to Ryukyu for surveillance and patrol, and they changed their routes after leaving the port. In addition,
, two cargo ships flying the French flag, but actually belonging to Taiwan's Ministry of Interior, also responded to the submarine force in the predetermined waters to provide sufficient fuel and supplies.
Liu Fu codenamed this operation "Crayfish". All participating ships and personnel were selected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the contact telegrams were changed to the special password of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
According to the analysis of the information transmitted from the tracking submarine, the U.S. fleet has a total of 4 cruisers and 3 gunboats. The cruiser's tonnage is slightly larger than the previously sunk Sanjing ship, and there are also 3 coal ships.
On May 1st, the U.S. fleet sneaked into the Manila port at night. Fortunately, they did not hit a single mine and quickly entered the port. After being discovered by the port fort, the U.S. warship and the Spanish port
The fort launched an artillery battle.
"These American cannons are very accurate, and the Spanish are simply not artillery." These were the exact words of Shi Renjie, captain of the Second Submarine Group that was tracking the U.S. fleet at the time.
Due to the lax training of the Spanish, almost no shells could hit the American warships. Seeing the Spanish coastal defense guns being cleared one by one, Shi Renjie, the commander of the submarine force, decided to help Spain at this moment. What could be better than
Which one is safer for a sneak attack in the artillery battle between the two sides?
Therefore, Shi Renjie's submarine alone aimed at a cruiser that was slowly turning, and fired two torpedoes from about 1,100 meters. More than a minute later, the American cruiser that had just completed the turn erupted into two brilliant torpedoes.
A big fireball followed, followed by multiple big explosions. When the fire and smoke of the explosion dissipated, the cruiser, with a displacement of about 5,000 tons, disappeared on the sea.
The remaining U.S. warships suddenly became panicked, and their formations also deviated. As the saying goes, misfortunes never come singly. I wonder if the explosion and sinking of the U.S. warship just now aroused the morale of the Spanish defenders. They fired two rounds in succession.
All the shells hit the same American gunboat. The gunboat immediately lit up the fire, raised a semaphore, and withdrew from the battle.
Shi Renjie kept in mind the requirements of the order, which was to strike, but not to cause too much damage to the fleet. Seeing that the U.S. fleet had been sunk and damaged, Shi Renjie commanded the submarine force and quietly withdrew from Manila Port, lurking
Continue to observe from a distance.
The commander of the U.S. fleet is Commodore George Dewey of the U.S. Navy. He is a very brave fighter in the U.S. Navy and has a tough character. For his fleet to suffer a sudden heavy blow in a good situation, the "Baltimore" sank, "
The Concord was injured and retreated. General Dewey did not become timid and retreat. Instead, he commanded the remaining warships to continue bombarding the Spanish forts. He also told the injured Concord to actively save itself and quickly join the battle.
The Spanish's good luck was all used up in the few rounds of shelling. After that, they rarely hit American warships. The American fleet, under the calm command of General Dewey, gradually gained the advantage. A total of nearly 2 shellings were fired.
Within hours, all the Spanish warships parked in the port were sunk and most of the port forts were destroyed.
Just when the U.S. fleet completed its bombardment mission and withdrew to anchor outside the port to wait for the landing troops, Shi Renjie planned to repeat the same trick and destroy another American cruiser. As a result, before the submarine was in place, the outer submarine responsible for guarding was
A telegram was sent: Five German warships were discovered in the northern waters and were heading towards the port.
"Germans?" Shi Renjie directed the submarine to dive while wondering, what are the Germans doing?
The warships that came were indeed German, but they were not here to help the Spanish. Originally, the Germans planned to occupy the Philippines if the Americans were not interested in it. Germany did not have serious colonies in Asia anyway. So, Germany
They sent a few warships to check out the situation. Unexpectedly, the Americans were very interested in the Philippines and came all the way to start a fight with the Spaniards. However, the Germans turned around a few times and reluctantly returned.
Due to such a delay by the Germans, the submarine did not have enough underwater time. Unfortunately, Shi Renjie had no choice but to send the troops back to the scheduled location to meet the cargo ship and replenish fuel before making plans.
Let’s not mention that the submarine force quietly evacuated here, but the commander of the US fleet, General Dewey, was bitter. He had avoided the mines according to the plan, entered the port late at night, and launched an artillery battle. It was all within his own arrangements. Who could have imagined it?
The "Baltimore" suddenly exploded, causing chaos in the fleet. As a result, another gunboat was hit continuously. Although after a hard battle, the resistance in Manila Port was basically eliminated, these unplanned losses also gave Dewey a headache.
As for why the "Baltimore" suddenly exploded, Dewey and other officers in the fleet discussed it for a long time, but they couldn't figure it out. They could only blame it on the Spanish's good luck. The shell hit the torpedo in the torpedo tube, causing the explosion.
Half a month later, more than 10,000 U.S. Army troops from San Francisco successfully landed at Manila Port and, with the cooperation of the U.S. Navy, began to besiege Manila.
However, on the night of the landing, another US Navy cruiser, the USS Boston, "hit a mine" outside the port, caused an explosion, and sank soon after.
By this point, although the U.S. Navy had completed its mission of attacking Manila and cooperating with the Army's landing, it had suffered heavy losses. Two main cruisers were sunk, a gunboat was seriously injured, and a total of more than 500 Navy personnel were killed.
No need to ask, the "Boston" behind it hit a mine and exploded was a good thing done by Taiwanese submarines. Since it was at night and no other warships were found to be attacking, the Americans can only imagine that the "Boston" was very unlucky at that time.
It was caught in a Spanish mine, which triggered the ship's ammunition, and the result was over.
