Sino-Japanese War (1894)
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First Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95
About.com About Education Asian History The History of War in Asia First Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95 AdsThe JapaneseChina Chinese InBritish WarMan of WarBackground HistoryJapan HistoryOf ChinaJapan FactsUS Civil WarVietnam War Both sides made historical and propaganda prints during the First Sino-Japanese War - Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection Japanese woodblock print depicting a battle in the First Sino-Japanese War, 1895. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection By Kallie Szczepanski Asian History Expert Dates: August 1, 1894 to April 17, 1895 Belligerents: Qing Dynasty China, Meiji Japan Dispute: Who should control late Joseon-era Korea? Outcome: Decisive Japanese victory - Japan adds Korean Peninsula to its sphere of influence, gets Formosa (Taiwan), the Penghu Islands, and the Liaodong Peninsula outright. Casualties: China - approximately 35,000 killed or wounded; Japan - approximately 5,000 killed or wounded Background to the First Sino-Japanese War: In the second half of the nineteenth century, the American Commodore Matthew Perry forced open ultra-traditional and secluded Tokugawa Japan. As an indirect result, the power of the shoguns ended, Japan went through the 1868 Meiji Restoration, and the island nation began to quickly modernize and militarize. Meanwhile, the traditional heavy-weight champion of East Asia, Qing China, failed to update its own military and bureaucracy, losing two Opium Wars to the western powers. As the preeminent power in the region, China had for centuries enjoyed a measure of control over neighboring tributary states, including Joseon Korea, Vietnam, and even sometimes Japan. CONTINUE READING BELOW OUR VIDEO 10 Facts About The Titanic That You Don't Know This is a modal window. undefined Error Code: APPEND_BUFFER_ERR OK However, China's humiliation by the British and French exposed its weakness, and as the nineteenth century drew to a close, Japan decided to exploit this opening. Japan decided to seize the Korean Peninsula, which military thinkers considered a "dagger pointed at the heart of Japan." Certainly, Korea had been the staging ground for earlier invasions by both China and Japan against one another - for example, Kublai Khan's invasions of Japan in 1274 and 1281, or Toyotomi Hideyoshi's attempts to invade Ming China via Korea in 1592 and 1597. The First Sino-Japanese War: After a couple of decades of jockeying for position over Korea, Japan and China began outright hostilities on July 28, 1894, at the Battle of Asan. The Korean government had previously called in Qing Chinese troops that June to help suppress a rebellion; Japan then sent "reinforcements" as well, over the protests of both the Koreans and Chinese. Even though the rebellion was quelled within two weeks, the Chinese and Japanese troops remained. On July 23, the Japanese entered Seoul and seized the Joseon King Gojong, who was retitled the Gwangmu Emperor of Korea to emphasize his new independence from China. Five days later, fighting began at Asan. Much of the First Sino-Japanese War was fought at sea, where the Japanese navy had an advantage over its antiquated Chinese counterpart. (The Empress Dowager Cixi reportedly siphoned off some of the funds meant to update the Chinese navy, in order to rebuild the Summer Palace in Beijing.) In any case, Japan cut the Chinese supply lines for its garrison at Asan by a naval blockade, then Japanese and Korean land troops overran the 3,500-strong Chinese force on July 28, killing 500 of them and capturing the rest. The two sides officially declared war on one another on August 1. Surviving Chinese forces retreated to the northern city of Pyongyang and dug in. The Qing government sent reinforcements, so the total Chinese garrison at Pyongyang numbered about 15,000. Under cover of darkness, the Japanese encircled the city early in the morning of September 15, 1894, and launched a simultaneous attack from all directions. After approximately 24 hours of stiff fighting, the Japanese took Pyongyang, leaving around 2,000 Chinese dead and 4,000 injured or missing. The Japanese Imperial Army lost only 102 men killed, and 466 injured or missing. With the loss of Pyongyang, plus a naval defeat in the Battle of Yalu River, China decided to withdraw from Korea and fortify its border. On October 24, 1894, the Japanese built bridges across the Yalu River and marched into Manchuria. Meanwhile, Japan's navy landed troops on the strategic Liaodong Peninsula, which juts out into the Yellow Sea between North Korea and Beijing. Japan soon seized the Chinese cities of Mukden, Xiuyan, Talienwan, and Lushunkou (Port Arthur). Beginning on November 21, Japanese troops rampaged through Lushunkou in the infamous Port Arthur Massacre, killing thousands of unarmed Chinese civilians. The outclassed Qing fleet retreated to supposed safety at the fortified harbor of Weihaiwei. However, the Japanese land and sea forces laid siege to the city on January 20, 1895. Weihaiwei held out until February 12. In March, China lost Yingkou, Manchuria, and the Pescadores Islands near Taiwan. By April, the Qing government realized that Japanese forces were approaching Beijing. The Chinese decided to sue for peace. The Treaty of Shimonoseki: On April 17, 1895, Qing China and Meiji Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ended the First Sino-Japanese War. China relinquished all claims to influence over Korea, which became a Japanese protectorate until it was annexed outright in 1910. Japan also took control of Taiwan, the Penghu Islands, and the Liaodong Peninsula. In addition to the territorial gains, Japan received war reparations of 200 million taels of silver from China. The Qing government also had to grant Japan trade favors, including permission for Japanese ships to sail up the Yangtze River, manufacturing grants for Japanese companies to operate in Chinese treaty ports, and the opening of four additional treaty ports to Japanese trading vessels. Alarmed by the quick rise of Meiji Japan, three of the European powers intervened after the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed. Russia, Germany, and France particularly objected to Japan's seizure of the Liaodong Peninsula, which Russia also coveted. The three powers pressured Japan into relinquishing the peninsula to Russia, in exchange for an addition 30 million taels of silver. Japan's victorious military leaders saw this European intervention as a humiliating slight, which helped spark the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05
Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895
Friction between China and Japan over Korea proved tenacious, since the peninsula furnished easy access to Manchuria, the cradle of the Manchu dynasty. 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. 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. In response to this 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. 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. 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, and 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. 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 route of the Chinese and the loss of their last stronghold in Corea. The next day, September 17th, Japan achieved an equally conspicuous success at sea. 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. 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. The Chinese commanding officer did not appear to appreciate the value of sea-power. His fleet included two armored 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. The attack was ended on February 13, when the Chinese admiral Ting-Juchang, rejecting all overtures from the Japanese, 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. 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. Li Hung-chang, the famous 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 to Japan as plenipotentiary to discuss terms of peace, 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. 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. 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 specter 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. The Chinese campaign had exhausted Japan's 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." 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 had but the Sung philosophers and their adherents to blame.
First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895)
The First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) was Japan's first overseas war after she came out of isolation in the 1860s, and saw the rapidly modernised Japanese armed forces inflict an embarrassing defeat on less successfully modernised Chinese forces. Most of the fighting took place in Korea and Manchuria, although the Japanese also invaded Shantung province and several islands, and there were important battles at sea. For many years Korea had been just as closed to outsiders as Japan, apart from her relationship with the Chinese Empire, where Korea was regarded as a subordinate kingdom. In 1876 the Japanese negotiated a treaty with Korea, opening Korea up to foreign trade for the first time. Three ports were opened to the Japanese and consulates established. Japanese trade with Korea quickly expanded, with Japanese and Western goods flooding to Korea and Korean food coming to Japan. Until 1876 Korea had seen herself as a subsidiary to China. The treaty with Japan caused great controversy and pro- and anti- Japanese factions emerged. In 1882 the Taewon'gun, a retired former leader of Korean, led a revolt against King Kojong and Queen Min. The rebels attacked the Royal Palace, narrowly failing to capture Queen Min. They burned down the Japanese legation in Seoul and seven Japanese officers were killed. The Taewon'gun was briefly restored to power, but the Chinese intervened, arrested him and imprisoned him in China. Six battalions of Chinese troops were posted in Korea to prevent a repeat of the uprising. After this uprising the Japanese negotiated with the restored Korean government. The Koreans agreed to apologise for the loss of Japanese lives, pay a fine and allowed the Japanese to post troops at their Seoul legation. At about the same time the Japanese began to prepare for the possibility of a war with Korea or with China. In 1884, during a clash with the French, the Chinese withdrew three of the six battalions. This encouraged a pro-Japanese revolt, helped by the Japanese minister at Seoul. The revolt was successful, and for a short spell King Kojong led a pro-Japanese, anti-Chinese government. The remaining Chinese battalions in Korea quickly overthrew this new government. A number of Japanese were killed and some of the leaders of the deposed government fled to Japan. In 1885, in the aftermath of this affair, Japan and China signed a new treaty in which they agreed to withdraw all troops from Korea and give the other government notice if they needed to send them back. The Japanese had effectively been given permission to send troops to Korea. In the aftermath of these disturbances Japanese public opinion supported further intervention in Korea and a number of secret societies were formed with the aim of destabilising Japan's neighbours so that the Japanese government would be forced to intervene. This tied in with a generally expansionist mood in Japan (not always militaristic in nature - the period also saw a campaign to establish Japanese communities in the west and to increase trade). The tension began to rise again in 1894. In March the pro-Japanese Korean leader Kim Ok-kyn was assassinated in Shanghai and his body taken to Korea for mutilation as a warning to those seen as traitors. The Japanese secret societies began to agitate for war and their efforts played a part in the outbreak of the Tonghak Insurrection. This led to the outbreak of a revolt led by members of the Cult of Eastern Learning, a religious organisation that had been banned in the 1860s and had then gone underground. The rebels wanted both the Chinese and Japanese to leave Korea, but their actions had the opposite effect. The Korean government asked China to send troops, and a 2,500 strong expeditionary force was sent to Asan, forty miles to the south-west of Seoul. The Japanese saw this as a breach of the Tientsin treaty and they sent 8,000 troops to the port of Inchon (then known as Chemulpo). These troops then moved to Seoul, where on 20 July they seized control of the Korean government. By this point the original revolt had been put down by Korean troops, but the damage was done and Japan and China both prepared for war. Pre-war Fighting On 25 July 1894 the first fighting of the war took place, at sea off the west coast of Korea. Two Chinese warships heading west ran into three Japanese cruisers. In the resulting Battle of Asan or Phung-Tao (25 July 1894) the Japanese forced one Chinese cruiser to flee, destroyed a modern Japanese gunboat, sank a troopship that arrived after the fighting was over, and captured a late-arriving Chinese gunboat. At about the same time part of the Japanese army at Seoul moved south to attack the Chinese based at Asan. The two armies clashed at Songhwan (29 July 1894) in the first overseas battle fought by a Japanese army for 300 years. The battle ended as a Japanese victory, but most of the Chinese army managed to escape to the north and joined the main army at Pyongyang. The War War was officially declared on 1 August 1894. Both sides rushed reinforcements to Korea. The Chinese were unwilling to risk another naval clash with the Japanese and so their troops came via the Yalu River (the border between Korean and China) and the northern ports. The Japanese were able to land at Inchon (Chemulpo), at Pusan in the far south-east of the country and at Wonsan (at the eastern side of the neck of the peninsula). The first land battle of the war came on 16 September at Pyongyang, where the Chinese had decided to make a stand. Most sources agree that the Chinese had 14,000 men in the garrison, but estimates of the size of the Japanese force vary from 10,000 up to 20,000. The Chinese were handicapped by a lack of unity amongst their troops, which formed four separate small armies. The Japanese were able to defeat each of these forces in turn and captured the city after inflicting around 7,000 casualties on the defenders. After this success the Japanese advanced north towards the Yulu River, the next Chinese defensive position. As the Japanese advanced up Korea the Chinese decided to ship reinforcements to the Yalu River on the border between China and Korea. The Chinese fleet escorted one troop convoy to the Yalu in mid-September. The Japanese moved north in an attempt to intercept them and at the resulting naval battle of the Yalu River (17 September 1894) the Chinese lost five of the ten ships in their main line of battle. The survivors escaped to Port Arthur and then to Wei-Hei-Wei, but the Japanese had won control of the seas. The Chinese built strong defensive positions on the Yalu River, but the Japanese were able to get across undetected on 24 October. They were then able to attack the Chinese fortifications from the Chinese side of the river, and after five hours of fighting on the morning of 24-25 October the Chinese were forced to retreat (land battle of the Yalu, 24-25 October 1894). After this success the Japanese force split in two, with one thrust pursuing the defeated Chinese and one heading for Mukden, the capital of Manchuria. The Japanese won a series of sometimes hard-fought battles, often against larger but badly led Chinese forces. Hai-ch'eng fell on 13 December, leaving Mukden vulnerable. Early in 1895 the Chinese went onto the attack, and launched a fierce attack on the Japanese at Hai-ch'eng. This attacked ended in failure and the Japanese were able to go back onto the offensive. The cities of Niuzhuang and Liaoyang fell by 4 March and the fighting in Manchuria was effectively over. Japanese Second Army While the Japanese First Army advanced into Manchuria, on 24 October 1894 the Second Army, with the 5th Division, landed on the Chinese coast to the north-west of Korea and advanced towards Port Arthur. A first attack on the port on 19 October was repulsed, but a second attack, on 21 October, convinced the defenders to withdraw. The Japanese entered the city on 24 October, and the first of a series of sacks of Chinese cities began. The capture of Port Arthur denied the Chinese one of their main northern ports, and also saw the Japanese capture a vast amount of military equipment. The Shantung Campaign In mid-January the Japanese opened up another front, this time in Shantung Province. Their target was the naval base at Weihaiwei, where the survivors of the Naval Battle of the Yalu had taken shelter. The Japanese arrived outside the port on 30 January 1895, where they found themselves faced by formidable fortifications. Unfortunatly for the Chinese the defenders were less impressive than the guns, and the forts were captured by 2 February. The fleet was now doomed. The Japanese carried out s series of attacks on the remaining part of the fleet, sinking both of the two Chinese battleships. On 12 February Admiral Ting Ju-ch'ang surrendered the port and committed suicide. The End of the War The Japanese were now ready for the second phase of their plan. This involved an invasion of the Pescadores Islands, which began on 23 March 1895 and saw the Chinese defenders defeated in a three day battle. The second part was to have been a two pronged attack on Peking, with troops coming from Shantung and from Manchuria. This campaign wasn't needed. The Chinese government was ready to seek peace, and on 17 April 1895 the two sides signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki. In this treaty the Japanese gained the Pescadores, Formosa (where they had to fight a short war to establish control), Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula, and were to be paid a large indemnity. These successes worried some of the European powers. Russia, Germany and France combined to force the Japanese to give back Port Arthur and the Liaotung Peninsula, but China's reprieve was short-lived. The Russians soon forced them to give them a lease of Port Arthur and the rights to the Chinese Eastern Railway, which linked Port Arthur to the Trans-Siberian. This in turn worried Britain, who acquired a lease of Weihaiwei to watch the Russians at Port Arthur. This European pressure angered many in Japan and laid the seeds for the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, which would see the Japanese win just as convincingly when fighting one of the great European powers. In China herself the defeat helped encourage anti-foreign sentiment, and played a part in the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion. It also undermined the prestige of the Qing dynasty, and thus played a part in the collapse of Imperial rule in China in 1911.
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Examples
1 In the Sino-Japanese War (1894-95), Japan easily defeated China in a war that would decide who would control the Korean peninsula.
2 The First Sino-Japanese War 1894-1895 saw Japan defeat China on the Korean Peninsula and assert its power in Asia.
3 A collection of essays on the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95 has obvious implications for modern China.