The Chinese fleet had more armour protection. The two coast-defence battleships were heavily armoured, and there were three other less completely protected ironclads, although seven other ships had no armour whatever. In the Japanese fleet the only armoured vessels were the two old ironclads, belonging to an obsolete type, and the armour-belted "Chiyoda." The real fighting force of the fleet was made up of the seven new protected cruisers. Some of these had armour on the barbettes in which their long bow-guns were mounted, but their "protection" consisted in a deck plated with steel covering the "vitals" of the ship, boilers, engines, and magazines, all placed as low as possible in the hull. There was some further protection afforded by the coal-bunkers placed along the water-line amidships. The theory of the protected cruiser was that everything below the water-line was safeguarded by this armoured deck, and as the over-water portion of the ship was further divided by bulk-heads into numerous water-tight compartments, the danger of the ship being sunk was remote. The protected cruiser is no longer regarded as having a place in the main fighting-line. But the Japanese cruisers gave such good results in the Yalu battle that for a while an exaggerated value was attached to it. But in one point, and the most important of all, the Japanese had an overwhelming advantage. The Chinese officers and men were mostly brave enough, but almost entirely unskilled. The only really efficient officers and engineers they had were a few Englishmen and Americans and two Germans. The Japanese, from Admiral Count Ito, who commanded, down to the youngest of the bluejackets, were not only brave with the inherited recklessness of death and suffering, which is characteristic of their race, but were also highly trained in every branch of their profession, first-rate sailors, excellent gunners. And the fleet had for years been exercised in manoeuvres, so that the ships could work together as an organized whole. The spirit which animated it was that of "No surrender--Victory at any cost." It is a standing order of the Japanese navy that if a ship should strike her colours, the first duty of her consorts is not to try to recapture her, but to endeavour to sink her and her crew.