Sorry for the delay. I've been a little busy this past week and haven't progressed as far or as quickly as I might have liked, so there won't be a design competition this week, but here's an update for the year or so that's passed within the game since the design competition:
Domestic News:
August 1932:
- The
heavy cruisers battlecruisers
Chih Yuan,
Ping Yuan, and
Chih Yang are ordered from Blohm und Voss to fulfill the government's demand for additional capital ships, and work on the battlecruiser
Lai Yuan resumes.
- Domestic Chinese shipyards unveil new 48,000t dockyards.
- The
Kuang Yuan-class destroyer
Li Shang explodes under mysterious circumstances in port at Foochow, and stories rapidly begin circulating that British saboteurs were responsible. Against the Navy's advice, the Grand Council declares war on Great Britain, apparently confident that the American alliance will allow Imperial China to prevail.
- The American government, in compliance with the terms of the alliance, declares war on Great Britain and offers to accelerate and partially fund the construction of a new
Lai Yuan-class battlecruiser to be built for the Imperial Chinese Navy in American shipyards. The Chinese Navy accepts the offer, figuring that at least this way they'll probably still have a real capital ship left in the fleet after the war is over.
Foreign News:
1932:
- Has it been mentioned yet that China declared war on Great Britain?
War News:
23 September 1932:
- The antiquated second class cruisers
Fu Hsing and
Heng Hai, patrolling between Shanghai and Port Arthur, encounter a pair of British light cruisers - HMS
Hermione, a 27kn 5000t 6" light cruiser of the eponymous class commissioned in 1913, and HMS
Comus, a
Pandora-class 28kn 5900t 6" light cruiser commissioned in 1918 - and sink both, despite being at a considerable speed and firepower disadvantage. As HMS
Comus sinks,
a third British light cruiser - HMS
Pandora of the eponymous class - arrives, and engages in an inconclusive gunnery battle with the elderly Chinese cruisers.
18 October 1932:
- The Chinese second class cruiser
Heng Hai, accompanied by the
Kuang Heng class destroyers
Kuang Kuei,
Kuang Chia, and
Kuang Hsing, encounters a British force including no fewer than four battlecruisers. All Chinese ships are sunk, and British records made available after the end of the war indicate that only one ship - the light cruiser HMS
Cordelia of the
Hermione class - suffered any damage in the engagement (the damage is thought to have been caused by a 5" shell fired by
Heng Hai early in the engagement).
23 November 1932:
- A British force comprising the
Prince of Wales-class battleship HMS
Resolution, the
Hermione-class light cruiser HMS
Cordelia, and several destroyers intercepts a Chinese convoy bound for Korsakov, escorted by the second class cruiser
Fu Hsing.
At night in bad weather,
Fu Hsing attempts to screen for the convoy and bait the British ships away, but is torpedoed and suffers a magazine explosion 36 minutes after the engagement commences. The elderly battleship
Kwang-Chou-Wan and the modern light cruisers
Chih An and
Chen Wei, patrolling nearby, receive
Fu Hsing's contact report and subsequent distress calls from the ships of the convoy, and make their best speed to render what assistance they can, but arrive only as the last transports are sinking. A brief night action between capital ships ensues, ending shortly after both battleships and both Chinese cruisers take one torpedo hit apiece.
Kwang-Chou-Wan survives, making port at Korsakov with a severe list late the next day, but the Chinese cruisers - and HMS
Resolution - are sunk.
This battle deprives the Beiyang Fleet of the last of its cruisers and puts
Kwang-Chou-Wan into the yards for two months. The Navy, growing alarmed by the increasingly short supply of light cruisers (down to five, from a prewar total of nine), suspends work on the
heavy cruisers battlecruisers of the
Chih Yuan class and orders two new light cruisers of the
Chih An class as well as four small scout cruisers to be built in domestic yards to a slightly updated version of the CL_03 proposal tendered by Hamson, Ltd for the 1929 design competition, but puts the majority of the funds released by the cessation of work on the
Chih Yuan-class ships into a new submarine program. Of more immediate importance, the Navy transfers the heavy cruisers
Hae Yang and
Ping Hai of the
Hae Yang class, the light cruiser
Fu Ching of the
Fei Yun class, and several
Lei Li class destroyer leaders to Northeast Asia to reinforce (or perhaps more honestly resurrect) the Beiyang fleet, which at this time consists only of the battleship
Kwang-Chou-Wan.
23 December 1932:
- The
Fei Yun class light cruisers
Lung Hsiang and
Ching Yuan, accompanied by the
Kuang Yuan-class destroyers
Kuang Ting,
Mao Bei, and
Kuang I, encounter a British force of two cruisers and three destroyers in the pre-dawn darkness near Swatow.
Ching Yuan decides to open the battle with a bang, detonating after receiving four hits in the opening salvo. There were no survivors. With the afterimage of the fireball which had been
Ching Yuan still seared into the crew's eyes,
Lung Hsiang attempts to disengage, suffers a torpedo hit, and promptly sinks, though she manages to take one of the British destroyers down with her. The British forces proceed to chase the Chinese destroyers for a short time and manage to sink
Kuang Ting and severely damage
Kuang I, but disengage after suffering the loss of another destroyer.
18 January 1933:
- The Naval Intelligence Service informs the Admiral of the Beiyang Fleet that a British force composed of one battleship and several light cruisers will be passing through the La Perouse Straights in the early morning hours of the 18th. Hoping destroy an isolated portion of the British fleet, the Admiral takes the battleship
Kwang-Chou-Wan, newly returned from the yards, and the cruisers and destroyers recently transferred from the South China Sea fleets out to intercept the British forces. In the predawn darkness, the heavy cruisers
Hae Yang and
Ping Hai encounter two ships which they identify as light cruisers, and an engagement commences at very short range.
Kwang-Chou-Wan heads for the reported position at flank speed, and things begin to go very badly wrong. Dawn breaks, and the two "light cruisers" with which
Hae Yang and
Ping Hai were engaged are revealed to be a pair of
Cressy-class battlecruisers - the Royal Navy's newest battlecruisers, each carrying ten 16" guns and capable of 29 knots. Worse, two more battlecruisers, also of the
Cressy class, are sighted only a few thousand yards away.
Hai Yang and
Ping Hai are promptly plastered with 16" shells, but manage to put four torpedoes into the nearest of the
Cressy-class battlecruisers before sinking.
Kwang-Chou-Wan immediately begins running for Korsakov, but finds itself cut off by a pair of
Illustrious-class battleships, which, like the
Cressys, carry ten 16" guns and are capable of 29 knots. Having no choice,
Kwang-Chou-Wan charges at the British ships, hoping to survive long enough to make port, but rapidly begins taking accurate 16" gunfire and starts to lose speed and main battery turrets. Soon thereafter,
Kwang-Chou-Wan begins sinking. Despite sinking very close to shore, few of her crew survives the frigid waters, and the British ships are too preoccupied by Chinese shore batteries to conduct search and rescue operations. The
Fei Yun-class light cruiser
Fu Ching is the only Chinese warship to survive the engagement, making for Korea at high speed while the British capital ships pummeled the heavy cruisers and
Kwang-Chou-Wan. One of the
Cressy-class battlecruisers - HMS
Sutlej, the recipient of the heavy cruisers' torpedo attack - sinks, as does a British destroyer, but the other British warships suffer only minor damage and the Beiyang Fleet is once again virtually annihilated.
The destruction (again) of the Beiyang Fleet prompts the Imperial Chinese Navy to transfer all remaining warships, aside from a small destroyer squadron, out of the South China Sea to stave off a British blockade, and the Royal Navy promptly takes advantage of the Chinese Navy's departure, launching an amphibious invasion of Kwang-Chou-Wan in April. In May, the British attempt to bombard Chinese coastal installations near Fort Bayard, but are thwarted when the force flagship, the light cruiser HMS
Phaeton of the eponymous class, is baited into a minefield by elements of the Chinese destroyer squadron. HMS
Phaeton survives and limps away, screened by several British destroyers, and the Chinese destroyer flotilla elects to take the better part of valor, returning to port in Fort Bayard for repairs. While the Navy still regards the situation in Northeast Asia as critical, several destroyers are nevertheless transferred to the Guangdong Fleet to aid in the naval battles near Kwang-Chou-Wan.