On the 16th, Ding Yuntong received a report from the North Korean side, knowing that the overall situation in Seoul had been decided, and that the Japanese army had been discovered in Jianghuawan, and that the matter was urgent and that it was necessary to race against time.

He asked Yuan Shikai to hold on to Seoul and wait for reinforcements to arrive, and at the same time sent a telegram ordering Su Yuanchun's brigade stationed in Yiju County to rush to Seoul at full speed! And the two divisions stationed in Andong also began to cross the Yalu River!

Thousands of miles away in Tokyo, the Japanese base camp is in doubt, starting from the 13th, the Chinese ship formation cruising the Ryukyu Sea suddenly disappeared, and it disappeared for several days, which made the Japanese navy lose its target, and Jihua, which had raided the Chinese side before the war, went bankrupt.

On the Korean Peninsula, the original strategy did not succeed, although Concubine Min was killed, but Gojong did not control it, and the newly established government became a puppet of China, and the entire public opinion and popular will completely fell to China.

At the Imperial Council on the evening of the 16th, the ministers demanded an immediate war with China, and a delay of a moment would be detrimental to the empire. Then he got up and left the table, leaving the ministers looking at each other.

Emperor Meiji used this "ventriloquist suggestion" to announce his decision to go to war against China.

Later, the base camp issued an order to "advance by sea and land", and the army asked the Takashima Brigade to advance to Seoul immediately after landing, and once it encountered the Chinese army, it immediately launched an attack, and was ready to announce to the whole Shijie that it was the Chinese who launched the attack first. At the same time, the 6th Division began to assemble in Nagasaki and will depart for Korea as soon as possible.

As for the navy, because the intelligence network in China was suddenly destroyed and a new intelligence network had not yet been established, the Chinese side was very lacking in military intelligence for a time, and it was still more unable to detect the movements of the Chinese navy, so it had to rely on the army itself. Therefore, the standing fleet was ordered to go to the Yellow Sea and search for the Chinese fleet for a decisive battle.

At dawn on September 17, 1883, the sun was shining in the northeastern part of Asia, and although there was no open declaration of war, preparations for war were in full swing in countless places.

In Nagasaki, a large number of Japanese soldiers, horses, and baggage were being loaded into ships in an endless stream;

At the Sasebo military port north of Nagasaki, the main Japanese fleet was lighting a fire and raising anchor, preparing to go to sea;

In Gunsan Bay in southern Korea, because the beach is full of shallows, a large number of Japanese soldiers with equipment on their backs set off from transport ships and in small boats, and are boarding the beach one after another.

In the north of Hirasawa Castle, Miura Wulou had already taken dozens of ronins such as Hiraoka Kotaro and Toyama Mitsuru to drive away the local officials and occupy the prefectural government in a grand manner. At this time, Shinichiro Takezoe was patting his chest and assuring Kim Ok-gyun and others that as soon as the Japanese troops from the south arrived in Seoul, they would be able to re-establish the Kaihwa Party government. Jin Yujun was moved to tears.

Further north, under the direction of Yuan Shikai, the government mobilized tens of thousands of migrant workers to build fortifications along the Han River south of Seoul. The topography of Seoul is high in the north and low in the south, and the North Han Mountain and Dobong Mountain in the north and the Han River in the south are all natural defensive barriers for Seoul.

Yuan Shikai and Wu Zhaoyou and others have all experienced the brutal actual combat on the battlefield in Vietnam, and they know that in this era, firepower is supreme, and bravery alone is far from enough.

Therefore, Yuan Shikai personally inspected the fortifications and also arranged minefields in some key areas, and the mines were all transported from China in advance, including the powerful jumping mines. Ding Shoucun, who made a significant contribution to the development of China's mines, died at the beginning of the year after all, but his jishu has been passed on, and with the development of industrialization, the quality and output of mines have been greatly improved.

In addition, according to local reports, Shili, the remnants of the coup d'état who escaped from Seoul, are making a fortune in Pyeongtaek Castle. Yuan Shikai knew that Min Yongyi hated the Kaihua Party because the Min people were killed, so he sent 500 people from the left battalion of the new army commanded by Min Yongyi to crusade.

The equipment of the North Korean New Army is actually the retired weapons of the Chinese Guards, Schneider rifles and Grusen light artillery. In order to increase its firepower, Yuan Shikai also specially equipped this battalion with a Haqi Kaisi machine gun.

Further north across the Korean Peninsula, at the newly completed railway station in Yiju County, Su Yuanchun Brigade has been busy all night, and the personnel and equipment have been loaded into the carriages, and they will soon take the train south. He was accompanied by Daewonjun, who had been taken back to Seoul to take charge of the government, and he saw with his own eyes that the Chinese army was strong, well-equipped, and powerful, and even many machine guns that he had seen for the first time. And the troops are well-trained and disciplined, so busy and silent at the same time.

All this left a deep impression on him, which made him stand on the side of China with all his heart, and the resentment caused by China's house arrest immediately disappeared.

Further north is the Yalu River, in the faint morning light, the battle flag is blown by the wind in the wilderness by the riverside, blowing the hunting and hunting, this is a red dragon flag, a red dragon with teeth and claws on the white flag, the dragon has a red star in its mouth, and there are four big characters "Chinese Empire" written under the dragon.

Since the change of the national name, the national flag of China has been changed from the yellow dragon flag to the red dragon flag, the official explanation is that "the red on the dragon's body is dyed red with the blood of the war heroes", the dragon represents the people, because the Chinese are the descendants of the dragon, the descendants of the dragon, and also represent the guards; The red star represents both the emperor and the country, indicating the meaning of "I am the country". The meaning of the whole banner is that the people and the Guards will work together to defend the country and the emperor.

The 7th and 9th Divisions of the Guards were crossing the Yalu River, and the troops formed a winding dragon through a temporary bridge made of wooden piles. China had planned to build a railway bridge over the Yalu River, but such a project was time-consuming and laborious, and now that war was about to break out, it had to give up.

In the crisp morning breeze, the soldiers were inexplicably excited, most of these troops were recruits, from poor rural areas, who had undergone strict and cruel training, they longed for war, longed for meritorious service, as long as they made meritorious service, the life of the family would be completely changed, and the future of life depended on such a war.

At this time, in the imperial palace in Beijing, Ding Yuntong also longed for war, and he sent a telegram to Yuan Shikai, requesting that once the Japanese army was found to be close to the Seoul area, he would immediately open fire and fire artillery, and there was no need to ask the central government for instructions!

On the afternoon of the 18th, after two days and two nights of hard work, the advance detachment of the Japanese Army, Takashima Tonosuke Brigade, finally landed at Gunsan Bay.

Fujisawa Ichiro, the secretary of the embassy sent by Shinichiro Takezoe, gave a briefing on the situation in Seoul and Pyeongtaek, and strongly recommended that the army rush to Pyeongtaek as soon as possible.

However, there was still a distance of more than 100 kilometers from the mountains to Pyeongtaek, and the average marching speed of the Japanese infantry was 24 kilometers per day, and if the march was forced, it could reach nearly 40 kilometers, which means that there were at least three days to go.

Takashima Tonosuke felt that this was too slow, and after consulting with the brigade staff officer Akiyama Yoshiko, it was decided that Akiyama Yoshiko, the only cavalry brigade of more than 600 people, would go to Pyeongtaek as soon as possible to control the situation and understand the situation of the Chinese army. The rest of the troops advanced at a normal pace, so as not to be overly exhausted.

Takashima felt that fighting the first battle with the Chinese army would have a great impact on morale, so he preferred to be cautious.

And to the north, the left battalion of Min Yongyi's new army sent by Yuan Shikai has approached Pyeongtaek.