Perang Dunia Timur. Jepang, Tiongkok, dan Korea/Bab 14

FROM ASAN TO PING-YANG.

Preparations for War in the Two Nations—Activity to Provide Defense for Southern China—Chinese Arsenals—War Spirit Among the Japanese—Armies of China, Their Organization and Administration—Burdens Upon Li Hung Chang—Manner of Campaign Followed by Chinese Armies—Seeking a Commander for the Chinese Troops in Corea—Complications with European and American Interests—Trade Relations—The Chung king Affair—Arrest of Japanese Students in Shanghai—Efforts of American Representatives to Save Their Lives—Delivered to the Chinese by Order from Washington—Tortured to Death—Operations in Corea—The Masterly Retreat from Asan—Engagements in the North—The Lines of the Japanese Drawing Around Ping-Yang.

As soon as the formal declaration of war was made public in the rival nations, the preparations for aggression and defense which had been in progress in China for a few weeks, and in Japan for several months, began to be multiplied with unceasing activity. The conditions which existed in the two nations were very different, and required different treatment.

Immediately following the outbreak of hostilities, the viceroy at Canton, Li Han Chang, brother of Li Hung Chang, began to make great efforts to put the southern part of the empire in something like an efficient state of defense. The first definite word of warning that reached him, through an official channel, was a cipher telegram from Peking informing him of the sinking of the Kowshing and the other engagements on sea and land, immediately prior to July 30. Li Han Chang was mainly responsible for the series of indignities which led to the resignation of the last British officers remaining in the Chinese naval service in 1891, so that China’s defeat at sea was to a certain extent his fault. For this reason he was placed in a position to be peculiarly anxious to make a good showing now. It was incumbent upon him to send forces to Formosa, the favorite point of attack in every important war that has been waged against China, and also to guard practically the whole southern coast, of which Canton with the naval station and arsenal at Whampoa, forms the principal point.

In times of peace the defenses of Canton consist of the southern 458squadron, the river forts, and the Manchoo or Tartar garrison, supposed to number four thousand, but really of very indefinite strength. The squadron at this time, however, was in the north, except about a dozen river gunboats, belonging to the navy and various revenue offices. The forts were in fairly satisfactory state, although insufficiently supplied for war, and the army sought recruits to increase its numbers as rapidly as possible. The investigation of the Whampoa arsenal, however, was highly unsatisfactory as to its results. When orders were given to the various arsenals to get to work building ships and making guns, the Shanghai and Nanking stations were found in readiness, and the Foochow arsenal, the largest and only one that had ever done any shipbuilding on a serious scale, was also in reasonably good condition. But Whampoa arsenal was in a lamentable state of unfitness, and all that remained of it was its naval training college, torpedo depot, and warehouse for guns and ammunition. The responsible officials whose negligence and dishonesty had resulted in this unfortunate condition, had good cause to anticipate severe punishment.

In the north of China, where the administration had been more closely under the eye of Li Hung Chang, things were in somewhat better condition, although still not what they ought to be to meet a great war.

The Japanese nation at the same moment presented a rare spectacle. To a man, ay, to a woman, the whole people were for war to the knife. They scarcely knew, nor did they greatly care, for what, but having been without the luxury of a serious foreign war for two hundred or three hundred years, their military and patriotic spirits were raised over the invasion of Corea and the prospective conflict with China. Never was a stronger antithesis than that between Japanese and Chinese at the beginning of this conflict. It was the perfection of order and of precision against slovenliness and carelessness; the pitting of a trained athlete against a corpulent brewer who hated fighting. China has in her history had good soldiers, but her system does not produce nor encourage them. Despised by the literary class, which has been in absolute control of everything, the soldier, having little chance of fame, and feeling himself as belonging to a degraded class, has 459taken naturally to pillage. If he has hoped to succeed to honors, it has been as likely to be by corrupt interest as by meritorious service, for the Chinese have had no appreciation of military excellence. Of course an army, however numerous, composed of such unkindly material, is but a mob, and if the Chinese had the spirit of soldiers they lacked the arms, for in a service built up on corruption it was natural to expect that the funds allotted for equipment would find other destinations.

After the war broke out, immense efforts were made by Japan in mobilizing troops and transporting them across the straits to Corea. The reserve was called out, and from every house and every shop some one was drafted to serve with the colors. So perfect, however, was the machine, that all this was accomplished without the least visible disturbance to the internal business of the country, and with such secrecy that it was only through reports of trains full of troops passing at night, and occasional train loads of war material, that any inkling was obtained of what was going on. The embarkation was kept equally secret, even when whole fleets of transports were engaged.

One was constrained more and more to admire the organization of the Japanese, and the perfect order which everywhere prevailed. In a country so strictly policed, the police need never be called on to quell a disturbance, and the force itself constituted another military reserve, drilled and disciplined for any service. So complete was their network of armed watchmen, that a sparrow could hardly cross the road without its name and destination being recorded in the archives of the prefecture. Everything about every individual, whether foreign or native, was known to this intelligent government. Every foreigner’s house was frequented by spies, in the guise of peddlers or servants, who reported minutely to their official employers. It was the same abroad. Japanese spies had examined every Chinese ship and fort, had measured the fighting power of every Chinese regiment. Japan knew the rottenness of Chinese naval and military administration better perhaps than the Chinese themselves. Japan was, in short, one great intelligence department, and it began to prove in a most unexpected way that “knowledge is power.”

Coming fresh from Japan to Tien-tsin, the port of Peking, 460whence the direction of the war was to be carried on, one would be astounded at the aspect of China. The Celestial Empire in war times contrasted so completely with its hostile neighbor that one might imagine oneself in another planet. The silent, stolid action of the one country and the confused bustle of the other were the strongly evident contrasts. Coming from war ministries, marine ministries, finance ministries, an executive as elaborate and perfect as the machinery of a gun factory, every individual knowing and doing his duty without hurry and without friction, into China where there were none of these things at all, one would be puzzled to conceive how any war could be carried on between these countries except one of ultimate subjugation. China was in a sense full of troops, mostly disbanded without pay, but in such loose fashion as to enable them even to carry off the honors of war, in the shape of their rifles and accoutrements. Some of these had sought and found an honest living, but many had gone to swell the ranks of brigandage. The troops in active service belonged to the great system of sham in which China revelled. The levies on paper and on pay rolls bore no direct correspondence with either the men or the arms. Neither the army nor the navy was a fighting service, but a means of living; and while generals, colonels and captains practically absorbed the naval and military expenditure, the custom of the country permitted the ranks to be robbed and starved, while those officials grew rich.

Vast as were the numbers of the fighting men of China on paper, they were but a very small proportion to the huge population of that empire. The old Chinese army in its three divisions of Manchoo, Mongol, and native Chinese did not exceed the nominal strength of one million, and all the efforts of military reformers have been devoted to increasing the efficiency and not the size of that force. The Green Flag, or Luh-ying corps, still represented the bulk of the army, furnishing on paper a total of six hundred and fifty thousand men scattered through the nineteen provinces, excluding the new province of Manchooria. It has been controlled by the local viceroys and governors who may in some instances have attempted to improve its efficiency, but as a general rule the force has had little or no military value.

When the Tai-Ping rebellion was finally crushed, the Ever Victorious army was disbanded, and the Viceroy Li Hung Chang, took into his pay a considerable number of these disciplined and experienced soldiers who had taken their part in a succession of remarkable achievements. When he was transferred to Pechili he took with him these men as a sort of personal bodyguard, and with the avowed intention of organizing an army that would bear comparison with European troops. He was engaged on this task for nearly twenty-five years. At the commencement this force numbered about eighteen thousand men. In 1872 the viceroy took into his service several German officers, who devoted themselves with untiring energy to the conversion of what was not unpromising material into a regular army of the highest standard. The training of this force was carried on with the greatest possible secrecy, and no European officers except those serving with it had any opportunity of forming an opinion. But it was known at the beginning of the war that the Black Flag army, as it was called, numbered about fifty thousand men.

After Li Hung Chang’s army, and scarcely inferior to it in strength and importance, came the two branches of the old Tartar army, both of which were recently subjected to some military training, and more or less equipped with modern weapons. These were the old Banner army, and the army of Manchooria, the total strength of the former being some three hundred thousand. Up to a comparatively recent time nothing had been done to make this force efficient. Many of the troops were armed with nothing but bows and arrows, and a kind of iron flail. In the last fifteen years, however, part of the Banner army, called the Peking Field force, was organized by the late Prince Chun, father of the reigning emperor and raised to a fair degree of efficiency. The second Tartar force, the army of Manchooria, contained some eighty thousand men who had received training and approximately modern weapons. Out of these, thirty thousand men, all armed with rifles, have made their headquarters at Mukden, the old capital of the Manchoos.

The Japanese reproached the Chinese with having no commissariat. Neither had they telegraphs, ambulance, or hospital services. Their habit was to live on the country in which they happened 462to be, and make it a desert. The Corean campaign was expected to form no exception to this rule, and the plains in the northwest, in the region first occupied by the Chinese after the abandonment of Asan, were early deserted by their inhabitants. Yet there were exceptions to this method of procedure. The force that was sent under General Yeh to Asan to quell the insurrection there, treated the natives with kindness and were consequently much liked. The general had funds entrusted to him, to distribute among the poor people who were suffering from want, and miraculous to say he did not steal the money, but spent all, and even, it is said, some of his own, in benevolence to the Coreans.

At the opening of the war the functions of a war ministry, marine ministry, finance ministry, with their staff of experts, were in China discharged by one old man, without any staff, who had stood for thirty years between the living and the dead. The emperor issued edicts without providing the means of carrying them out; all the rest, whether in gross or in detail, devolved on Li Hung Chang, who like another Atlas was bearing the whole rotten fabric of Chinese administration on his shoulders.

The supreme command of the Corean expeditions was first offered to Liu Ming-Chuan, who defended Formosa in 1884, but that astute old soldier declined on the ostensible ground of age and defective sight, but really because, as he said, peace would be made before he could reach Tien-tsin. The command was next offered to Liu Kin-tang, the real conqueror of Kashgar, for which the Governor-General Tso obtained the credit. He also declined, but was overruled by the emperor, and started from his home in the interior. His journey in the height of the summer heat was too much to endure, and he died in his boat before reaching the coast. The command was then entrusted to a civilian, Wu Ta-cheng, who distinguished himself in closing a great breach on the Yellow River some years ago, and who has lately been governor of Hu-nan. This promising official was therefore chosen to go to Corea as imperial commissioner to command the generals, no one of whom had been in authority over another.

It was natural to expect that complications would arise between the belligerent nations and the European and American nations having commercial interests in the orient. Japan and 465China had not been long enough acquainted with the rules of international comity and international war to be familiar with the exactions that would be made by the other nations which might be affected. The diplomatic representatives from the west lost no time in stipulating the neutrality of the more important treaty ports where foreigners were settled, and in arranging that certain branches of commerce should not be interfered with. Trade, however, was seriously affected and the price of coal doubled at one leap. China prohibited the export of rice from its own ports whence large quantities are usually shipped to Japan. Chinese lighthouses were darkened, and pilots were specifically warned not to assist Japanese vessels.

The term contraband was found to apply to many articles the transport of which in time of peace gave employment to many steamers, mainly coal, rice, and materials for building and repairing ships. The British government published a declaration that rice would not be recognized as contraband, and the prices of grain and rates for freight and insurance ruled high. The whole trade was, therefore, dislocated, for the Yang-tsze is the chief granary for the far east.

The British steamer Chungking suffered an aggression from the Chinese that drew upon them a severe rebuke and punishment. The vessel was at anchor in the harbor of Tongku, and among its passengers were sixty Japanese, many of them women and children, who were leaving China to return to Japan for safety during the impending troubles. While the vessel lay in the harbor a large number of Chinese soldiers forced their way on board with hostile intent. They began chasing the Japanese with threats of punishment, and the women and children fled to hide themselves. Many were found and were dragged from their places of concealment with violence. When they were found, their feet were tightly fastened together and their hands were tied behind their backs. They were then thrown upon the wharf, where they lay helpless, and several of them fainted under the severe treatment. As soon as the report of the outrage reached the superior officer commanding the district, he commanded the release of the victims, and the ship moved on to Shanghai where it arrived August 7. Viceroy Li Hung Chang tendered a most 466humble apology to the British consul for the aggression, the soldiers who committed the outrage were severely punished, and the officers who were responsible for it were degraded and sent into the interior.

The Japanese who were living in various Chinese treaty ports, engaged in business or connected with the various foreign concessions, took pains during the early period of the war to keep themselves as much as possible sequestered from Chinese view, to avoid giving offense to the people. Many of them had for years worn Chinese dress, and others now adopted the same costume, thinking thus to lessen the danger to which they were undoubtedly exposed. The Chinese authorities of Shanghai became convinced that the Japanese remaining there, under the protection of various foreign flags, constituted so many menaces to the national security. The precaution which the Japanese took in adopting Chinese costume, was made the pretext for a demand upon the consuls for the arrest of all who had resorted to it, but in each instance the demand was refused.

The first complication of American diplomatic interests with those of China came in this connection. On the morning of August 18, two Japanese who were walking within the limits of the French concession were pounced upon by Chinese guards and carried off to prison, charged with being spies in the service of the Japanese government. The accused were young men of good position and repute, and it seemed without the opportunity of spying, even if they were prepared to take the risk. They were placed in prison, however, pending, it was explained, the appointment of a proper tribunal to try them, and it was alleged by the Chinese authorities that there were found concealed about their clothes, plans of Chinese fortifications and cipher notes on Chinese movements. The following day the Japanese residing in Shanghai moved from the Chinese quarters into the American concession, where they placed themselves formally under the protection of the United States. The two who were arrested were immediately handed over to the American consul-general at his demand, he agreeing to keep them until charges should be formulated and presented. After a careful examination of the merits of the case, the consul, Mr. Jernigan, and the United States minister 467to China, Mr. Denby, became convinced that the charges were groundless, and that the young men were innocent of any guilt or evil intent. They were mere boys, students at the schools maintained in the American and French concessions, where they had resided for many years. The fact that they were dressed in Chinese costume proved nothing, inasmuch as they had worn that costume for many years. The charges that plans and notes had been found upon them, were also discredited by the American representatives. Americans in private life in Shanghai, as well as Europeans, both in official and private position, united to sustain the position taken by the American representatives. These representations were submitted to the state department at Washington, where Secretary Gresham gave them careful and painstaking review. He lost no time in deciding that the opinions of the diplomatic representatives of the United States, who were on the ground and able to make a personal investigation of the merits of the case, were worthless, and that the allegations of the Chinese officials were those which were to be accepted in their entirety. The result was that the United States consul-general at Shanghai was commanded by the state department at Washington to surrender to the Chinese officials these students, without delay. He did, however, delay sufficiently to make a strenuous protest against this action, offering further explanations why it should not be done, and in all he was sustained by the other diplomats in Shanghai. He declared that the surrender of these young men to China would be the signal for the torture, and that the only true wisdom and kindness would be to send them back to Japan. His protests were unavailing, and he was again instructed to deliver them at once, only exacted from the Chinese a promise that they should have fair trial and kind treatment.

To the distress of every friend of civilization in China, these two students were therefore surrendered to the Chinese, and two days later, after a trial which would be considered a mockery among ourselves, without the semblance of judicial fairness, they were condemned to death. The sentence was executed by means of the most shocking tortures which Chinese fiendish barbarity has been able to devise, to the horror of all foreigners living in that dark empire. The blot thus placed on American state-craft as exemplified 468in its first test during this war, can never be eradicated from the minds of those familiar with the circumstances of the sad case.

The surrender of the two Japanese to the Chinese officials, by the United States consul-general, threw the Japanese of Shanghai into a state of the greatest consternation, as they had hitherto believed themselves to be perfectly secure under the protection of the American government. Their dismay was doubled a month later, when on October 8, the two students were tortured to death, in spite of the promise which had been made to Secretary Gresham by the Chinese minister at Washington, that they should be properly treated. The pledge given by the Chinese government was that these students should be treated as prisoners of war, and tried by a competent court, after the manner of civilized countries; and that their trial would be postponed until Colonel Denby, the United States minister, could be present. Information furnished to the American state department at Washington, its representative in China, the American minister and the American consul-general at Shanghai, was to the effect that the young men were not spies, but were students in a commercial school established in Tokio with a branch at Shanghai, the chief object of which was to impart a knowledge of the commerce of China and Japan, and promote the trade relations between the two countries. Under date of September 1, Colonel Denby wrote to the secretary of state as follows:

“To give up these boys unconditionally is generally believed to be to give them up to death. The viceroy of Nanking has, I am informed, already demanded of the taotai of Shanghai why the heads of the two spies have not been sent to him. They are judged and condemned in advance. The governor of Formosa has posted a proclamation offering prizes for Japanese heads. In a country where such a thing is possible, it is needless to inquire what chance a Japanese accused as a spy would have for his life. This case has attracted much attention in Japan. The American minister at Tokio telegraphed this legation that these men were innocent. Should any harm befall them, retaliation is inevitable. These young men have the fullest sympathy of all foreigners in 471China, and the advice of the high officials of all nationalities has been not to give them up without conditions.”

Mr. Jernigan, the United States consul-general at Shanghai, wrote as follows:

“Had it been known to the Chinese authorities that the limits of my power as a protector of Japanese interests extended only to an inquiry after arrest, all the students, fifty, would have been summarily arrested, and it is believed here, as summarily dealt with as were their two fellow students. I do not hesitate to conclude that the delay caused by the course of this consulate general in the case of the two Japanese students, prevented the arrest of as many as two hundred Japanese upon mere suspicion, and has probably saved many from being executed and others from being held for ransom.”

With this sort of a warning before them, the remaining Japanese residents in Shanghai, who numbered about seven hundred persons, consequently determined to quit the place at the earliest possible moment. The Yokohama Specie bank transferred its business for the time to a French bank and closed its doors. The Japanese storekeepers sold off their stocks with all speed, and prepared to leave in the first steamer for their native country.

Let us turn now to the hostile operations in Corea involving the rival forces. In the last chapter the operations were related up to July 30, on which date the Japanese drove the Chinese troops out of their intrenched position at Asan. Five days later, on the 4th of August, the conquerors re-entered Seoul in triumph, leaving the retreating Chinese to make their way to their friends far to the northward. Barbarous as it might have been in the Chinese to have no commissariat, they had in such an encounter the advantage in marching, and were able to make a retreat so successfully as to win the admiration of those who can recognize even that sort of merit.

To understand the movements of forces from this period of the war, it must be remembered that we have to do with a single Japanese force, landing at Chemulpo and commanding and occupying Seoul, from which center the movements were carried on. There were, however, two Chinese forces, the original garrison of Asan, a port forty miles south of Seoul, and a large force advancing by 472the road which enters Corea at its northwest corner at Wi-ju. China anxious to meet and annihilate at one blow if possible her despised foe, threw the latter body of troops, drawn largely from the Manchoo garrisons, into the Corean peninsula, where they advanced about one hundred and seventy miles inside the border to the banks of the Tatong River at Ping-Yang. The Japanese were awaiting the shock a little to the north of Seoul, and such was the strength of their position that the Chinese, instead of advancing upon them, halted at the capital city of the province, Ping-Yang, assuming the defensive there and strongly fortifying it. One week after the capture of Asan and the beginning of the retreat of the Chinese, the van of the victorious army started from Seoul, marching towards Ping-Yang, one hundred and forty miles distant, whence they were destined five weeks later to be once more victorious in expelling the Chinese.

General Yeh, with his four thousand Chinese, made, as has been said, a masterly retreat. Accompanied by many Coreans who joined his standard when he was compelled to abandon his untenable position, he struck northeastward and after twenty-five days effected a junction with the Chinese main body at Ping-Yang, August 23. His column kept to the mountains, where travel was difficult, and it was harassed by the enemy all along the route. Nevertheless, the troops marched three hundred and fifty miles through this almost impassable country, breaking through the Japanese lines at Chong-ju, and reaching their friends at last.

The Japanese army, advancing on Ping-Yang at the same time, was approaching that position by a course parallel with that of the Chinese, but to the westward of it. The opposing forces were near enough to one another that detached bodies frequently met in conflict, and the skirmishes resulting were reported by whichever band happened to be victorious, as a brilliant victory for the army. Because of this condition of affairs, many battles were reported from one side or the other that were scarcely mentioned by the opponents, whichever force it might be, and the war spirit was thus constantly fed in China and Japan without anything of considerable importance really happening.

About the middle of August the Japanese scouts pressing forward from Pongsan came across an advance guard of the Chinese, 473who had seized the telegraph line. A brisk skirmish ensued and the scouts fell back. A few days later the Chinese advance guard, numbering five thousand men, encountered the Japanese troops guarding the Ping-Yang passes, and drove them out. Two days later an advance was made on the Japanese skirmish lines, and the Japanese were again defeated, this time being turned back as far as Chung-hwa, some twenty miles south of Ping-Yang.

When the Japanese troops started from Chemulpo and Seoul to advance on Ping-Yang, a force of thirteen transports, protected by a strong convoy of war vessels, also started for Ping-Yang, carrying 474some six thousand troops who were intended to co-operate with the forces advancing by land. On the 18th of August these troops were landed in Ping-Yang inlet, and they immediately began their march up the cultivated valley of the Tatong River in the direction of the city. When the force had proceeded some distance, it was suddenly attacked by one thousand Chinese cavalry, who succeeded in dividing the column into two parts. The Chinese artillery at the same time caused great havoc among the Japanese. The latter were thrown into complete disorder, and considerably reduced in numbers they fled to the seashore, pursued by the cavalry who cut down many of the fugitives. As they reached the coast the Japanese came within the shelter of the guns of their war vessels, and the Chinese were consequently compelled to desist from further pursuit.

The land skirmishes of which mention has been made, involved none except the extreme van of the Japanese forces and the outposts of the Chinese. The main body of the Japanese troops, some fifteen thousand strong, found that the daily rate of progress northward did not exceed six miles, so broken was the road by mountains and streams, the passage of which presented great obstacles. This being the rate of advance, the army had pushed some ninety miles from Seoul, when it was decided that a change of military plan must be made. The Chinese assembling in such great force at Ping-Yang, by the union of the two armies, threatened Gensan, on the east coast of Corea. At Gensan there was an important Japanese colony, and from there a trunk road led southward to Seoul. The destruction of the colony, a flanking movement against the Japanese army, and an irruption of Chinese troops into the Corean capital, might have been the result of not including Gensan in the Japanese program of operations. A force of ten thousand men was accordingly transported to Gensan by sea, with instructions to move westward against Ping-Yang, timing its advance and attack with those of the army from Seoul, whose progress northward was suspended to allow time for the passage and disembarkation of this column, and of the column which had been sent from Chemulpo into the Ping-Yang inlet.

While these land operations were going on, there were also some naval movements under way, but the latter brought no very 477definite results. A fleet of Japanese vessels, including a few iron clads and some merchant steamships transformed into cruisers, made a reconnoissance of Wei-hai-wei and Port Arthur about the 10th of August. A few shots were exchanged at long range between the vessels and the forts at each of these places, and the fleet then withdrew. The operations were of little more importance than a mere ruse to draw fire and ascertain the position and strength of the enemy’s guns. No submarine mines were exploded, or torpedoes launched. At the request of the British admiral, Sir Edmund Fremantle, the Japanese promised not to renew the attack upon Wei-hai-wei or to bombard Chefoo without giving forty-eight hours’ notice to him, so that measures might be taken to protect the lives of foreign residents.

The emperor of China, taking personal interest in affairs to greater extent than had been his custom, insisted on a full daily report of the warlike operations and plans. He studied special official reports of the naval attack, and then wanted to know why his commanders allowed the enemy’s vessels to escape. All this time the Japanese fleet was patrolling the China sea, the Gulf of Pechili and the Corean Bay, trying to reach a conflict with the enemy, and to prevent the tribute of rice from going north. Torpedoes were placed in the entrance to Tokio Bay and Nagasaki harbor, to guard against an attack by Chinese war vessels. The war spirit in Japan lost none of its warmth. The detachments sent across the straits into Corea in August numbered nearly fifty thousand men, and early in September the total number of Japanese troops available for activity in the peninsula was nearly one hundred thousand. A war loan of $50,000,000 was desired by the government, and so anxious were Japanese capitalists to subscribe for it that foreign subscriptions were refused and more than $80,000,000 were offered.

Chinese efforts continued also in great degree, but the results were scarcely as happy. Troops to the same number could not be sent into Corea. A very long land march was required before the forces could reach the seat of war by way of Manchooria and it was useless to attempt transporting them by water, so carefully did the Japanese cruisers patrol the sea routes.

Just at this time, when the lines were drawing closer and 478closer for a decisive battle, the relations between Japan and Corea were more closely defined by a formal treaty of alliance signed at Seoul on August 26. The preamble of the treaty declared it to be the desire of the emperor of Japan and the king of Corea to determine definitely the mutual relations of Japan and Corea, and to elucidate the relations between Japan and China with respect to the peninsula. The body of the treaty consisted of three articles:

“The object of the alliance is the strengthening and perpetuation of the independence of Corea as an autonomous state, and the promotion of the mutual interests of Corea and Japan, by compelling the Chinese forces to withdraw from Corea, and by 479obliging China to abandon her claims to the right to dominate the affairs of Corea.

“Japan is to carry on warlike operations against China both offensive and defensive; and the Corean government is bound to afford every possible facility to the Japanese forces in their movements, and to furnish supplies of provisions to them at a fair remuneration, so far as such supplies may be needed.

“The treaty shall terminate when a treaty of peace is concluded by Japan with China.”

At this very time, however, the feeling of the Corean people against the Japanese was very intense and they were everywhere welcoming the Chinese as their friends. Except the strongly guarded positions in the provinces of Seoul and Hwanghai and the country around the treaty ports which were under Japanese influence, the peninsula was in the possession of armed Coreans and Chinese. The Japanese Marquis Saionji landed at Chemulpo, August 28, to congratulate the Corean monarch on his declaration of independence, and the king showed every disposition to co-operate with the Japanese in their efforts to introduce reforms into his country. His Majesty appointed a commissioner to visit Japan and thank the mikado for his promises to restore peace, and to establish a stable government in Corea. He further issued a decree introducing several reforms, including religious freedom, the establishment of a diplomatic service, the abolition of slavery, economies in the public service, the abrogation of the law whereby the whole family of a criminal is punished, and the granting of permission to widows to marry again.

Early in September the mikado established headquarters in Hiroshima with the ministers of war and marines and the general staff, deciding to direct the war operations from that city in the future. This had already been the place of assembly and embarkation for the troops ordered to the seat of war. At the same time Field Marshal Count Yamagata left for Corea to assume sole command of the Japanese army, which had now been augmented till its numbers were approximately one hundred thousand. Lines were drawing about the Chinese forces nearer and nearer. The indecisive battle which they had fought with the Japanese on August 16 had availed them nothing, and all their available troops were now massed together in Hwang-ju and Sing-chuen.

480As the three advancing columns of Japanese drew nearer to the lines of the enemy, engagements multiplied and scarcely a day passed without some sort of a skirmish. The three divisions struck the Chinese simultaneously on September 5 and 6. The troops from Chemulpo struck the Chinese center at Chung-Hwa; those from Gensan came up with their enemies at Sing-chuen, where the left flank of the Chinese was strongly intrenched; and the detachment from the mouth of the Tatong struck the right flank of the Chinese at Hwang-ju. The results from all of these engagements were favorable to the Japanese, and the Chinese were forced back in confusion upon Ping-Yang where they united to give final battle. In the retreat, the column advancing from the Tatong again caught up with the Chinese on the 7th and another stubborn engagement was fought. The Chinese did not give way until they were in danger of being surrounded, when they fled in redoubled haste towards Ping-Yang.

With the Chinese forces in Corea thus surrounded by the Japanese, after the sharp campaign; and the Chinese fleet of warships in perfect fighting trim collected at Wei-hai-wei, the time was now at hand for the two important conflicts, one on land and one at sea, which resulted in mid-September in the entire victory of the Japanese.