Under the Dragon Flag My Experiences in the Chino-Japanese War

CHAPTER II

We reached Tientsin with­out fur­ther mishap, and turned over our car­go to Mr. H----'s agent, who dis­posed of it at a hand­some prof­it, though hard­ly suf­fi­cient, I thought, to war­rant the risk­ing of so valu­able a ship as the _Columbia_. We lay in the port about a week, to ef­fect the re­pairs ren­dered nec­es­sary by the Japanese gun prac­tice.

At Tientsin a war coun­cil was sit­ting, and one morn­ing Mr. Mac----, the agent, came on board and in­formed us that he had re­ceived a pro­pos­al for the _Columbia_ to be char­tered as a trans­port to con­vey troops to the Corea. It was on­ly, he said, for an im­me­di­ate spe­cial ser­vice, and the terms be­ing ex­ceed­ing­ly ad­van­ta­geous he had re­solved on his own re­spon­si­bil­ity to ac­cept the of­fer, as the work would not oc­cu­py us more than a few days. We were to be one of a con­voy of trans­ports which, sail­ing at dif­fer­ent times from dif­fer­ent ports, were to ren­dezvous in Tal­ien­wan Bay on the east coast of the Liao­tung Penin­su­la, where the troops were to be em­barked un­der pro­tec­tion of an armed squadron. There was no time to be lost, and we were to weigh an­chor and make for the bay as soon as pos­si­ble.

On the af­ter­noon of the same day two Chi­nese emis­saries came to make a vis­it of in­spec­tion, and in the evening we steamed out of the port, fly­ing the Amer­ican colours, with noth­ing of course to fear at the mo­ment. On ar­riv­ing at Tal­ien­wan we found the bay full of ship­ping. Four large trans­ports were al­ready en­gaged in the work of em­barka­tion, and an­oth­er ar­rived af­ter we did. The war­ships pre­sent­ed a gal­lant ar­ray, twelve in all, be­long­ing, with two or three ex­cep­tions, to the North Coast Squadron. There were four tor­pe­do-​boats in ad­di­tion. The most pow­er­ful ves­sels were the _Chen-​Yuen_ and the _Ting-​Yuen_, bar­bette ships, En­glish-​built, I think, of 7280 tons. The _King-​Yuen_ and _Lai-​Yuen_ were two bar­bette ships of small­er ton­nage--2850. Then came the _Ping-​Yuen_, of 2850 tons, a coast-​de­fence ar­mour-​clad; a tur­ret-​ship, the _Tsi-​Yuen_, of 2320 tons; the _Chih-​Yuen_, _Ching-​Yuen_, _Kwang-​Kai_ and _Kwang-​Ting_, all of 2300 tons, deck-​pro­tect­ed cruis­ers; and the _Chao-​Yung_ and _Yang-​Wei_, each of 1400 tons, un­pro­tect­ed cruis­ers.

I have for­got­ten to say that we took a Chi­nese agent on board at Tientsin for the trip. He was al­leged to be able to speak En­glish, but rarely in­deed was his jar­gon in­tel­li­gi­ble. I asked him to trans­late the names of the Chi­nese war­ships, but this was a task far be­yond the lin­guis­tic ca­pac­ity of my friend Lin Wong. I un­der­stood him to say that it would re­quire “too muchee words” to ren­der in our pro­sa­ic tongue the amount of po­et­ic im­agery con­cen­trat­ed in the ex­pres­sions “Chih-​Yuen,” or “Kwang-​Kai.” Of what the names mean I am in ig­no­rance still.

We were speed­ily board­ed by a boat from the flag­ship, to the of­fi­cer of which Lin Wong gave an ac­count of his stew­ard­ship, and we re­ceived di­rec­tions to draw up to the land­ing-​stage in turn and re­ceive our hu­man freight. The troops were still ar­riv­ing from the roads to Tal­ien and Kin­chou. They seemed for the most part an undis­ci­plined lot, and came stream­ing on board in no par­tic­ular or­der; here and there a mount­ed of­fi­cer di­rect­ing with shouts, ges­tures, and blows too, the move­ments of the surg­ing mass­es that crowd­ed along the wa­ter-​side. The num­ber em­barked I reck­oned at about 18,000. There was al­so a large quan­ti­ty of mil­itary stores to be shipped, and busy enough we were. In the evening I had a glimpse of Ad­mi­ral Ting, who had been ashore and was re­turn­ing to his ship. His barge passed close along­side the _Columbia_. I saw a young-​look­ing man, very pleas­ant in ex­pres­sion and man­ner; al­to­geth­er what we should call high­ly gen­tle­man­ly in ap­pear­ance. It is well known that he ex­pi­at­ed his fail­ures by sui­cide af­ter the fi­nal ru­in of Wei-​hai-​wei.

All was com­plete on the sec­ond day af­ter our ar­rival, and short­ly be­fore noon the flag­ship sig­nalled us to weigh an­chor. I may re­mark that the Chi­nese Navy is En­glish trained, and the du­ty is car­ried on in En­glish, ow­ing to the in­tractable char­ac­ter of the Chi­nese lan­guage, the fact that of­fi­cers and men have thus prac­ti­cal­ly to learn a for­eign tongue in or­der to work their ships be­ing an ob­vi­ous dis­ad­van­tage. The trans­ports were grouped to­geth­er and the war­ships dis­posed in sec­tions abreast and ahead, with the ac­tive tor­pe­do-​boats in the rear. Our des­ti­na­tion was the es­tu­ary of the Yalu, the large riv­er which di­vides Chi­na from the Corea. We left Tal­ien­wan on Septem­ber 14, and reached the riv­er on the af­ter­noon of the 16th. The work of dis­em­barka­tion com­menced im­me­di­ate­ly, al­though ru­mours reached us from Wi-​ju of the dis­as­trous de­feat of the first Chi­nese army at Ping-​Yang in the Corea the day be­fore. It il­lus­trates the ridicu­lous in­ef­fi­cien­cy of the Chi­nese mea­sures from first to last, that troops should thus have been land­ed at hap-​haz­ard far from any point of com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the in­te­ri­or of the Penin­su­la, the very day af­ter an ac­tion which ex­tin­guished their prospect of main­tain­ing their ground in the Corea.

The war­ships an­chored across the mouth of the riv­er, whilst the trans­ports pro­ceed­ed some dis­tance up the stream. Wi-​ju is the on­ly set­tle­ment of any size in this lit­tle-​known re­gion, though there are nu­mer­ous fish­ing-​ham­lets scat­tered about. The sol­diers im­pro­vised their camps along the bank. A wild scene was pre­sent­ed when night fell on the 16th--the glare of the bivouac, ex­tend­ing far along the des­olate wa­ter-​side; the con­course of sav­age fig­ures in the lurid gloom, with here and there in the dis­tance the gi­gan­tic shape of an il­lu­mi­nat­ed war­ship. We worked well in­to the night, and were at it again when the sun rose--a glo­ri­ous sun­rise, pour­ing over ev­ery­thing floods of crim­son splen­dour.

The first ac­counts which reached Eng­land of the ac­tion mis­called the bat­tle of Yalu, cat­egor­ical­ly stat­ed that it was fought off the mouth of the riv­er whilst the work of land­ing the sol­diers was pro­ceed­ing. This sto­ry I fan­cy to have been in­vent­ed by the Chi­nese as a sort of ex­cuse for their de­feat, by rep­re­sent­ing them­selves as fight­ing at a great dis­ad­van­tage in cov­er­ing the dis­em­barka­tion. How­ev­er this may be, the fact is that the work was com­plet­ed by about sev­en o'clock on the morn­ing of the 17th, when no en­emy was in sight. When the _Columbia_ weighed and stood out of the riv­er, af­ter break­fast, about nine o'clock, we found that the main body of the fleet had de­part­ed, though three or four cruis­ers and the tor­pe­do-​boats still re­mained in the bay. We and the oth­er trans­port mas­ters had re­ceived an in­ti­ma­tion that we were at lib­er­ty to re­turn to our re­spec­tive ports up­on the con­clu­sion of the work of dis­em­barka­tion. As to the _Columbia_, Chubb had had in­struc­tions from Mr. H----'s agent to make straight from the Yalu to San Fran­cis­co, re­port to our own­er, and take his fur­ther or­ders. We had, how­ev­er, to deal with the Chi­nese su­per­car­go, if I may so term him, Lin Wong, who still re­mained on board, and want­ed to be re-​con­veyed to the Gulf of Pechili. We pro­posed to put him on board one of the war­ships, but as they were al­ready un­der weigh when we steamed down, there was no im­me­di­ate op­por­tu­ni­ty of do­ing so. They were fol­low­ing in the wake of the main squadron to­wards Port Arthur, steer­ing south by west from the mouth of the riv­er. We held on with them, on­ly one oth­er trans­port ship do­ing the same.

For three hours we steamed on thus, at about twelve knots. To­wards noon we saw dense smoke all along the hori­zon ahead, and a heavy, dull, rum­bling sound reached us which soon made it­self un­mis­tak­able as the roar of ar­tillery. We im­me­di­ate­ly guessed that the squadron pre­ced­ing us had been at­tacked by the en­emy. Our es­cort, if I may so term it, drew in­shore, and I at first thought from their de­meanour that they were go­ing to shirk en­ter­ing the en­gage­ment. If such was their in­ten­tion, how­ev­er, they changed it, and stood bold­ly on with the tor­pe­do-​boats. We came to a stop, un­de­cid­ed how to pro­ceed. The oth­er trans­port which had ac­com­pa­nied us was al­ready in full re­treat, and Lin Wong, in whom dis­cre­tion seemed very un­du­ly pro­por­tioned to val­our, ad­vised a sim­ilar course on our part. Chubb and I, how­ev­er, felt a strong de­sire to see the fight, and as we were not now un­der the Chi­nese flag, there seemed no rea­son why we should not stay to wit­ness it, par­tic­ular­ly as there was no need to let the _Columbia_ be seen.

We there­fore, in spite of the un­in­tel­li­gi­ble protests of Lin Wong, cast an­chor, hav­ing hoist­ed Amer­ican colours, in one of the nu­mer­ous bays that in­dent the rocky coast of the Liao­tung. Then Chubb and my­self, leav­ing Web­ster in charge, pulled off in a small boat to­wards the scene of ac­tion. We kept close to the shore, and had about a mile and a half to pull be­fore we came abreast of the con­flict. With its deep­en­ing thun­ders bel­low­ing in our deaf­ened ears, we land­ed where the ground was high, and as­cend­ing the most el­evat­ed point we could per­ceive, had, with the aid of pow­er­ful glass­es, a good view of the scene. Ter­rif­ic in­deed it was--a wide, dense pall of smoke, which there was lit­tle wind to car­ry off; through the haze the huge reel­ing shapes of the fight­ing ves­sels, loom­ing in­dis­tinct­ly, vom­it­ing flame like so many an­gry drag­ons, and sev­er­al of them burn­ing in ad­di­tion, hav­ing been set on fire by shells; and above all the ap­palling con­cus­sion of the great guns, like the burst­ing of in­ces­sant thun­der-​bolts.

By this time it was half-​past two p.m., and the bat­tle had been in progress near­ly three hours. Not hav­ing seen the com­mence­ment of the af­fair, we were for some time un­able to make head or tail of it. The ships were mixed up and scat­tered, and we could per­ceive lit­tle sign of plan or com­bi­na­tion on ei­ther side. The first thing that be­gan to make it­self ev­ident as we watched was that the strug­gle was near­ing the coast. At first the near­est ships had been ful­ly a league and a half sea­ward; be­fore we had oc­cu­pied our po­si­tion three-​quar­ters of an hour, many were well with­in two miles of the coast. So ev­ident was this that Chubb re­marked that half of them would be ashore be­fore the fight­ing was over. This of course en­abled us to dis­tin­guish the ves­sels bet­ter, and we be­gan to make out ev­ident signs that John Chi­na­man was get­ting much the worst of it. The Japanese ves­sels, work­ing in con­cert and keep­ing to­geth­er, as we be­gan to per­ceive, seemed to sail round and round the en­emy, pour­ing on them an in­ces­sant can­non­ade, and ex­celling them in ra­pid­ity of fire and ma­noeu­vring. Some of the Chi­nese ves­sels ap­peared to me to present an ap­pear­ance of help­less­ness, and there was no in­di­ca­tion of com­bi­na­tion as amongst their op­po­nents. Not but what they blazed away valiant­ly enough, and some of them had ev­ident­ly giv­en as good as they got, for more than one Japanese ves­sel was in flames. Of course we could not iden­ti­fy these ships, but we could make out that in num­bers and ar­ma­ment they were a fair match for the Chi­nese squadron. They ap­peared to pay spe­cial at­ten­tion to the two great Chi­nese iron­clads, the _Chen-​Yuen_ and _Ting-​Yuen_, one of which at least had had her big guns, 37-ton Krup­ps, si­lenced, though still con­tribut­ing to the en­ter­tain­ment with the quick-​fir­ing ar­ma­ment. Short­ly af­ter three, the _King-​Yuen_, fired by shells, be­gan to burn fierce­ly; she showed through the smoke like a mass of flame, and was ev­ident­ly sink­ing, set­tling down on an even keel. Three or four of the en­emy cir­cled round, ply­ing her with shot and shell. Fi­nal­ly, with a plunge she dis­ap­peared, and the im­me­di­ate dark­en­ing, as the smoke-​clouds rolled in where the fierce blaze of the burn­ing wreck had been, was like the sud­den draw­ing of a veil over the spot where hun­dreds of men had met their si­mul­ta­ne­ous doom. The can­non­ade slack­ened, but soon broke out again fierce­ly as ev­er. About this time it seemed as if the Japanese flag­ship, _Mat­shushi­ma_, was about to share the same fate. She looked all in a blaze for­ward. The fire, how­ev­er, was got un­der, and lat­er on she was tak­en out of the ac­tion.

Mean­while the Chi­nese ships had been forced still near­er to the land, and the _Chao-​Yung_, an ab­so­lute ru­in, drift­ed help­less­ly ashore, half a league from where we stood. By the aid of our glass­es we could per­ceive her con­di­tion clear­ly--her up­per works knocked to pieces; her decks, strewn with mu­ti­lat­ed bod­ies, an in­dis­crim­inate mass of wreck and car­nage. Her crew were aban­don­ing her, strug­gling to land as best they could. Sub­se­quent­ly the _Yang-​Wei_ went ashore sim­ilar­ly bat­tered to pieces and burn­ing. She was much fur­ther off, and we made her out less dis­tinct­ly. On the Japanese side not one ship had sunk as far as we had seen, and though the flag­ship and some of the small­er craft were in an un­en­vi­able state, the at­tack was kept up with im­mense spir­it, and prompt obe­di­ence was paid to sig­nals, which were fre­quent, where­as we looked in vain for any sign of lead­er­ship on the part of the Ce­les­tials. Lat­er in the ac­tion an­oth­er of their best ships, the _Chih-​Yuen_, came to grief. She had ev­ident­ly been for long in dif­fi­cul­ties, labour­ing heav­ily, with the steam-​pumps con­stant­ly in req­ui­si­tion, as we could tell by the streams of wa­ter poured from her sides. Brave­ly she fought on un­sup­port­ed, and her up­per deck and top guns were served un­til she sank. At length her bows were com­plete­ly en­gulfed; the stern rose high out of wa­ter, dis­clos­ing the whirling pro­pellers, and bit by bit she dis­ap­peared. We could hear dis­tinct­ly the yelling sounds of tri­umph that rose from the Japanese ships as she went down. The _Chen-​Yuen_ and _Ting-​Yuen_, which seemed to fight to­geth­er dur­ing the ac­tion, tried when too late to as­sist her.

At five o'clock, as dark­ness came on, the fir­ing rapid­ly de­creased, and the op­pos­ing squadrons be­gan to sep­arate. Some of the Chi­nese ves­sels were out of sight in the gloom to the south­ward, and the Japanese slow­ly drew off sea­ward. We thought it now high time to re­gain the _Columbia_, and took to our boat, dis­cussing the fight and spec­ulat­ing on the prob­able re­new­al of it. We felt lit­tle sur­prise that the Chi­nese should have had the worst of it, for we had had good rea­son to sus­pect that their fleet had great­ly fall­en off from the state of un­ques­tion­able ef­fi­cien­cy to which En­glish tu­ition had brought it. Whilst ashore in Tal­ien­wan I had a con­ver­sa­tion with Mr. Purvis, an En­glish en­gi­neer on board the _Chih-​Yuen_. I asked him what he thought would be the re­sult of an en­counter with an equal Japanese force. He said the Chi­nese would have a good chance if well han­dled, ex­press­ing on that head dis­tinct doubts.

“They are very brave,” said he--and I can an­swer for it that there was no per­cep­ti­ble flinch­ing on their part dur­ing the ac­tion--“and I be­lieve Ting to be a good man, but he is un­der the thumb of Von Han­neck­en”--mean­ing Cap­tain or Ma­jor Von Han­neck­en, a Ger­man _army_ of­fi­cer, one of the for­eign vol­un­teers in the fleet. The sig­nif­icance of the re­mark is ap­par­ent when we con­sid­er the state­ments made to the ef­fect that it was he who was re­al­ly in com­mand on the day of the en­gage­ment, Ad­mi­ral Ting de­fer­ring to his sug­ges­tions. I am in no po­si­tion to af­firm whether this is re­al­ly the truth or not, but if it be in­deed the fact, it can­not be held to be as­ton­ish­ing that dis­as­ter should have over­tak­en a fleet ma­noeu­vred by a _sol­dier_! I rec­ol­lect that Mr. Purvis al­so in­formed me that the boil­ers of two or three of the ves­sels (in­stanc­ing the de­stroyed _Chao-​Yung_) were worn-​out and un­fit for ser­vice. Lax­ity of dis­ci­pline, too, seems to have re­sult­ed in dis­obe­di­ence or dis­re­gard of or­ders. As an in­stance of this, it is al­leged that in­struc­tions tele­graphed from the con­ning-​tow­er of the flag­ship were var­ied or sup­pressed by the of­fi­cer at the tele­graph, and that a sub­se­quent com­par­ison of notes with the en­gi­neer af­ford­ed proof of this.

I was forcibly struck by the com­par­ative­ly unim­por­tant part played in this ac­tion by that “dark horse” of mod­ern naval war­fare, the dread­ed and much-​dis­cussed tor­pe­do. Both squadrons had sev­er­al tor­pe­do-​boats present, though, as I have shown, those on the Chi­nese side did not en­ter the ac­tion un­til it had been pro­ceed­ing more than an hour. The Japanese al­lege that they did not use the tor­pe­do at all dur­ing the ac­tion, and how­ev­er this may be, there is noth­ing to show that the weapon made on ei­ther side a sin­gle ef­fec­tive hit. I drew the im­pres­sion from what I saw, that it would be apt to be in­ef­fec­tu­al as used by one ship against an­oth­er, an an­tag­onist in the evo­lu­tions of the com­bat, as the prospect of hit­ting, un­less the ships were very close to­geth­er, would be small. The spe­cial­ly-​built boat, run­ning close in, and mak­ing sure of the mark, would of course be dan­ger­ous, al­though the storm of shot from the quick-​fir­ing guns ought even in that case to be a tol­er­ably ad­equate pro­tec­tion. The tor­pe­do un­doubt­ed­ly was not giv­en a fair chance at the bat­tle of Yalu, but the re­sult seems to in­di­cate that its ter­rors have been over­rat­ed, that ar­tillery must still be reck­oned the back­bone of naval war­fare. Prob­ably the tor­pe­do will turn out to be most ef­fec­tive in sur­prise at­tacks on ships and fleets at an­chor. The ex­pe­ri­ence of Wei-​hai-​wei seems to point to this.