After returning to Lushun Port, the Zhenyuan ship was immediately sent to the dock for repair. Wang Chenhao was once again strongly watched, but he still refused to disclose the relevant details, so the others could not force him to say it.

In the next few days, Ding Ruchang transferred all 800 officers and soldiers of the Mine Battalion to Wang Chenhao and organized them into a mine fleet to be responsible for mine clearance.

In this way, Wang Chenhao was promoted from the Jiaolong to the Governor of the Mines Fleet, and his rank rose to deputy general in just one month, equivalent to a modern military rank of Major General.

As the governor of the mine fleet, Wang Chenhao first had to understand the types, models, mine laying methods, mine sweeping technology and other related knowledge of contemporary mines. So he selected twenty excellent miners from them, who were responsible for explaining Wang Chenhao the arrangement methods and characteristics of various mine models. The most important thing was to tell him how to clear mines so that Wang Chenhao had a clear idea.

Mines have appeared for n years, but the first time they became famous was in the Russo-Japanese War in 1904. Russia used extremely tiny mines to cause the Japanese Navy to touch and sink many large battleships and cruisers to touch and sink. Since then, countries around the world have begun to pay attention to the role of mines.

But in the last decade of the late 19th century, although mines had developed to a certain extent, their complexity was far less than that of later generations.

At this time, there are generally two types of water mines in countries around the world, one is drifting lightning, and the other is anchor thunder. The drifting lightning has no fixed position, drifting with the waves and floating on the water surface. Anchor thunder is a kind of water mine fixed to a certain depth, which is fixed to a certain depth by a lightning anchor and a thunder rope.

Because the drifting lightning has no fixed location, it is only widely arranged in the waters of the declaration war zone. It drifts by itself with the current tides, and the chance of hitting it is not high, but it can scare the enemy.

Do not dare to place floating mines near the waterway and ports, because if they float on the waterway and at the port gate, they will accidentally hurt their warships and civilian ships. Therefore, the mines deployed by the waterway and ports are basically anchor mines.

Anchor thunder, as the name suggests, is an iron anchor for fixed depth at the bottom of the mine, and a thunder rope (iron chain) that prevents the mine from floating away.

The mines during this period are triggering mines, that is, explosions occur after impact. Of course, the impact requires a certain speed and tonnage of ships. Small fish cannot explode even if they hit.

Each mine in the Beiyang Navy Mine Battalion has 36 impact tentacles on it, which are arranged in 360 degrees, and are filled with the bottom fire of the detonating mine. Each small mine is charged with 180 kilograms of medicine is equivalent to the explosion equivalent of an 18-inch blackhead torpedo, which can easily blow and sink 2,000-ton ships; medium-sized ones are used to deal with ships of about 5,000-ton class, and the explosion equivalent of a large mine reaches three 18-inch blackhead torpedoes, which is enough to blow and sink any battleships above 10,000-ton class.

Mines are called "weapons of poor countries" because they are cheap, easy to arrange, and are more than 10 times difficult to remove. They are called the highest cost-effective weapon for weak countries to defend coastal areas. Until the 21st century, there were 520,000 mines from World War II that were not removed because the cost was too high.

However, the pressure, magnetism, noise and other advanced mines did not appear at this time decades, which made Wang Chenhao dare to use sonar and ultrasound to detect mines.

Although the mine laying method during this period is very simple, demining mines is not an easy task. To eliminate an anchor mine, it needs to remove its fixed iron anchor so that it floats to the water surface and then retract it. However, mine soldiers can only rely on manpower to remove the iron anchor. Therefore, the iron anchor hanging under a mine often weighs several tons, and removing it requires considerable manpower and time. Some mines directly tie the iron chain to the rocks under the sea, so it is difficult for human resources to pull it out.

But these are quite simple for Wang Chenhao. The underwater lifting capacity of the Jiaolong robot can be easily handled.

Wang Chenhao quickly solved the division of labor in the mine fleet. He drove the Jiaolong to detect the location of the mine and lift the lightning anchor and the lightning rope. The remaining work of removing the lightning anchor, the lightning rope and the lightning rope were solved by the officers and soldiers of the mine battalion.

This is to deal with the anchor thunder of the waterway. Wang Chenhao doesn’t need to worry about the floating thunder outside the port. The officers and soldiers of the Water Mine Battalion can drag it away with a big fish net.

After Wang Chenhao finalized the matters related to the mine fleet, Ding Ruchang also prepared the lightning strike fleet.

The lightning strike ship, later representing a torpedo destroyer, represents a fleet of torpedo boats.

The main fleet of Beiyang Navy has fifteen torpedo boats, namely "one left", "two left", "three left", "one right", "two right", "three right", "three right", "fulong", "deciding one", "deciding two", "zhen one", "twin two", "China A", "China B", "gan one", and "gan two".

By looking at the name, you can know that they are carried by the camels of each ship of the Beiyang Navy. The left-handed head is carried by the left-wing ship, the right-wing ship is carried by the right-wing ship, and the Dingzhen 2 can carry three torpedo boats, China A and China B are carried by the Jiyuan ship, Gan one and Gan two are carried by the Zhiyuan ship.

Among these torpedo boats, they are generally between 28 tons and 74 tons, equipped with a 150-degree wide-angle torpedo launcher with a speed of between 13 knots and 16 knots. Fulong's tonnage is the largest and most advanced, with 120 tons, two 210-degree wide-angle 14-inch torpedo launchers, equipped with four torpedoes, with a speed of 24.2 knots, and equipped with a defense 37-speed gun.

Fulong was bought by Li Hongzhang from the Fujian Navy for 60,000 taels of silver, but in order to cooperate with this operation, Li Hongzhang once again humbly showed his favor to Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangjiang. He spent 180,000 taels of silver to second the eight thunder-sized torpedo boats under his command, namely "Lei Qian", "Lei Kun", "Lei Li", "Lei Kan", "Lei Zhen", "Lei Xun", "Lei Gen", and "Lei Dui", which is known as the Liangjiang Bagua Torpedo Camp. These eight torpedo boats were customized by Zhang Zhidong from the German Lupingschau shipyard in 1884. It has a displacement of 26 tons, a speed of 19.5 knots, and a 14-inch torpedo launcher.

Then, Li Hongzhang spent another 50,000 taels of silver to second the Guangdong Navy's three torpedo boats from Li Hanzhang, the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, to the Beiyang.

Li Hanzhang and Li Hongzhang are brothers, so there is no need to spend money on secondment, but Li Hongzhang still used 50,000 taels of silver as the starting fee for the three torpedo boats in Guangdong.

These three torpedo boats in the past, like the Beiyang, were purchased from the Volkeng Factory in Germany in 1882. They were also customized to compete with Li Hongzhang when Zhang Zhidong was the governor of Guangdong and Guangxi. From the naming, it can be seen that Zhang Zhidong extra likes "Thunder" people.

The reason why Zhang Zhidong let go of help was not only because Li Hongzhang spent money, but also because the Beiyang Navy won the battle in the Yellow Sea. Because the Southern Navy had refused to second the warships to the north before, for fear that Li Hongzhang would ruin their family's fortune. Now that the Beiyang victory is not easy, Zhang Zhidong will not refuse, so he goes with the flow and sends personal favors to Li Hongzhang.
Chapter completed!