This is true in Seoul, but what about Busan?

A few days ago, the Military Aircraft Department issued an edict to the navy, urging the navy to concentrate ships and go to Pusan to escort the army. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The Japanese army rushed to Seoul at the beginning of the war, would there be a reason to leave Busan, which is close at hand, unattended?

If he did not send a single warship to Busan, and even removed the original two old cruisers "Weiyuan" and "Kangji", will it become the next crime for Qingliu to impeach him?

Thinking of the old boss Li Shaoquan's nemesis, Emperor Weng Shuping, who had done it to him, Ding Yuting suddenly shuddered.

If Lin Yiqing was here, Weng Shuping would definitely not dare to do this!

But up to now, Lin Yiqing has been in a coma for several months, and has invited countless famous doctors to see him, both Chinese and Western medicine, but his condition has never improved......

All I could do was to send a whole box of high-grade Korean ginseng on behalf of everyone to express my gratitude......

Without Lin Yiqing presiding over the navy, everyone is now panicking.

If Lin Yiqing is here, he will at least be spared the blind command and restraint of the Navy by the Military Aircraft Department, so that he can go into battle lightly, accurately judge the enemy's situation, and have a big battle with the Japanese Navy!

But now, he can only obey the order of his old boss Li Shaoquan, "Don't lose a single ship to protect the ship", and the instructions given to him by Wang Yikuang of Qingjun, who acted as the Haibu, were even clearer, "You are good at guarding your ship, and the rest is not your business!" "It means that the king of Qingjun will help the navy withstand the guys in the military aircraft department, and tell him to lead the fleet with peace of mind, and don't care about anything else.

But how long can this King of Qingjun, who has a bad reputation but is Lin Yiqing's hardcore ally, help him, a little naval admiral, to top?

What Ding Yuting hopes for most at the moment is that Lin Yiqing can wake up as soon as possible.

The sea breeze blew, and Ding Yuting retracted his thoughts and shifted his attention to the task in front of him.

On 15 March, the Qianguo fleet arrived at Dalian Bay, and the scene in Dalian Bay was like a magnificent picture. The "Columbia," a U.S. merchant ship carrying arms for Qianguo, happened to pass by on the same day, and an American on board recorded the scene at that time: "When we arrived at Dalian Bay, we found that the bay was crowded with ships. Four large transports have already begun to load soldiers, and another has arrived after us. The battleships flying the dragon flag were arranged in a neat and spectacular manner, with a total of 22 ships and six gunboats of the Rendall type, all of which belonged to the Qianguo fleet. In addition, there were eight torpedo boats. ”

At about 10 o'clock in the morning of the same day, the main force of the Qianguo Navy, which had set out from Weihai the night before, had all joined up with the warships stationed here in Dalian Bay; under the arrangement of Admiral Ding Yuting, the fleet began to be busy with coal loading operations; torpedo boats and mosquito boats docked next to the trestle; sailors and civilians pushed coal wagons full of loaded coal along the tracks on the trestle to the vicinity of the warships and transferred them directly to the warships; while the large warships with deep drafts, such as "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan," could only be moored in the sea and were shuttled by the coal carriers in close proximity.

On the "Dingyuan" ship, the iron coal-filling mouth covers distributed on both sides of the main deck were opened, and the sailors were busy pouring bags of coal into the coal tank, and the coal dust was scattered in the air. Admiral Ding Yuting carefully inspected the work of his subordinates, remembered the past of the year, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

Now the coal tanks of warships are all high-quality coal with high combustion value in lumps, but a year ago, it was inferior crushed coal like loose sand.

The coal supplied by the Qianguo Navy was mainly supplied by the Kaiping Coal Mine in Tangshan, but due to the Navy's "suspension of the purchase of ship machinery" by Weng Shuping, the Navy's operating expenses were in difficulty, and over time, the General Office of Coal Mines lost interest in supplying the Navy, which was not at a high price and often owed money, and instead sold high-quality coal to businessmen at a high price to make a profit, and used inferior crushed coal to meet the Navy. For this reason, Ding Yuting angrily wrote to Zhang Yanmou, the general office of the coal mine, "The coal dust is scattered, the smoke is heavy and the ash is heavy, it is difficult to strengthen the strength, and it hinders the boiler...... What is the need to keep this kind of Sho blame for the navy? He said that if such coal was to be transported to the navy in the future, it would be returned in full and reported to Li Shaoquan and Prince Chun, who was in charge of the sea at that time. However, the General Office of Coal Mines claimed to be a servant of the Prince's Mansion, and Tang Tingshu, the former general office of Li Shaoquan's cronies, did not care about this, although after many negotiations, it still used crushed coal to fill the number, and even said that if the navy needed lump coal, it could sift through the crushed coal by itself. Ding Yuting had to negotiate with the Mining Bureau, "The coal that has been transported from all over the world is still scattered and broken, and it is not really a 'five troughs' (the name of the high-quality coal produced by Kaiping Coal Mine)." …… If you are still responsible for it, you will be loaded back with the original ship, and the next time it will be clear, and then fortunately, don't blame the friendship and ignore it", but Zhang Yanmou is still the same, and even the broken coal is not supplied in time.

The matter soon reached Lin Yiqing, the secretary of the military department who would be the Minister of the Navy, and Lin Yiqing sent a letter to Zhang Yanmou asking him to put state affairs first, but Zhang Yanmou relied on the power of Prince Chun to return the letter and disdain to reply. Lin Yiqing didn't do anything more, and the matter seemed to end here, but three days later, Zhang Yanmou suddenly died at home!

After Zhang Yanmou's death, Hu Kaihua, who was recommended by Prince Jing, took over as the general office of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, Hu Kaihua was as mercenary as Zhang Yanmou, and after taking over, like Zhang Yanmou, he still used broken coal to cope with the navy and made profits from high-quality coal, but then Hu Kaihua and Zhang Yanmou died violently at home only a month after taking office.

After Hu Kaihua's death, Wu Dexin, the alternate Daotai recommended by Weng Shuping, served as the general office of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, and Wu Dexin, like Zhang Yanmou and Hu Kaihua, transported crushed coal to the navy, intercepted high-quality coal and resold it.

After Wu Dexin's death, the Kaiping Mining Bureau successively ushered in two general offices, Zhang Molin and Liang Cheng, who continued Zhang Yanmou's practice, and also ended up with Zhang Yanmou - Zhang Molin liked to take a bath and drowned in the bath at home.

It is said that after Liang Cheng's death, Weng Shuping wanted to recommend the alternate Daotai Jin Fangda to serve as the general office of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, but Jin Fangda resolutely refused to take office after hearing about the experience of the five predecessors, and even did not hesitate to turn his face with Weng Shuping for this.

It was not until later that Li Shaoquan recommended Yan Zongguang to serve as the general office of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, Yan Zongguang was originally from the navy and left due to physical reasons, but he knew the hardships of the navy very well, and after taking office, he changed the style of his predecessor, supplied the navy with high-quality coal in a timely manner, and contacted the bank for the navy to work capital.

It is strange to say that after Yan Zongguang took office, he broke the curse of "the general office died less than a month after taking office" of the Kaiping Mining Bureau, and he has been safe and sound until now.

As for the five profit-seeking general offices who died in a row, there are rumors in the market that the navy sent killers to kill them, but Ding Yuting, as the admiral of the navy, knows very well that although the navy has a "military intelligence bureau" that specializes in collecting intelligence, the people in the military intelligence bureau absolutely do not have this ability.

Although Ding Yuting didn't want to think about it, he always felt in his heart that the bizarre deaths of these five general offices had something to do with Lin Yiqing.

The coal and water supply work of the Qianguo fleet went on for nearly a day, and the Ming army troops from the direction of Jinzhou and Dalian also arrived at Dalian Bay in a steady stream; because of the large number of people and the large number of baggage, horses, artillery, and other materials they carried with them, the entire boarding operation was busy until late at night, and the entire boarding operation was basically completed. After receiving a report that all the troops had boarded the ship, Ding Yuting immediately ordered the fleet to set off, the flagship "Dingyuan" sounded its whistle, the mast raised the signal to set sail, and before 1 a.m. on 16 March, the huge fleet in Dalian Bay lifted anchor and set off. The main ships headed by the ironclad ships "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan", "Jingyuan", "Laiyuan", "Ningyuan", "Jiyuan", "Jianji", "Jianxun", "Jianye", "Jianzhong", "Jianhong", "Jianhu", "Jianwei", "Jian'an", "Haikun", and "Haipeng", six mosquito boats "Zhendong", "Zhenxi", "Zhennan", "Zhenbei", "Zhenzhong", and "Zhenbian", as well as torpedo boats "Fulong", "Fuhu", "Fujiao", and "Fuyan", marched in turn, sailing in double columns. That is, the Beiyang Navy called the Pisces Formation. The five troop carriers "Liyun," "Xinyu," "Tunan," "Zhenan," and "Haiding," which were loaded with army soldiers, and the US merchant ship "Columbia," which helped transport ordnance and supplies, untied their cables and set off one hour later than the escort fleet, and marched in a single column along the course opened up by the escort fleet. Under the faint light of the oil lamp in the hand of the duty officer, the pointing on the magnetic compass is very clear, northeast. On the coastline in that direction, there is the destination of this fleet operation, Dadonggou.

Under the main deck of the flagship "Dingyuan," in the admiral's conference room at the stern of the warship, Admiral Ding Yuting, the right-wing commander-in-chief Deng Zhengqing, the left-wing commander-in-chief Liu Buchan, the British Navy Commander Trene, and the admiral's staff and officers held a meeting under the electric lights. The news that the Japanese combined fleet is haunting the coast of Korea is no longer news, where will the mysterious White Fleet be at this moment? Should we continue to carry out the defensive strategy of "acting like a tiger in the mountains," or should we take the initiative to find the main force of the Japanese Navy and have a decisive battle in a dignified manner? On the warships of the entire fleet, the minds of the senior officers were repeatedly entangled with this question.

Turning over the vast territory of Qianguo, starting from Dalian at the top of the Liaodong Peninsula and stretching north along the coastline, you will soon see a big river that has long served as the mission of the national border. The Yalu River, named after the river because its color resembles the neck of a wild duck, originates from the magnificent foothills of the Changbai Mountains, and the turquoise water flows through the northeast before flowing into the Yellow Sea. The entrance to this turquoise river is bounded by the dense island islands, and can be roughly divided into two channels, east and west, the seabed of the east channel, silted sediment has formed a large number of mudflats, making it difficult for large ships to go up the Yalu River directly from here, and the entrance of the west channel is a ditch formed by the continuous erosion of the tide - Dadonggou. The river in Dadonggou is smooth and easy to drive, there is also a small sheltered port at the mouth of the ditch, Dadong Port can berth ships with a small tonnage, from a long time ago, Dadong Port has been an important fishing port and commercial port in the north of Qianguo, with the continuous improvement of port facilities, increasingly busy trade, after the rise of the Westernization Movement, the Qianguo government has set up a customs here to collect taxes and manage, so Dadonggou and Dadong Port have become an important place to go up the Yalu River and dock ships at the mouth of the river.

After the Donghak Party incident in Korea, the armies of the two countries confronted each other on the Korean Peninsula, and in order to send more troops to Korea, the troops of the Qianguo had two routes to choose from. First of all, the sea route, that is, the use of merchant ships from Weihai, Lushun, Dagu, and other places to directly cross the Yellow Sea, and transport the army to Incheon and Asan in North Korea for landing; this method is more convenient and efficient; therefore, from the very beginning, most of the troops of the Qianguo army entered South Korea by sea route, but since the Japanese Combined Fleet secretly attacked the Qianguo Navy ships in the waters near Toshima in Korea and provoked the Battle of Toshima, the situation in the Yellow Sea was suddenly tense, and for the sake of safety, the sea transportation line directly across the Yellow Sea was temporarily abandoned.

Although there is no risk of a surprise attack during the entire march, the troops going to Korea, especially the Huai army departing from the coast, need to travel thousands of miles and long distances, plus a large number of baggage items are transported from time to place, which is time-consuming and laborious, which not only greatly delays the speed of the march, but is also extremely unfavorable to the preservation of combat strength, and is obviously not suitable for the war period when the situation is changing rapidly.

When faced with a dilemma, the strategic position of Dadonggou, which is close to the Korean mainland and on the coastline side of the Qianguo country, began to become important. After carefully weighing the pros and cons of the two routes of transporting troops by sea and land, Beiyang Minister Li Shaoquan planned and formulated a flexible and compromise plan. First of all, this plan still relied on the advantages of convenient and fast transportation of troops by sea, and at the same time, in consideration of avoiding the risk of crossing the Yellow Sea and sailing directly to the DPRK, it was changed to first use merchant ships to carry the army to sail north along the coastline of Qianguo, and then go up the Yalu River through Dadonggou, where the army disembarked and landed, and then crossed the Yalu River from there into the DPRK, transited through the border city of Uiju, and marched more than 200 kilometers by land to the Pyongyang area. Compared with the original plan of transporting troops directly by sea or land, this plan was a little more modest, balancing the factors of safety and efficiency, and soon began to be adopted in the plan to aid South Korea, and Dadonggou at the mouth of the Yalu River thus became an important sea and land transit point on the way to transport troops, and it was busy for a while, and the main force of the Beiyang Navy, which was traveling from Dalian Bay in the early morning of 16 March, escorting as many as five troop carriers, was also destined for Dadonggou.

At noon on 16 March, as the roaring sound of engines came closer and closer from the sea, and after a voyage of more than half a day, the largest escort and troop transport fleet in Qianguo since the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War arrived safely outside the mouth of Dadonggou from Dalian Bay. Due to the shallow water depth in the mouth of the Dadong ditch, large ships can only enter when the astronomical tide is high, and the five Qianguo troop transports "Liyun", "Xinyu", "Tunan", "Zhendong", and "Haiding," which were loaded with more than 4,000 officers and men of the Huai Department of Admiral Liu Shengxiu's department, and a large number of weapons and baggage, as well as the American merchant ship "Columbia," which was finally hired to help transport troops when it set out from Dalian Bay, could not directly go up to the Yalu River, but were in the "middle of the town" and "at the edge of the town" Escorted by two mosquito boats, they sailed into Dadong Port, which is located on the west bank of the entrance to Dadonggou. When the fleet slowly sailed into Dadong Port, more than 300 barge ships collected by the eastern province and the eastern province also arrived accordingly, and Liu Shengxiu, the commander of the Ming army, ordered his subordinate troops to start transferring, and the small wooden civilian boats collected by the eastern province of Qianguo and the local officials of Uiju in North Korea surrounded the troop carriers and carried out barge operations, and the personnel and materials on the five troop carriers had to be transferred to these small manpower wooden boats, and then they went up 15 nautical miles to land on the shore near the South Korean border city of Uiju. The four torpedo boats "Fulong", "Fuhu", "Fujiao" and "Fujiao", which had a shallow draft, helped to tow the wooden boats and also sailed with them, and at the same time assisted in taking care of the guards along the way.

In order to ensure that the entire landing operation was foolproof, the coastal defense ironclad ship "Ningyuan" and the large cruiser "Guangjiyuan" were organized into a team and deployed at the entrance of Dadong Port, directly assuming the task of guarding and guarding the transfer site. The main force of the escort fleet composed of 14 warships of the Qianguo Navy anchored 12 nautical miles southwest of Dadonggoukou, adjacent to Xiaoludao outside the mouth of the Dayang River on the west side, and guarded the deep-water channel leading to Dadonggou in the direction of Haiyang Island, protecting the fleet's return route. These stationary warships still maintain the double-column formation when sailing.

In Dadong Harbor, the tidal wave of army personnel poured slowly from the troop carriers to the small civilian boats on the sea, most of which were connected by cables, and then dragged by torpedo boats to the direction of Uiju on the other side of the river. After a grueling 15-nautical-mile trek to shore as the boat approached the shore, Army soldiers jumped into the shallow water, stepping on mudflats and wading ashore. Compared with the personnel, the accompanying 500 military horses, as well as a large number of artillery, ammunition, grain and grass, are more difficult to transport, for a time Dadong Port, Dadonggou Waterway, and even this section of the Yalu River are full of people, war horses neighing, and are wrapped in the unique tense and busy atmosphere of wartime.

Seeing that it was getting late, and worried that if such a large-scale landing activity was delayed for too long, especially until daylight tomorrow, it would inevitably not be discovered by the Japanese Navy.