Battles of the Nineteenth Century, Page 305

The Naval Attacks on Wei-Hai-Wei

            After the fall of Port Arthur the Japanese for a while concentrated their efforts on the invasion of Manchuria.  In January it was resolved to reduce the second naval fortress of northern China-Wei-hai-wei, where the Chinese fleet had taken refuge in the harbour, sheltered by the fortified island of Liukung-tao, both entrances to the bay being closed by booms.  Towards the end of January Oyama, with the second Japanese army, landed in Shanhing, advanced on Wei-hai-wei, and captured the forts on the mainland on January 30^th and 31^st and February 1^st, meeting with only a feeble resistance.  But the Chinese fleet and the island forts held out bravely.  A storm had forced the Japanese fleet to run into harbour at Teng-chow on the 30^th, but it returned to attack the island forts of Wei-hai-wei on February 2^nd.  

            There was a heavy swell on the sea, however, and it was too cold for active operations.  Next day, February 3^rd the weather was fine and not quite so cold, and the bombardment of the island forts was resumed, the fleet and the captured batteries of Lung-miao-tsui and Luchueh-tsui shelling the Chinese forts and ships, which replied vigorously.  The little fort on I-tao, in the middle of the eastern channel, was exposed to the fire of the land batteries and some of the ships.  It replied pluckily to the guns on the land, making good use of its two heavy guns mounted on disappearing carriages.  It was in charge of Mr. Mellows, formerly a seaman gunner in the British Navy.  At noon Ito signalled to the fleet to cease firing.  During the afternoon snow again fell heavily.

            It was known that there was an opening between the ends of the boom the closed the eastern channel and the land close under the forts, but it was narrow, and rendered dangerous by rocks and shoals.  Just under I-tao Island there was another small opening.  During the night between the 3^rd and 4^th, and attempt was made by some of the torpedo boats to destroy the boom near its southern end.  The night was very dark and bitterly cold.  Thinice was forming on the sea, and broke crackling round the bows as the torpedo boats forced their way through it.  The Chinese torpedo boats were acting as picket boats just inside the boom.  They discovered the approach of the Japanese, and the forts and Ting’s ships opened fire, sending shells and bullets at random over the water outside the boom.  Only one of the attacking boats affected anything.  This was No. 6, commanded by a first-class warrant officer, Kozaki Tatsujiro.  This brave mad succeeded in running his boat through the narrow rocky channel at the south end of the boom, and laying his vessel alongside of it, tried to destroy the obstruction from the inside.  The boat was rolling heavily, for a swell was breaking in the shallow water near the shore, and there was serious danger of the thin steel sides of No. 6 being stove in by collision with one of the heavy baulks of timber that floated the hawsers of the boom.  But with infinite difficulty a heavy charge was attached, connection was made with the firing battery on board by an insulated wire, and then No. 6 drew off, and Kozaki pressed the firing key.  But the charge would not explode.  He then examined the wire, and found that I had been damaged, and its insulation destroyed by dragging across the fluke of the torpedo boats anchor as she went astern before trying to explode the charge.  With some copper wire and India rubber packing he repaired the damaged conductor, and then again went astern and closed the electric circuit.  But still there was no result.

              But kozaki was one of those men who do not mean to be beaten.  He gave up the idea of firing his countermine by electricity, and resolved to destroy the boom by firing three small charges close together, after fixing them near the heavier charge already in position.  The explosives were what were known as hand charges, fitted with mechanical fuses, and fired by pulling long lanyard-rather dangerous weapons to handle in the dark, and on rough water.  To get them properly fixed Kozaki had to climb out over the bow of No. 6, on to the top of the floating boom, and he was soon wet to the skin and covered with ice.  With the shells whistling and ricocheting near him, he completed his work.  Then he scrambled back on board his ship, and she went astern for the third time.  As the long lanyards came taut all the charges exploded with a burst of flame that plainly showed the position of the daring torpedo boat.  Full speed ahead she dashed out through the wreck of the boom, the Chinese guns on I-tao and the Japanese with the captured cannon of the shore batteries exchanging fire over her as she sped out to sea.  The boat had escaped without injury, and the result of her work was that the end of the boom near the shore had been so damaged as to make the entrance near the rocks wider and easier.

              On the morning of February 4^th Admiral Ito, with the main squadron and the 1^st or “Flying” squadron-in other words, with his eight best cruisers-steamed in towards the eastern entrance, leaving all his other ships well out to sea.  He hoped thus to tempt Admiral Ting into coming out and attacking him.  But the Chinese admiral made no move.  A long-range bombardment of the island forts followed without any serious damage being done.  Admiral Ito was now convinced that the Chinese were waiting for a chance to slip out in the dark in the hope of escaping to some of the southern Chinese ports, and he gave orders for the torpedo flotillas to spare no effort to destroy the Chinese ships in the harbour.  The first attack was made in the night-that between the 4^th and 5^th of February.

            The plan adopted was that as soon as the moon had set-that is, a little after three a.m.- the 1^st flotilla (the Kotaka and Nos. 7, 11, 13 and 23) should make a false attack on the boom at the western entrance in order to divert the attention off the Chinese from the real attack which was to made through the gap at the mainland side of the eastern entrance by the 2^nd Flotilla (Nos. 8, 9, 14, 18, 19 and 21) and the 3^rd (Nos. 5, 6, 10 and 22)-ten boats in all.  It was another fearfully cold night, and, as the boats ran in, the spray froze on the gear of their torpedo tubes, making it very difficult to keep them in working order.  Two of the boats, Nos. 8 and 21, touched the rocks, and though they were got off with some danger, they had to give up their places in the attack.  Eight boats got safely and silently inside the boom. 

            The storyof what followed had best be told first from the point of view of a British officer, who was serving on board Admiral Ting’s flagship, and then from that of the Japanese.  There are so few detailed accounts in existence of what it feels like to be torpedoed that the officer’s narrative possesses a special interest.  There can be no doubt have its authenticity.  His name has not been made public, but his story is given at length in Lieutenant Armstrong’s work on “Torpedo Warfare,” one of the series of Royal Navy Handbooks edited by Commander Robinson, R.N.  The writer, who is described as “an English officer of high attainments and one of Admiral Ting’s most trusted officers, “begins by describing the precautions taken on board of the Ting-Yuen, in order to ensure the watertight doors being closed in case of attack.  The ship lay anchored south of Liu-kung Island.  No mention is made of her being fitted with torpedo nets’ so it would appear that this kind of protection was absent.  He then goes on to describe what occurred after the moon set on the night that the Japanese boats came in.

            “It was,” he says, “about four o’clock in the morning.  Alarm rockets from our guard boats to the south of I-tao were seen.  Presently firing took place from some of our ships.  We ourselves opened fire, but what the object was I could not distinguish.  After a time we ceased firing, and just then I saw a dark object, probably about half a mile away.  Fire was opened on it, and I ran up the standard compass erection to get a better view.  Through my glasses I saw a double funnelled torpedo boat coming end on to us on our port beam.  When she was about 3000 yards off, she turned hard a port.  As she turned, I saw that we had hit her badly, as a lot of steam was to be seen.  A few seconds after she turned we were hit on the quarter.  The shock was a heavy quivering one; such as I should imagi9ne an earthquake to be like.  The sound of the explosion was a loud dull thud.  A column or water dashed on board, and there was a faint sickly smell from the explosion.  The effect of the torpedo explosion was not very severe to the person.  I saw no one thrown down on deck, but it was severe enough to make that possible.  One Chinese officer was asleep in his bunk at the time.  This was about 25 feet further forward, and on the same side as the hit.  He was thrown out of his bunk and bruised, but not damaged otherwise.  No heavy weights were displaced, but furniture was thrown about.  On deck the only damage visible was the tearing away of the moulding on the ships side in the vicinity of the hit.  The effect of the shock was not demoralising.  There was no panic, the men going to they’re stations as ordered in the usual manner.”

            The ship’s bugle sounded the order to “close watertight doors,” and those left open were at once secured.  The officer went below to see that his ship had been very seriously injured.  “I found,” he says, “the water bubbling up through a store room hatch.  There was then about a foot of water in my cabin, which was near his hatch.  The ship had already listed slightly.  I went to the engine room.  There I was shocked to find the port engine room filling quickly.  From the engineers I heard that the port engine, after moving a portion of a turn, had stuck.  The wedge doors of the tunnel (for the screw shaft) and side passages were leaking badly, but apparently not nearly enough to account for the rise of the water.  The door between the two engine rooms also began to leak, as well as that between the engine room and stokehold on the port side.  Seeing the engine room filling, and knowing that damage existed a considerable distance further aft (say thirty feet), I came to the conclusion that the damage inflicted was very extensive.”

            The idea occurred to him of making some effort to stop the leak, but it was dismissed at once, because there were no collision mats in the equipment of the Ting-Yuen.  There were no sails or awnings on board; and, even if there had been, it looked as if the damage done was too great to be remedied by such means.  Admiral Ting, in no way dismayed by the injury to his ship, was thinking only of fighting the Japanese torpedo boats.  He had ordered the cable to be slipped, and the Ting-Yuen, propelled by her starboard engine, was steering for the comparatively deep water south of I-tao, heedless of the fight in progress between the enemy’s boats and the other ships.  Ting’s idea was to get between the enemy and the gap by which they had come in cut off their retreat, and destroys them with his machine guns.  The officer’s narrative continues: -“Shortly after the ship was got under way I responded to Ting and Commodore Liu that I believed the damage inflicted to be so great that it was doubtful whether the ship could be kept afloat, and I advised that she should be beached in such a way that, should repairs he found impossible, she would still be able to use her guns in defence of the harbour.  This was, after some hesitation decided upon, the state of the tide (it being high water) making this plan the more favourable.  The ship was accordingly beached on the island inside the east boom (about 1,000 yards distant), and was placed in such manner as to enable her to use her heavy guns to protect the east entrance.”

            Before following further the story of what occurred on board the Ting-Yuen, let us see how the Japanese flotillas of torpedo boats had fared during the attack.  As might be expected, the existing accounts of what happened are confused, and in some respects contradictory.  Considering what discrepancies are to be found in even the best reports of battles fought in broad daylight, it is not to be wondered at if it is no easy matter to piece together a clear and consistent narrative from the stories told by the commanders and crews of a number of torpedo boats that have made a rush into a harbour in the dark, and had a confused fight with whips that could only be distinguished as dull black or grey masses looming up in the night.  When a torpedo was discharged it was generally impossible to say what it had hit, and at least two boats claimed to have torpedoed the flagship, though she was certainly only hit once.  The following account is based chiefly on that given by Mr. H. W. Wilson in his work, “Ironclads in action.”  He has used chiefly Japanese reports summarised by the French naval review, Le Yacht.

              The third Flotilla (5, 6, 10, 22) led the way in, following by the Second (8, 9, 14, 18, 19, and 21), which, as had been already mentioned had to leave two of its boats (nos. 8 and 21) behind, as they had run on the rocks.  Thus two groups of four boats each got inside the bottom.  They turned to run up to the anchorage of the larger Chinese vessels between I-tao and Liu-kung-tao.  On their way they would have to pass and engage the lighter Chinese craft, gunboats and torpedo boats, acting as picket boats inside the southern end of the boom.  Nos. 5 and 22 were first in, and appear to have discharged their torpedoes at these small craft.

            Both of the boats fired their three torpedoes without result.  They had most likely misjudged the distance in the dark.  The Chinese had now thrown up alarm rockets and opened a heavy fire.  The two boats, now that their torpedo tubes were empty, tried to retire.  No.5 got out safely, but No. 22, with her steering gear disabled, drifted on the rocks at the entrance, and was so badly damaged that her commander, Lieutenant Suzuki, ordered her abandonment.  She had sixteen men on board and only one small boat that would carry six.  It made a first trip to the eastern shore successfully, but sank on the second.  Suzuki and five men were left on the wrecked boat.  Before morning came the lieutenant and one man were so exhausted with exposure and could that they fell overboard and were drowned.  The other four were got off at daybreak by a boat from one of the eastern forts.

            The other two boats of the third Flotilla, Nos. 6 and 10 ran past the picket boats while they were engaged with Nos. 5 and 22.  Inside I-tao Island they found a number of junks and torpedo boats moored close to the fort, but they slipped past them, reserving their fire for bigger game.  No. 10 ran out a little ahead of No. 6.  The boats were now closing on the anchorage of Ting’s heavy ships near Liu-kung-tao.  The Chinese were firing, mostly at random, into the darkness.  No. 10’s report of her proceedings fits in so well with the British officer’s account of the fight as seen from the Ting-Yuen, that there can be little doubt that the “double funnelled torpedo boat” that he saw make the successful attack was No. 10, not No. 9, as stated in some narratives.  It will be remembered that the British officer told how the enemy’s boats approached bow on, then turned to port and fired the torpedo which struck the flagship in the after part of the port side.  Here is the story of the port side.  Here is the story of the attack as given from the Japanese side by Mr Wilson:

            “As No. 10 drew near the enemy’s large ships she collided with another torpedo boat engaged in the attack, but suffered no harm.  Approaching through a hail of Gatling bullets a great grey mass rose suddenly up before her.  It was the Ting-Yuen, and at it she fired her bow tube.  Owing to the ice the torpedo did not leave the tube, but struck projecting from it, half in, half out.  Her commander turned gently to port and fired his broadside tube.  In spite, however, of the fact that the sights were most carefully laid and the speed corrections accurately applied, the torpedo, which had been pointed at the centre of the Ting-Yuen, distant about 300 yards only, just caught her stern.  A man looking out from the boat saw it explode.  No. 10 circled under a heavy fire from the Chinese, and turning, touched, with the projecting torpedo in her bow tube, No. 6.  The two boats ran a terrible risk, for the trigger of the torpedo was actually smashed without exploding the detonator.  They separated, and No. 10 retired, while No. 6 went forward to continue the attack.  When within ranger her bow tube was fired, and once more the torpedo stuck.  Circling, she brought her broad side tube to bear, but the torpedo broke in two on leaving the tube.  A hail of one pounder shells from the ironclad’s Hotchkisses was falling about her, and yet strange to say no harm was done her.  One only struck her hull abreast of the engines, and stuck in her side without exploding.  The crew of the fuse must have come loose in flight.”  Besides the unexploded shell, forty-six Gatling or rifle bullets had hit No. 6, but no one on board was injured.  No. 10 only reported hits from two rifle bullets, no one wounded.  The officer on board the ting-Yuen thought that this boat had been hit severely as she turned, as he saw a lot of steam escaping.  Either the escape of steam had some other origin or the Japanese under estimated the damage they had received when they wrote their published reports.

            The Second Flotilla, which had already been so unfortunate on the way in, did not effect so much as the Third Flotilla, and suffered much more serious loss.  No. 9 engaged one of the despatch boats south if I-tao.  She missed her, which a torpedo, and then a shell fired by the Chinese ship burst in the torpedo boats engine room and wrecked her boilers, which exploded with the shock.  Four men were scalded to death, two mortally wounded, and two others less severely injured.  For some minutes she drifted helplessly under the fire of the Chinese, with only half her little crew able to do anything.  Then No. 19 ran up alongside of her and took her in tow, trying to get out of the harbour; but according to the Japanese account followed by Mr. Wilson, she sank in the harbour.  It seems much more likely, however, that she remained afloat, though, her towrope having broken, the crew of No. 19 thought she had sunk when she disappeared in the darkness.  It is certain that next day the Chinese in the harbour picked up a disabled Japanese torpedo boat.  She must have been No. 9, as all the others are easy to account for.  Admiral Ting’s British officer examined her, and thought she was the boat that had been engaged with the flagship; but as we have seen, that boat got away.  He thus describes the wreck of No. 9: -

            “The torpedo boat which sunk us was found floating about the harbour at daylight.  She had been hit six times, twice in the boiler room, twice through the funnel, once through the nose of the amidships torpedo tube, and once through the bow.  These hits were from 3 pounder and 6 pounder guns.  There were besides many marks of rifle bullets, nut no penetrations.  One of the shots had hit the steam pipe in the boiler room, and evidently scalded all the men there to death.  Three bodies were in the stokehold, and another, that of an engineer officer, on deck, but also scalded.  On deck there was some (but not much) evidence, in the form of blood, of men having been hit.  We heard afterwards, but I know not with what amount of truth, that the remainder of this boat’s crew were frozen to death.  Of the other shots, the one through the bow wrecked the fore cabin.  By a rather curious coincidence, the Chinese officer who was with me when I was examining the boat found three articles which had been looted from his house at Port Arthur:  pair of dumbbells, a scroll, and a chair. The boat was scrupulously clean in the cabins, and in the wrecked fore cabin was a heterogeneous mass of such things as guncotton and detonators, snow white linen, bottles of sweets and cigarettes.”

             Of the remaining boats of the flotilla, No. 18 damaged her rudder by collision either with the rocks or the boom, and was towed out of action by her consort No. 14.  During the attack the Japanese had lost nineteen men and two boats. Two others were so badly injured that they had to be sent to Port Arthur for repairs.

            But, on the other hand, they had succeeded in sinking the Ting-Yuen.  She had been run into shallow water, and during the next day she was gradually going down.  To quote once more the British officer’s narrative: -

             “Divers were sent down, and patches were prepared to cover the holes; but it was found impossible to do anything, though the divers reported that the hole was only five feet square.  In the meantime, in spite of the large centrifugal pumps and watertight doors, the large compartments f the ship gradually filled up, watertight doors leaking, bulkheads giving way, till engine rooms and all four stokeholds were flooded.  We had hoped that one of the stokeholds might be kept clear, and thus enable us to have steam for the heavy guns, but by about three o’clock in the afternoon the last fire was extinguished.  The use of the ship as a stationary fort was now, of course, greatly impaired, but the hand gear of the barbettes was connected up.  As the tide went down, the after part of the ship sank in the mud, so that the ship was inclined in a fore and aft direction, and thus rendered it exceedingly difficult to work the guns.  (The Japanese fleet kept out of range on this day, and did not give us an opportunity of making a last fight with the poor ship.)  By the evening the gun platform was so much inclined that we could not align our sights at an object 1,000 yards off.  We stuck to the ship, however, as our quick firing guns would be of use in case of a torpedo attack to the north of I-tao.  The water was now above the main deck aft.  There was no fire in the galley, there was no fresh water, no food, and the thermometer showed twenty-seven degrees of frost.”

             It would seem that the shock of the torpedo explosion had so shaken the whole ship as to make the watertight doors leaky and weaken the bulkheads that formed the various compartments.  Thus the water gradually forced its way into every part of her.  Admiral Ting, in the course of the day, transferred his flag to her sister ship, the Chen-Yuen.

            In the following night (that between February 5^th and 6^th) the Japanese made another torpedo attack.  This time the First Flotilla-composed of the Kotaka and Nos. 7, 11, 13 and 23-came in by the gap in he eastern entrance, while the six boats that remained out of the Second and Third Flotillas made a demonstration off the western entrance.  The Kotaka led the actual attack.  Followed by the four smaller boats, she passed through the gap and then ran on in the shadow of the shore round the inner part of the bay till she reached a point southeast of the town of Wei-hai-wei.  The Chinese were not even aware that the enemy’s boats were in the harbour.  The flotilla then turned to starboard and steered for the Chinese fleet, coming from a direction from which no attack was expected.  They were only observed as they fired their first torpedoes, when the Chinese opened on them with rifles and machine guns.  They fired in all seven torpedoes and got away without receiving any damage.  Three ships were sunk at their anchors.  One was the protected cruiser Lai-Yuen, which had been so terribly injured by fire at the Yalu fight, but had since been repaired and had taken her full share in the fighting.  The others were a small cruiser, the Wai-Yuen, used as a training ship, and a despatch boat, the Pa-Hua.  The Lai-Yuen capsized, and in the morning her bottom showed above the water. Some of her unfortunate crew had been imprisoned inside of her, and during the day they were heard knocking as a signal for help.  With infinite labour the plates of the ship’s double bottom were cut through.  But the rescue came too late.  All inside were found dead.  The Ching-Yuen, another of the cruisers, had a narrow escape, a torpedo exploding close alongside of her, but doing only trifling damage.  An Englishman, Wood, and old British blue jacket formerly in the Chinese Customs department, who had offered his services to the navy on the outbreak of the war, commanded her.

             Next day, February 6^th, Admiral Ito, who had already landed a small party under cover of his guns on the north side of Liu-kung Island, where the high ground protected the from the fire of the forts and the Chinese fleet, reinforced them with a strong body of seamen and marines and some machine guns and field pieces.  It was hoped that they would be able to co-operate in the subsequent operations by bringing fire to bear on the forts from the top of the hill.  During the day the land forts and some of the cruisers were firing on Ting’s ships and the island forts. 

             On the morning of the 7^th while the torpedo boats watched the western entrance, the rest of the fleet closed in upon the eastern side of the harbour, and with the help of the land forts heavily bombarded Liu-kung and I-tao and the Chinese fleet for some hours.  The Chinese made a vigorous reply, and the Matsushima, Admiral Ito’s flagship, was hit more than once.  A shell burst in her funnel; another wrecked her forward bridge, wounding three men.  The Naniwa Kan was also hit, a shell penetrating her side and bursting in her coalbunkers.  While the battle was at its height, the torpedo boats signalled that the Chinese torpedo flotilla (thirteen boats in all) was coming out by the western entrance, where a gateway had been made in the boom near the Liu-kung end of it.  At once the Yoshino and the three other fast cruisers of the Flying Squadron gave up the attack on the forts, and dashed off westwards to deal with the torpedo boats.  Shortly after, Admiral Ito himself followed with the four ships of the main squadron to help in the chase.  If the Chinese had come out in the dark, they might have had some chance of getting away.  /as it was, they were in a desperate position.  Their engines had been worn out by their being continually used as mere despatch boats, and they could not work up to anything like their nominal speed.  They might have perished gloriously if they had made a dash for the Japanese ships, but they tried only to escape to the westward, and the great cruisers, led by the swift Yoshino, were soon closing on them and sending a shower of shells and bullets fro their quick-firers and machine guns whistling through the air after the hapless craft.  Some were sunk, others wrecked, as the Japanese projectiles ripped open and exploded their steam pipes and boilers.  Others drove ashore and were either destroyed or captured by the Japanese torpedo boats.  Two only got away.  They hid in a creek on the coast, and, after the pursuit had ceased, put to sea again and reached the treaty port of Cheefoo.  Even these bore the marks of the heavy fire to which they had been exposed.

            During the bombardment the little fort on I-tao commanded by another British sailor, Mr. Mellows, was silenced.  About half past eight a heavy shell from the eastern shore batteries burst in one of the magazines and it blew up, killing six of the garrison and wounding nearly everyone else, some slightly, some severely.  But Mellows and a few brave men still kept one of the disappearing guns in action.  It was the only gun still serviceable.  As it rose to firing position, but before it could be discharged it was hit by another huge shell that hurled it from its carriage.  After this there was nothing to be done but to leave the fort and ferry the, wounded over to the hospital on Liu-kung-tao.

            The Chinese now held only the forts on the larger island, and their fleet had been reduced to the Chen-Yuen, Ping-Yuen, Ching-Yuen and Kwang-Ping, and a few small gunboats.  The silencing of the I-toa fort had destroyed the chief protection of the eastern boom, and on the 8^th the Japanese made a determined attempt to remove it in order to open the way for their fleet to enter the harbour and engage the Chinese ships at close quarters.  After dark that evening boats and steam launches from the Yoshino, Akitsushima, Naniwa, and Takachio destroyed about 400 yards of the eastern boom, cutting the cables, and dragging the baulks that floated them from their anchors.  On the following morning the land batteries and the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd cruiser squadrons resumed the bombardment of the Liu-kung forts.  The ships and batteries had also to engage the Chinese fleet, which, whenever a bombardment began, got under way in the harbour and replied to the fire of the Japanese guns.

            That morning Admiral Ting’s diminished fleet suffered a further heavy loss.  The Ching-Yuen, commanded by Wood, was engaging the eastern shore batteries, when shortly after eight a.m. a p-inch shell from one of the big guns in Lu-chueh-tsui fort hit the ship forward and just above the water line.  It went through her, blowing a hole in the other side a little further aft and under the water.  For two hours Wood continued the fight, trusting to the steam pumps and the watertight compartments to keep the ship afloat.  But about ten o’clock one of the forward bulkheads must have given way under the pressure of the water rising in the forepart, for suddenly her head went down and her stern rose out of the water with the screw whirring in the air.  There was nothing for it but to abandon her as quickly as might be, but, with every effort to save life, ten of the crew were drowned.  The Ching-Yuen sunk with her bow in deeper water and her after decks awash.  Wood was resolved that his ship should not be raised to fly the enemy’s flag after the war, and in the darkness of the following evening he destroyed her, going off with a boat party and exploding a heavy mine on her deck.  Later in the same evening the Japanese came in again with boats and steam launches, and tried to destroy the boom north of I-tao.  But the fire of the Chinese ships drove them off.

            Admiral Ting’s fleet was now reduced to the battleship Chen-Yuen, the belted cruiser Ping-Yuen, the cruiser Kwang Ping and Tsi-Yuen, and six small gunboats.  One of these few survivors, the Tsi-Yuen, had been in every fight of the war.  She had been roughly handled by the Japanese squadron of Asan, when the first shots of the conflict were fired; she had fought at the Yalu battle; and here she was sadly battered, but still afloat and still fighting at Wei-hai-wei.

             There was some desultory firing during February 10^th.  The four heavy cruisers of the main squadron, the Matsushima, Ikitsushima, Chiyoda, and Hashidate, lay close in to the eastern entrance, firing their heavy guns at the Chinese fleet.  But, though there was a gap in the boom, Admiral Ito did not attempt to force his way into the harbour.  He probably, by this time, felt certain that Ting’s dogged resistance could not last much longer, and was waiting for him either to surrender or make a hopeless dash out to sea.

            The next day, February 11^th, was one of the national festivals of Japan, the traditional anniversary of the foundation of the empire, and when the sun rose all the ships of the blockading fleet were gay with fluttering flags.  At nine a.m. the Admiral signalled to the Third Squadron to attack the fort on the east end of Liu-kung-tao.  The five cruisers, Tsukushi, Katsutagi, Yamato, Musashi, and Tenriu, steamed close in and opened fire, and the land forts joined in the cannonade.  Later on, the Yoshino and the old ironclads of the Second Squadron were sent to the help of the smaller cruisers.  The Chinese fire inflicted a good deal of loss on the attacking squadrons.  A well-aimed shell destroyed the bridge of the Tenrin, killing her commander, Captain Nakano Shinyu, and four seamen. One of her engineers and four other men were wounded.  Another heavy shell burst on the deck of the Katsuragi, and killed one man and wounded six others, among them her commander, Captain Nobuki.  The heavy gun in the bow of the ship was dismounted.  The Yoshino had her second engineer and three men wounded, and there were a good many casualties in the land batteries.  It was the last fight of the brave men who held the island batteries and manned the remnant of the fleet.  As the Japanese drew off at half past one, the Chinese guns were all in action.

            That night the Yoshino and her consorts of the First Squadron came in close to the western entrance after dark, and fired heavily on the island.  The guns and mrtars, which the Japanese had now mounted in the western shore batteries, also opened on Liu-kung.  The object of this cannonade was to give the Chinese the idea that the Japanese fleet was trying to come in by the western entrance, and so to divert their attention from the other entrance, where a final attempt was being made to destroy the eastern boom.  It failed for a gale had sprung up, and in the rising sea the boats and steam launches could affect nothing, though the Chinese did not fire them on.

            Admiral Ting’s fleet had fought it last fight.  The next day saw the surrender of all that remained of it and of the island forts on Liu-kung-tao.