The Yellow Sea was a vast, slate-grey expanse under a sky of matching color. Upon its surface, a powerful new force was cutting through the waves. The Beiyang Fleet, the pride of the new Qing Dynasty, steamed eastward at full speed. It was a magnificent, intimidating sight. At its heart were the two German-built ironclads, the Dingyuan and its sister ship the Zhenyuan, their massive steel hulls displacing the water with an arrogant, unstoppable force. Flanking them were four of the newer, faster cruisers, their smokestacks all belching thick, black columns of coal smoke that trailed behind them like funeral banners.
On the command bridge of the flagship Dingyuan, Captain Deng Shichang stared at the horizon, his face grim, his knuckles white where he gripped the brass railing. The fleet was a beautiful weapon, but its crews, though drilled relentlessly in the training grounds of Port Arthur, were inexperienced. This was their first true test, their first deployment into hostile waters. And they were not alone.
A lookout's cry had confirmed their worst fears an hour earlier. On the distant horizon, a similar plume of smoke could be seen. It was a Japanese naval squadron, also steaming at full speed towards the Korean peninsula. The race was on. Whichever nation could land its troops first at the port of Incheon, the gateway to Seoul, would control the narrative, secure the Korean king, and gain the decisive upper hand in the crisis.
Deng Shichang stood with his chief engineer, a man who had trained alongside the Germans in Tianjin.
"The engines are overheating, Captain," the engineer reported, his face slick with sweat and grease. "The Germans built them to be powerful, but they warned us against running them at maximum revolutions for such a long period. The pressure is in the red. We risk a boiler explosion or a cracked piston."
The safe, cautious approach would be to reduce speed, to conserve the engines and ensure the fleet arrived intact. But Deng could still see the faint smudge of smoke from the Japanese fleet on the horizon. To be cautious was to be second. And to be second was to fail the mission.
He remembered the secret orders that had been delivered to him just before they sailed, orders that had come directly from the Emperor's new council. They had been simple and utterly uncompromising: "You will be the first to arrive. Whatever the cost."
"We will maintain this speed," Deng commanded, his voice firm, leaving no room for argument. "Double the watch on the pressure gauges. If a boiler shows signs of failing, we will vent it and proceed on the others. We will not be late." He was gambling the safety of his brand-new ship on the quality of its German engineering and the courage of his crew. It was a gamble his Emperor was counting on him to take.
As the great ironclads pushed through the waves, a more subtle drama was unfolding deep within the hull of one of the escorting cruisers, the Zhiyuan. On board was a junior signals officer named Gu, a quiet, unassuming man from a minor scholar family. He was also a graduate of the School of the Silent Orchid, one of Cixi's "Scholar" path agents, a sleeper who had been successfully placed within the new naval academy.
His secret mission, given to him by Li Lianying before the fleet sailed, was simple and devastating: he was to ensure the fleet's mission failed. He was to commit an act of sabotage that would humiliate the new navy and, by extension, Prince Gong's entire reformist faction. He carried a small, leather pouch containing a fine, abrasive sand mixed with graphite powder. His plan was to slip into the engine room during the confusion of a watch change and dump the contents into one of the main lubrication feeder lines for the steam engine. The result would be catastrophic: the bearings would seize, the pistons would crack, and the ship's engine would grind itself to a halt in a cloud of smoke and sheared metal. The Zhiyuan would be crippled, and the entire fleet would be forced to slow down to protect it, ceding the race to the Japanese.
As the ship shuddered under the strain of its overworked engines, Officer Gu saw his chance. He slipped away from his post and made his way down the narrow, steel companionways towards the deafening roar of the engine room.
But he was not unobserved.
Ying Zheng's counter-intelligence network, now a sophisticated and paranoid apparatus, had been at work. The stolen green ledger had not contained Officer Gu's name—he was too new, a recent graduate. But Ying and Lotus, with their intimate knowledge of their former school's methods, had flagged him. They knew that Cixi would never allow this fleet to sail without attempting to place one of her own agents aboard. They had analyzed the service records of every junior officer, and Gu's profile fit: an orphan with no connections who had shown a sudden, remarkable aptitude. It was enough to place him under covert surveillance.
A small team of Meng Tian's most trusted former soldiers, veterans of the western campaigns who were now serving as the fleet's elite marine contingent, had been secretly watching Officer Gu since the moment he set foot on the ship. Two of these marines, their faces hard and impassive, now detached themselves from the shadows of a lower deck corridor and followed him.
They caught him just outside the engine room door. He was fumbling with the pouch hidden in his robes. They did not challenge him. They did not ask questions. They simply moved. A short, brutal, and almost completely silent fight ensued in the narrow, vibrating corridor. Officer Gu, though possessing the lethal hand-to-hand skills of his school, was no match for two hardened, veteran soldiers who had fought bandits and rebels in the deserts of the west. He was swiftly overpowered, his arms pinned, the pouch of abrasive sand kicked away. His mission was a failure.
On the bridge of the Dingyuan, hours later, Deng Shichang raised his binoculars to his eyes. Through the lens, he could see a smudge on the horizon that was not smoke, but land. The coastline of Korea. He looked to his port side. The smoke from the Japanese fleet was still visible, but it was further away now, falling behind. He had won the race.
At that same moment, deep within the bowels of the cruiser Zhiyuan, the captured and gagged saboteur was brought before the ship's chief security officer. A coded message was immediately dispatched to Captain Deng.
Deng read the message, his face hardening. He now understood the true nature of the enemies they faced—not just the Japanese ahead of them, but the traitors hidden among them. He gave a single, curt nod. His fleet had survived its first test, from enemies both without and within. They would be the first to land at Incheon. They would control the crisis. The Emperor's will had been done.