It involved ships from the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Chinese Beiyang Fleet. The battle is also known by
a variety of names: Battle of Haiyang Island, Battle of Dadonggou, Battle of the Yellow Sea and Battle of Yalu,
after the geographic location of the battle, which was in the Yellow Sea off of the mouth of the Yalu River and
not in the river itself. There is also no agreement among contemporary sources on the exact numbers and
composition of each fleet.
Whole story of the battle in Chinese
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoP0rcOsSHw
The Chinese ships, under the command of Admiral Ting, were
generally slower and smaller than the Japanese ships. However,
China had 2 huge battleships, built in Germany, which were bigger
than anything in the Japanese fleet.
The Japanese commander, Admiral Togo, had paid a courtesy call on the Chinese fleet some years earlier. He was not impressed by it. He thought that the Chinese discipline was poor,
and on the battleship he was visiting, he noticed that the guns were dirty and also had washing hanging over them.
the largest naval engagement of the First Sino-Japanese
War, and took place on September 17, 1894, the day after
the Japanese victory at the land Battle of Pyongyang.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T-w7_ZWTQJc
At 12:03 the Japanese battle flag was raised. This was a signal to prepare for firing- but not actually to begin firing yet
Both fleets were still out of range of each other but approaching each other fast
It was a matter of nerves on each side - not to waste ammunition by firing too soon, but not to get caught by firing too late
At 12:45 Admiral Ting gave the order to fire, even though the Japanese fleet was still about 6 kilometres away
The Japanese saw the flame and smoke as the Chinese shells headed towards them
Now, all the Chinese ships began firing, and they all fired too early.
Their shells went into the water but the Japanese fleet did not respond. The 2 fleets
were still approaching each other and the Japanese waited till the Chinese ships were in
range before firing.
Not only was it the first major battle between vessels of modern design and hence very
instructive to the major powers of the time but the startling fact that the commander of one
of the principal Chinese warships was that
American born sf Annapolis educated Philo Norton McGriffin also caught the attention and
interest of America in the last years of the 19th century
People were killing and hurting each other
But once the Japanese battleships began firing, they did great damage. The battle lasted 5 hours, until it became
dark. During the battle,about 90 Japanese were killed and around 200 wounded. No Japanese ships were sunk.
Chinese lost about 700 dead and 300 wounded. Most of the Chinese deaths were due to drowning. Five of the 12
Chinese ships were sunk.