The Japanese fleet hauled off seaward, expecting to renew the action in the morning and fearing to follow too closely, perhaps on account of torpedoes, while their speed was necessarily slow, as it had to be regulated by that of their own damaged vessels.
When day dawned not a sign of the Chinese fleet was to be seen. They had made the best of their way to the secure refuge of the naval arsenals and docks at Port Arthur and Wei-hai-wei. Admiral Ito then steamed toward Talu Island, where, aground and abandoned by her officers and crew, they discovered the Yang-Wei. She was at once destroyed by a torpedo, which, it is interesting to remark, was the only one used on the Japanese side during the whole of the operation.
The Japanese fleet then repaired to the rendezvous off the mouth of the Ta-Tong River, from whence the Akagi, Matsushima, Hi-Yei, and Saikio were sent home for repairs, Admiral Ito’s flag being on board the Hashidate, where it had been transferred while the action was in progress.
On September 23d the Japanese fleet, reconnoitring the neighborhood of Port Arthur, discovered the Chinese cruiser Kuang-Ki on shore in Talien-Wan Bay, and, as the Japanese drew near, they saw the Chinese abandon and blow her to pieces.
This was the fifth war-ship lost by the Chinese since the beginning of the battle of the Yalu. Though some were much damaged, not a Japanese vessel was lost. Twelve Japanese officers and 98 men were killed, and 13 officers and 170 men were wounded. The Chinese loss, including those who were drowned, was estimated at 2000; but the exact number will probably never be known. From the accounts of eye-witnesses the sea was full of drowning Chinamen at the time the three vessels were sunk during the battle, and few could have been saved, as the severest fighting was going on and the Chinese vessels, as we have said above, had no boats.
The condition of the Chinese fleet, when it had with difficulty reached Port Arthur under cover of night, was most deplorable. The ironclad Ting-Yuen had more than 200 holes in her made by projectiles, but her armored belt was not seriously damaged, the heaviest dents not being much more than a few inches deep. Her sister ship, the Chen-Yuen, was less frequently struck; but the damage she sustained was more important. She almost sunk before she could be secured at her safe anchorage, being several feet by the head. According to the Chinese accounts, it was the rapid-fire guns of comparatively small calibre which inflicted such serious injury.
The captain of one of our American war-ships on the Asiatic station, in describing a visit to the Japanese field-hospital, near Nagasaki, says: “There I got a fair conception of the killing and wounding qualities of the small-bore rifle that all Europe is adopting. The Japanese infantry arm is the Murata, the invention of General Murata, now Chief of Ordnance of Japan. The calibre of the gun is .315, and the bullet weighs 235 grains. I saw a Chinese officer who had been struck in the knee-joint by one of these bullets, fired at a distance of about 1000 yards. The thin steel envelope of the bullet had broken, and the joint was simply a mass of finely comminuted bone splinters. The knee was perfectly soft, without a bone in it unbroken an inch long. Of course, the leg had to be amputated.
“The hospital was the admiration of the French and English surgeons as well as our own. The medical staff were all Japanese who had graduated in medicine and surgery either in America or England, then taken a post-graduate surgical course in clinics at the Paris and Berlin hospitals. They had the best modern instruments and systems, the newest antiseptics—everything a hospital on modern lines should have. And all this is the work of a generation. Truly, the Japanese is a wonderful man.
“I saw something, too, of the effect of the modern shell fire on the cruiser of the period at the battle of the Yalu River’s mouth. The Akagi was hit several times by eight-inch shells of the Vavasour-Palliser pattern. One of these, fired from the Chinese cruiser Chin-Yuen, tore off nearly one-half the iron and steel port-quarter of the Akagi, killed Captain Sakamato, her commander, and killed and wounded a dozen more officers and men. A second shell, from a 200-pounder, made a hole eight feet in diameter in the side of the Akitsu. Had the service of the Chinese great guns been equal to that of the Japanese, the Akagi, the Hashidate, and Matsushima must have been sunk. The Japanese fire was terribly accurate and deadly. The Chinese ship Chen-Yuen was hit nearly one hundred times. Nothing was left above water of her; of her crew, 460 strong, over 350 were killed or died of wounds. All this was from the fire of six-inch and eight-inch rifles, at a distance from 1000 to 1600 yards. The Chinese had the heavier ships at Yalu, but the Japanese out-manœuvred them and out-fought them. Man for man, and ship for ship, my professional opinion is that the Japanese commanders are equal to any in Europe. They have courage, a high professional knowledge, and a fierce fighting spirit that nothing daunts.”
The paper from which this report is taken adds that the American commanders attribute much of Japan’s success to the fact that so many of her naval officers were educated at the Naval Academy at Annapolis.