Early next morning the smoke of the Japanese, burning Takashima coal, was observed on the horizon.
It has never been clearly demonstrated whether the meeting was accidental or designed. The balance of evidence, to my mind, is in favour of the theory that Admiral Ito calculated that the Chinese would, after Ping Yang, send ships to the mouth of the Yalu, conveying troops. That certainly was Admiral Ito’s theory.
The Chinese lay with banked fires. On seeing the Japanese smoke, they got up anchor, and adopted the prearranged battle-formation—line abreast en échelon, the centre strong, the wings weak. Line abreast was the best formation for the Chinese fleet, which was best in bow fire, but the weak ends of the wings were a serious error. In addition, the Yang Wei and Tcho Yong were slow at getting up anchor.
The Japanese came along in line ahead, the flying squadron leading the main astern of it.
The rival squadrons were as follows:—
Japan: 8 cruisers, 1 old battleship, 1 old “belted cruiser,” 1 gunboat, and 1 armed liner.
China: 4 battleships, 3 cruisers, 3 gunboats, with (coming from the Yalu) 1 battleship, 1 gunboat, and 2 torpedo boats.
The Japanese fleet fought by signals throughout; the Chinese fought without signals, on a prearranged plan. In materiel, so far as ships went, the fleets were about on a par in fighting value. Actually, the Japanese were superior—in part from the possession of Q.F. guns, in part because the Chinese were very badly supplied with shell. Had they had a good supply of shell, there is little question but that, with their preponderance of large calibre guns, they would have destroyed the Japanese fleet, especially as Admiral Ito made a considerable error at the outset.
