It's a new day.

At Dadong Port, the intense login operation continued. Although Ding Ruchang had already issued the order to operate all night, after a whole day, less than half of the soldiers arrived at the Yizhou landing site 15 nautical miles away. The only good news that is fortunate is that heavy materials such as artillery and horses have basically been transported. Ding Ruchang's haggard face showed a little smile. After calculating, he ordered the ships to start making fires and escorted the unloaded air transport ship back to Dalian at 12 noon.

The warships of the Beiyang Fleet were quietly anchored on the sea east of Dalu Island, and the fleet was covered with black coal smoke that seriously polluted the air. On the flagship "Dingyuan", Liu Buchan sat bored and lazy in the neat and bright officer dining room. For a while, the fleet would return to the base and continue to implement the fleet strategy of "like a tiger in the mountains" that made him sigh helplessly...

As a soldier, he had the passion for killing the enemy, but was constrained by various domestic political factors. He had to be a turtle to keep his head trunk and retreated in every way to the culprit of the enemy country that caused the major losses of the country! Thinking of this, Liu Buchan always had an unspeakable anger in his heart, which burned him almost to suffocate.

Ding Ruchang gently waved the silver knife and fork, cut the food on the plate, his eyes wandering, as if he was thinking about something. On his right, Hannagan, the Mediterranean, looked unhappy, and he almost died in the Fengdao shipwreck. The Qing court boss who had served him for so many years, said nothing. But his motherland knew that his country had encountered a terrorist attack abroad, and immediately asked the battleships in the Far East to join the Qing court in the battle against Japan. Hannagan habitually touched his bald head with few hairs and sighed dissatisfied and helplessly.

Suddenly, a shrill alarm sounded from the battleship "Kaiyuan" ahead, with a harsh tone; after a while, a clearer alarm began to sound, and Liu Buchan was the first to recognize it. This was the alarm bell issued by his ship "Dingyuan"!

Not long after, the sound of rapid footsteps came from the outer cabin path, and Ding Ruchang seemed to have realized something; he stopped the knife and fork in his hand and placed them neatly back. Without permission, a messenger pushed open the cabin door and shouted loudly to the fleet decision makers in the cabin: "Report, discover the Japanese warship!"

Ding Ruchang nodded slightly, then stood up and strode out the door. Seeing this, a large group of naval officers who could not control their excitement, suddenly pushed open the seats and followed closely behind him. Stepping onto the wide and flat fly bridge, taking the telescope handed over from left and right, Ding Ruchang looked forward at the distance: the white ships that appeared at the junction of sea and sky should be the main force of the entire Japanese joint fleet!

"Military Gate, fight! Beat this group of bastards to death!" Liu Buchan was so excited that he trembled all over and said loudly.

Looking at the Japanese warships slowly approaching at the junction of the sea and sky, Ding Ruchang was in a state of great emotion for a long time. Since the war started, under his command, the Beiyang Navy has never received any good news from the enemy's battle, which has caused him to be criticized in the hustle and bustle of the government and the country. Although he meticulously implemented the existing strategy of "defending the enemy outside and protecting the ship first", this does not mean that the Huai Army general was timid and cowardly and did not dare to fight with the Japanese Navy! At this time, the main force of the Japanese Navy had automatically come to his eyes, and the enemy was extremely jealous. As long as he could win this inevitable battle, who else dared to say a word of shit in the court?

"Send the order, set up the anchor, line up the array, and meet the enemy!" Ding Ruchang put down his telescope and said loudly.

The officers and soldiers of the Beiyang Navy were trained for a long time and were full of energy. They had already been furious in their hearts against the death of nearly a thousand robes in the Fengdao naval battle. At this moment, after receiving the order to set sail and prepare for the battle, they were even more excited and fighting spirit. In a very short time, each ship put the anchors at an unprecedented speed. With the roar of the reciprocating steam engine, the stationary propellers began to rotate at high speed. The fleet began to slowly change the formation and gradually formed a horizontal formation. On the towering mast, huge flags with a length of more than 2 meters were dancing; in the 19th century, when replaced with such a huge flag, it meant fighting!

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Just as the Beiyang Navy discovered the Japanese Combined Fleet, the sailors in the foremast building of the Yoshino, the front end of the entire Japanese fleet, also discovered the Beiyang Navy in the distance. As the mist on the sea gradually dissipated, the Victorian Navy's painted became clear under the high-power telescope. What was presented to them was not the "Vulnerable Dead Fleet Brigade", but the entire elite fleet of the Qing Dynasty, including "Kaiyuan", "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan"! A harsh alarm sounded over the entire joint fleet.

"What's going on? Why did all the main forces of the Qing Beiyang Fleet suddenly appear here?" On the flagship "Matsushima", Yuyuki Ito paced back and forth in the not-wide naval command tower, his face turned red and cursed, "The mobilization of such a large fleet did not even notice any clues? The buckets of the intelligence department should have been burned and broken into pieces!"

A relative next to him worked in the intelligence department and couldn't help but defend himself: "Commander, the intelligence department is still very accurate. At least two months ago, the departure time of the Qing troop transport ship was reported very accurately! This time it was just a small mistake..."

"Kuoya Deer (you bastard)!" Yuuki Ito was furious and slapped the adjutant's face with his backhand. The huge force immediately made a blood-red Five Finger Mountain appear on his face. He gasped and roared in a loud voice: "A small mistake? Do you understand, these idiots have already pitted the entire joint fleet! Hum? What's the use of asking them? Finding a pig is more useful than them, at least pork can be eaten."

The officers in the commander tower saw that the fleet commander who was usually well-mannered was so angry that they were so frightened that they turned pale and did not dare to say anything. Yukihiro Ito took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down. Judging from the current situation, the Qing Dynasty had probably planned for a long time and was preparing to compete with the Japanese Empire at sea. However, due to the mistakes of the intelligence department, they thought they were only facing a small fish and had lost in strategic decisions. The fleet he brought out this time was not the entire main force of the joint fleet; not to mention anything else, the three British instructed Chile to sell to Japan, and the one iron-clad ship and two cruisers of the Kaiyuan were not followed by him; the total tonnage of these three warships alone exceeded 14,000 tons!

Do you want to escape? This idea flashed through Yukihiro Ito's mind, and he immediately denied it. The reason is that the warships of the United Fleet have one or another problems: either they are disrepaired, or they are modified in civilian ships, or the boiler is of poor quality. No one except the Chiyoda can exceed 13 knots. If you want to escape, only the four cruisers of the First Fast Fleet and the Chiyoda cruiser of the team can escape from the battlefield with high speed, and the remaining ones

Because of its slow speed, the seven ships of the U.S. will inevitably be caught up by the fastest "Zhiyuan", "Jingyuan" and even "Kaiyuan" in the Beiyang Navy, and the artillery slowed down, and then sunk by the Qing Dynasty fleet that arrived later. More importantly, Naval Command Minister Shiki Karayama is still on the "Xijingmaru"! You must know that it is just a combat ship transformed from a cruise ship, and it is also a person who cannot run fast; if it is forced to face the real main warship, its fate is just one word, death!

It seems that I can only grit my teeth and fight a shot!

Yuki Ito showed a ferocious look on his face and spat on the floor with a fierce look. Although the intelligence department was just a bunch of shit this time, fortunately he was cautious by nature and did not overestimate it. He brought out all three cruisers equipped with 320mm giant cannons. After the boiler was improved, they could all run at a speed of 13 knots. As long as these three giant cannons can fire a designed rate of fire and have accurate heads, the advantages of the Qing Dynasty iron armored ship can still be effectively curbed.

In addition, Yuki Ito also has the biggest trump card, which is the absolute firepower advantage of the joint fleet over the Beiyang Navy.

In order to defeat the Beiyang Navy and realize the ambition of colonizing the Qing Dynasty, Japan began to fully learn everything about the British Navy as early as 20 years ago. This time, the smokeless powder and tube retractable artillery technology that Armstrong military industry had just released was the best gift from Britain to Japan. The revolutionary innovations of these two technologies have made the design speed of the artillery a huge leap; the cannon, which previously took 2 to 3 minutes to complete a round of shooting, cannons can now aim at the enemy in just 10 seconds, and again

Fire! In 1887, the 120mm rapid-fire gun completed the test fire; in 1892, the 152mm rapid-fire gun was installed in British warships. British teachers also taught this Japanese student who could resist Russia and forced the Qing court to open more trading ports. To this day, almost every warship of the United Fleet is equipped with 152mm or 120mm rapid-fire guns produced by Armstrong Military Industry, with a rate of fire that is more than 10 times that of the old artillery of the same caliber of the Beiyang Navy.

The advantage of the rate of fire is already greater than that of the Beiyang Navy. The charges of all the artillery shells of the joint fleet are made of picric acid, which is very powerful in chemical properties. The explosion is extremely powerful, and the flames produced are said to be able to burn even steel and are extremely difficult to extinguish. Most of the artillery shells equipped by the Beiyang Navy are solid shells built by the Tianjin Manufacturing Bureau, which can only penetrate and have no lethality. The only small number of artillery shells loaded with black gunpowder were still provided by foreign friends when they bought the ship. After being placed in the past seven or eight years, it is unknown whether they can explode normally. Even if they explode normally, their power will be far smaller than the artillery shells loaded with Japanese artillery shells.

In fighting, there is still a fight; in retreat, it will be a situation of death!

"Rein." Yuuki Ito slowly spit out a syllable from his mouth. The messenger next to him was shocked, holding his breath and listening carefully to every word the commander was going to say next.

"The First Guerrilla Fleet slowed down and its speed dropped to 6 knots to wait for the joint fleet to get closer and prepare for combat." Yukihiro Ito's tone returned to his usual calmness and calmness.

"Hi!" the messenger nodded and replied.

"The 'Nikyo Maru' and the 'Akagi' left the formation and accelerated their sailing to the left of the 'Hire' and 'Fuson' ships to avoid direct confrontation with the main Qing warships." Yukyu Ito paused and said, "In addition, tell Minister Shiki Kawayama that the war is coming, so that he can take care of himself. Our team can no longer control him!"

Shima Kiyoshi, the captain of the Matsuda Island, said directly: "Commander, now I suddenly discovered that the main fleet of Qing Dynasty is unstable; are they allowed to smoke to relieve tension?"

Yuki Ito was stunned, then nodded and said, "You are right, just do it!" Waving his hand, the messenger bowed to him and ran quickly outside the commander tower.

Following the issuance of the General Yuki Ito, all the personnel of the joint fleet immediately became busy, and running figures could be seen everywhere on the deck, quickly entering their posts. Like the Beiyang Navy, a huge naval battle flag was raised on the masts of each warship of the joint fleet. Considering that once the war started, the ammunition depot would be the target of the opponent's navy's key attack, the Japanese sailors used tackles to transport shells and bags of fired medicine from the ammunition depot, stacked them on each artillery position, and completely cleared the ammunition depot. In addition to some senior officers such as the captain, the chief mate, the navigator, etc., they rushed to important parts of the ship to supervise the battle. The Japanese sailors in white uniforms had completed the loading of the first artillery shells. Looking at the Beiyang Navy getting closer and closer in the distance, the veterans were ready to try; while the new recruits were pale and trembling.

Since the headquarters of the Joint Fleet had already caught up, the commander of the First Guerrilla Fleet, Torii, ordered his warship to accelerate to 8 knots. At 12:18, after receiving the order to "intercept the right wing of the enemy fleet" from the flagship "Matsushima", the speed of the First Guerrilla Fleet increased to 10 knots, pointing to the backbone of the Beiyang Fleet, and then turned to the right wing for maneuvering at the right time. In the command tower of the flagship "Yoshino", Torii ordered the Yoshino to raise a signal over and over again, and tirelessly reminded the three cruisers behind "Takachiho", "Akizushi" and "Langsu" to pay attention to the distance and speed to ensure that this simple column navigation can be fully executed by the nervous sailors.

On September 17, 1894, a sea battle that shocked the world slowly kicked off at 12:30 noon and was officially staged.
Chapter completed!