Then Japan's strategy worked. After the combined fleet approached Weihai, the Qing court was furious. Emperor Guangxu blamed Ding Ruchang, the admiral of the Beiyang Navy, for not being able to defend the territory.
Weng Tonghe, the Minister of Household Affairs, even criticized whether the Beiyang Navy, which cost the imperial court a huge amount of money to build, could fight with the Japanese?
The target of the attack is even more pointed at Li Zhongtang, the leader of Beiyang, and its purpose is self-evident.
Forced to do nothing, Li Zhongtang had no choice but to order Ding Ruchang to cruise on the Yellow Sea to calm the emperor's anger and relieve the pressure of public opinion.
On September 12, 1894, 12 battleships of the Beiyang Navy set out from Weihai and went to Dadonggou at the mouth of the Yalu River to escort the army to land.
On September 13, the Combined Fleet Headquarters and the First Guerrilla Force headed to the mouth of the Yalu River to search for the main force of the Beiyang Navy for a decisive battle.
The Chinese and Japanese fleets are all gathered in one place, so it is naturally very easy for them to fight.
On the 17th, in the Dadonggou waters, warships from both sides finally discovered each other. So a naval battle related to the trend of the Sino-Japanese war began.
As soon as the battle began, Japan encountered great luck. The combined fleet flagship Songdao opened fire and hit the main mast of Dingyuan. The command signal cable was destroyed by artillery fire. Ding Ruchang, who was supervising the battle on the flybridge, was seriously injured and could not continue to command.
At this opening, the ships of the Beiyang Navy, apart from being able to advance and retreat with Dingyuan, had lost their command.
Subsequently, the Japanese fleet equipped a large number of retractable artillery guns, which caused the Beiyang Navy to suffer. Although the Beiyang Navy was also equipped with rapid-fire artillery, due to the small amount of money allocated by Li Zhongtang and the insufficient quantity, this naval artillery attack The battle was very difficult.
Not long after the battle, the two old ships Yang Wei and Chaoyong were sunk, and then the Pingyuan was also caught in fire and had to withdraw from the battle.
Fang Boqian, the commander of Jiyuan, was frightened by the fierce battle and evacuated the battlefield without authorization.
The Jiyuan evacuated without authorization, which greatly damaged the morale of the officers and soldiers of other ships (there are now comments on the Internet overturning Fang Boqian's case, which is enough).
The morale of the Japanese Combined Fleet was greatly boosted, and the commander, Lieutenant General Ito Yuhiro, even made bold statements to annihilate the main force of the Beiyang Navy.
Of course, he had his own confidence in saying this. The two Yoshino and Akitsusu ships, which cost a lot of money, performed extremely well in naval battles and were the weapons that the combined fleet relied on.
Sure enough, under the leadership of the two ships, the two ships Jingyuan and Laiyuan also sank in battle.
So far, except for the armored ships Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, as well as the two armored patrol ships Zhiyuan and Jingyuan, the other main battleships of the Beiyang Navy have either been sunk or withdrawn from the battle.
Of course, it is not as easy for these four battleships to be sunk as for other two to three thousand ton cruisers.
Its thick armor withstood attacks from a large number of rapid-fire cannons from the combined fleet.
However, the current battlefield situation is extremely unfavorable to the Beiyang Navy. The guerrilla fleet that has completed its mission joined the siege of four Beiyang warships. The two sides fought from 3 o'clock in the afternoon to 5:30. In more than two hours Here, the two ships Jing Ding each withstood three to four hundred rounds of artillery shells. The two ships Zhiyuan and Jingyuan also received more than two hundred rounds. Of course, the combined fleet did not fare well. Although Beiyang fired fewer artillery shells, basically every ship of the combined fleet Each of them took thirty or forty rounds of artillery shells. Especially the 305mm main gun of the second ship Tranquility, which was even more powerful. The two ships Hiei and Fuso were seriously injured and evacuated from the battlefield. The two ships Zhiyuan and Jingyuan were not far behind. The two cruisers Chiyoda and Saikyo Maru were seriously injured and withdrawn from the battle.
In the later stages of the battle, the four Beiyang ships were in urgent need of shells. At this time, Ding Ruchang, the commander of the Zhiyuan, made an important decision to let Jingyuan and the three ships Zhenyuan and Dingyuan withdraw from the battlefield. He piloted the Zhiyuan to cut off the rear.
Faced with Ding Ruchang's act of risking his own life, the other three commanders also knew that the fight could no longer be fought at this time, so they had no choice but to leave the Zhiyuan behind and evacuate first.
The commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Yuhiro Ito, saw the actions of the Beiyang Fleet and decided to seize the Zhiyuan as soon as possible. The reason why he made this decision was that the Japanese Combined Fleet did not have many artillery shells, so he focused on destroying one ship.
It's better than letting go of four ships.
So the Zhiyuan was then besieged by the combined fleet. More than 400 artillery shells were fired on it, resulting in 80% loss of personnel, and the power of the artillery was completely lost, turning it into a floating coffin on the sea. At this time, the Japanese combined fleet still coveted the ship and sent a signal
The ship was asked to surrender, but Ding Ruchang flatly refused. The ship was eventually torpedoed and sunk by the Gao Qianhui nearby, and Ding Ruchang was also killed along with the ship.
Of the more than 400 officers and men on board the Zhiyuan, only 32 were rescued.
The sinking of the Zhiyuan also marked the end of the Battle of Dadonggou.
In this naval battle, the Beiyang Navy lost most of its main warships, with a loss of more than 119,000 tons, and a loss of more than 1,500 personnel. The combined fleet lost 2,300 tons (cruiser Hiei,
It was seriously injured and sank on the way back), with a loss of more than 600 people.
It can be said that after this naval battle, the Beiyang Navy no longer has the power to compete with the combined fleet. Although there are still three 7,000-ton ships left, the other warships have suffered all casualties. Without other auxiliary warships, the strength of the Beiyang Navy has declined.
A lot.
As for Fang Boqian, the commander of the Jiyuan who escaped before the battle, he was taken into custody after returning to the station and was eventually sentenced to death.
The results of the Dadonggou Naval Battle were spread throughout the world at an extremely fast speed, in addition to the two countries involved.
Although the war between China and Japan is still going on, preliminary views on the process of the naval battle have been discussed.
First of all, tube-retracted guns will be the mainstream of future naval guns. Secondly, warship formations should also be organized according to tonnage and speed. In addition, the commander must designate a successor officer before the war, and they must not be officers on the same warship, etc.
Of course, the most talked about thing is that fast cruisers should never be mixed with slow armored ships.
Yes, the biggest failure of the Beiyang Navy this time was actually mixing the two ships Zhiyuan Jingyuan with a speed of 18 knots and Dingyuan and Zhenyuan with a speed of 14 knots.
Although this greatly enhanced the strength of the Beiyang battle formation, it extremely weakened the cruise formation.
Otherwise, how could the Japanese guerrilla formations have destroyed the Beiyang cruise formations so quickly, laying the foundation for winning this naval battle.
This also fully shows that Beiyang Admiral Ding Ruchang is not a qualified fleet commander and his command ability is too weak.
Speaking of which, the Beiyang Navy has so many advisers, especially Major General Antonio, who is the general adviser, and should point out the mistakes.
Major General Antonio was wronged. He had mentioned it before when the fleet went to sea, but Admiral Ding insisted that his own team was the key. As long as he defeated the enemy's own team, he would then fight against the enemy's cruiser formation.
Everyone knows what happened next. After being seriously injured and losing its commander, the Beiyang Navy was completely fighting on its own. What's the right reason for not losing?
With the defeat of the Beiyang Navy, after Japan gained control of the sea, its transportation lines no longer had to worry about. Next, it depends on the performance on land.
