"U-turn, U-turn!"

At this moment, Lu Yindou was so frightened that he yelled and ordered the pilot of the Yu Cai to turn around immediately and drive the cargo ship into the Tamsui River to escape.

However, with the speed of 4 knots of this cargo ship loaded with rice, how could it be possible to run past the 21 knots of Yaeyama.

Soon, in the roar of machine guns, the Yu Cai was easily torn into a pile of flying debris at the mouth of the Tamsui River.

Wooden hulls wrapped in thin iron sheets, planks, large quantities of grain, tea, and sailors who were lucky enough not to be blown to pieces by machine shelling were all floating on the water.

However, it doesn't end there.

After the cruiser Yaeyama had done all this, the ship slowly approached the large wreckage floating in the sea.

"Bang, bang—"

"Haha, Yo Xi, Yo Xi, Daqing Pig!"

The Japanese sailors stood on the side of the ship with rifles in their hands and began to shoot for fun.

"Dog, Lao Tzu is your eighth-generation ancestor!"

"Bang!"

In Lu Yindou's desperate scolding, his head floating on the sea was blown up by a bullet from the Japanese army.

Soon after, the gunfire stopped, and the Yaeyama, loaded with the rampant laughter of Japanese sailors, turned south.

The wreckage of the cargo ship floating at the mouth of the Tamsui River, the bloody water, and the floating corpses, were rushed into the depths of the sea by the impact of the river that rolled out of the sea.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese fleet swaggered to the southern mouth of the Taiwan Strait and anchored in the sea of Tseung Kwan O Island at the southern tip of the Penghu Islands.

On Wang'an Island, less than 300 meters away from Tseung Kwan O Island, there are more than 30 families of Taiwanese fishermen.

At this time, these fishermen were so frightened that they shivered when they saw the Japanese warships on the East China Sea, and they hid in stone huts, not daring to show their faces.

Tseung Kwan O Island.

Ito Hiroke boarded Tseung Kwan O Island on a motorboat and looked at the Penghu Islands dotted in the north, full of pride.

In this Qing-Japanese war, the empire had two aims.

The first is to seek to seize Korea and even Northeast China, to obtain the mineral resources and Asian springboard for the future development of the empire.

The second is to strongly weaken the Qing Dynasty and at the same time obtain a huge amount of war reparations.

With resources and funds, the Oriental Empire was able to take advantage of the wind and soar through the clouds.

The capture of the Penghu Islands means Taiwan.

And once the Oriental Empire takes Taiwan, it is equivalent to a nail deeply pierced in the belly of the north and south coastlines of the Qing Dynasty.

This nail was not prepared for the current Qing-Japanese war, nor was it intended to rob the population and barren resources of this impoverished island.

Rather, it was to further encroach on the territory of the Qing Dynasty a few years later, when the Oriental Empire digested the population of Korea and Northeast China and became stronger, and made preparations for future wars.

"Order, tomorrow the first guerrilla will go to the main island of Penghu to investigate; The ships prepared in advance and told the army that the landing operation began on the 10th! ”

After issuing the order, Ito Hyungwoo raised his binoculars and looked at the dozens of dilapidated stone houses on Wang'an Island,

When the empire occupied the entire island of Taiwan,

"Woo-"

In the waning sunset, Matsushima, Hashidate, Itsukushima, Yoshino, Naniwa -

The ships sounded their whistles one after another, rolling and echoing on the sea.

Taipei, Taiwan, Governor Yamen.

When the Japanese warships appeared on Gulangyu Island, the fishing boats on the Keelung Sea thought that the Japanese army was coming to attack Keelung Harbor, and they sailed to the harbor with all their strength to report the news.

At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a large number of fishing boats operating on the surface of the sea returned to Keelung Harbor, and Wan Guoben, the commander-in-chief of Taiwan Town, immediately received the shocking news.

Wan Guoben hurriedly sent a telegram to the governor of Taipei, Yamen, to report the situation, and at the same time ordered all the port artillery to go to the fort to block the Japanese ships from attacking.

Tang Jingsong, the governor who got the telegram, was shocked and sent a telegram to the Fujian Navy for help, and at the same time urgently telegraphed to the prefecture to ask for advice.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Wan Guoben, the chief soldier of Taiwan Town, Yang Qizhen, the commander of the Fujian Navy Division, Liu Yongfu, the chief soldier of Nanao Town, and Liao Desheng and Yu Zhiting, the commanders of the army.

All the military generals of Keelung Port climbed the white rice urn fort on the west hill of the port and looked north.

However, I waited anxiously until the sun went down and then fell into the sea to the west, and there was no trace of the Japanese ships.

At this time, all the generals privately speculated whether the fleet of the Japanese was going to fight Mawei Port?

Or hit Quanzhou, Xiamen, or even Zhuhai and Shantou?

However, before Wan Guoben's group had left the hilltop fort, a fast horse came running and brought a message from the governor's yamen.

A Jiangxi cargo ship was sunk by Japanese warships at the mouth of the Tamsui River, and then the Japanese ships continued south.

In the evening of the same day, Fujian, Guangdong, Zhili, and Tongzhou all received telegrams from Taiwan.

It's all terrifying!

The Western envoys to the Qing Dynasty who got the news also hurriedly called China to report the news.

The foreign ministers of Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Russia, Italy, the Netherlands, and other countries immediately sent a note to the Oriental minister, and at the same time sent a telegram to the embassy of the Oriental country, asking to warn the Oriental in the most severe tone not to play with fire!

That night, Cixi urgently summoned the Minister of Military Aircraft overnight to discuss countermeasures.

It was ordered that Sun Yuwen and Xu Yongyi would go to Dongjiaomin Lane tomorrow to meet with the Western envoys of various countries, ask to speak for the Qing Dynasty, and join hands to force the Dongyang to stop the army.

At the same time, he sent an encrypted telegram to Ma Guan, and ordered Li Hongzhang to ask the Oriental government to order the fleet to immediately stop going south and stop the war.

On the night of the 8th, because the Japanese warships appeared in the Taiwan Strait, it seemed that the entire earth had become a village, and the Japanese army's intentions were guessed through the response to inquiries one after another through cables.

In the early morning of the 9th, a French cargo ship that passed through the Taiwan Strait and entered the port of Tamsui brought the news that a large number of ships had been found gathering in the waters of the Penghu Islands in the dark night.

Tang Jingsong, who got the news, immediately turned pale, and he finally knew what these Japanese fleets were referring to.

How good is that?

At 9 o'clock in the morning, the encrypted telegram from the Maguan Telegraph Office was delivered to the Gongyi and translated by Wang Chonghou, a member of the Telegraph Commission, Li Hongzhang suddenly lost his color and exclaimed: "Taiwan is in danger!" ”

Immediately, at Li Hongzhang's instructions, Li Jingfang boarded the port of Shimonoseki on a motorboat and asked to meet with Michinoku Munemitsu, the foreign minister of the East.

Keiyoshi Nakata, secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the East, met with Lee Ching-fang and told him that the foreign minister was busy with the peace talks in the afternoon, and that everything would be discussed at the time of the peace talks.

When Li Jingfang returned to the Righteousness with a depressed face, he saw that the British Oriental Minister Chu Enchi was visiting Li Hongzhang and brought the Oriental answer to the British question.

"The East has always cherished peace, respected the interests of Western countries in the Qing Dynasty, and had no intention of attacking any port city south of Qingdao in the Qing Dynasty; Dongyang only needs Taiwan, and will not venture into Taipei's Tamsui River International Commercial Port. ”

Everything is very clear!

At this time, Cixi in the Forbidden City, Emperor Guangxu, also got a reply from Sun Yuwen and Xu Yongyi brought back from Dongjiaomin Lane.

At the same time, he also received an urgent telegram from Taiwan Governor Tang Jingsong to Tongzhou:

The Japanese fleet gathered on the Penghu Islands, which seemed to capture Penghu and then peeked into Taiwan; Please ask the emperor and the queen mother to transfer the Beiyang Naval Division, the Fujian Naval Division, and the Nanyang Guangzhou Naval Division to Taiwan for reinforcements.