While the East China Government was bargaining with the Qing court, Japan had already made a request to the East China Government on February 1 5 for the delivery of the first batch of supplies, and specified that they should be sent to the Korean Peninsula, enter the Taedong River at the port of Nampo, and be sent all the way to Pyongyang.

It turned out that after Japan occupied Seoul, all the Russian troops withdrew from the Korean Peninsula, and the two sides only fought a few skirmishes in the border area of the Korean Peninsula and the Liaodong Peninsula. The arrival of the army naturally required a large amount of supplies, so the delivery place of the first batch of supplies ordered from the East China government was set on the Korean Peninsula.

Pyongyang is the largest city on the Korean Peninsula and is located in the northwest of the peninsula, only 1 8 0 kilometers from the Yalu River, nearly half of which is from Seoul to the Yalu River, so it is naturally the most suitable location for the Japanese army.

The Central China government immediately organized ships, and on February 1, 6, and 18, they organized a fleet of ships and sent all supplies to Pyongyang on the 19th. Starting from Yantai, it only takes one day to reach Pyongyang for about 4 0 0 kilometers, while from Sasebo or Kure Port in Japan, the distance is more than 1,000 miles, and it takes more than two days.

On the 20th, the Japanese Government and the Japanese Military Command Department sent a letter of thanks to the East China Government, and on the 22nd, they informed the East China Government that the Combined Fleet was expected to attack Port Arthur again on February 24.

After the sneak attack on Arthur, the Japanese sent small forces to test the movements of the Russian fleet twice on February 13 and 20, and after the Russian army lost the Varyag and the Korean in the Battle of Inchon on February 9, the Anice* laying ship and the cruiser Baujarin were sunk by their own *, the gunboat Sivich sank due to ice contact at Yingkou, plus the warships injured in the Battle of Arthur, the Russian army lost 8 warships at once, which was a heavy blow to the morale of the fleet.

Governor Alekseev had wanted to send warships to attack Inchon and conduct a demonstration operation to boost the morale of the fleet, but the officers of the navy had lost the courage to take the risk and had to give up. Alekseev deeply felt that the officers of the Far East Fleet were now unable to take on heavy responsibilities, and that the Japanese army had landed in Korea, and Alekseev was ready to move his headquarters to Mukden to command the overall war in the entire northeast region. This necessitated the establishment of a Far Eastern Naval Command with independent authority at Port Arthur, and the fleet commander needed to be in charge alone, and the current commander, Starke, obviously could not shoulder this important task, so he proposed to China to invite Vice Admiral Makarov to the Far East to serve as the new commander of the Far East Fleet.

Vice Admiral Stepan Osipovich Makarov was the best Russian admiral of his time, a naval tactical strategist and marine scientist. He was born into a family of naval officers and graduated from the Nikolaevsk Naval School.

In 1876, Makarov served in the Pacific Fleet and the Baltic Fleet, and began to study the problem of ship unsinkability, and proposed to divide the ship into several watertight compartments, install drainage pumps and drainage pipes with high power, and equip them with special plugging pads to plug the damage. In 1881, he sank the Turkish warship Inchbach in the Russian Navy using the Waithead Automatic*, creating the first time in history to sink a warship;

In 1881, Makarov inspected the Bosphorus Strait, where he discovered a deep-water current for the first time, and was awarded the Prize of the Russian Academy of Sciences; in 1886, Makarov commanded the cruiser Warrior on a three-year circumnavigation of the globe, systematically surveying the vast areas of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, earning a reputation as a world oceanographer; in 1899 and 1901, he carried out two large-scale polar expeditions in succession aboard the icebreaker Yermak, and soon became a polar explorer again.

In 1890, Makarov was promoted to rear admiral. Since then, he has served as Deputy Commander of the Russian Baltic Fleet and Director of Artillery of the Russian Navy. During his tenure, he invented the quilt cap*, which greatly enhanced the penetration of the cannonball, but due to the bureaucratic hindrance of Russia, it was not installed, and in 1895 Makarov was promoted to vice admiral. In 1897, he published his magnum opus "On the Problem of Naval Tactics", which comprehensively expounded the basic principles of the operation of the ships of the armored fleet, and had a tremendous impact on the world's naval circles.

The Japanese intelligence officers stationed in St. Petersburg immediately transmitted the news back to China, and the Japanese Military Command Department and the Admiralty both believed that if such a naval expert with great achievements and actual combat experience came to Lushun to take over the Pacific Fleet, it would certainly not be good news for Japan. However, Makarov departed from Petersburg on February 17, and it would take about 18-20 days to reach Arthur, during which time Japan should have dealt with the Pacific Fleet in Port Arthur and allow the land to land on the Liaodong Peninsula.

However, now that the Russian fleet was shrinking into the harbor, it would not come out, and a strong attack on the port would be met with a joint attack by the batteries and the warships in the harbor, which showed that it was undesirable, so the former staff officer Akiyama Manakasa proposed a blocking operation plan.

In fact, the first person who blocked the battle plan was not Akiyama Shinyuki, but another staff officer, Arima Liang Tachibana Nakasa, before the start of the war, the then first mate of the Joban Arima Liang Tachibana Nakasa, submitted a plan to the deputy head of the Military Command Department, Ijiin Goro, given that the narrowest part of the channel between the inner and outer ports of Lushun is only 273 meters wide. It is proposed that after the outbreak of war, two old ships filled with stones and cement can be used to break into Port Arthur at night and sink themselves on the channel between the inner and outer ports, thus blocking the channel and making it impossible for the large warships of the Russian fleet to enter and exit, even if the Russian fleet is not annihilated, the combat effectiveness of the Russian fleet can be cleared, which is the most cost-effective combat method, after all, there are 7 battleships and 1 armored cruiser in the Russian fleet, and the strength is not weak。

Ijiin Goro was dismissive of this plan, but it aroused great interest in Akiyama Shinyuki, because Akiyama Shinyuki had studied in the United States in 1898, and his mentor was Alfred Thayer Mahan, the famous inventor of the sea power theory, and visited the US Navy's blockade of the port of Havana in Cuba as an observer.

Although Akiyama Shinyuki is now only a Nakasa, he is known as a naval combat genius, of course, Mahan's status as a student also added a lot of points to him, so after Togo Heihachiro became the commander of the Combined Fleet, he appointed Akiyama Shinyuki as the first staff officer of the Combined Fleet (that is, the chief staff officer), responsible for the formulation and implementation of specific tactics, and Togo Heihachiro's evaluation of him is as wise as a spring.

Now that the naval battle could not be opened, Akiyama Shinyuki thought of the blockade battle plan proposed by Arima Ryokan Tachibana, and this plan was immediately adopted by Togo Heihachiro, and after being submitted to the Naval Command Department, it was quickly approved. Akiyama Shinyuki appointed Arima Ryotachibana to formulate a specific battle plan.

And Arima Liangtachi also made certain adjustments to his own plan, increasing the number of ships from two to five, and using white and red lights to indicate whether the sinking position was correct or not, and also formulated an evacuation plan for the crew, after all, Japan has not yet been perverted to the point of playing kamikaze at this time, that is, a lifeboat was set up on the ship, and after the detonation, the crew withdrew by lifeboat, and the destroyer following behind was contained.

It is planned that each ship will have two officers, serving as the captain and chief engineer, with a crew of 12-15 people, and the officers and crew members will recruit volunteers on each ship of the navy, and the sailors of each ship will actively sign up, and there will be as many as 2,000 volunteers, and some people have even written a blood letter, and finally 7 7 people are selected.

The five ships were identified as Tianjin Maru, Incheon Maru, Muyang Maru, Mushu Maru, and Hokoku Maru, and the commanders of each ship were Arima Ryotachi himself, Takeo Hirose Shosa, Captain Saito Shichigoro, Captain Masaki Yoshita, and Lieutenant Tozaki Hozo. Originally, the captain of the Asama, Yashiro Rokuro Osa, also wanted to participate in the recruitment, but was vetoed by Commander Heihachiro Togo. After all, despite the evacuation plan, the danger of blocking the operation was extremely great, and the Asama was one of the main warships of the "66th Fleet", and if the captain had an accident, the blow to morale would be quite large.

It was originally planned that the blockade operation would begin on February 20, but due to the stormy weather, the Combined Fleet departed from the port of Incheon on the 22nd, and the East China government still sent the Qingzhou to visit.

At 2 p.m. on February 23, the two sides met off the coast of Lushun, and Captain Xia Ruichen was also invited to board the Mikasa, the flagship of the Combined Fleet, to meet with Heihachiro Togo and Shinyuki Akiyama. Because the East China Government and Japan are now in a period of good cooperation, the arrival of the first batch of supplies at the very time has also given the Japanese soldiers some good impression of the East China Government, so the atmosphere of the meeting is also relatively harmonious. On behalf of the Combined Fleet, Mayuki Akiyama gave Xia Ruichen a detailed account of Japan's blocking plan.

The talks lasted for more than an hour, and Xia Ruichen said goodbye to the Mikasa and returned to the Qingzhou, and still kept a distance of 3,000 kilometers from the United Fleet.

At four o'clock in the afternoon of 23 February, the Combined Fleet arrived about 20 nautical miles southeast of Endojima, and the five blocked ships set off for the Port of Arthur, while the 5th Destroyer Fleet approached the port to test the enemy's situation, the 1st Destroyer Fleet served as the escort of the Blockade Fleet, and the 14th and 9th Fleets were responsible for the evacuation of the Blockade crew.