Outside the port of Incheon, North Korea.

The sea is blue, the sky is blue, and on the sea antenna, more than a dozen wisps of black smoke rise slowly, and several seabirds hover low in the sky, watching this strange scene curiously.

The plume of smoke grew from thin to thick, from light to thick, from far to near, until the huge chimney that spewed black smoke occupied the narrow field of view of the seabirds, forcing them to soar into the air.

At noon on July 2, 1894, a detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet of the Qing Empire was slowly approaching the port of Incheon.

The fleet was lined up in three columns, and in the middle were three steamship ships of the China Merchants Bureau, carrying 1,586 officers and men of the 10th Regiment of the 4th Brigade of the 2nd Praetorian Division, as well as equipment, ammunition, and three months' provisions.

On the starboard side of the transport ship were six fast cruisers, led by the "Zhiyuan", followed by "Jingyuan", "Jingyuan", "Laiyuan", "Gale" and "Gale". On the port side of the transport ship were five armored ships, led by the flagship of the detachment "Dingyuan", followed by "Zhenyuan", "Jiyuan", "Jianbei" and "Jianzhong".

At this time, the cruiser "Pingwon" and the gunboat "Caojiang" of the Beiyang Fleet, as well as the torpedo boats "Fulong" and "Zuoyi", had already been anchored in the port of Incheon, and they had escorted the 1st Marine Regiment to Incheon six days earlier, on 25 June, and had been anchored in the harbor since then waiting for the arrival of the first detachment.

The second detachment, which was relatively fast on the whole, had already set out in the early morning of 1 July to escort the three fast transport ships carrying the 2nd Marine Regiment and it was estimated that it would arrive at dusk on 2 July.

Commodore Lin Tae-zeng, commander of the Beiyang Fleet, commander of the first detachment, was standing on the bridge command platform of the flagship "Dingwon" and watched the merchant ships carrying troops enter Incheon Harbor, and then ordered all ships to regroup and prepare to enter the port. At this time, the cruiser "Pingyuan" in the harbor came out, exchanged salutes with the flagship, and then joined the detachment of the detachment.

At one o'clock at noon, Commodore Lin Tai ordered the ships to drop anchor, have lunch, and then return to the captain's room alone to continue reading the English version of Jules Verne's "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea", he had studied at the Royal Naval College in England for four years, and reading English books had become his daily habit.

As soon as he turned two or three pages, the signal corpsman shouted at the door: "Report to the commander, the captain of the ship, please go to the bridge and report on something important." ”

Lin Tai once said: "I know the way." Then he inserted the bookmark, closed the book and walked out.

On the bridge, Colonel Yang Yonglin, the captain of the "Dingyuan", was holding a monocular and looking south, and Lin Tai once walked up to him and asked, "Captain Yang, what did you find?" ”

Yang Yonglin handed over the telescope: "Look, there is black smoke on the water antenna, there are a lot of them, and it is likely to be a fleet." ”

Lin Tai once took a closer look, and there were indeed wisps of black smoke on the antenna of the southern sea, and he roughly estimated that the number of ships on the other side was no less than seventeen or eighteen.

Lin Tai once put down the binoculars and asked Yang Yonglin: "Do you think it is possible to be an enemy?" ”

Yang Yonglin said: "It is likely to be the Japanese fleet, and it is impossible for other countries to send so many warships to North Korea." ”

Lin Tai once raised the binoculars to look at it again, and after a while, he shook his head: "Perhaps, it is better to prepare in advance, issue a flag order, and order the captains of each ship to come to the flagship for a meeting." ”

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Directly south of the Qing Imperial fleet, a huge fleet hoisted the flag of the U.S. Navy and sailed quickly towards the port of Incheon.

The fleet was divided into two columns, each with a beautiful juju ornament on the capital, and on the bridge of each warship stood several small men dressed in British naval uniforms, with black eyes and yellow skin.

This fleet has a resounding name: the "Combined Fleet", and it belongs to the Imperial Japanese Navy.

The longer column was the "main team", which was divided into three groups from front to back. The first group consisted of three warships, led by the armored cruiser Matsushima, the general flagship of the Combined Fleet and the flagship of the first group, followed by the armored cruisers Itsukushima and Chiyoda. This was followed by the second group of four warships, with the armored cruiser "Hashidate" as the flagship, followed by the cruisers "Hiei", "Kongo", and the gunboat "Fuso". Next came the six warships of the third group, with the cruiser "Takao" as the flagship, followed by the cruisers "Katsuragi", "Yamato", and "Musashi", the gunboat "Chisei", and the substitute cruiser "Saikyo Maru" carrying Vice Admiral Shikini Kayama, Vice Admiral of the Admiralty, who had come to inspect and observe the battle.

The other shorter column is the "First Guerrilla Force" of the Combined Fleet, with a total of four armored cruisers, with "Yoshino" as the flagship, followed by "Takachiho", "Naniwa" and "Akitsuzu", these four ships are the essence of the Japanese Combined Fleet, with an average speed of 19.4 knots, which can penetrate the weak points of the opponent's fleet at high speed, destroy the enemy's weak ships with intensive rapid-fire artillery firepower, or wait for an opportunity to surprise the enemy's capital ships, and its armor can resist the attack of medium-caliber artillery, and has strong battlefield survivability.

Although the "Matsushima," "Itsukushima," and "Hashidate" were each equipped with a 32-meter heavy artillery gun of the French system, they were inferior in number, rate of fire, and power to the eight Krupp 30.5-meter heavy guns on the "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan."

Vice Admiral Yokehiro Ito, commander of the Combined Fleet, who stood on the bridge of the main flagship "Matsushima" in the wind, said that this was a war in which the fortunes of the country were gambled.

After discovering the convoy plan of the Zhenyang Fleet through spies on 25 June, the Japanese side believed that the Zhenyang Fleet was divided into two groups, and that the first detachment that set off first was old, had a low speed, and was relatively weak in combat effectiveness, and that it had just given the Combined Fleet a chance to break through, so it decided to dispatch the Combined Fleet to strive to annihilate or inflict heavy damage on the first detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet and seize partial sea supremacy, so as to send land forces to land and realize the strategic plan of "sending troops to annex Korea as soon as the navy is tied."

Ito Yuhiro knew in his heart that the naval strength of the Qing Empire was more than twice that of Japan, and even if the first detachment of the weaker Zhenyang Fleet was destroyed, the combined fleet that had suffered certain losses would not be able to continue fighting with the second detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet, so his combined fleet could only take advantage of the short time difference and withdraw from the combat area immediately after giving the first detachment a heavy damage, but if the second detachment could not be given the same heavy damage, then wouldn't "partial sea dominance" become a wishful dream?

If it is impossible to achieve overwhelming sea supremacy, and risk transporting the army to the Korean Peninsula, then the entire peninsula will become a bottomless pit that will swallow up the Japanese army, and the more you invest, the greater the losses. No matter how brave the Imperial Army was, once it lost domestic supplies from the sea, the result could only be total annihilation.

A gamble, a gamble set by the emperor and his warlord leaders, who think they are the bankers, but in fact their every move is in the eyes of their opponents, they can't even bet on their own will, they are just led by the nose by their opponents, their bushido, their adventurous spirit, and the expansiveness of the sea people have all become silk threads manipulated by their opponents, like a marionette, until they fall into the abyss of destruction and do not understand why they want to take that step. Of course, Ito doesn't understand this either.

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On the "Dingyuan" armored ship, the flagship of the first detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet, the captains of each ship and Brigadier General Lin Taizeng, commander of the detachment, gathered at the bridge command platform to discuss countermeasures.

It was already 1:15 a.m., and Yang Yonglin, the captain of the "Dingyuan" ship, was still using a telescope to observe the unknown fleet in the south, when suddenly, he waved his hand and shouted: "Look, everyone, the U.S. Navy flag is hanging on the top of the mast of the incoming ship." ”

Hearing his shout, everyone raised their binoculars to watch, and immediately many people nodded and said, "It's indeed the U.S. Navy flag-"

Lieutenant Commander Deng Shichang, captain of the "Zhiyuan," disagreed: "No, the US Navy does not have such a large fleet in East Asia. ”

Lin Taizeng also said: "Indeed, I have never heard of the US Navy sending such a large fleet to East Asia. ”

The captains did not object, and went as ordered.

Five minutes later, Yang Yonglin, the captain of the "Dingyuan" ship, found through the telescope that the military flag on the mast of the incoming ship had suddenly been replaced by the sunburst flag of the Japanese Navy, and hurriedly reported to Lin Taizeng, who ordered: "Pass the flag order, all ships are live, and prepare for battle!" ”

As the flag was raised above the flagship's mast, the screeching sound of the battle horn spread throughout the fleet, and in an instant, the chimneys of the ships spit out thick black soot, and the engineers operated the valves, isolated the boilers, applied strong pressure ventilation, stored steam, and prepared to set sail.

At 1:24 a.m., the observer of the Yoshino ship found two wisps of black smoke, and then found more plumes of smoke. Seeing this signal, Ito immediately gave the order: "The main team and the guerrillas will each maintain a single column, and Chisei and Saikyo Maru will move to the left of the main team, and as a non-combat rank, each ship will accelerate to eight knots." ”

The combined fleet accelerated forward, and the distance between it and the first detachment of the Zhenyang fleet gradually narrowed, and a fierce battle at sea was imminent.

I don't know who stole whose invention, whether it was a Japanese warship or a Qing warship, before this voyage, most of the wooden sampans and all kinds of wood, rigging, glass, etc. that had nothing to do with the battle were removed, and sandbags were piled up or tied along the important part of the deck, and coal bags were used to supplement the lack of sandbags in the most critical part.

By 1:35 a.m., all ships of the first detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet had completed their combat preparations, all windows and watertight doors were locked, and all the crew members had entered the battle position. Commodore Lin Taizeng, commander of the detachment, Colonel Hannagan (a Chinese-German), staff officer of the detachment, and Colonel Yang Yonglin, captain of the flagship "Dingyuan," observed the movements of the enemy ships on the bridge command platform and discussed countermeasures.

A few minutes later, Brigadier General Lin Taizeng issued several flag orders in succession, with the armored ships "Dingyuan" and "Zhenyuan" as the first squad, in the center; "Gale" and "Gale" are the second squads, and they are on the port side of the first squad; "Jianbei" and "Jianzhong" are the third squads, which are on the starboard side of the first squad; "Jiyuan", "Zhiyuan" and "Jingyuan" are the fourth squad, which is on the port side of the second squad; "Jingyuan", "Laiyuan" and "Pingyuan" are the fifth squad, which is on the starboard side of the third squad. The twelve ships of the whole fleet lined up in a line, the distance between each squad was 800 yards, and the distance between the ships in the squad was 300 yards, and twenty minutes later, a wall of warships five thousand meters long ran across the ocean and the harbor. Subsequently, Lin Tai issued another order to the captains of all ships: "1. Always keep the bow of the ship against the enemy; 2. As far as possible, each ship moves with the flagship; 3. Use the squad as a unit to avoid being divided by the enemy as much as possible. ”

At this point, the detachment began to move closer to the enemy fleet at a speed of eight knots.

Almost at the same time, at 55 o'clock, the commander of the Japanese Combined Fleet, Ito Yuhiro, ordered: "Raise the fleet flag at the head of the ship, and order all ships to take combat positions." The first guerrilla force was deployed in front and the main force of the fleet was merged into a single column of fifteen ships, and Chicheng and Saikyo Maru followed each other on the left side of the squadron and sailed straight to the first detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet.

At 2:05, the flagship of the Combined Fleet, the Matsushima, raised the flag on the mast and ordered: "Intercept the enemy's right flank!" ”

As soon as the commander of the 1st Guerrilla Brigade, Rear Admiral Tsuboi Hangzo, saw the flag order, and immediately ordered the four ships under him: "The speed of the voyage will be increased to ten knots!" ”；“ Keep your speed up! ”；“ Watch the distance! ”。

In view of the characteristics of fast ships and a large number of rapid-fire guns on the sideboards, the Japanese Navy has long attached importance to the training of a single vertical formation, and has demanded that a single vertical formation be strictly maintained during combat. As the commander of the 1st Guerrilla Force, Kozo Tsubai demanded that his subordinates work hard to train a single column, and repeatedly discussed the issues of speed and distance with the captains of the 1st Guerrilla Brigade in peacetime. At this time, Tsuboi Hangzo noticed that the 1st detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet had set up a horizontal formation centered on two armored battleships, so he ordered the 1st Guerrilla Squadron to sail due north and west to the backbone of the 1st detachment of the Zhenyang Fleet, feigning to attack the backbone of the Qing fleet.

The situation became more and more tense, and there was silence on the "Dingyuan," the flagship of the Qing fleet, and a non-commissioned officer in front of the tower was concentrating on lying in front of the sextant to measure the distance, and from time to time reporting the measured data with the small flag in his hand. In the left turret, two gunners pressed the gauge to the door, and ordered the other gunners to turn the handle to aim, while the two gunners held the noose at all times, waiting for the order to fire.

At 2:40 p.m., the non-commissioned officer in front of the tower waved a small flag and signaled "a distance of 5,500 yards", and the artillery staff officer beside Brigadier General Lin Taizeng said: "Your Excellency, it's time to open fire." ”

Lin Tai once said: "Enter 5,400 yards and open fire!" ”

The artillery staff officer complied with the order and focused on the small flag of the rangefinder non-commissioned officer.

"Five thousand four hundred yards!"

"Fire!"

With a loud bang on the left turret, a white cloud was spit out, and a huge projectile of 30.5 centimeters flew towards the Japanese No. 1 Guerrilla Force, and exploded about fifty yards in front of the Yoshino ship on the right, stirring up a column of water that was brilliant in the sun.

The sea was awakened.