At 11:30 p.m., the closed fleet came to the southeast of Lao Tieshan outside Port Arthur, at this time, the sea was calm, the night was dizzy, the moon was faint and faint, the stars were dim, and the surrounding mountain shadows were hazy, which was a good weather for a sneak attack.

The 5th Destroyer Fleet, which had approached Arthur Harbor to test the enemy's situation, retreated at 1 a.m., where they had met with Russian patrol ships and launched an attack, but did not hit the Russian warship.

At 3 o'clock in the morning, the closed fleet lined up in a column, led by the Tianjin Maru, followed by the Baoguo Maru, the Incheon Maru, the Wuyang Maru, and the Wuzhou Maru, and sailed along the land shore towards Port Arthur, because the five ships were full of cement and stones, so they could only move at a speed of 8 knots.

However, since the 5th Destroyer Fleet had already alarmed the Russian fleet, Port Arthur was on alert at this time, and the searchlights on the shore were fully turned on, although it could not be said that the sea surface was as bright as day, but it could basically sweep the sea surface. As a result, the blocked fleet was discovered by searchlights before it reached the outer harbor of Arthur, so the batteries on both sides opened full fire, and in the inner harbor of Arthur, the battleship Retvizan also opened fire, so for a while the shells rained down on the closed fleet.

Although the five blocked ships braved the rain of bullets with fearless courage to bravely break through to Port Arthur, under the interference of shelling and searchlights, it was difficult for the commander and helmsman to correctly identify the direction.

Commander Arima Liangtachi gave the order to play a red light indicating "the sinking position is incorrect" to alert the blocked ship behind, and on the other hand, he ordered the detonation* to abandon the ship and escape. However, the soldiers made a mistake in their busyness, first hung out a white light indicating "the correct position of the sunk", and then found out that it was wrong, so they replaced it with a red light, and Arima Liangtachi was afraid that the ships behind would misunderstand, so he went to the stern of the ship and shouted loudly to Hokokumaru behind.

Takeo Hirose, the commander of Hokoku Maru, heard Arima's shout, so he turned his rudder to the right and sailed towards the outer port of Lushun with the Incheon Maru behind him. However, the Wuyang Pill and the Wuzhou Maru, who were in 4th and 5th place, were confused by the change in the light signal, and in the middle of hesitation, the servo of the Wuyang Pill was hit and could not turn, and as a result, it detonated and sank next to the Tianjin Maru. This time, Wushu Maru completely misunderstood, that is, both ships sank here, thinking that they were probably at the location, so they immediately described themselves and sank, and the positions of these three ships were far away from the intended location.

Hokookmaru and Incheon Maru, who broke into the outer harbor of Arthur, divided their forces into two routes, with Hokokomaru targeting the battleship Retvizan, which was involved in the shelling in the inner harbor of Arthur, while Incheon Maru chose to use the searchlight of Golden Mountain as a reference and changed direction towards it. Soon after, the Incheon Maru ran aground near the southern shore of the Golden Mountain, broke down and blew itself up, while the Hokook Maru was shot several times in the crossfire between the battery and the Retvizan, but still insisted on advancing.

But the steering line of Hokokumaru was broken, and even the self-sinking * was cut off. Eventually, about 300 meters from the Retvizan, a shell ignited a fire, and Commander Takeo Hirose judged that the fire was strong enough to detonate the loaded * and sink the ship, so he ordered to abandon ship and escape. However, in the midst of the yin and yang, the location where the Baoguo Pill sank was basically at the predetermined location.

At about 5 o'clock in the morning, the crews of the closed ships were transferred to the receiving boats, and at this time the sky was getting high, and the Japanese* fleet was afraid of the attack of the Russian fleet, so they retreated.

At 9 a.m. on 24 February, the commander of the Combined Fleet, Heihachiro Togo, received the commander and crew of the withdrawn closed ship at the flagship Mikasa, but the boat only brought back the crew of the three ships Tianjinmaru, Hokokookmaru, and Wuyang Maru, and only one of the 48 crew members was killed and four were wounded, but a total of 29 crew members of the Incheon Maru and the Takeju Maru were missing.

In addition, judging from the results reported by the crews of each ship, it can be basically confirmed that only one ship, Hokoku Maru, sank at the predetermined place, and the other four ships were far away from the predetermined place, and of course only one Hokoku Maru was not enough to block the channel of Port Arthur, so it can be said that this blockade operation ended in failure.

Although 29 crew members were still missing, Togo Heihachiro did not dare to stay here for a long time, and ordered the fleet to return and arrive at the port of Incheon at noon on the 5th.

However, as soon as he returned to the port of Incheon, Togo Heihachiro received the good news that the 2 9 crew members who had disappeared on the Incheon Maru and the Wuju Maru had been found, and it turned out that they had all been asked by Qingzhou of the East China government, and now they were taken to Qingdao and received good hospitality. The East China Government immediately notified Japan and sent a ship to pick up the people.

It turned out that at 6:30 a.m., the Qingzhou received a notice from Qingdao asking the Qingzhou to return, so the Qingzhou waved a farewell flag to the combined fleet and returned to Qingdao.

At about 7 o'clock, the Qingzhou received another order from Qingdao, and this time they were asked to go to the designated sea area to rescue the lost Japanese crew members.

In fact, the Qingzhou is just a disguise, after all, it is dozens of kilometers away, you can't see anything, you can observe anything, and the real monitoring of the battlefield is the passing warship behind the Qingzhou. This time, the East China government dispatched the Sanya ship, and it also released a drone to monitor the process of the battle in the air, and because it was at night, the drone could monitor the whole process at a low altitude of 500 meters below and transmit it to the Sanya ship synchronously. Therefore, the crossing soldiers on the Sanya ship had a far better understanding of the battlefield than the combined fleet, and even the closed fleet could not be compared.

After the end of Japan's blockade operation, when the Sanya ship received the drone, it found that the lost Japanese blockade crew was none other than the crew members on the Incheon Maru and Wuzhou Maru. It turned out that the site of the sinking of the Takeshu Maru was outside Port Arthur, and after the commander Lieutenant Shimazaki Hozo and 13 crew members boarded the lifeboat, they did not face any threat, but in the dark of night, they did not find the corresponding ship, so they had to row south, hoping to find the combined fleet, while the Incheon Maru broke through to the outer port of Arthur, and the commander Captain Saito Nanagoro and 14 crew members boarded the lifeboat.

After the two lifeboats converged, the two estimated that the combined fleet had returned to the sea, and they could not catch up, so they only continued to sail south and landed on the Shandong Peninsula, because this is the territory of the East China government, which can ensure safety, and then try to return to Japan.

As a result, the two lifeboats were discovered by the radar of the Sanya ship, so after consulting the Qingdao side, they immediately contacted the Qingzhou and asked the Qingzhou to rescue the two lifeboats. The East China Government believes that the rescue of these two lifeboats will not be of great practical help to Japan, but the symbolic significance is not trivial, and it will allow the East China Government to occupy a moral advantage in future negotiations with the Japanese Government, and will be able to stabilize Japan to a great extent.

After receiving this news, Togo Heihachiro also breathed a sigh of relief, although on the surface, Togo Heihachiro's mood was not affected by the failure of this blockade operation, and on the way back, Togo Heihachiro also negotiated with Akiyama Shinyuki, thinking that the blockade operation still has merit, and this failure is mainly due to lack of experience, so Togo Heihachiro asked Akiyama Shinyuki to seriously sum up the lessons of this blockade operation failure and formulate a plan for the next blockade operation.

However, the pressure on Togo Heihachiro was quite great, because the action of the navy was of great importance and had a direct impact on Japan's plan for the next operation, and if it could not suppress the Russian Pacific Fleet and gain sea supremacy, it would affect Japan's army operations.

Although Japan can use the Korean Peninsula as a springboard, it still has to take the sea route from the Japanese mainland to the Korean Peninsula, and the Korean Peninsula is surrounded by sea on three sides. Although the Japanese navy and army have always been at odds with each other, first, we should now put the overall situation first, and the contradictions between the navy and the army should also be put aside; second, the navy must not lose face in front of the army, and if Japan wants to suppress the Pacific Fleet, it can only use the method of closed operations.

The discovery of the 29 lost officers and soldiers will greatly relieve the pressure on Togo Heihachiro, because in this way, although the blockade operation failed, only one soldier was killed, and in any case, there was still a ship sunk in the predetermined position, which could be regarded as an explanation, so that the second blockade operation would not be hindered by the military command department.

However, although the first blockade operation was not successful, Japan still went full throttle, publicized the victory of the battle, and composed the song "Death Squad" for 77 people, after all, only victory can arouse the enthusiasm of the people and the spirit of hatred for the enemy.

But at this moment, the War Department sent someone to ask the Admiralty whether the Navy had attacked Arthur and returned defeated. Of course, this is a very normal thing in Japan, and the navy and army have always done their own work and have not communicated with each other. However, on the 26th, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received a telegram from the minister stationed in the Qing Dynasty, saying that the communiqué issued by Russia said that the Japanese fleet attacked Arthur on the 23rd and returned from a great defeat, and five Japanese warships were sunk by the Russian army.

However, the War Department does not know whether it is true or not, because now the War Department is also drawing up its own operational plan, preparing to divide its troops into two routes, one route crossing the Yalu River from the Korean Peninsula to the eastern part of the Liaodong Peninsula, and the other way landing in the area around Dalian Bay at the southwestern tip of the Liaodong Peninsula, forming a situation of road flanking, but if the navy is defeated, the army's plan will certainly not be completed. So he hurriedly contacted the Navy to inquire about the situation.

Navy Minister Gonbei Yamamoto hurriedly briefed the War Department on the results of the blockade operation, focusing of course on the optimistic results of one blockade ship sinking at the predetermined location and only one person killed in the entire army, and saying that the navy was planning a second blockade operation, and with the experience of the previous one, the second time would definitely be successful.

After hearing the results of the battle, the War Department also thought that the landing in Dalian Bay had become easier, and in order to ensure the safety of the landing fleet, it demanded that the navy wait until the navy had achieved definite results in Lushun before implementing the landing plan.