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.