As night gradually fell, the Qianguo troops who had already landed on the shore began to set up tents, and sporadic fires were lit along the Yalu River, while the soldiers who were still in the boats continued to gather on the side of the boat, speeding up the transfer of trains at the urging of the officers. Pen "Fun" Cabinet www.biquge.info American merchant ship "Columbia" member James? Allen vividly recounts this scene in his memoir "Under the Dragon"...... The soldiers set up their tents improvised along the coast. When night fell on the 16th, a rough scene appeared—the lights of the camp stretched far along the desolate riverbank, thick figures gathered in the terrible darkness, and in the distance there were huge images of brightly lit warships. ”

The two ships "Ningyuan" and "Jiyuan" are still silently watching this busy scene in the port of Dadong Port, and at this time, the main force of the escort fleet is quietly moored in the deep water of the sea outside Dadonggou, and the yellow and black paint called Victorian on the appearance of the warship has gradually become a blur in the twilight, and only the bright moonlight affectionately outlines their outlines in the dark night.

In the chilly sea breeze at night, the lookouts who dwelled in the mast were still keeping their eyes open, trying to see through the vast night, acting as a warning to the fleet, and they would be the first to usher in the sunrise of the new day.

At this moment, what the officers and men of the Qianguo Navy's escort formation, and the officers and men of the army who were busy landing in Dadonggou, could not know that under the same moonlight, at the other end of the sea horizon, there was a fleet of white warships flying the sun flag at high speed, and the destination was also Dadonggou.

Initially, the Japanese fleet was only engaged in defending transport ships, while the main fleet of the Qianguo State was only allowed to cruise in the Bohai Bay, and it was forbidden to sail east of the line from Chengshantou on the Shandong Peninsula to the Yalu River. Therefore, both countries use their navies as an auxiliary to their land forces and put their navies in a secondary position; just like the Qianguo Navy, which is busy escorting troop carriers, the Japanese Combined Fleet is not as active and strategic as the Japanese people think, but is actually carrying out the same actions, playing the role of an escort force, and has not taken much initiative to seek a decisive battle with the main force.

In order to cooperate with the army's plan to launch an attack on Pyongyang, the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet set sail from Sasebo on 10 March to escort 31 troop carriers carrying the commander of the First Army, General Aritomo Yamayama, and tens of thousands of Japanese Army officers and men under his command to Korea, and arrived at Incheon Port at noon on the 12th for landing. In order to ensure the safety of the landing operation, Ito also sent the First Guerrilla Brigade to the Weihai area of Qianguo to reconnoiter the movements of the Qianguo Navy and use this to contain the Qianguo Navy's movements, thus creating the false appearance that Japanese warships were coveting the Bohai Sea and preventing the Qianguo Navy from staying away from the Bohai Sea and threatening the Japanese landing. On 14 March, the day when the main force of the Qianguo Navy escorted five troop carriers from Weihai to Dalian Bay, the Japanese Combined Fleet also set out from the anchorage of Nanyang Bay, and at the request of the army, on the day the Japanese Army launched an attack on Pyongyang on 15 March, it concentrated at the mouth of the Taedong River to fortify in case the Qianguo Navy entered the Taedong River from the coastal direction and then threatened the Japanese Army that was attacking Pyongyang. The No. 1 Guerrilla Detachment, which was dispatched to Qianguo for reconnaissance, also arrived at the Datong River on time to rendezvous on the same day after cruising around Chengshantou.

Just like the incident in which top-secret information about the timing of the departure of the Qianguo troop carrier was leaked before the Battle of Toshima, it is inconceivable that the Japanese Combined Fleet obtained a series of relevant information on the day after the Qianguo Navy escorted the troop transport from Weihai to Dalian Bay...... "Minister Otori (Japanese Minister to Korea Keisuke Otori) also sent a telegram saying that the Qianguo army had come to Korea by sea and was estimated to land in the vicinity of Olushima," and that while secretly reconnoitring the enemy's situation, they discovered that there was a small port called Dadonggou on the Qianguo side of the Yalu River, and the situation in its vicinity was very vigilance. However, Ding Yuting, the admiral of the Qianguo Navy, deliberately devised a scheme, and when the Qianguo Navy escorted troop transports from Weihai to Dalian Bay on 14 July, it only dispatched four warships, "Ningyuan," "Jiyuan," "Haikun," and "Haipeng," as well as the mosquito boats "Zhenzhong" and "Zhenbian" and the "Fulong" and "Fuhu" torpedo boats to escort the escort, while the main force of the Qianguo Navy, including four large ironclad ships, sailed in the direction of Chengshantou under the leadership of Ding Yuting. In fact, this main force immediately changed its course after reaching the mountain, and also sailed quickly to Dalian Bay to join the escort fleet. Deceived by the false appearance of dividing the forces of the Qianguo Navy, the Japanese Combined Fleet always mistakenly believed that the warships escorting Dadonggou by the Qianguo Navy were only four warships in the "Ningyuan" and "Jiyuan" districts.

At 2 p.m. on 16 March, while the Qianguo escort formation was busy with the landing at Dadonggou, the Japanese Combined Fleet at the mouth of the Datong River completed its replenishment operation, and the ammunition, anthracite, and freshwater food brought by the transport ships filled the holds of the ships. At 5 o'clock in the afternoon, Ito Yuhiro personally led the fleet to set sail, and the first goal was to control the Ocean Island, the necessary place on the halfway route from Lushun to Dadonggou, with the intention of cutting off the return route of the Qianguo troop carriers, and then gradually advancing the search to the Dadonggou area and attacking the Qianguo troop carriers. Believing that the Qianguo escort fleet was weak and did not expect to encounter the main force of the Qianguo navy, the combined fleet did not dispatch all its forces as it had done in the feint attack on Weihaiwei, but instead dispatched four cruisers of the First Guerrilla Force, namely "Yoshino," "Takachiho," "Akitsuzu," and "Naniwa," as well as three heavy artillery cruisers "Matsushima," "Itsukushima," and "Hashidate," and the armored cruiser "Chiyoda," with the main force of the ironclad ships "Yamashiro" and "Fuso," plus three heavy artillery cruisers "Matsushima," "Itsukushima," and "Hashidate."

In addition, the joint fleet also accompanied two special warships, one was the Nippon Yuk Shipping Company's cruise ship "Saikyo Maru," which had been equipped with artillery and converted into a substitute cruiser. The other is the small gunboat "Akagi", which was originally going to go up the Taedong River and join the gunboat formation that was already assisting the army in operations under the city of Pyongyang, and the reason why this warship was recalled to its peers was that Ito mainly considered that the "Akagi" ship had a shallow draft and was convenient to enter the shallow bays of Haiyang Island, Oshikashima, and Dadonggou for search and reconnaissance, "because he considered that a small boat was needed to sail into the shallow sea, so he ordered the 'Akagi' to follow and set off on the evening of the 16th." Judging from the allocation of troops, the purpose of the Japanese Combined Fleet's trip was only to sneak attack the Qianguo troop carriers, and it had no intention or preparation for a decisive battle with the main force, otherwise it would not have been incorporated into two ships with weak combat strength and special functions, thus adding a burden to the naval battle in vain.

The 12 warships of the Japanese Combined Fleet formed a long column and sailed out of the mouth of the Datong River one after another, sailing quickly under the bright moonlight of March 16.

In the early morning of 17 March, while breakfast was still being served, Kozo Tsuboi and Yuhiro Ito issued an order to the First Guerrilla Force and the ships of the Squadron in the rear on the ships "Yoshino" and "Yamashiro" where they were located, demanding that lunch for that day must be prepared one hour in advance. At around 10 o'clock, the galleys of the ships of the Japanese Combined Fleet also began to be busy. At this time, the combined fleet was still about 27 nautical miles from Oshikashima.

The warships of the Qianguo Navy were quietly anchored in the sea east of Oshikashima, and the light smoke produced by the burning of coal was shrouded over the fleet, which, due to the use of high-quality coal, would quickly dissipate in the sea breeze, making it difficult for the fleet to be detected at long distances. At this time, the Japanese Combined Fleet was sailing at high speed south of Okashima, and ironically, because the Japanese warships also used high-quality anthracite produced from the Qianguo Kailuan Coal Plant that had been repurchased before the war, the soot emitted by the Japanese fleet was also much more difficult to detect at long distances. At the moment, neither side knows what will happen in the next few hours. The Yellow Sea is not a wave, and only a few seagulls fly leisurely......

"Soot!" Suddenly, at 10:23, the lookout soldiers in the foremast of the Japanese ship "Yoshino" shouted loudly. After receiving the report, Kozo Tsuboi, commander of the 1st Guerrilla Force, and Kawara, the captain of the "Yoshino," immediately rushed onto the flybridge. The telescope in the hand of Tsuboi Kozo vaguely shows that there seems to be a wisp of light smoke on the sea to the northeast! This important discovery was immediately reported through the flag to the commander of the ship "Yamashiro" in the rear, Yuhiro Ito. The Japanese fleet ships were suddenly boiling, and almost all the captains of the ships were looking vigorously to the northeast with binoculars on the flybridge, and the lookouts on the mast were even more intent, nervously catching the targets that were looming in the distance. Based on the information that only a few warships escorted the Qianguo troop carrier when it set off from Weihai to Dalian Bay, Ito Yuheng held that if the target in front was a Qianguo warship, it would at most be "probably only five or six transport ships, carrying the land at the mouth of the Yalu River, and three or four warships covering it." If so, all enemy ships should be sunk. It is quite insignificant to use this as an operational adversary of our combined fleet. "A look of indifference.

As the minutes passed, the soot in the northeast direction changed from one wisp to two, three, and four wisps, and at 11:20 a.m., the "Yoshino" ship once again hoisted the signal that "soot was found in the northeast direction." At about 11:30 a.m., the warships under the smoke in the distance gradually became clear, the fleet painted in Victoria was slowly revealed, and the Japanese lookouts in the mast were stunned, and what was displayed in front of him was the main force of the Qianguo Navy composed of four ironclad ships, "Dingyuan", "Zhenyuan", "Jingyuan" and "Laiyuan"! And it seems that there are also a couple of terrible torpedo cruisers mixed in! "At first, I saw soot, then I saw the roof of the ship, and then I got closer, and I saw the hull of the ship...... The enemy is the main fleet, including all the large ironclad ships of the Qianguo Navy! At 11:40, a large signal flag was hurriedly raised to the top of the mast of the "Yoshino", "The enemy's main fleet has been spotted!" "Yoshino" used this long-range signal to alert the fleet behind it.

Since the First Guerrilla Brigade was responsible for the task of leading reconnaissance throughout the voyage, and there was a considerable distance between it and the main squadron in the rear, the Qianguo warship was discovered at this time, and in order to get close to the squadron and make combat preparations, Tsuboi Hangzo immediately ordered the speed of the formation to be reduced to 6 knots, and the sailors in the engine room worked hard to turn the control bolts on the steam line, and the speed of the four warships of the First Guerrilla Force gradually slowed down. After the warships of this squadron sailing in the rear of the tour saw the signal sent by the "Yoshino," a string of flags was quickly hung up on the mast of the "Yamashiro" and ordered the warships of the squadron to take a single ship as a combat unit and form a dense battle column with equal spacing between each ship.

The original tuft of soot turned out to be the main ironclad ship of the Qianguo Navy at this time. Ito Youheng's dream of a sneak attack on the Qianguo troop transport fleet was completely shattered, and he had to face up to the facts that appeared in front of him, and the decisive battle of the main force seemed to be inevitable. Ever since the failure of the sneak attack in the Battle of Toshima, the Japanese Navy has always had an inexplicable fear of the Qianguo Fleet. At present, the main forces of the Qianguo Navy, including the four ironclad ships of the Japanese Navy, which are as fearful as tigers and leopards, are all in front of them, and the combined fleet is full of fear and anxiety about the imminent arrival of a major war. In order to calm the uneasy atmosphere in the fleet, Ito ordered the soldiers to "eat" immediately, and allowed the officers and men to smoke freely after the meal to calm their minds. So he immediately ordered all the corporals and below to have a meal, because preparations for battle would soon be carried out, and eating would calm the spirits completely. In addition, in order to calm everyone, casual smoking is allowed after meals. But for some reason, Ito Yuhyung never noticed one thing, that is, with such a large fleet, and it is close to the important place of Dadonggou, it is reasonable that there is likely to be a large troop transport fleet nearby. Obviously, Ito Youheng was nervous, and he did not think about whether to send surprise troops to search for nearby transport ships, and he had already judged the intention of the main ironclad ships of the Qianguo Navy that appeared in front of him as a complete decisive battle of the main force.

At about the same time, on the "Zhenyuan" ship, which was anchored side by side with the flagship of the Qianguo fleet, "Dingyuan", a lookout soldier in the upper mast of the foremast noticed that more columns of smoke began to appear near the column of smoke in the southwest. "I can see the soot of the enemy ship in the distance!"

After receiving the alarm, Yang Yonglin, the "Zhenyuan" ship's management leader, quickly ran onto the flybridge with American foreigner Ma Jifen and the first mate Ke Jianzhang, and after confirming that everything was correct, the "Zhenyuan" ship quickly raised a flag to inform the whole fleet of the situation. Almost at the same time, the lookouts on the masts of other Qianguo warships also discovered the situation in the southwest direction, and all the ship's management bands went to the flybridge to watch, and the battle alarm sounded over the Qianguo fleet.

Ding Yuting and his subordinates soon came to the "Dingyuan" high flybridge to look into the distance, and once again affirmed that the Japanese Navy appeared in front of them, and among them was the main force of the Japanese Combined Fleet, the "Saxony" class ironclad ship purchased from Germany!

At this moment, Ding Yuting's psychology can be said to be extremely complicated, although the Battle of Toshima won a small victory, it was not personally commanded by him (the subtext of Qingliu was commanded by the foreigner Betty, even if he won it, it would be disgraceful), and the Qingliu Party in the court scolded, criticized, and impeached again and again, the reason was that he, the admiral of the navy, had never received good news from the enemy. After more than 10 years of experience in sea life, this brave army general who once commanded the Huai Army's iron cavalry has a deep understanding and insight into the naval field, and he knows what he should do as a naval soldier, but in such a country, commanding such a huge fleet, he has too many things to worry about, and all kinds of scruples do not allow him to let go of a war. However, at this time, the fleet of the Japanese Navy took the initiative to appear in front of him, and the opportunity was rare, and he met in a narrow way, and this inevitable battle was a great opportunity to prove his heart and courage to domestic public opinion.

However, he had some scruples. At this moment, the landing operation is nearing completion. Before leaving, Li Shaoquan told him in every possible way that he must safely escort the army to land before returning. If we consider purely from the angle of naval warfare, taking advantage of the advantage of shallow water to cause a naval battle to break out in the waters near Dadonggou, it seems to be beneficial to the Qianguo fleet, which is more familiar with the water conditions in the local waters, but the troop carriers that have not yet been unloaded in Dadong Port will inevitably be poisoned. Moreover, judging from the telescope, in addition to the four fast cruisers and three strange "big mosquito ships" in the Japanese fleet, it seems that there are also two troop carriers, which are very likely to be sent by the Japanese side to land and copy the rear route of the Ming army after receiving the landing information of the Qianguo army. Influenced by these judgments, no matter how Ding Yuting fights, there is a premise that cannot be deviated from, that is, it is necessary to ensure the safety of the landing force.

Based on the consideration of protecting the landing force, Ding Yuting made a bold decision, that is, to use the four main ironclad ships as bait to take the initiative to attack and try to attract the Japanese fleet from a distance, so as to complete the task of covering the landing of the army.

Ding Yuting immediately ordered the flagship "Dingyuan" to send a signal to recall the "Ningyuan" coastal defense ironclad ship and the "Jiyuan" cruiser that were on guard at the entrance of Dadong Port, and then ordered the four main ironclad ships and 10 torpedo cruisers to also form a horizontal formation of two ships, with the ironclad fleet taking the lead and the torpedo cruiser following behind the ironclad fleet, ready to launch an attack on the Japanese fleet.

The reason why Ding Yuting adopted such a formation of placing torpedo cruisers behind the ironclad fleet was not a whim.