When is the battle with Mahai?

The naval battle against Ma (1May 27-28, 905), also known as the Sea of Japan, was a decisive battle between Japan and Russia in the waters near Ma Haixia in the Russian-Japanese War of 1905, for the sea control right in the Far East.

War background

After the Russo-Japanese War broke out, Russia was defeated on both land and sea battlefields, and its Pacific fleet was severely damaged by the Japanese joint fleet under the command of Admiral Tougou Heihachirou, and was blocked in Lushun Port. In order to rescue the Lushunkou crisis, reverse Russia's unfavorable situation in the Far East, and regain the sea power, Tsar Nicholas II ordered the Russian Admiralty to immediately transfer ships from the Baltic Fleet and the Black Sea Fleet, including seven battleships, six cruisers, nine destroyers and some auxiliary ships, to form the second sub-fleet of the Pacific Ocean. On September 26, 2004, Lieutenant General Luo Ride. Since then, the czar government has dispatched the Third Pacific Fleet led by Major General Nie Bao Jia Tofu to reinforce the Far East. * * * There are 18 warships and auxiliary ships, leaving the Baltic port for the Far East on February 1905. On May 9, 2005, the two armies joined forces in Feng Wan Bay, and on May 4 1905, they went north together.

The Russian navy ranked third in the world naval rankings at that time, and Russia sent an incomparably powerful fleet to the Far East for support. However, after the Russian fleet was assembled in a short time, it had to face the problems that the officers and men of the new warships were unfamiliar with the equipment on the new warships, and it was difficult for the new and old warships to coordinate their actions. Moreover, from the Baltic Sea to the Far East, the Russian fleet has to sail for more than 220 days through the North Sea, the Atlantic Ocean, the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, with a journey of 18000 nautical miles (almost equivalent to circling the earth). Such a long voyage has caused great harm to ships and personnel, and the morale of the whole fleet is low and its combat capability is seriously reduced. Lenin once described this fleet as "as huge as the whole Russian Empire, as heavy, absurd, powerless and grotesque". Another problem that can't be ignored is that there is no suitable coal port in the whole voyage, so we have to load coal everywhere on the warship. As a result, the already crowded warships became more crowded, the speed slowed down, the living conditions of sailors deteriorated sharply, and many officers and men were infected with epidemic tropical diseases and died. In addition, the successive victories of the Japanese army made Russian officers and men exaggerate the capabilities of the Japanese army, thinking that the influence of the Japanese navy has extended to the North Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Rumors about Japanese mines, torpedo boats and submarines were everywhere, which aggravated the Russian army's fear and opened fire on civilian ships in Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and Britain all the way. In contrast, after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and the Battle of Lushun, the morale of the Japanese joint fleet was extremely strong, and most of the officers and men had combat experience and were well trained. Moreover, taking advantage of the eastward movement of the Russian fleet, Japan carried out maintenance on warships and frequent live-fire shooting training for soldiers, which almost destroyed half of the domestic artillery reserves and made full preparations for the upcoming Russian Second Pacific Fleet. Japan also has obvious advantages in terms of total tonnage, speed, firing rate and advanced degree of warships.

In terms of strategic decision-making, General Tougou Heihachirou, commander of the Japanese Joint Fleet, concluded that the Russian fleet would go directly to Vladivostok through Ma Haixia. So1On May 20, 905, Dongxiang ordered the main force of the Japanese joint fleet to hide in the waters near Ma Haixia, waiting for the arrival of the Russian fleet; At the same time, mines were laid on various waterways that the Russian fleet might pass through, and Japanese cruisers and gunboats patrolled the checkpoints. Considering the problems of energy supply and soldiers' fatigue, Rozhdestvensky wanted to arrive in Vladivostok as soon as possible to have a rest, and then looked for opportunities to compete with the main Japanese fleet, so he chose the shortcut of Ma Haixia route, which was exactly what the Japanese army hoped. On May 25th, the Russian fleet set out from near Taiwan Province Province, arrived near Shanghai on 26th, entered in the early morning of 27th, entered the encirclement of the Japanese fleet, and a naval battle broke out with Ma.

War process

At 4: 45 a.m. on May 27th, the Japanese joint fleet reconnaissance ship discovered the Russian fleet in the western waters of Kyushu. At 5: 05 in the morning, Dongxiang ordered the whole fleet to attack. 1 hour later, the Japanese fleet began to follow the Russian fleet, and at 1 1 in the early morning, the two sides had exploratory intercourse. 1 1: 30, the commander of the Russian fleet, rozhdestvensky, ordered to stop shooting, change the formation to facilitate the battle, and ordered the first and second detachments to accelerate to 1 1 and move in front of another column. Because he didn't order another column to slow down at the same time, the formation of the whole Russian fleet was in chaos. /kloc-around 0/3: 40, the main list of the Japanese fleet was discharged in the right front in an attempt to cut off the route of the Russian fleet. Before the war, Dongxiang sent a signal to the whole fleet: "The emperor is useless. You need to work hard in this battle. " Rozhdestvensky once again ordered the formation of a battle formation, but it was too late, and the Japanese ship cut off the route of the Russian fleet.

14: 08, in order to seize the favorable attack position, Dongxiang resolutely ordered the enemy to make a 180 turn, which is the famous "U" turn. Taking this favorable opportunity, the Russian fleet completely ignored the effective range of various artillery pieces and fired first from a distance of 10,000 meters. Within a few minutes, three Japanese warships were seriously injured and 1 lost their combat capability. Although the Japanese fleet paid a high price, it finally completed the "U" turn, achieved parallel progress with the Russian fleet, and used its upper speed advantage to force the Russian fleet to deviate from its original course. When the Japanese fleet approached 6500 meters away from the Russian ship, under the command of Dongxiang, all the guns of the Japanese ship fired at the Russian ship at the same time, and the flagship "Duke suvorov" of the Russian fleet was intensively shot by the Japanese artillery. 14: 20, the rudder was damaged, the warship was out of control, and the fleet commander rozhdestvensky was seriously injured. The Duke of suvorov, whose superstructure was completely destroyed, was forced to withdraw from the sea front. At the same time, the flagship "Oslyabia" of Russia's second detachment was seriously damaged. Later, a big hole was opened in the waterline of its bow, seawater poured in and the bow sank, about 15: 30. Since then, the battleships "Alexander III" and "Borodino" that lost their unified command have also been hit by Japanese artillery fire and ignited a fire. While the battleships are fighting, the cruisers of both sides are also engaged in fierce confrontation. The crossfire between cruisers began at around 14: 45, mainly between the first cruiser detachment of Russian army and the third and fourth detachments of Japanese army. During the battle, three Japanese cruisers were seriously injured and several Russian auxiliary ships caught fire. By about 16, the defeat of the Russian fleet has been decided. One of the two battleships sank, one lost its function and most of the rest were damaged. The navigation route to Vladivostok was also blocked, and Japanese ships remained basically in good condition during the war. 16: 45, Japan's fifth and sixth detachments went into battle and launched an attack on Russian cruisers. Soon, the Svitlana was sunk, and another old cruiser, Donskoi, bravely fought against the siege of six Japanese cruisers, injuring two of them (Bo Bo and Otoha), and was sunk by the crew on the 29th to avoid being captured. Oleg, Aphrodite, Pearl, two destroyers and three quartermaster ships failed to break through the north and fled south to the Philippines. In the afternoon 19, the battered battleship Alexander III sank, killing all the crew. 10 minutes later, Borodino ammunition depot was hit by Fuji, the Japanese army, which blew up the ammunition depot and caused the boiler to explode, then sank, and only one person survived. The flagship "Duke of suvorov" floating on the sea was attacked by a Japanese destroyer at 19: 20 and eventually sank. At this point, the fighting during the day is over.

On the evening of 27th 19: 30 to 5: 00 the next morning, the Japanese side dispatched 37 torpedo boats and 2 1 destroyers to torpedo the remaining Russian fleet. "Sisoi-Williki", "Admiral Nasimov" and "navarin" were successively sunk by torpedoes. When the bow of the old armored cruiser Monomark was destroyed by a torpedo, it stubbornly sank the Japanese torpedo boat that fired the torpedo at it, and was sunk by the crew at 5 am due to serious injuries. At the same time, Dongxiang quietly led the Japanese main fleet to ambush near Ulleungdo on the east coast of North Korea overnight, waiting for the Russian fleet to continue to March to Vladivostok. On the morning of May 28th, when the remnants of the Russian fleet under the command of Major General Nibogadov sailed 60 nautical miles south of Ulleungdo, they were surrounded by a Japanese fleet of 28 warships waiting here. At 9 o'clock in the morning, the Japanese "Li San" issued a signal, and the battleships opened fire together, and the Russian ships returned fire. 10: 45, at the suggestion of smirnoff, the captain of the destroyer Nikolai I, Nebogadov tearfully ordered the XGE flag stipulated by international law to be raised: "We surrender!" 10: 53, Nicholas I, Admiral Aprasin, Admiral Shiqinya Wen and the Eagle surrendered. At about 13 in the afternoon, Nipogadov signed the surrender letter on Dongxiang flagship "Shandali". On the afternoon of the same day 15, the destroyer "Reckless" carrying the fleet commander Rhodes Tevinsky was overtaken by the Japanese destroyer "Jinglang" and surrendered to the Japanese side. But the rest of the ships were either sunk after resistance or managed to escape. After seeing the Japanese surrender signal, the Russian officers and men aboard Admiral ushakov resolutely responded with artillery fire. Finally, in order to prevent the warship named after the famous Russian admiral from falling into the enemy, the captain ordered it to sink itself. On the way to Vladivostok, the cruiser Emerald hit the rocks and was sunk by the crew. The rest of the ships fled to neutral ports such as Shanghai, Manila and Madagascar, and finally only the cruiser Diamond and two other destroyers fled back to Vladivostok. At this point, the naval battle against Ma ended.

War results and evaluation

The naval battle against Malaysia was the first great naval battle in the 20th century, and it was also the most disastrous naval battle in the history of naval battles. Japan won an unprecedented victory. Russia's Baltic Fleet and Pacific Fleet were almost completely annihilated and fell from the position of a naval power overnight. Including auxiliary ships, Russian warships lost more than 200,000 tons. Of the 38 warships, only 3 sailed to Vladivostok, the remaining 2 1 was sunk, 9 were captured, 4,830 Russian naval officers and soldiers were killed, 59 17 were captured, and another 1862 were detained in neutral countries. Japan, which won this victory, only paid a small price for the sinking of three torpedo boats and the death of 1 17 officers and men.

From a military point of view, the naval battle against Malaysia is the biggest naval battle since the beginning of the steam steel era, which has had a far-reaching and lasting impact on the development of naval science in later generations. The display of the great power of giant naval guns in naval battles directly gave birth to the battleship "Fearless" and battle cruiser, which pushed the ship's giant gun doctrine to the peak; The application of Japanese naval tactics-"T" tactics laid the basic operational form of modern naval warfare ("T" array).

Judging from the international situation, the naval battle against Malaysia directly affected the fate of Russia and Japan. For Russia, the defeat of the naval battle against Ma made it lose its third position in the naval world, and exposed the decay and reaction of its Russian autocratic system, which triggered the Russian revolution of 1905; For Japan, this war paved the way for the conclusion of the Portsmouth Peace Treaty three months later. Since then, Japan has entered the ranks of the world's naval powers and become the leading country in the Far East. At the same time, the war stimulated the development of Japanese economy, accelerated the arrival of the second industrial revolution centered on heavy industry, promoted the rapid formation and development of Japanese monopoly capital and chaebol, and finally promoted Japanese militarism.