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.
[15] It was currently reported, and for a long time believed in Japan,
that the Unebi had been captured by the Chinese and taken into one of
their harbours. Another report was to the effect that the Chinese had
waylaid and destroyed her—a not impossible incident. A typhoon is,
however, a more likely cause. It may be remembered that our gunboat
Wasp mysteriously disappeared in Far Eastern waters, and nothing was
ever heard as to how she perished.
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.
[Illustration]