Chapter Thirty-One: Two Sets of White Bone Spirits
In May 1896, after a year's interval, the Japanese government finally found itself free to turn its attention to the matter again. The second batch of troops began to assemble in Ryukyu and the number of ships entering and leaving Naha Port suddenly increased, which was discovered by patrol submarines that had been closely monitoring Japanese movements, thus opening the curtain on a second counter-landing operation.
This time the Japanese were much more cautious, not only dispatching a fleet led by the cruiser "Hashidate", with the cruisers "Yoshino", "Akitsushima" and "Chiyoda" as its main force, accompanied by 6 torpedo boats, but also sending more than 30 transport ships carrying part of the Osaka 4th Division, totaling over 11,000 people, led by the second Governor-General of Taiwan, Katsura Tarō, to arrive in Ryukyu.
However, with the lesson from last time, Kaito did not rush to Taiwan in a hurry, but instead dispatched several fast destroyers to patrol the route between Ryukyu and Taiwan, probing Taiwan's reaction.
After several days of reconnaissance, Kitamura Tarō set out from Naha on the evening of May 11, leading the landing fleet at a speed of 13 knots, heading straight for northeastern Taiwan.
Liu Bei's side was much more stable than last time, and it is said that the more battles are fought, the more experience is gained. This saying has some truth to it. With the ambush battle as a foundation last time, this time the deployment of troops was much smoother.
This time's ambush plan is basically the same as last time, still dispatched by the 1st and 2nd submarine fleets with 30 submarines going east to lie in wait north of Tonoshima Island, and another 50 torpedo boats were sent to lie in wait south of Nii-jima. The only difference from the previous ambush plan is that this time Taiwan has a lot more submarines and torpedo boats, and on the west side of the first ambush circle, 100 nautical miles away, there are also 11 submarines set up as the second ambush circle.
However, the Japanese fleet did not move together this time. Kaito Taro let "Yoshino", "Akitsushima" and "Chiyoda" three fast cruisers lead 4 torpedo boats as the vanguard, setting off first. He himself boarded the cruiser "Hashidate" with 2 torpedo boats and more than 30 troop ships following behind for 50 nautical miles.
The Japanese fleet's change of formation was soon discovered by the Taiwanese submarine following the Japanese fleet, and a telegram informed the participating ships and the Taiwan staff. After Liu Fei received the telegram, he didn't take it seriously. The navy at that time did not have long-range communication means, and without the loudspeaker on the fishing boat, they couldn't even study electronic tubes. Fifty nautical miles away, at least a three-hour journey, by the time the follow-up fleet arrived, the ambush battle had already been fought, and it's estimated that they wouldn't even be able to retrieve the corpses.
To be on the safe side, Liu Fei still made a suggestion to the ships in the first ambush circle, that is, when the torpedo boat squadron attacked the vanguard fleet, not all of them should be deployed, leaving some torpedoes to attack the main force behind. Because a torpedo boat only has 4 torpedoes, after two salvoes, it will be gone.
At 8:00 on May 12, the 7 ships of Japan's vanguard fleet entered the ambush circle. The weather conditions that day were very good, with a small wind force and no high waves, and the visibility was not bad. The 7 ships formed a 3-column formation, advancing at a speed of 13 knots. In the middle were "Yoshino" and 2 torpedo boats, to the north were "Akitsushima" and 1 torpedo boat, and to the south were "Chiyoda" and 1 torpedo boat.
The first to launch an attack was still the commander of the 1st Submarine Squadron, Wu Mingxue's 005 submarine, with the target being the flagship "Chiyoda" of the southern column. However, this time due to good weather and high visibility, the torpedo was discovered by a highly vigilant Japanese lookout shortly after it was launched. As the alarm sounded, several other Japanese warships also began to speed up.
However, the discovery was made that at a speed of 35 knots, torpedoes could travel over 1,000 meters in one minute. When launched from 800 meters away, they would have already covered more than half the distance by the time they were spotted, leaving only 300-odd meters, or about 20 seconds. At the time, warships were still powered by steam engines, and increasing speed required burning more coal to raise boiler pressure. This process took several minutes, which was a matter of life and death.
Despite the efforts of the cruiser "Chiyoda" to turn and avoid, it was still hit by a torpedo in the rear of the ship. With the explosion, more than 2,400 tons of the hull were almost overturned by water pressure, and the entire rear half below the waterline was blown out, like a cake with a big bite taken out of it. Tons of seawater rushed into the bottom of the ship unimpeded, and within minutes, the bow rose out of the water and pointed upwards.
At this time, the sea surface was already numerous white lines, and the submarines that launched the attack also fired torpedoes one after another. The several Japanese warships in the encirclement circle were hit one after another, either catching fire or breaking apart and sinking.
The northernmost "Akitsushima" was farthest from the submarine and did not receive a torpedo attack from the south, only a few torpedoes coming from directly ahead and port were narrowly avoided. The Akitsushima was a 3,150-ton new-type cruiser and also the fastest ship in the Japanese fleet. After avoiding the first wave of torpedo attacks, the ship immediately turned northeast and retreated at full speed while firing towards the direction of the incoming torpedoes.
"The big yellow fish"-class submarine, with a top speed of only 16 knots, was powerless against the accelerating "Akitsushima". Although torpedoes could be fired at a distance of 2000 meters, the probability of hitting such a distant and high-speed target maneuvering irregularly was almost zero.
The captain of the Akitsushima, Uemura Kanzo, stood pale-faced on the command tower, looking at the chaotic sea behind him, his whole body covered in cold sweat. This Japanese naval officer, who graduated from the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy and rose from sailor to lieutenant commander, participating in all the naval battles of the First Sino-Japanese War, felt fear and helplessness for the first time. How can you fight a battle without an enemy? Even with superior gunnery skills, you need something to aim at. But the enemy was underwater, rendering the cannons useless. Suppressing his feelings of guilt towards his comrades and self-reproach for fleeing in the face of battle, Captain Uemura ordered a retreat. He knew very well that the news that the enemy was a submarine had to be sent back to the rear fleet, otherwise they would face a massacre, just like the landing ships last time, which were not sunk by any storm, but were blown up one after another.
At the moment when Captain Ueda's heart was racing like an arrow, a warning came from the lookout tower. The enemy had been spotted again in the left front direction. There was no need to use binoculars anymore. With his naked eye, Ueda could see more than ten black dots several thousand meters away in the left front direction, seemingly riding on white waves, rushing towards him at an incomprehensible high speed.
"Fire the cannon to intercept, turn right full rudder, go full speed!" Uemura shouted. He knew in his heart that the situation was grim, the approaching ship's speed was much faster than his own, and he hoped that the cannon fire would not sink him before the opponent's attack, but he vaguely felt that the fast-approaching small boat might not engage in a gun battle with him, they were likely to use those high-speed torpedoes.
Captain Uwano's intuition was correct, 15 "Tachibana"-class torpedo boats emerged from the port bow of Akitsushima in a fan-shaped formation, launching their torpedoes at a distance of 1000 meters and splitting into two directions before turning away. The 30 tracks of torpedoes coming from various angles left everyone's eyes spinning, and even though they were already running at full speed, avoiding the concentrated attack of 30 torpedoes traveling at 35 knots with a ship speed of 26 knots was impossible without divine intervention. Unfortunately, today was the day the god was absent from work due to personal matters.
As the "Aki" cruiser was hit by four torpedoes, the first stage of the battle ended, with a total duration of 31 minutes. The remaining task is to follow the convention, use torpedo boats to search for survivors and receive telegrams from submarines tracking Japanese subsequent fleets, and retreat before the arrival of subsequent fleets.
Four hours later, the cruiser "Hashidate" led a large group of slow-moving troopships and auxiliary vessels into the ambush area. Due to ocean currents, some floating debris and oil pollution were discovered by the advance torpedo boats, which were salvaged and confirmed to be clothing from Japanese sailors. This news shocked Commander Kuriyama Tarō, who was certain that his advance fleet had been attacked. He was torn between rushing to their rescue or ordering the troopships to return to Naha first. Just as Kuriyama was hesitating, white trails of smoke appeared on the horizon.
Liu Yi confirmed that the ambush was a complete victory and ordered again to only commend and reward within the participating troops, blocking the news of the sea battle, as if nothing had happened. Having experienced two victories in ambushes, Liu Yi also gained confidence in his submarines and torpedoes as defensive weapons, which were still quite effective in this era. The Japanese navy was also a veteran of many battles, although it might be weaker than the British home fleet, but in Asia, it was already the strongest. Having defeated them, Liu Yi couldn't think of any other country's navy that could threaten Taiwan. What about the British and French Far Eastern fleets? Even if they combined forces, they would only be at the level of the Japanese fleet, let alone that he didn't plan to provoke them.
