[4] The Qing naval base at Weihaiwei had been designed with the assistance of German military advisors, and was regarded by western observers as superior to Hong Kong.

Captain William M. Lang, a British military advisor seconded to the Beiyang Fleet, had boasted that the base was impregnable as late as autumn 1894, and had scoffed at rumors that the Japanese were planning to attack it.

[5] The defenses consisted of a series of twelve land fortifications overlooking the entrances to the harbor, equipped with Krupp and Armstrong cannons, as well as two fortified islands in the bay.

[7] ** indicates disappearing guns The campaign began on 18 January 1895, with a bombardment of the town of Dengzhou, some 100 miles (160 km) to the west of Weihaiwei, by the Imperial Japanese Navy cruisers Yoshino, Akitsushima, and Naniwa.

Furthermore, the Japanese managed to remove the boom protecting the anchorage on 4 February, allowing their torpedo boats to make repeated night attacks on the Chinese ships.

Ito further advised Ding to accept political asylum in Japan until the end of the war, and then return to his native land in order to aid China in setting her policy on a sound basis.

Command of the Beiyang Fleet fell to Scottish-born Vice-Admiral John McClure who wrote a letter of surrender in Admiral Ding's name, and had it translated into Chinese and transmitted to the Japanese on the morning of 12 February.

McClure requested that all Chinese troops, civilians, and the foreign military advisors be allowed to depart unmolested, and suggested that the British China squadron oversee compliance with the surrender agreement.

The Japanese had gained their strategic objectives of securing the seaward approach to Beijing, as well as their supply lines, and had received praise from foreign observers for the speed of the campaign.