Martyr Ding Ruchang

Ding Ruchang (1836.11.18 - 1895.2.12) was originally named Xian Da, the word Yuting, also known as Yuting, the second chapter. Originally from Fengyang County, Anhui Province, he was originally an old-fashioned army officer at the end of the Qing Dynasty. He was appointed as the admiral of the Beiyang Navy by Li Hongzhang. In the Sino-Japanese War, he showed heroism on the battlefield. Under the surrendering policy of Li Hongzhang's "protecting ships to avoid war" and surrounded by British, German and other foreign advisers around him, the Beiyang Navy under his command was forced to enter Weihai Bay, not allowed to go to war, and allowed the Japanese to land from Rongcheng Mountain and occupy all the batteries on both sides of Weihaiwei, leaving himself in a desperate situation. As a last resort, he committed suicide and died.

At that time, while commanding the onslaught of the Beiyang Fleet, the commander of the Japanese Joint Fleet wrote to Ding Ruchang, urging him to lead the fleet to surrender. Ding Ruchang resolutely refused the enemy's persuasion and handed over the letter of persuasion to Li Hongzhang to express his determination to resist the enemy.

In order to crush the enemy's plot to persuade him to surrender, he was determined to risk his life to break through. On the night of February 6, 1895, in order to give full play to the role of the Beiyang Fleet torpedo boats and respond to the sneak attack of the enemy torpedo boats, Ding Ruchang ordered the first thunder boat from the left to lead Wang Ping to lead the Beiyang Fleet torpedo boats to attack the enemy ships. However, Wang Ping was afraid of death and suddenly led his boat to escape from the Xikou while the artillery battle between the two sides was fierce. After the Japanese ships discovered it, they immediately pursued it. As a result, some of the torpedo boats of the Beiyang Fleet were destroyed, some were captured, and all were destroyed.

As the situation became increasingly critical, the Japanese siege became more fierce. A small number of shameless generals who were greedy for death and lost their national integrity secretly colluded with the foreign soldiers Maglu and Haowei to prepare to surrender. They colluded and incited some soldiers and water warriors to kidnap Zhang Wenxuan, the commander of the guard army, onto the Zhenyuan ship, threatening Ding Ruchang to surrender. Ding Ruchang would rather die than surrender, and on February 10 ordered all ships to risk their lives to break through, or sink or destroy artillery. However, except for the Dingyuan ship Guan Dai (captain) who ordered the sinking of the ship and committed suicide that night, the other generals were afraid of death, refused to listen to the order, and even prepared to surrender with the ship. On February 11, the Japanese army launched an amphibious attack on the Weihaiwei and Beiyang Fleet. The artillery fire became more fierce. The Qing army fought hard day and night, exhausted and was about to run out of ammunition. Ding Ruchang finally sadly ordered the bombing of the ship and the sinking of the ship, but was opposed by some generals. Ding Ruchang would never surrender. He had no choice but to lead the army. In despair, he committed suicide and sacrificed his country. On the morning of the 12th, Maglu, Haowei and others embezzled Ding Ruchang's name to draft a surrender letter, surrendered 11 remaining ships, Liugongdao Battery and military equipment, and surrendered to the Japanese army. The Beiyang Navy, which Li Hongzhang had spent a huge amount of money and worked hard to build for many years, was shamelessly destroyed in this way.

Ding Ruchang, commander of the Beiyang Navy