a huge cloud of white smoke, belching from the _Ting Yuen's_ starboard barbette, opened the ball." [=The Opening of the Battle=] The shot fell a little ahead of the _Yoshino_, throwing up a tall column of white water. Admiral Ito, in his official report, notes that this first shot was fired at ten minutes to one. The range, as noted on the _Chen Yuen_, was 5,200 yards, or a little over three and a half miles. The heavy barbette and bow guns of the _Chen Yuen_ and other ships now joined in, but still the Japanese van squadron came on without replying. For five minutes the firing was all on the side of the Chinese. The space between the Japanese van and the hostile line had diminished to 3,000 yards--a little under two miles. The _Yoshino_, the leading ship, was heading for the centre of the Chinese line, but obliquely, so as to pass diagonally along the front of the Chinese right wing. At five minutes to one her powerful battery of quick-firers opened on the Chinese, sending out a storm of shells, most of which fell in the water just ahead of the _Ting_ and _Chen Yuen_. Their first effect was to deluge the decks, barbettes and bridges of the two ironclads with the geysers of water flung up by their impact with the waves. In a few minutes every man on deck was soaked to the skin. One by one the other ships along the Japanese line opened fire, and then, as the range still diminished, the Chinese machine-guns, Hotchkisses and Nordenfelts added their sharp, growling reports to the deeper chorus of the heavier guns. The armored barbettes and central citadels of the two Chinese battleships were especially the mark of the Japanese fire. Theoretically they ought to have been pierced again and again, but all the harm they received were some deep dents and grooves in the thick plates. But through the thin lined hulls of the cruisers the shells crashed like pebbles through glass, the only effect of the metal wall being to explode the shells and scatter their fragments far and wide. [=Admiral Ito's Strategy=] [=The Daring Act of the "Heijei"=]