Show notes
Last time we spoke about about the first large land battles of the First Sino-Japanese War: the battles of Seonghwan and Pyongyang. The Qing's plan to perform a pincer attack from the north and south of Korea was smashed when they lost Asan. However not all was lost, they still held the extremely formidable defensive position at Pyongyang with some of their best units and best equipment. The Japanese 1st Army deceived the Qing defenders and made an incredible victory at Pyongyang sending the remaining survivors fleeing towards the Yalu River. It was a tremendous blow to the Chinese despite their home press proclaiming every event to be a victory. Now the Qing have their backs against the wall along the Yalu, if the Japanese were to take it they could march right into Manchuria. While the Qing be able to rally themselves and hold the Japanese within Korea, or will this war see action within their borders? #51 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895 Part 3: The battle of the Yalu River Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. Literally a day after the battle of Pyongyang, the second major battle of the entire war took place. The IJN had been trying to engage a very reluctant Qing navy who were under orders not to cross the Yalu-Weihaiwei line. Well the Japanese crossed it for them. The Beiyang fleet had difficulties operating in the open sea, where the IJN warships held an advantage in speed and better maintenance. The Beiyang fleet thus operated more so along the coastlines, with her two colossal German built battleships the Dungyuan and Zhenyuan only capable of hitting 15-16 knots speed. To give a comparison, the IJN ships had a rough average speed of 20 knots. Now in early September, Li Hongzhang decided to reinforce the Qing forces at Pyongyang and he had his Beiyang fleet escort their transports to the mouth of the Taedong River. On September 12th around 4500 Qing troops left Dagu aboard 5 transports heading for Dalian where they joined 2000 more troops. Admiral Ding Rucheng, initially wanted to send the transports with only a light escort, keeping the bulk of the Beiyang fleet in a safer position incase the IJN combined fleet offered battle. However reports of sightings of the Japanese cruisers Yoshino and Naniwa who were performing reconnaissance near Weihaiwei led to disaster for the Qing. The Beiyang Fleet commanders took these reports to indicate the IJN combined fleet were all around Weihaiwei, it just so happened the entire Beiyang Fleet was to head to Weihaiwei on the 13th. The Qing hunted down the cruisers for an entire day, but found no sight of them, so Admiral Ding turned back for Dalien arriving on the 15th. The Japanese victory at Pyongyang meant the Qing land forces were concentrating at the Yalu River. Reports began to reach Admiral Ding about the supposed grand victory, but he read between the lines the truth of the matter when the reports also stated the transport of further troops to the mouth of the Taedong river was no longer necessary. Admiral Ding surmised correctly that the Qing line of defense would now be established on the Yalu River, so he decided to bring the troops there. At around 1:00am on the 16th the Beiyang fleet and the 5 transports departed Dalian Bay. The Beiyang fleet consisted of the 2 ironclad battleships, the Dingyuan and Zhenyuan, a smaller coastal defense battleship called the Pingyuan, the cruisers Laiyuan, Jiyuan, Jingyuen, Jingyuan and Zhiyuen, smaller cruisers Chaoyong, Kwan Chia, Yangwei and the gunboats Guangbing, Zhennan, Zhenzhong, Fulong and Zuo 1. Now I really need to take a moment here to explain a lot about the two opposing naval forces. These Qing ships I just listed, most of them were built before 1887, for the Japanese the majority would be built after 1890. About 10 significant ships from each side would take part in the upcoming battle; for the Qing the two battleships which each holding ⅓ more displacement than the largest Japanese warship. The Qing warships could only go as fast as their slowest, and the two battleships only pulled 15 or so knots, meaning the IJN would enjoy a massive advantage in speed. The armaments of the Beiyang fleet were created mostly at the Jiangnan and Fuzhou Shipyards and they were by far and large superior to that of the Japanese. They had foreign expertise overlook the developments, but because of the nature of the Qing navy this did not extend to the maintenance for the ships. Qing regional leaders were skeptical of Li Hongzhang and the naval board, and refused to pay anything more than the bare minimum required for the basic maintenance of the navy. Many of these regional leaders were not happy about the naval board having its director being the Manch Prince Chu'un, and his successor Manchu Prince Qing. Why were they not happy you might ask, well other than the regular ethnic rivalries. Neither Manchu director could administer funds properly nor prevent Empress Dowager Cixi for allegedly diverting funds for other purpose, now hold on a minute for those who might be screaming "thats a myth" I will get to it. A lot of rumors sprang up that the Empress Dowager had embezzled funds from the navy to restore the old summer palace, this is infamous to anyone who learns 19th century Chinese history. In fact, as the story goes Cixi had rebuilt the expensive Marble Boat in the palace garden with funds that were earmarked for modernizing the navy. It is alleged Cixi devoted 100 million taels to the purpose of rebuilding the summer palace and the Qing navy would not see additional funding after the year 1889. Some estimate the summer palace renovations took 11 million from the naval funds, enough to buy around 6-7 warships. To be honest I am a huge fan of a podcast called "Our Fake History" and I hope he tackles this myth one day. But it seems Empress Dowager Cixi was not wholly at fault for the decline of the Qing navy. No it seems Emperor Guangxu's quote "lack of interest" in developing and maintaining the military was to blame. Grand Tutor Weng Tonghe advised Guangxu to cut all funding to the navy and army, because he did not see Japan as a true threat, and during the 1890's large natural disasters occurred which seemed a much more pressing issue to allocate funds to. After the Taiping Rebellion could you blame the emperor? Regardless its just to say its not black and white, there were numerous variables when it came to the funding scandals. But as a Chinese friend of mine put it once, "everyone learns about Cixi embezzling for the palace at the cost of the navy", it certainly is the prevailing idea. Li Hongzhang's ordnance supply officer for the Beiyang fleet was his son in law Zhang Peilun who was referred to by Professor Wiliam Lockwood as a quote "champion swindler". He described the man to so corrupt, sailors would often find shells filled with sand and quote "when the shooting began, the Chinese fleet found that its total supply of ammunition amounted to fourteen shells per gun. Two 7000 ton ironclads had only 3 shells in all for their 10 inch guns". There is zero question on the issue of corruption when it came to the Qing navy in the late 19th century. They were hampered with shortages of ammunition, there are even reports some shells were filled with cement rather than explosives. Not only would the Qing sailors find little shells to fire during the battle of Yalu, imagine the lack of practice as a result of never having ammo? Poor accuracy and seriously questionable naval orders during battle would plague the Beiyang fleet. Alongside the lack of ammo it is also alleged the Qing warships had half their crews, because of salary embezzlement. So the Beiyang fleet would come into the battle undermanned, undertrained and underequipped, the recipe for disaster. Now as for the Japanese, the IJN combined fleet consisted of 2 formations: the flying squadron composed of the 4 fast cruisers: Yoshino, Takachiho, Akitsushima and Naniwa led by Admiral Tsuboi Kozo. And the main fleet consisting of the cruiser and flagship Matsushima followed by Chiyoda, Itsukushima, Hashidate and the ironclads Fuso and Hiei led by Admiral Ito Sukeyuki. There were also two dispatch vessels, the Saikyo Maru led by the Swedish born captain John Wilson and the Gunboat Akagi. Unlike the Beiyang fleet which was 1 of the 4 non cooperating fleets that made up the Qing navy, the IJN combined fleet were consolidated under a single command, always unified, trained extensively together as a single fighting force. Although many of the Qing ships had more armor, they were slower and the Japanese specifically trained using the Jeune d'ecole strategy, emphasizing speed and quick firing guns to overcome larger opponents. The Japanese would be coming into this battle with adequate ammunition, better training and the specialization in fighting larger battleship class ships by outmaneuvering and outfiring them. I always found it easier using gamer terms, the Japanese adopted a glass cannon strategy, relying on speed over defense, but alongside that their enemy greatly lacked proper firing capabilities making the Japanese a charmander to the chinese bulbasaur. The Qing's ironclads had short barrels as main armaments, meaning their shells had low muzzle velocity, resulting in poor penetration and terrible accuracy, especially at long range which they never should be firing at anyways. Although the Qing sailors were well drilled, they had practically no gunnery practice as a result of having no ammunition to work with. The lack of training in gunnery in combination to not having shells to fight with, or having the wrong caliber shells on certain ships and literally finding out some shells might be filled with cement or porcelain would lead to disaster. Aboard the Jingyuan was US naval advisor Philo McGiffin who went on the record saying "many of the gunpowder charges were thirteen years old and condemned". Sadly Li Hongzhang had tried to delay a naval battle against the Japanese specifically to give his fleet more time to equip their ships with additional ammunition, but the Qing imperial court deemed this cowardice and forced his hand to press on. In the end, the Qing fleet was bigger and armed with bigger guns, but the Japanese would be faster, and capable of firing their smaller guns more so and more accurately. Admiral Ding's Beiyang Fleet reached the mouth of the Yalu River at around 2pm. The transports escorted by 5 warships: the Zhennan, Zhenzhong, Guangbing, Pingyuan and a torpedo boat landed the troops until the morning of the 17th. Meanwhile the other Beiyang ships anchored in some shallow waters around 8 nautical miles south west of the mouth of the Yalu river. At 9:20am on the 17th the fleet conducted a training exercise lasting for about an hour and a half, before returning to their anchorage, but soon after at 11:28am, observers aboard the Qing warships began to spot smoke coming from the south-west. Admiral Ding attempted to form his fleet into a southward facing line abreast using his two battleships in the center. In the line going left to right were the Guangjia, Jingyuan, Jiyuan, Zhiyuan, Laiyuan, Jingyuen, Yangwei and Chaoyong. Another group of four ships led by the slow Pingyuan were escorting the transports upriver and were forced to try and catch up which they would around 2:30. Late in the morning the two fleet began approaching another in very different formations. The Qing were trying to uphold their line abreast, but there was enormous confusion in signals, no doubt to the fact all of their signal books were written in english and very few of the officers could speak or were familiar with english. Added to this was the differing speeds of the various ships, thus they ended up in a asymmetricalwedge formation with the two battleships at the fore and the other vessels trailing behind on two flanks. According to various accounts, there was a consensus that the formation was done in great disorder. In fact it may not have been a deliberate formation, but rather the order in which the warships simply foundselves in as they tried to form a line abreast. For the IJN combined fleet they approached in a single column formation with the flying squadron in the front, followed by the main squadron. The order of ships in line for the Japanese was first the fasted protected cruisers, Yoshino, Naniwa Takachiho and Akitsushima. Then came the flagship Matsushima alongside her two sisters, followed by Chiyoda, Fuso, Hiei, Akagi, and the Saikyo Maru. With the Beiyang fleet in sight, Admiral Sukeyeki gave orders for the flying squadron to attack the Chinese right flank, hoping to annihilate their weaker boats at the end of the formation. Upon seeing the flying squadrons maneuvers, Admiral Ding ordered his ships to change course in such a way that it would have exposed his flagship, the Dingyuan, but put the rest of the squadron in a good position to fire upon the Japanese. However, Admiral Ding's Captain aboard the Dingyuan ignored the order allegedly out of cowardice, instead he ordered the Dingyuan to fire its main guns well before the Japanese were even within range. The order to fire apparently caused great confusion amongst the other ships, seeing the Chinese right flank firing into a maelstrom against the IJN warships, but the CHinese left flank basically was left out of the action. Now Admiral Ding aboard his flagship Dingyuan, alongside her sister Zhenyuan went straight forward against the IJN's center hoping to tussle the most while the rest of the Beiyang fleet maneuvered around to avoid hits. In one source I was reading, they tell a tale that the initial firing of Dingyuans main battery was aimed directly forward and thus literally destroyed her own flying bridge and quote "thereby demolishing the temporary flying bridge on which Admiral Ding was standing. Ding's leg was crushed so he could not stand, let alone walk, during the hositilities. This made it impossible for him to repeat his order in time. The wounds would also make it fiddicult for him to follow the battle". However as pointing out by Pilo McGiffen in his memoris "Ding was merely catapulted by the shockwave of the guns going off". Historians have come to a consensus today that the flying bridge was hit by the Japanese and Admiral Ding's poor legs were crushed as result of their gunfire to it, alongside countless officers who were killed and injured. The Dingyuna opened fire at 5000 meters, which was ridiculously too far to cause damage to the Japanese ships. As soon as the Dingyuan opened fire, the rest of the Qing warships followed suit, wasting countless precious shells firing from too far a range to possibly hit the Japanese vessels. According to Vice Admiral G.A Ballard of the British navy, the Qing formation doomed her from the beginning, as the line abreast strategy required the strongest ships, not the weakest to be on the wings in order to prevent the weaker ships from being picked off, which the Japanese would do. The Qing also failed to change course in such a way as to prevent the Japanese from…
Full show notes at the publisher 
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
