After this affair the Chinese Admiral Ting, a former cavalry officer but with some naval experience, favored taking the offensive, since control of the sea by China would at once decide the war. But the Chinese Foreign Council gave him orders not to cruise east of a line from Shantung to the mouth of the Yalu. Reverses on land soon forced him to give all his time to troop transportation, and this occupied both navies throughout the summer.
On September 16, the day before the Battle of the Yalu, the Chinese battleships escorted transports with 5000 troops to the mouth of the Yalu, and on the following morning they were anchored quietly outside the river. "For weeks," writes an American naval officer who was in command of one of the Chinese battleships, "we had anticipated an engagement, and had had daily exercise at general quarters, etc., and little remained to be done.... The fleet went into action as well prepared as it was humanly possible for it to be with the same officers and men, handicapped as they were by official corruption and treachery ashore."[1] As the midday meal was in preparation, columns of black smoke appeared to southwestward. The squadron at once weighed anchor, cleared for action, and put on forced draft, while "dark-skinned men, with queues tightly coiled around their heads, and with arms bare to the elbow, clustered along the decks in groups at the guns, waiting to kill or be killed." Out of the smoke soon emerged 12 enemy cruisers which, with information of the Chinese movements, had entered the Gulf intent on battle.
[Footnote 1: Commander P. N. McGiffin, THE BATTLE OF THE YALU, _Century Magazine_, August, 1895, pp. 585-604.]
The forces about to engage included the best ships of both nations. There were 12 on each side, excluding 4 Chinese torpedo boats, and 10 actually in each battle line. The main strength of the Chinese was concentrated in two second-class battleships, the _Ting-yuen_ and the _Chen-yuen_, Stettin-built in 1882, each of 7430 tons, with 14-inch armor over half its length, four 12-inch Krupp guns in two barbettes, and 6-inch rifles at bow and stern. The two barbettes were _en echelon_ (the starboard just ahead of the port), in such a way that while all four guns could fire dead ahead only two could bear on the port quarter or the starboard bow. These ships were designed for fighting head-on; and hence to use them to best advantage Admiral Ting formed his squadron in line abreast, with the _Ting-yuen_ and _Chen-yuen_ in the center. The rest of the line were a "scratch lot" of much smaller vessels--two armored cruisers (_Lai-yuen_ and _King-yuen_) with 8 to 9-inch armored belts; three protected cruisers (_Tsi-yuen, Chi-yuen_, and _Kwang-ping_) with 2 to 4-inch armored decks; on the left flank the old corvette _Kwang-chia_; and opposite her two other "lame ducks" of only 1300 tons, the _Chao-yung_ and _Yang-wei_. Ting had properly strengthened his center, but had left his flanks fatally weak. On board the flagship _Ting-yuen_ was Major von Hannekin, China's military adviser, and an ex-petty officer of the British navy named Nichols. Philo N. McGiffin, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, commanded the _Chen-yuen_.