sino-japanese war of 1894-1895丨japanese newspapers 130 years ago, rusty shells from dingyuan warship
2024-09-22
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the beiyang fleet was once a glorious naval "super group" in asia. recently, a reporter from dragon tv in japan went to kyoto, japan, and found newspapers from 130 years ago, and found some traces left by the qing dynasty fleets such as the dingyuan and zhenyuan in japan. on the 130th anniversary of the sino-japanese war of 1894-1895, we would like to share with you those events and people in history.
the qing government's flagships, dingyuan and zhenyuan, were not something that everyone could own. japan didn't have that much money, but wanted to compete, and couldn't afford a ship as big as dingyuan, so it planned to buy four medium-sized cruisers, which were later reduced to three, named after the three most famous scenic spots in japan, that is, "sanjing ships". but the guns must be larger than those of the qing government. dingyuan ship has a 30.5 cm caliber cannon, and sanjing ship has a 32 cm caliber cannon. matsushima puts the guns in the back half of the ship, facing the stern, and the other two are placed in the front half of the ship, facing the bow. it mainly depends on matsushima and dingyuan and zhenyuan. however, the 32 cm caliber cannon specially made for the qing dynasty is not easy to use, difficult to operate, and prone to malfunction. whether it is weight or capacity, it exceeds the standard. when the barrel turns, the ship itself will also tilt in the same direction, which increases the difficulty of correcting aiming. finally, it was fired, and the recoil was too strong, the hull shook violently, and it was also troublesome to adjust the direction and balance of the ship. it can be said that it takes an hour to fire one shell on average. so in the 4.5-hour naval battle, the 32-cm gun of the sanjing ship fired a total of 12 shells, and the hit rate was zero. in comparison, small-caliber rapid-fire guns are more useful. even when songdao was hit by zhenyuan, it caused a self-explosion, killing 57 people.
the reason why matsushima was decommissioned many years later was also very strange. in 1908, when it was anchored near taiwan, china, its gunpowder magazine exploded, killing 254 people. the eldest son of the highest commander of the japanese army, oyama takeshi, died in this accident. how important oyama takeshi was to japan? there is a saying in japan that "there is oyama on land, togo on the sea, and togo is heihachiro". there were too many accidents of japanese ship ammunition magazines exploding, such as "mikasa", "tsukuba", etc.”, "hanoi", and later it was discovered that they were probably man-made.
in the battle of the yellow sea, the dingyuan and zhenyuan ships had no technical advantage, and their luck was not up to par. the chief of the naval general staff, kabayama sukenori, was annoyed by reporters asking about the battle situation, so he took his staff, staff officers, and a group of civilian personnel on the saikyo maru, which was closer to the battlefield and could hide away. just when the saikyo maru was hit and the crew was busy putting out the fire, an accident happened. the qing government's fukuryu came over to make up for the fire, but there was no one on the saikyo maru battery, as they were all fighting the fire. the civilian personnel brought by kabayama rushed to the battery to make trouble, but none of them hit the target. unfortunately, the fukuryu ship did not seize the opportunity. the torpedo brushed past the bottom of the saikyo maru. if it had hit, the history of the sino-japanese war would have been rewritten, after all, the chief of the naval general staff, kabayama, was on the ship.
we heard that the susa shrine in wakayama prefecture had the dingyuan warship shells we were looking for, so we drove there. the susa shrine was on a small hill and was under renovation, so we only met one guest.
japanese documents show that the commander of the japanese fleet, ito yuheng, once persuaded ding ruchang to surrender, and even proposed that he could flee to japan and return to serve the country when the corrupt qing government was rebuilt. but ding ruchang chose to die to apologize for his crime and sacrifice his life for his country, using his life to exchange for the safety of his subordinates. at 8 a.m. on february 13, 1895, the news that admiral ding ruchang, captain liu buchan of the dingyuan ship, and captain zhang wenxuan of the liugong island army captain committed suicide reached the japanese headquarters. as a result, the japanese army occupied weihaiwei and liugong island fell. ding ruchang visited japan twice in 1886 and 1891, so the enemies in the naval battle were also friends who cherished each other. ito yuheng sent the transport ship "kangji" to send ding ruchang on his last journey.
in addition, katsu kaishu, known as the father of the japanese navy, was one of the few politicians in japanese politics who opposed the sino-japanese war. he regarded ding ruchang as an overseas confidant and invited him to his home for dinner. after learning of ding ruchang's death, he wrote a chinese poem to pay tribute to him. katsu kaishu said that even if japan won, what would happen? outsiders did not understand china's strength. japan should cooperate with china in the fields of industry and commerce, railways, etc. before europe and the united states heard about it. today, a hundred years later, as he said, sino-japanese economic cooperation is becoming more and more in-depth, but true friendly relations have not yet been put on the right track. it remains to be tested to abide by the principles established in the four political documents between china and japan and to implement the political consensus of "being partners and not posing a threat to each other".
kankan news reporter: song kankan
editor: song kankan
videographer: li xiujie
editor: lou jia
