Last time we spoke about the battle of the Yalu River. It was an absolutely catastrophic week for the Qing dynasty. Within just two days they suffered a major land defeat and now a defeat at sea that practically annihilated the Beiyang fleet. Corruption and incompetence ran rampant as the Beiyang fleet crews found themselves undertrained, understaffed, lacking ammunition and what ammunition they did have, some of it was filled with concrete and porcelain. The Qing dynasty’s corruption problems were shown on full display as the IJN combined fleet outperformed them, despite having smaller warships and less of them. Quick firing guns defeated the big guns at Yalu and now the Japanese held control over the seas. The Beiyang fleet now flee’s to Weihaiwei to try and repair their ships for another chance at a decisive naval battle, but will it ever come to be?   #52 The First Sino-Japanese War of 1898-1895 Part 4: The Battle for Port Arthur   Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War. After the battle of the Yalu River, the Japanese had a enormous boost to their propaganda campaign. Despite this the Qing backed press continued their charade of blemishing the losses, take this article from the North China Herald "In spite of the reiterated denials of the Japanese authorities that any of their vessels were badly injured in the recent naval fight, information which we have been able to gather from quarters entitled to all credence, corroborates in a very circumstantial manner the statement that the Japanese lost four vessels in the actual fight, and more probably later on, as the Chinese heavy guns treated them very severely. The Chinese engaged fought with wonderful bravery; there were no skulkers." Despite their claims, by September the 20th the jig was up for the Qing government as foreign military advisers who had participated or witnessed the battle at Yalu arrived to Tianjin. They began spilling the story to the western press, and unlike the Japanese press, the Qing could not simply write them off as mere propaganda. The foreign press corroborated the Japanese reports that 5 Qing warships were had been sunk and “to a man regard the statement that the Japanese lost no ships as a barefaced lie”. Even the foreign eye witnesses could not believe not a single Japanese ship was sunk. The reports caused severe issues for Beijing. This alongside other issues prompted Emperor Guangxu to take an unprecedented move, he summoned Inspector General Constantin von Hanneken, a Prussian officer who was working as a military adviser to the Beiyang fleet for an imperial audience. Von Hanneken was also one of the engineers who helped build the defenses at Port Arthur known to the Chinese as Lushunkou and at Weihaiwei. He of course was present at the battle of the Yalu and the EMperor demanded to learn what actually transpired from him. It certainly says a lot about your Empire, when you would trust a foreigner over your officials.   It is also at this point Japan altered its position on foreign reporters. As mentioned near the beginning of this series, the Japanese opted to have a blackout on news about the war. On August 2nd of 1894 an Imperial Ordinance had been published requiring all newspapers and other publicans to submit