They weren’t expecting anything like a real fight with the Japanese. The Russian fleet was sailing in line through a strait and was annihilated by a modern and well led Japanese Imperial Navy fleet that “crossed the T”. They may have been just over confident enough, and too suspicious of their own captains, to disperse the gold among several ships. Anyway, it’s conceivable.
Well, however it went down, today’s question is “Finders, keepers?” Who has salvage rights?