In the first half month of the Battle of Ulsan, the Russian cruiser fleet attacked the ships of the Chinese Empire sailing on the coast of Korea, the Benhai Sea, and the Pacific Ocean 12 times, sinking 14 merchant ships and transport ships of various kinds, including the Yantai, a troop carrier of the Chinese Empire, which caused considerable casualties and losses to the Chinese Empire.

On November 13, the Vladivostok detachment launched its ninth attack since the beginning of the war, consisting of five ships, the Russian, Admiral Nakhimov, the Azov Memorial, the Monomach, and the Twelve Apostles, and went south in search of prey. At 8 o'clock on the 15th, the Russian ship Russia found a Chinese Imperial troop transport ship Yantai that was returning from Ulsan on the sea near Jeju Island on the west coast of North Korea. All but 152 people on board were killed by the fishing boat, while all 263 people were killed.

One hour after the sinking of the "Yantai", the 2nd Squadron of the Chinese Empire hurriedly arrived, only to see the corpses of Imperial soldiers floating all over the sea. Although the second team then conducted a large-scale search, nothing was found. It was for the "Yantai" incident.

After the Yantai incident, the Russian [***] ship attacked the wounded ships of the Chinese Empire, which made the Chinese Imperial people extremely angry, and the Pacific Fleet, which was responsible for guarding shipping, was criticized. Lin Jianzhang, commander of the Pacific Fleet, immediately ordered that the Russian fleet must be found and destroyed.

Beginning on 14 November, the Pacific Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy dispatched the First Squadron of the First Squadron and the Fifth and Sixth Squadrons of the Third Fleet, plus the Second Destroyer Group of the Fourth Fleet, totaling more than 30 warships to blockade Vladivostok.

As a result, the Vladivostok fleet of the Russian Navy, which was cruising in the open sea, waiting for an opportunity to harass the ships in the rear of the Chinese Empire, could not return to Vladivostok and could only wander in the sea.

Although the ships of the Vladivostok fleet had sufficient coal and did not need to be replenished in a short time, food, water and shells could not last long. Essen led his Vladivostok fleet to quietly replenish the port off the coast of Zoben, the French Korean concession, and the German base on Jeju Island. However, the ammunition standards of the French, German, and Ben navies were different from those of the Russian navy, so that the Essen fleet could only supply food and water, but could not supply ammunition.

On 15 November, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Chinese Empire sent notes to the French and German ambassadors to China and the Consul General of the Chinese Empire in China, making solemn representations to the political axes of the three countries on the grounds that the Russian navy had attacked the ships of the Chinese Empire transporting wounded soldiers. Seeing that the Chinese Empire had won a great victory in the war on the Korean Peninsula, and that the interests of France and Germany in Korea were in the hands of the Chinese Empire, Germany and France had no choice but to give in and promised not to provide any supplies to the Russian cruiser fleet. Before the start of the Sino-Russian war, the right-wing forces called for a coalition with Russia against China, but Russia's crushing defeat in Korea immediately suppressed the arrogance of the right-wing elements. The Juwa faction, led by Matsukata's righteous cabinet, regained the upper hand and officially declared that he would remain strictly neutral and would no longer provide any form of supply to Russia.

As a result, from the 15th onwards, Essen and his Vladivostok cruiser fleet could no longer get food and fresh water supplies from Ben, Germany and France, so they had to run back to Nikolaevsk for supplies, and Vladivostok was blocked, and the ammunition supply of the Russian fleet needed to be transported to Nikolaevsk to resupply the Essen fleet, so that it took more than ten days for the Essen fleet to go back and forth, and the ports in the far north had begun to freeze, which had a huge impact on the Essen fleet, so that the sabotage mission was not carried out smoothly.

At the height of the Battle of Ulsan, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Far East, Admiral Alekseev, in order to avoid the loss of the fleet, decided to let the remnants of the Russian Far East Fleet in Ulsan sail to Magadan to preserve its strength. In order to ensure the success of the breakout, Essen led the Vladivostok detachment to the outskirts of Ulsan to meet him. However, since the connection between Ulsan and Vladivostok had been severed, the two fleets could not coordinate their actions. When the Russian Far Eastern Fleet began to break through on November 25, the Vladivostok fleet was still in the port of Nikolaevsk. During the melee, a torpedo boat broke through to Hirado, and only from there did it report: "The fortress of Ulsan is in danger, and the detachment is breaking through and fighting fiercely with the enemy. ”

Alekseev, the Russian Governor-General of the Far East, immediately ordered the Essen fleet to immediately go south to meet the Far Eastern Fleet, and when the order arrived in Nikolaevsk, it was already the afternoon of December 26, but the Vladivostok fleet was not prepared at this time, and they expected to receive orders before the Far Eastern Fleet was ready to leave. Nevertheless, Essen ordered the cruisers to immediately begin refueling and preparing for sailing, and less than a day after the Essen fleet left the port of Nikolaevsk, the fortress of Ulsan fell and the Russian Far East Fleet had surrendered.

The Essen fleet, which had not been notified by the Russian high command, continued southward. At the same time, the Chinese Emperor [***] received information from the captured command of the Russian Far East Fleet that the Essen fleet was heading south to receive it.

On December 28, Admiral Lin Jianzhang, commander of the Pacific Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy, immediately decided to destroy the Essen fleet, so the Pacific Fleet laid a pocket on the Sea and waited for the Essen fleet to drill into it.

On December 29, at about 9 o'clock in the morning, Essen led five warships, the Russian, Admiral Nakhimov, the Azov Memorial, the Monomacher, and the Twelve Apostles, into the Yuebenhai. Because according to the calculation of time, if the breakthrough is successful, the Far Eastern Fleet should have arrived in the Yuebenhai. Due to the limited communication distance of the radio system equipped with the Essen fleet and the poor signal, the five Russian ships sailed in a horizontal formation at a speed of 14 knots and at intervals of 3~5 nautical miles to expand the observation sector and increase the possibility of meeting the Russian fleet breaking through from Ulsan.

That night, the Vladivostok detachment reached the sea where the meeting was expected and continued to search south for a whole day, but no trace of the Far Eastern Fleet was found. Despite his great disappointment, Essen ordered the fleet to continue its journey to the south, hoping to find the Far Eastern Fleet before nightfall on the 31st.

At the same time, the War Room of the Imperial Chinese Navy had deciphered the fleet channel communication code of the Russian Far East Fleet from the codebook of the captured Russian Far East Fleet warships, through complex calculations and interrogation of Russian officers.

The Pacific Fleet then used the Russian Naval Fleet Channel to send radio signals to lure the Essen fleet to come.

At dawn on the 31st, the Russian fleet reached the northern entrance of the Tsushima Strait, and it would be very dangerous for the Russian ships to continue southward at this time. However, Essen had been receiving "a signal from the Russian Far East Fleet", and each time it became more and more urgent, so he had to order the fleet to continue southward.

At the same time, the Pacific Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy, which had received Essen's reply, was tightening its fishing nets and closing the "predetermined joint" from all directions.

At about 11 o'clock in the morning, the weather on the sea surface of the north mouth of the strait opposite was clear, calm and the visibility was good.

At 12:50, the Chinese Imperial Fleet recognized that it was the prey they had been looking for for for two months, the Russian cruiser formation, and the whole fleet immediately cheered.

The Russian fleet had only five armored cruisers, but around them there were more than 60 warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, including five capital battleships, nine large armored cruisers, nine armored cruisers, 36 destroyers and two groups of hunting ships, and five Xihu supply ships.

With such a large fleet, once the encirclement is completed, the Essen fleet will not be able to escape at all, and the fate that awaits them is destined to be destroyed.

At 13:05, the "Dengyun" sent a radio signal that "the whole fleet is encircled" and at the same time raised the battle flag, and the battleship entered a combat speed of 17 knots and approached the Russian fleet. At the same time, various combat units of other sub-fleets also entered combat speed one after another, approaching the Russian fleet from all directions.

What Essen discovered was the 1st Squadron of the 1st Detachment of the Pacific Fleet of the Imperial Chinese Navy, which was located just north of the Russian Fleet, cutting off the Russian fleet's return to Nikolaevsk. Essen couldn't be clearer about the figure of the Dengyun-class battleship of the Chinese Empire, and the Russian ship in his hand had no chance of defeating the other party at all. Essen then ordered the fleet to turn southeast, attempting to use the high speed to avoid the battleship detachments of the Imperial Chinese Navy. However, the Fourth Squadron of the Second Detachment of the Imperial Chinese Navy near Tsushima Island was soon discovered. The armored cruiser flotilla, led by the flagship of the Second Fleet, the Windcatcher, and composed of the four ships of the Fourth Fleet, the Chasing Wind, the Hunter, and the Brave, was extremely fast, and soon approached the Essen fleet.

"Knock knock!"

The Second Squadron of the Imperial Chinese Navy occupied a favorable attack position from the very beginning, and when it was about 6,000 meters close to the Russian fleet, the flagship of the detachment, the Chasing Wind, took the lead in firing, followed by the four ships of the Fourth Squadron opening fire one after another, and in an instant, hundreds of shells whistled towards the Russian ships, forcing the Russian fleet to turn east at 13:15 and sounding the battle alarm.

The Essen fleet did not return fire, and at a distance of more than 6,000 meters, the guns of the Russian ships basically did not have any accuracy. And Essen didn't plan to fight, and was in a hurry to escape.

However, soon Essen found himself and his fleet surrounded. Then the Essen fleet made several turns, and it turned out that the southwest and northwest shipping lanes were occupied by the warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy.

After the Essen fleet turned around and found that it was surrounded, it immediately decided to break through. Essen tried to choose a relatively weak Chinese Imperial Fleet, but to his sorrow, the Chinese Imperial Navy did not give him the opportunity to choose carefully, and in his hurry, Essen chose to break through from the southwest, just in time to meet the Fourth Squadron of the Pacific Fleet. It's not that the four ships of the Fourth Sentai are the Catcher, the Chasing the Wind, the Riding the Wind, and the Hunter are all battleships designed for the Russian large armored cruisers, and they are superior to the ships of the Essen fleet in terms of speed, firepower, and armor.

The Essen fleet, led by the "Russians", after the Monomacher and the Twelve Apostles were broken, they were ready to forcibly break through the interception of the ships of the Chinese Emperor [***]. Seeing the turn of the Russian fleet, the Dengyun immediately ordered the Fourth Squadron of the Second Fleet and the Fourth Squadron of the Third Squadron to turn to the south-east, and the five ships of the Chasing Wind, Chasing the Wind, Chengfeng, Hunter, and Gangyong pressed up from the left side of the Russian fleet, and the four ships of the Sixth Fleet, Haihai, Haibin, Haiyang, and Haigu, intercepted from the right side, forcing the Russian ships to turn around. The four ships of the Fifth Sentai Fleet, Hairong, Haichou, Haichen, and Haixi, under the leadership of the Haiqi, the flagship of the Third Fleet, attacked the Moromach and the Twelve Apostles behind the Russian fleet from the flank and rear.

The First Squadron could not keep up with the Russian fleet, so it could only cooperate with the two destroyer groups of the Fourth Squadron on the periphery to block the perimeter and wait for an opportunity to act.

The Fourth Sentai and the Russian Fleet, because the two sides were almost parallel and the speed difference was not large, each ship attacked the corresponding target in the opponent's queue.

At 13:20, the two sides approached to 5,500 meters, and the 203-mm main guns of the Fourth Squadron of the Imperial Chinese Navy opened fire first, and the Russian ships immediately returned fire. As the distance between the two sides gradually approached, their respective 152mm guns also joined the engagement.

Compared to the slow-lethal alternating fire of the main guns between the battleships, the high-rate fire of medium-caliber guns between armored cruisers was more disastrous. The five Russian ships have a total of 12 203-mm guns and 48 152-mm guns, while the five Chinese ships have 20 and 80 guns respectively, and hundreds of shells are dropped every minute on both sides. However, because the main guns of the Russian ships are distributed on both sides, the medium ships have almost a 2:1 advantage in side firepower. Under the intensive fire of the Chinese ships, the Russian ships were quickly overwhelmed, especially the Twelve Apostles soon caught fire in many places, and the forward bridge was destroyed.

But what is even more deadly is that as the four ships of the Sixth Combat Squadron, Haihai, Haibin, and Haigu detoured from the right side, they seized the "T" horizontal position of the Russian fleet, and the fierce starboard guns fired at the Russian ship Russian, forcing the commander of the Russian ship, Essen, to order an emergency evasion.

The Russians made a sharp turn, and the ships behind also followed the flagship to maneuver, but at this time, the Hairong, Haichou, Haichen, and Haixi of the Fifth Squadron led by the Haiqi suddenly made a big "U" turn, and they simply rammed through the middle and rear of the Russian fleet, forcing the Russian ships Moromacher and the Twelve Apostles to make an emergency turn to evade, so that the second ship suddenly broke away from the other three ships and was "circled" out.

After the five Haiqi-class armored cruisers separated the Moromacher and the Twelve Apostles, they immediately circled and fought around. Among these two Russian ships, the Moromacher is an old armored cruiser built in 1890, and the Twelve Apostles is a relatively new armored cruiser built in 1894, and the displacement of the two ships is about 4,000 tons.

In less than 15 minutes of fighting, the Moromacher and the Twelve Apostles were hit by hundreds of bullets one after another, and after a large number of high-explosive warheads hit, the destructive force was huge, and many fires broke out. The captain of the ship, Colonel Trusov, the deputy commander, Lieutenant Commander Hlodov, and most of the officers were killed one after another, and dozens of people were wounded.

At 13:50, the warships of the Chinese Empire, which had the advantage of speed, had overtaken the "Russians", and the Russian ships turned south to evade. However, at this time, the Moromacher was attacked by six warships of the Fifth and Sixth Fleets one after another, and the island was hit by more than a dozen 203-mm shells, and the island was razed to the ground in a violent explosion, and more than 20 officers and dozens of soldiers below the captain were killed, and the Moromacher lost command and lost its combat effectiveness. Similarly, the Twelve Apostles were damaged by a cannonball, and the ship broke down and began to maneuver.

Ten minutes later, Essen, who had received the report, directed the other three ships to turn the rudder 180° and sail in a northwesterly direction, and opened fire on the Sixth Sentai to attract fire from the opposing side to cover the Twelve Apostles for repairs. The 4th Sentai then also switched parallel to the Russian ships, and the artillery battle resumed, making it impossible for the Russian ships to attract the 6th Sentai gunfire. The 6th and 5th Squadrons continued to maneuver rapidly, approaching the Russian ships and bombarding them at close range with rapid-fire guns.

At 14:08, the Haiqi approached the Moromach and fired an 18-inch black gold torpedo. With a loud bang, the starboard waterline of the Moromacher was directly hit by a torpedo, and the torpedo with a 200-kilogram black gold charge instantly blew the Moromacher in two.

At 14:10, the Moromakh sank quickly in a series of explosions, and the Russian officers and men on the ship had no time to escape, and none of the 213 people survived. At the same time, the Twelve Apostles, which had lost their bearings, were besieged by five warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and a large area of fire broke out on the ship, with the loss of sixteen guns, and the rest of the guns were affected by the fire and could not fire. The Haixi approached and fired at close range, killing all the Russian soldiers who were busy repairing the rudder.

At 14:15, the Twelve Apostles lowered the battle flag and raised the white flag in surrender. The Haibin approached and continued firing, and the Russian commander urgently raised the dragon flag of the Chinese Empire and shouted in a deflated accent: "Surrender!" ”

Three minutes later, the Haiqi, the flagship of the Third Fleet, gave the order to stop attacking the Twelve Apostles, and then two hunting ships arrived at high speed and boarded the ships to take over.

In less than an hour after the start of the battle, the Russian fleet lost two warships, which was undoubtedly equivalent to adding insult to injury, pouring salt on the wound.

Subsequently, eighteen armored cruisers of the Imperial Chinese Navy continued to besiege the remaining three warships of the Russian fleet. The remaining three battleships in Essen were all large armored cruisers of 8,000 to more than 10,000 tons, and they were quite powerful in battle, and they were rough and thick-skinned and more resistant to beating.

At around 14:40, the main gun in front of the Hunter hit the front of the Russian ship, causing the ammunition stacked on the deck to explode, and the violent blast wave wrapped in flames and fragments hit the bridge, killing the deputy captain and three staff officers on the spot. Essen hurriedly ordered the battleship to turn right to avoid it.

Taking advantage of the fact that the Russian was shot and evaded, the Hunter and the Windcatcher suddenly turned the rudder to the right, and all the guns on the port side were fired at the Admiral, forcing the Admiral to turn to the left and separate from the Russian.

At the same time, the two ships Chasing Wind and Chengfeng withstood the fire of the Azov Memorial and turned the rudder equally fiercely, forcing the Azov Memorial to break away from the team.

In this way, the three warships of the Russian fleet were divided, so that the ships of the Imperial Chinese Navy could further divide and encircle them.

In the ensuing half hour, the three Russian ships were attacked by an average of six warships of the Imperial Chinese Navy, and the situation was extremely tragic. At first, the Russian ship could return fire a few shots, but it was quickly suppressed by shells from all directions.

Essen tried to order the Russian ships to get close to the other side, and if they fought at close range, the Chinese Imperial warships in the other directions would stop attacking for fear of hurting their own warships, so that the Russian ships could suffer less shells.

However, to Essen's sorrow, he chose to get close to the Hunter during the scuffle. The overall design of the Hunter was all aimed at the Russians, and the two ships were PK at close range, and the Russians were suddenly destroyed.

At 15:13, the amidship of the Russian was pierced by a 203-mm shell, which directly penetrated three decks and exploded in the coal tank. The heat and flames of the explosion instantly ignited the coal tank, causing a fire. Fires and smoke spread throughout the Russians, rendering it impossible for Russian soldiers to work.

Essen ordered the fire brigade to urgently extinguish the fire, but the fire was too big to be forced to order water to be filled into the coal tank.

During this period, the Russian maintained a combat speed of 22 knots for a long time, and the backward Russian [***] workers finally exposed their flaws at this moment. The fire inside the ship made the engineer so inoperable that the propeller shaft overheated, quickly overloaded, and the speed plummeted to 15 knots.

In the face of the Hunter's fierce blow, no matter how Essen evaded, the Hunter, which had the advantage of speed, took advantage of the speed again in less than a minute.

At 15:23, the Hunter fired a salvo, and four 152-mm shells simultaneously hit the starboard waterline belt of the Russians and tore four large openings with a diameter of up to half a meter. At this time, the starboard side of the Russian had been shot through more than 100 holes, and the Russian sailors inside kept sealing the holes and pumping water. At this time, the water pump was seriously overloaded, and the four huge holes created by the sea were not repaired in time, and the sea exceeded the warning line. The swift pouring of sea water flooded the necks of the sailors, and the maintenance soldiers immediately gave up repairing.

At 15:27, the hull of the Russian ship was seriously tilted to the right, and the starboard guns could no longer return fire.

However, the Hunter did not give the Russian army a chance to abandon ship and flee for their lives. The starboard side of the Russian could not fire, and the Hunter quickly approached, and the port rapid-fire guns opened heavy fire, slaughtering the panicked Russian officers and men on the enemy ship.

At 15:29, the Hunter and the Windcatcher, who followed up, each fired a torpedo, sending the Russian to the bottom of the sea in an instant. Of the 188 Russian officers and soldiers, including Essen, died at sea, only three were rescued.

At the same time, the Admiral and the Azov Memorial were even more miserable, the second ship was far inferior to the Russian in firepower, speed and armor protection, and was besieged by six or seven times more battleships and was quickly disabled.

However, the second ship was lucky, the sinking of the Russians, they could no longer obey the order of Essen to fight to the death, so they surrendered one after another.

At 15:35, Lin Jianzhang accepted the surrender of the second ship, and the Battle of Tsushima came to an end. The Russian Vladivostok fleet, which had attacked the supply of the Chinese Imperial Empire, ended with the sinking of the two ships of the Russians and the Moromach, and the surrender of the Twelve Apostles, the Azov Memorial and the Admiral Nakhimov, and ended in a complete victory for the Chinese Imperial Navy.

At this point, the Russian Far East Fleet was completely annihilated, and the Imperial Chinese Navy won a complete victory in the Far East in the naval operations against Russia, and completely controlled the sea supremacy.

After the Battle of Tsushima, General Alekseev, the supreme commander of the Russian Far East, was heartbroken, the fall of the Korean Peninsula, the annihilation of the Far East Fleet, and the rapid loss of sea power in the Far East.

After the Battle of Tsushima, Alekseev further strengthened the fortifications of Vladivostok and arranged a large number of anti-landing devices on the beaches around Vladivostok, focusing on defending against the landing of the Imperial Chinese Army near Vladivostok.

However, Alekseev did not give up his maritime harassment of the Chinese Empire. On the third day after the Battle of Tsushima, Alekseev sent the trainer cruiser "Lena River" to the Pacific Ocean to continue to harass the sea transportation lines of the Chinese Empire, with the purpose of simply emphasizing that the Tsarist Empire still had maritime power, which can be described as the ultimate expression of saving face.

However, to Alekseev's sorrow, the ship's officers and men suddenly mutinied in the Sea of Okhotsk, and the warship sailed directly to the United States, where it was detained in San Francisco until the end of the war.

(To be continued)