The newspaper l’Agence d’Extrême Orient received some details from Peking dealing with the Chinese naval. The budget was considerable decreased and the navy was reorganized and now consisting of 3 departments namely coastal defence, defence of the Yangtze River and training of naval officers.The coastal defence was a task of four cruisers added by torpedo boats and gunboats. These ships were to be joined by the four cruisers now being build.The Yangtze River flotilla consisted of 12 gunboats and 2 cruisers, 10 gunboats (?) and some torpedo boats.The minister of navy Prince Tsé-tsjoen ordered further more recently in Germany 8 small cruisers, two cruisers in England and one cruiser in the USA while in Japan and China torpedo boats were build.Several young men were now trained for the naval service and after enough practice intended the minister to send them to the USA and Europe for more education.
