The only ones who were happy about the declaration of war should be the imperial court and Yuan Shikai's Beiyang group, they were finally relieved, Huaguo was not aimed at the north, but their own masters, the Japanese, and they could enjoy it for a while! There must be an injury when the two tigers fight, no matter how powerful Huaguo is, he has to touch his head in front of Japan, and the matter of the Battle of Tsushima is definitely not what Huaguo Lu Liang said, Li Zhongtang's Beiyang Navy was defeated by Japan, can he Lu Liang do it?

At Zhoushan Port, at 11 o'clock in the morning of the 23rd, the transport fleet had been filled with high-quality coal, leaning on the port and waiting for the Marine Corps to board the ship in turn. Artillery, ammunition, trucks, food and medicine and other supplies are also being loaded intensively, and there are 70 transport ships here, all of which are standardized self-strengthening wheels. In the past five years of industrial production, the standardization and systematization of the industrial system have been deepened, which is also the fundamental reason why Huaguo can have hundreds of self-strengthening ships.

At this moment, the powerful transport capacity is vividly reflected in the war, a self-strengthening ship can carry about 5,500 tons of cargo, 250 trucks at a time, 1,000 tons of ammunition, 500 tons of light weapons, and 500-1,000 tons of supplies, which is almost the basic equipment of a motorized brigade. The modified Ziqiang wheel can carry 2,000 soldiers at a time, which is very crowded in the cabin, but fortunately, it takes about 43 hours from Zhoushan to the Japanese mainland, less than two days, and it can be endured.

Of course, it would be better if there was a relay base, and the General Staff chose Jeju Island between the mainland and Japan, but the combat goal of the Marines was obviously not there, and they would land on the Japanese mainland as soon as possible. The task of capturing Jeju Island will be entrusted to the Army, which will then establish a supply transit base there to shorten the distance between the mainland and Japan.

At 7 o'clock in the morning of the 24th, the escort fleet of the Chinese Pacific Fleet arrived in Zhoushan, which meant that the time for the departure of the landing fleet had entered the countdown. The three commanders of the 1st Marine Division, Jiang Fangzhen, Cai Songpo and Zhang Yunnong, bid farewell to each other. Say good luck to each other and board their respective transport ships.

At 5 o'clock in the afternoon of the 24th, the landing fleet sailed out of Zhoushan Port under the protection of the escort fleet and headed for the Japanese mainland. In addition, the First Army of the Zhen**** Army, which set off from Shanghai, also set off at seven o'clock in the evening of the 24th. The Second Army set out from Hangzhou at five o'clock in the morning on the 25th. The first attack wave consisting of the Marine Corps and the Army Corps was aimed at the Japanese island of Kyushu, and the Marines launched a landing operation, obtained a solid beachhead and attacked in depth, and the two Army Corps landed and cooperated with the Marines to occupy Kyushu Island. In addition, the 3rd Division of the 1st Army will be responsible for capturing Jeju Island and supporting the logistics department to establish a relay base.

Prior to this, at 9:40 a.m. on the morning of the 23rd, the main fleet of the Navy led by Lu Hai arrived in Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu and shelled this small city far away from Busan, North Korea. The shelling lasted only more than ten minutes, and it was seen that there were not many targets worth shelling here. Lu Hai decisively ordered to move on. The fleet concentrated its main firepower on the Yawata Iron Works at the heart of Japan's heavy industry, which originally used iron ore from Daye, Hubei Province, but the previous year Japan had to obtain iron ore from Korea, which was difficult to mine because the source of raw materials was cut off by the Zhenguo Army. Yawata Steel produces more than 80% of Japan's steel, so it is said to be the heart of Japan's heavy industry. Of course, it was also one of the most important targets of the planned bombardment, and it was subjected to intense shelling by the Tarzan and Nankai-class light cruisers, which reduced the production capacity of Yawata Steel by 92 percent.

The bombardment of Fukuoka was just the beginning. On this day, the upper echelons of Tokyo received news of the bombardment of Nagasaki, Kagoshima, and Nagoya by the Chinese fleet. The good news is that Japan's coastal defenses are relatively well developed, and the terrain of the ports is dangerous. It was not conducive to the entry of warships, and in order to cope with the Russo-Japanese War, mines were laid on the shipping lanes of all major ports, which greatly reduced the shelling of Lu Hai.

On the night of the 23rd, after the bombardment of Nagoya, the Chinese Pacific Fleet temporarily left the coast of Japan and rendezvoused with the supply ships in the open sea for replenishment. Luckily, no sooner had the resupply campaign ended, and a strong wind blew on the sea. At this time, it was the height of summer, the typhoon in the Pacific Ocean was raging, the weather was unpredictable, and Lu Hai led the fleet to take shelter. Unfortunately, the typhoon made landfall in Honshu, Japan, the next day, and the planned ports of Tokyo, Kawasaki, Yokohama, and Yokosuka were all within the scope of the typhoon. Lu Hai had to order the fleet to suspend the shelling plan and wait for the typhoon to pass.

At this time, the Japanese government had ordered all ports to strengthen their defenses and enter a state of first-class combat readiness, and ordered the remaining ships of the navy to assemble in the ports to escort the convoy to the northeast. They believed that the 500,000-strong army in the northeast must not be allowed to collapse, because after the Russian army received the news of the naval battle, the military spirit that was close to collapse due to the defeat of the Russian Pacific Fleet was restored, and it once again confronted the Japanese army. The Japanese army was also shaken by the defeat in the naval battle, so the most important thing now is to ensure the smooth passage of the sea route and the sufficiency of logistics materials.

As for the bombardment of the homeland and the threat to the industrial base, the Japanese upper echelons believed that this was only temporary, and that it was impossible for China to conquer Japan with its navy, and that it was not possible to make Japan submit with a few warships. The Japanese navy could divert the attention of its navy by harassing the coast of China, thereby reducing the pressure on the Japanese mainland.

The General Staff of the Chinese State also adjusted its tactics and ordered Lu Hai to stop the fleet's artillery bombardment of the Japanese mainland, and such artillery bombardment was of greater symbolic significance to the war than to the actual significance, and the most important thing was to encircle and suppress the remaining warships of the Japanese Navy as soon as possible and ensure absolute sea supremacy at sea.

On the morning of the 24th, after receiving the order, Lu Hai ordered the fleet to turn to the southwest and return to Japanese waters to look for the remnants of the Japanese Combined Fleet. The Bureau of Investigation played a huge role in Japan's painstakingly managed intelligence network, and the Hiroshima branch reported detailed information that there was a convoy of transport ships preparing to go to the Northeast Front, and that more than 30 warships of the Japanese Navy had been discovered, presumably the main remnants of the Combined Fleet.

Thanks to the backwardness of intelligence eavesdropping, intelligence stations in various localities can confidently and boldly use radio to transmit information, and although martial law has been declared in various ports in Japan, soldiers can be seen everywhere, but it cannot prevent well-trained agents from approaching the huge port area to reconnoiter intelligence.

Lu Hai estimated that the Japanese fleet would depart from the Seto Inland Sea and pass through Shimonoseki and the Korean Strait to the northeast. Therefore, he immediately led the fleet to the Tsushima Strait again, preparing for another ambush battle.

With its high speed, the Chinese fleet arrived at the predetermined sea area at 6:30 p.m. on the evening of the 24th, and Lu Hai sent five destroyers to the waters near Shimonoseki to look for traces of the Japanese fleet and transport fleet. The remaining ten destroyers were ambushed in the open sea and prepared to launch a torpedo attack after discovering enemy ships, and the battleship Taishan and four Nanhai-class cruisers were used as mobile forces to prevent the Japanese battleships from escaping.

With such a large fleet, it was impossible to hide its tracks in the advance of the Seto Inland Sea, and Lu Hai constantly received information from the Japanese Bureau of Investigation and basically grasped the accurate time of the Japanese fleet according to its speed.

At 9:40 p.m. on the night of the 24th, a huge fleet of ships, including 50 transport ships, 9 destroyers, 20 old ironclads and cruisers, sailed out of the sea of Shimonoseki, which was already all the remaining strength of the Japanese Navy.

As for why Japan used all the large warships in a centralized manner, this has been debated in later generations, and the mainstream view is that the Japanese are accustomed to the battle of national fortune and the one-time battle to solve all the enemies, and this time sending all the large warships is also a gamble, the bet is that the Chinese fleet will not be able to find them, so as to harass the coast of China with the greatest effort after completing the escort mission.

As a result, the gamble of the Japanese gave Lu Hai the best opportunity, and the large battleship entered the destroyer's ambush circle first on the periphery, at this time the rainy weather caused by the typhoon had not yet passed, and the sea wind and waves were large and the visibility was average, which provided cover for the destroyer's assault, but also caused a low torpedo hit rate.

The first wave of more than 40 torpedoes had a pitiful low hit rate, only Kaohsiung, Maya, and one destroyer were hit, and three battleships were quickly sunk, but the other Japanese warships immediately reacted, and the destroyer detachment immediately moved forward, ready to engage in a grapple with the Chinese destroyer detachment.

The night naval battle was a torpedo, and the Chinese destroyers launched the second and third waves of torpedo attacks one after another, and the Japanese destroyers that went out in front could only be passively beaten because of the inferior performance of the battleships and the gap in torpedoes, and seven of the nine destroyers sank in two waves of torpedo attacks. The sacrifice of the destroyer gave time for the fleet behind, and the fleet immediately turned around and prepared to return, when the long-awaited four Nanhai-class cruisers outflanked from both sides.

Even if the line of sight is poor, you can see the general outline, the super rapid-fire guns of the Nanhai-class cruisers are once again powerful, although the hit rate is not high, but the Japanese ships once again suffered the tragic fate of being passively beaten and unable to return fire, there is no torpedo boat detachment, the Japanese battleships desperately rushed to the four Nanhai-class cruisers, trying to close the distance and then launch torpedoes. (To be continued.) )