JAPANESE FLEET BOMBARDING WEI-HAI-WEI
DURING THE WAR.
Chinese losses were never stated, but they are believed to have been much less than was expected. The entire crews of the Lai Yuen and Wei Yuen were lost, and most of those in the Ching Yuen.
Wei-hai-wei was won chiefly through sheer human inability to stand the strain of the everlasting bombardment and torpedo menace. Guns accomplished practically nothing directly towards it, and even the torpedo per se was not decisive. The principal factor was Admiral Ito’s persistent and unremitting attack.
With Wei-hai-wei the war was practically over. The only remaining incident of note was an attack on Formosa, in which, if all accounts are true, the Japanese did not shine very greatly, or else there are problems in war which in peace cannot be conceived. It is stated that the Japanese began to bombard at 8 a.m. The Chinese had loaded all guns; they left a few men to fire them, and then retired. Reply ceased about 8.30, but the Japanese did not, it is said, discover it till about 2 p.m. An explanation, of course, is that they did not trust the silence of the forts—which is reasonable enough. That they did not notice it is the accusation of their critics.
VIII
AFTER THE WAR WITH CHINA
Save for a few torpedo boats lost, the war left the Japanese fleet unimpaired; the ships damaged at Yalu were in trim again when peace was declared. On the other hand, beyond the Chin Yen, Japan gained little in the ships she took. The Tche Yuen is of very small fighting value, the Ping Yuen of none, and none of the gunboats are of any utility. Of the captured torpedo boats, one was superior to any Japanese boat; the rest, from long neglect, were in a bad way.
Towards the end of the war the Esmeralda (now Idzumi), already described, passed from the Chilian to the Japanese Navy, and at its close the Tatsuta, detained en route, proceeded on her way.
Just before war broke out—in May, 1894—the Akaski, a sister to the Suma, had been laid down at Yokosuka; the two battleships Fuji and Yashima, of an improved Royal Sovereign type, were progressing in England, the former at the Thames Ironworks, the latter at Elswick.
