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Further Reading

Korea had been long regarded as a tributary nation but, as in Formosa, little trouble was taken with the government so long as Korea did not embroil China with other powers. Unfortunately this was just what happened not infrequently. The persecution of Christianity in Korea involved the murder of some French missionaries in 1866; an American ship was burned and its crew murdered; and Japan had commercial grievances of long standing. As China seemed very anxious to disclaim responsibility the Japanese cleverly took advantage of the situation and concluded a treaty directly with Korea in which the independence of the principality was assumed. China, thus outwitted, endeavored to regain lost ground by means of intrigue and factions arose leading to so unsatisfactory a condition that the two countries were brought more than once to the very verge of war. Ultimately, following upon several tragic episodes, a modus vivendi was found by Li Hung-chang and Count Ito, by which the troops of the nations were withdrawn. This agreement kept the peace until 1894. It was further agreed that, in case either nation felt it necessary to send troops into Korea, due notice of the intention should be given.

Some years before, Li Hungchang had written the words: "It is above all things necessary to strengthen our country's defenses, to organize a powerful navy, and not to undertake aggressive steps against Japan in too great a hurry." Unfortunately for China the recommendations of the great statesman were only half followed. The division of the fleet into Northern and Southern without mutual responsibility proved to be disastrous and in 1894 all the prestige gained by China in the contest with France was dissipated like a morning mist.

The causes of this memorable war may be summarized somewhat as follows: 1. The rankling sense of injustice created in 1884; 2. The assassination of the Korean statesman, Kim Ok-kuin, who had been decoyed from Japan by Korean emissaries and murdered in Shanghai; 3. The feeling that, as Japan had opened Korea to the world, her influence should be something more than nominal; 4. The unrest in Japan/which made foreign war an easy way out of a difficult domestic situation. The actual determining cause for the unsheathing of the sword was the sending of Chinese troops into Korea without prompt notice given to Japan.

Hostilities actually began with the sinking of the English steamer Kowshimg, which was being used as a transport for the Chinese troops, on July 25, 1894. War was declared August 1 and troops were hurried to the Yalu. The battle of Pingyang was fought September 15, six thousand Chinese being slain and the remainder fleeing northward in a most demoralized condition. It was in this battle that the Chinese general, who had ascended a hill to direct the fight with his fan, learned, and the Chinese government through him, that the old order in the Orient was doomed. Two days later the naval battle of the Yalu was fought on somewhat more equal terms. The Chinese made a good fight, but lost four ships.

The actual invasion of China commenced October 24, with the Japanese forces under Count Oyama. The advance was marked by great military skill and the desire to gain, so far as possible, the good will of the populace by whom they passed. The famous fortress of Port Arthur was stormed on November 21, with a loss of only four hundred men, a victory which was marred by a cruel massacre such as sadly tarnished the luster of the Japanese arms. In the advance into Manchuria the Japanese forces had been equally successful, and it was becoming plain that it might be well to consider terms of peace. Mr. Detring was sent to Japan on November 27 to open up negotiations, but he had no proper credentials and was not received. Before a second attempt could be made the capture of Hatching and Kaipmg made the Japanese masters of the whole of the Liaotung peninsula. Two Chinese emissaries had meanwhile been sent to treat for peace, but they too were insufficiently accredited.

The great battle of Weihaiwei followed in February, 1895, and by land and by sea the Japanese forces were completely victorious. The one Chinese hero of the war, Admiral Ting, after hoisting his flag of surrender, committed suicide in his cabin. The Southern fleet, which all the while was anchored in the Yangtse Kiang, according to the theory that the war concerned the North exclusively, might have turned the scale of the war had it chosen to intervene. The capture of Yinkow in Manchuria now brought the hitherto despised " dwarf men " so near the gates of Peking that a serious effort for peace had become imperative.

The emissary this time was no other than Li Hung-chang himself. He left for Japan on March 15 and soon after arrival was shot at by an over-zealous Japanese patriot. The shot, which fortunately was not fatal, cost Japan a good deal, since it led to the granting of an armistice of some weeks (except in the case of the campaign in Formosa), and undoubtedly helped to secure for China more favorable terms than she could otherwise have expected. A treaty was drawn up and signed at Shimonoseki on April 17. It was ratified at Chifu on May 8 and provided for the independence of Korea, the cession of the Liaotung peninsula, Formosa and the Pescadores, the payment of two hundred million taels indemnity, and the opening of certain ports in Hupeh, Szechwan, Kiangsu and Chehkiang. Afterwards, on pretense of maintaining the integrity of China, the three powers of Russia, Germany and France stepped in to rob Japan of the fruits of her victory, so far as the Continental acquisitions were concerned. The Liaotung peninsula was given up and a further indemnity of thirty million taels accepted instead.

So came to its close a campaign in which China's reputation for military and naval strength collapsed like a pricked balloon. The collapse of China before the new might of Japan had aroused the greed of the nations who regarded "the slicing of the melon" as an inevitable operation in which he who came earliest was likely to get most. Hence the conclusion of peace with Japan inaugurated a period of aggression which led in time to dire results. Russia having posed as China's friend in the saving of the Liaotung peninsula and in the provision by loan of the means for paying the indemnity, felt entitled to repay herself, by means of the so-called Cassini Convention, in the leasing of Port Arthur, March, 1898. Germany had already taken her reward in the seizure of the Bay of Kiaochao in Shantung, November, 1897. The reason given was the murder of two German missionaries who had been slain as a matter of fact to get the local magistrate into trouble. Great Britain countered the Russian move by obtaining a lease of Weihaiwei 4 on April 2, 1898, and France, on May 2, obtained Kwangchouwan.

"By 1899," writes Mr.A.J. Brown, "in all China's three thousand miles of coast line, there was not a harbor in which she could mobilize her own ships without the consent of the hated foreigner." Yet Italy had the assurance to demand the Bay of Sammen in Chehkiang and might have obtained it had not the power by this time passed once more into the vigorous hands of the great Empress Dowager.

In Korea's case, however, the fiction proved more tenacious, since the peninsula furnished easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the Manchu dynasty. 1 But while seeking to maintain the old-time relations with Korea, Chinese statesmen clung uniformly to traditional methods. They refrained from declaring Korea a dependency of China, yet they sought to keep up "the romance of ultimate dependency and intermediate sovereignty." It was thus that, in 1876, Korea was allowed to conclude with Japan a treaty describing the former as "an independent State enjoying the same rights as Japan," nor did the Peking Government make any protest when the United States, Great Britain, and other powers concluded similar treaties. To exercise independence in practice, however, was not permitted to Korea. A Chinese resident was stationed in Seoul, the Korean capital, and he quickly became an imperium in imperio. Thenceforth Japan, in all her dealings with the Peninsular Kingdom, found the latter behaving as a Chinese dependency, obeying the Chinese resident in everything. Again and again, Japanese patience was tried by these anomalous conditions, and although nothing occurred of sufficient magnitude to warrant official protest, the Tokyo Government became sensible of perpetual rebuffs and humiliating interferences at China's hands. Korea herself suffered seriously from this state of national irresponsibility. There was no security of life and property, or any effective desire to develop the country's resources. If the victims of oppression appealed to force, China readily lent military assistance to suppress them, and thus the royal family of Korea learned to regard its tenure of power as dependent on ability to conciliate China. . On Japan's side, also, the Korean question caused much anxiety. It was impossible for the Tokyo statesmen to ignore the fact that their country's safety depended largely on preserving Korea from the grasp of a Western power. They saw plainly that such a result might at any moment be expected if Korea was suffered to drift into a state of administrative incompetence. Once, in 1882, and again, in 1884, when Chinese soldiers were employed to suppress reform movements which would have impaired the interests of the Korean monarch, the latter's people, counting Japan to be the source of progressive tendencies in the East, destroyed her legation in Seoul, driving its inmates out of the city. Japan was not yet prepared to assert herself forcibly in redress of such outrages, but in the ensuing negotiations she acquired titles that "touched the core of China's alleged suzerainty." Thus, in 1882, Japan obtained recognition of her right to protect her legation with troops; and, in 1885, a convention, signed at Tientsin, pledged each of the contracting parties not to send a military force to Korea without notifying the other. In spite of these agreements China's arbitrary and unfriendly interference in Korean affairs continued to be demonstrated to Japan. Efforts to obtain redress proved futile, and even provoked threats of Chinese armed intervention. Finally, in the spring of 1894, an insurrection of some magnitude broke out in Korea, and in response to an appeal from the Royal family, China sent twentyfive hundred troops, who went into camp at Asan, on the southwest coast of the peninsula. Notice was duly given to the Tokyo Government, which now decided that Japan's vital interests as well as the cause of civilization in the East required that an end must be put to Korea's dangerous misrule and to China's arbitrary interference. Japan did not claim for herself anything that she was not willing to accord to China. But the Tokyo statesmen were sensible that to ask their conservative neighbor to promote in the Peninsular Kingdom a progressive program which she had always steadily rejected and despised in her own case, must prove a chimerical attempt, if ordinary diplomatic methods alone were used. Accordingly, on receipt of Peking's notice as to the sending of troops to the peninsula, Japan gave corresponding notice on her own part, and thus July, 1894, saw a Chinese force encamped at Asan and a Japanese force in the vicinity of Seoul. In having recourse to military aid, China's nominal purpose was to quell the Tonghak insurrection, and Japan's motive was to obtain a position such as would strengthen her demand for drastic treatment of Korea's malady. In giving notice of the despatch of troops, China described Korea as her "tributary State," thus emphasizing a contention which at once created an impossible situation. During nearly twenty years Japan had treated Korea as her own equal, in accordance with the terms of the treaty of 1876, and she could not now agree that the Peninsular Kingdom should be officially classed as a tributary of China. Her protests, however, were contemptuously ignored, and Chinese statesmen continued to apply the offensive appellation to Korea, while at the same time they asserted the right of limiting the number of troops sent by Japan to the peninsula as well as the manner of their employment. Still desirous of preserving the peace, Japan proposed a union between herseli and China for the purpose of restoring order in Korea and amending that coun try's administration. China refused. "She even expressed supercilious sur prise that Japan, while asserting Korea's independence, should suggest the idet of peremptorily reforming its administration. The Tokyo Cabinet now an nounced that the Japanese troops should not be withdrawn without" some understanding that would guarantee the future peace, order, and good government o Korea," and as China still refused to come to such an understanding, Japai undertook the work single-handed. The Tonghak rebellion, which Chinese troops were originally sent to quell, had died of inanition before they landed. The troops, therefore, had been withdrawn. But China kept them in Korea, her avowed reason being the presence of the Japanese military force near Seoul. In these circumstances, Peking was notified that a despatch of re-enforcements on China's side must be construed as an act of hostility. Notwithstanding this notice, China not only sent a further body of troops by sea to encamp at Asan, but also despatched an army overland across the Yalu. These proceedings precipitated hostilities. Three Chinese warships, convoying a transport with twelve hundred soldiers on board, met and opened fire on two Japanese cruisers. The result was signal. One of the Chinese warships was captured; another was so riddled with shot that she had to be beached and abandoned; the third escaped in a dilapidated condition, and the transport, refusing to surrender, was sent to the bottom. These things happened on the 25th of July, 1894, arid war was declared by each empire six days subsequently. The Japanese took the initiative. They despatched from Seoul a column of troops and routed the Chinese entrenched at Asan, many of whom fled northward to Pyong-yang, a town on the Tadong River, memorable as the scene of a battle between a Chinese and a Japanese army in 1592. Pyong-yang offered great facilities for defence. The Chinese massed there a force of seventeen thousand men, and made preparations for a decisive contest, building parapets, mounting guns, and strengthening the position by every device of modern warfare. Their infantry had the advantage of being armed with repeating rifles, and the configuration of the ground offered little cover for an attacking army. Against this strong position the Japanese moved in two columns; one marching northward from Seoul, the other striking westward from Yuensan. Forty days elapsed before the Japanese forces came into action, and one day's fighting sufficed to carry all the Chinese positions, the. attacking armies having only seven hundred casualties and the defenders, six thousand. The next day, September 17th, Japan achieved an equally conspicuous success at sea. Fourteen Chinese warships and six torpedo-boats, steering homeward after convoying a fleet of transports to the mouth of the Yalu River, fell in with eleven Japanese war-vessels cruising in the Yellow Sea. The Chinese squadron was not seeking an encounter. Their commanding officer did not appear to appreciate the value of sea-power. His fleet included two armoured battle-ships of over seven thousand tons' displacement, whereas the Japanese had nothing stronger than belted cruisers of four thousand. Therefore a little enterprise on China's part might have severed Japan's maritime communications and compelled her to evacuate Korea. The Chinese, however, used their warvessels as convoys only, keeping them carefully in port when no such duty was to be performed. It is evident that, as a matter of choice, they would have avoided the battle of the Yalu, though when compelled to fight they fought stoutly. After a sharp engagement, four of their vessels were sunk, and the remainder steamed into Weihaiwei, their retreat being covered by torpedo-boats. By this victory the maritime route to China lay open to Japan. She could now attack Talien, Port Arthur, and Weihaiwei, naval stations on the Liaotung and Shantung peninsulas, where strong permanent fortifications had been built under the direction of European experts. These forts fell one by one before the assaults of the Japanese troops as easily as the castle of Pyong-yang had fallen. Only by the remains of the Chinese fleet at Weihaiwei was a stubborn resistance made, under the command of Admiral Ting. But, after the entire squadron of torpedo craft had been captured, and after three of the largest Chinese ships had been sent to the bottom by Japanese torpedoes, and one had met the same fate by gunfire, the remainder surrendered, and their gallant commander, Admiral Ting, rejecting all overtures from the Japanese, committed suicide. The fall of Weihaiwei ended the war. It had lasted seven and a half months, and during that time the Japanese had operated with five columns aggregating 120,000 men. "One of these columns marched northward from Seoul, won the battle of Pyong-yang, advanced to the Yalu, forced its way into Manchuria, and moved towards Mukden by Feng-hwang, fighting several minor engagements, and conducting the greater part of its operations amid deep snow in midwinter. The second column diverged westward from the Yalu, and, marching through southern Manchuria, reached Haicheng, whence it advanced to the capture of Niuchwang. The third landed on the Liaotung peninsula, and, turning southward, carried Talien and Port Arthur by assault. The fourth moved up the Liaotung peninsula, and, having seized Kaiping, advanced against Niuchwang, where it joined hands with the second column. The fifth crossed from Port Arthur to Weihaiwei, which it captured." In all these operations the Japanese casualties totalled 1005 killed and 4922 wounded; the deaths from disease aggregated 16,866, and the monetary expenditure amounted to twenty millions sterling, about $100,000,000. It had been almost universally believed that, although Japan might have some success at the outset, she would ultimately be shattered by impact with the enormous mass and the overwhelming resources of China. Never was forecast more signally contradicted by events. CONCLUSION OF PEACE Li Hung-chang, viceroy of Pehchili, whose troops had been chiefly engaged during the war, and who had been mainly responsible for the diplomacy that had led up to it, was sent by China as plenipotentiary to discuss terms of peace. The conference took place at Shimonoseki, Japan being represented by Marquis (afterwards Prince) Ito, and on the 17th of April, 1895, the treaty was signed. It recognized the independence of Korea; ceded to Japan the littoral of Manchuria lying south of a line drawn from the mouth of the river Anping to the estuary of the Liao, together with the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores; pledged China to pay an indemnity of two hundred million tads; provided for the occupation of Weihaiwei by Japan pending payment of that sum; secured the opening of four new places to foreign trade and the right of foreigners to engage in manufacturing enterprises in China, and provided for a treaty of commerce and amity between the two empires, based on the lines of China's treaty with Occidental powers. FOREIGN INTERFERENCE'' Scarcely was the ink dry upon this agreement when Russia, Germany, and France presented a joint note to the Tokyo Government, urging that the permanent occupation of the Manchurian littoral by Japan would endanger peace. Japan had no choice but to bow to this mandate. The Chinese campaign had exhausted her treasury as well as her supplies of war material, and it would have been hopeless to oppose a coalition of three great European powers. She showed no sign of hesitation. On the very day of the ratified treaty's publication, the Emperor of Japan issued a rescript, in which, after avowing his devotion to the cause of peace, he "yielded to the dictates of magnanimity, and accepted the advice of the three powers."

Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895

The ostensible starting-point of the trouble that resulted in hostilities was a local insurrection which broke out in May 1894 in one of the southern provinces of Korea [aka Corea]. The cause of the insurrection was primarily the misrule of the authorities, with possibly some influence by the quarreling court factions at the capital. The Corean king applied at once to China as his suzerain for assistance in subduing the insurgents, and a Chinese force was sent. Japan, thereupon, claiming that Corea was an independent state and that China had no exclusive right to interfere, promptly began to pour large forces into Corea, to protect Japanese interests.

By the middle of June 1894 a whole Japanese army corps was at Seoul, the Corean capital, and the Japanese minister soon formulated a radical scheme of administrative reforms which he demanded as indispensable to the permanent maintenance of order in the country. This scheme was rejected by the conservative faction which was in power at court, whereupon, on 23 July 1894, the Japanese forces attacked the palace, captured the king and held him as hostage for the carrying out of the reforms.

The Chinese were meanwhile putting forth great efforts to make up for the advantage that their rivals had gained in the race for control of Corea, and to strengthen their forces in that kingdom. On the 25th of July 1894 a Chinese fleet carrying troops to Corea became engaged in hostilities with some Japanese war vessels, and one of the transports was sunk. On August 1, the Emperor of Japan made a formal declaration of war on China, basing his action on the false claim of the latter to suzerainty over Corea, and on the course of China in opposing and thwarting the plan of reforms which were necessary to the progress of Corea and to the security of Japanese interests there. The counter-proclamation of the Chinese Emperor denounced the Japanese as wanton invaders of China's tributary state, and as aiming at the enslaving of Corea.

On August 26 a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance against China was made between Japan and Corea. A severe engagement at PingYang, September 16, resulted in the rout of the Chinese and the loss of their last stronghold in Corea. A few days later the hostile fleets had a pitched battle off the mouth of the Yalu River, with the result that the Japanese were left in full control of the adjacent waters. On the 26th of October the Japanese land forces brushed aside with slight resistance the Chinese on the Yalu, which is the boundary between Corea and China, and began their advance through the Chinese province of Manchuria, apparently aiming at Pekin.

On November 3, Port Arthur being then invested by the Japanese land and naval forces, while Marshal Yamagata, the Japanese commander, continued his victorious advance through Manchuria, Prince Kung made a formal appeal to the representatives of all the powers for their intervention, acknowledging the inability of China to cope with the Japanese. On November 21, Port Arthur, called the strongest fortress in China, was taken, after hard fighting from noon of the previous day. In retaliation for the murder and mutilation of some prisoners by the Chinese, the Japanese gave no quarter, and were accused of great atrocities.

To the advance of the Japanese armies in the field, the Chinese opposed comparatively slight resistance, in several engagements of a minor character, until December 19, when a battle of decided obstinacy was fought at Kungwasai, near Hai-tcheng. The Japanese were again the victors. Overtures for peace made by the Chinese government proved unavailing; the Japanese authorities declined to receive the envoys sent, for the reason that they were not commissioned with adequate powers. Nothing came of an earlier proffer of the good offices of the government of the United States.

In the first month of 1895 the successes of the Japanese were renewed. Kaiphing was taken on January 10; a vigorous Chinese attack was repulsed, near Niuchuang, on January 16; a landing of 25,000 troops on the Shantung peninsula was effected on the 20th, and a combined attack by army and navy on the strong forts which protected the important harbor of Wei-hai-wei, and the Chinese fleet sheltered in it, was begun on the 30th of the month. The attack was ended on February 13, when the Chinese admiral Ting-Juchang gave up the remnant of his fleet and then killed himself. The Chinese general, Tai, had committed suicide in despair on the third night of the fighting. There was further fighting around Niuchuang and Yingkow during February and part of March, while overtures for peace were being made by the Chinese government.

At length the famous viceroy, Li Hung-chang, was sent to Japan with full powers to conclude a treaty. Negotiations were interrupted at the outset by a foul attack on the Chinese ambassador by a Japanese ruffian, who shot and seriously wounded him in the cheek. But the mikado ordered an armistice, and the Treaty of Shimonoseki was concluded and signed on April 17, 1895.

The terms of the treaty come under three heads: the surrender of territory, the payment of an indemnity, and the concession of commercial facilities and rights, while the first article of all provided for the full and complete independence and autonomy of Corea. The surrender of territory was to comprise the islands of Formosa and tbe Pescadores and the southern part of the province of Shingking [Feng-tien], including the Leaoutung or Regent's Sword Peninsula and the important naval harbour and fortress of Port Arthur. As indemnity, China was to pay 200 million Kupinc taels in eight instalments with interest at the rate of 5 per cent, on the unpaid instalments. The commercial concessions included the admission of ships under the Japanese flag to the different rivers and lakes of China, and the appointment of consuls.

The terms of peace imposed on China were certainly onerous, but considering the completeness of the Japanese triumph they could not be termed excessive. If they had not seriously disturbed the balance of power in the Far East they would no doubt have been allowed to stand, as no Government was disposed to take up the cause of China from disinterested motives. The British Government, with the largest commercial stake in the question, was by no means inclined to fetter the Japanese when they placed freedom of trade at the head of their programme. It wished China to be opened to external and beneficial influences, and that was exactly what the Japanese proposed to do. Moreover, Japan had shown throughout tbe war every wish to consider British views, and to respect their interests. Shanghai, in the first place, and the Yangtse Valley afterwards, were ruled outside the sphere of military operations. The identity of interests between England and Japan was clear to the most ordinary intelligence, and certainly the British Government was not the one that would seek to fetter the legitimate and beneficial expansion of the bold islanders of the Far East.

But other Powers did not regard the matter from the same point of view, and Russia saw in the appearance of the Japanese on tbe Pacific freeboard a spectre for the future. The Russian Government could not tolerate the presence of the Japanese on the mainland, and especially in a position which enabled them to command Pekin. They therefore resorted to a diplomatic move unprecedented in the East, and which furnished evidence of how closely European affairs were reacting on Asia. The then unwritten alliance between France and Russia was turned into a formal arrangement for the achievement of definite ends, and the powerful co-operation oi Germany was secured for the attainment of the same object, viz., the arrest of Japan in her hour of triumph. This movement was destined to produce the most pregnant consequences, but for the moment it signified that a Triple Alliance had superseded Great Britain in the leading role she had filled in the Far East since the Treaty of Nankin.

Tbe ink was scarcely dry on the Treaty of Shimonoseki when Japan found herself confronted by the Three Powers, with a demand couched in polite language to waive that part of the Treaty which provided for the surrender of Port Arthur and the Leaoutung peninsula. The demand was clearly one that could not be rejected without war. and Japan could have no possible chance in coping with an alliance so formidable on land and sea. Japan gave way with a good grace, and negotiations followed which resulted in the resignation of her claim to the Leaoutung peninsula in return for an increase in the indemnity by the sum of six millions sterling. Wei-Hai-Wei was to be retained as bail, pending the payment of the indemnity; and the final payment in May, 1898 released all Chinese territory on the mainland from the hands of the victors in the war of 1894-5.

Of all China's foreign wars, the one with Japan had the most disastrous effect. It swept away her equipment as a military power; reduced her prestige to the lowest ebb; revealed her weakness to the world; and burdened her for the first time with a foreign debt of £50,000,000. When Admiral Ito wrote to Admiral Ting asking him to capitulate he was able to say, "it is not the fault of one man." Again he remarked in the same letter: "The blame must rest upon the errors of a government that has long administered affairs. She selects her servants by competitive examination and literary attainments are the test. The result was that the officials through whom the government is administered are all literati, and literature is honored above everything." Indeed, one might go a step further and say that the blame also rested upon the system of philosophy which taught every Chinese to love his family instead of his nation. For this teaching China has but the Sung philosophers and their adherents to blame.