China and Japan
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cut up, and displayed in vari ous Korean cities to show what would happen
to people who committed treason by working with the Japa nese enemies.
From the Korean perspective, Kim had committed the villainous act of
killing top Korean officials during the 1884 coup. But the Japa nese press
considered him a Korean patriot who was trying to modernize Korea. Sto-
ries in the Japa nese papers of his assassination and the display of his body
parts became a sensation and inflamed the Japa nese public. A funeral cere-
mony was held in Tokyo at the Aoyama Cemetery, where Fukuzawa Yu-
kichi, the highly respected intellectual leader who had taught Kim, spoke
in his honor, reflecting Japa nese re spect for his efforts to modernize Korea
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and Japa nese indignation at his assassination. The Japa nese press was filled
with public calls for a strong national response.
Shortly after Kim Ok- kyun was assassinated, the Tonghak Rebellion
broke out in Korea. Much like the Taiping Rebellion in China, which had
been initiated by a sect deeply upset with national policy, the Tonghak Re-
bellion began with a religious sect, Tonghak (Eastern Learning), that com-
bined ele ments of local and foreign religions. Founded in 1860 by a poor
member of the yangban class whose father had been a local village scholar,
the Tonghak beliefs provided hope for poor people. Tonghak had originally
encountered opposition in the Korean press, not because it had po liti cal
goals but because its beliefs were considered a challenge to Confucian or-
thodoxy. The Tonghak influence was especially strong in Cholla province,
Korea’s breadbasket. Members of the sect were angry that corrupt officials
in Seoul imposed high taxes on local areas. The group’s rank and file were
poor peasants who, because of their inability to pay their taxes, had either
lost, or feared losing, their land.
The Tonghak sect was also anti- Japanese. Since the 1870s, rice agricul-
ture in Korea had become increasingly commercialized as Japa nese mer-
chants in Korea bought up more and more Korean rice to ship to Japan,
which was not producing enough to meet the needs of its population. Japa-
nese rice merchants in Korea would lend money to the local peasants, and
when the peasants could not repay the funds, the rice merchants confiscated
their land. Korean farmers regarded the Japa nese moneylenders as dishonest
and exploitative. In 1894, a sudden increase in the support for Tonghak was
triggered by the actions of a particularly oppressive county magistrate in
northern Cholla who had forced young men to work on a water reservoir
and then charged them and their families for use of the water. A rebellion
started and spread quickly to the surrounding counties. King Kojong sent
in a force of about 800 soldiers to clamp down on the Tonghak base in
Cholla. But some of the troops deserted and others were overcome by the
Tonghak rebels. As the Tonghak Rebellion spread northward, estimates
varied as to the seriousness of the Tonghak threat, but King Kojong pan-
icked because so many of his own troops were sympathetic to the Tonghak
cause. Worried that Korea did not have a military force that could be
counted on to put down the rebellion, King Kojong called on the Chinese
to help by sending in troops.
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Rivalry in Korea and the Sino- Japanese War, 1882–1895
The Chinese responded quickly. On June 7 China, following the 1885
Tianjin Treaty’s requirement that if one country sent troops into Korea the
other was to be notified, informed Japan that it was sending 2,000 troops
to Inchon. Japa nese leaders recalled what had happened in Korea in 1884,
when the Chinese overwhelmed Japan’s smaller force and cracked down on
Japa nese businesses in Korea and Japa nese friends in the Korean govern-
ment. In 1894, they were ready for the Chinese forces. Within hours of re-
ceiving notification from China, Japan notified China that it would be
sending in 8,000 troops.
Based on the available evidence, scholars have not been able to agree on
when Japan made the decision to launch the war with China. For some years
both China and Japan had been preparing for such a contingency, deter-
mining how they would respond if a war were to break out between them.
Some Chinese scholars believe Japan was simply waiting for an excuse to
start a war, and that Japan de cided to go to war as soon as China sent its
troops to stop the Tonghak Rebellion. Although Japan officially declared
war on China on August 1, it really began the war on July 25 with a sur-
prise naval attack.
A de cade later, in 1904, Japan would begin the Russo- Japanese War with
a surprise attack, and on December 7, 1941, it would start the war with the
United States with a surprise attack. Indeed, this strategy was reflected in
the thinking of twentieth- century military leader Ishiwara Kanji, who
advocated that if Japan went to war, it should start with a sudden decisive
blow ( kessen).
The Chinese public, Chinese officials, and Western observers over-
whelmingly believed that if war were to break out, China could easily de-
feat Japan. Sir Robert Hart, inspector- general of China’s Imperial Maritime
Customs Ser vice since 1863 and one of the most knowledgeable Westerners
about China at the time, stated that “999 out of every 1,000 Chinese are
sure big China can thrash little Japan.” But Li Hongzhang had much better
information about the readiness of Japan to carry out a war and was not so
certain. He knew that Japan had po liti cal unity, training, organ ization, and
much better intelligence, and he harbored doubts as to whether China could
prevail. Even General Yuan Shikai, who had been responsible for China’s
troops in Korea since 1882 and had been China’s leader in Korea since 1885,
had doubts as to whether China could win. Shortly after Japa nese forces
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began arriving in Korea, Yuan Shikai put on a disguise and, traveling with
a Rus sian military attaché, returned to China.
Ever since he had been given responsibility for China’s foreign policy in
1870, Li Hongzhang had tried to avoid war and to maintain stable relations
with Japan. That objective had been behind his decision in 1882 to bring the
Taewongun to China. It also underlay his decision to conclude the Tianjin
Convention in 1885 as well as his efforts to convince the Western powers to
take a more active role in Korea so that Japan would be less likely to under-
take military action. In 1894, and even during the war, Li continued to try
to involve other powers in ending the war, but without success. When
King Kojong requested help to put down the Tonghak Rebellion, Li sent
troops not to Seoul, which would have most upset the Japa nese, but to
Asan, on the western coast some forty miles south of Seoul, to head off the
Tonghak rebels as they marched northward from Cholla toward Seoul,
hoping that the Japa nese would choose not to become involved in a con-
flict. After Japan sent in its own troops, Li propo
sed to the Japa nese that
both countries should agree to withdraw. On June 16, Japan responded
with a counterproposal, that China and Japan should cooperate in as-
sisting Korea to undertake major steps to promote modernization. But
Chinese and Korean observers were convinced that Japan was driven not
by a desire to promote Korea’s economic development but by its own eco-
nomic interests—to obtain Korean grain at cheap prices. In June 1894
when China refused Japan’s proposal, Japan was ready to go to war.
The Sino- Japanese War, 1894–1895
On July 23, 1894, at 4:00 a.m., two days after China refused Japan’s pro-
posal to work together to modernize Korea, the Japa nese broke into the Ko-
rean royal palace, captured the queen and the one surviving prince, and
held them for “safekeeping” but they did not apprehend King Kojong.
On July 25, when three Chinese ships were passing near Feng (Pung)
Island and Inchon, the open port city on the western coast that served Seoul,
Japa nese patrol ships fired on them. Within an hour, the Japa nese had cap-
tured one of the ships, forced another to flee, and the third was grounded
on a shoal. That same day a large Chinese ship, the Kowshing, which had
been leased from England and was carry ing 1,100 Chinese troops and some
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Eu ro pe ans on its way to Korea, was surrounded by three Japa nese warships
that ordered the Kowshing to follow them into port. After some hours of
negotiation, the Chinese refused. The Japa nese naval commander, Togo
Heihachiro, then ordered an attack on the Kowshing, quickly sinking it and
drowning some of the ablest soldiers in the Chinese military.
In the naval clashes that ensued, Japan drew on the advantages from its
great pro gress in shipbuilding and the navy’s unified strategy and training
since the 1880s. By the mid-1880s Japan’s navy had ended the use of sailing
ships and was constructing only steam- driven warships. In 1894 it had
brought its two fleets together into a single group, the Combined Fleet. Ever
since the tensions in Korea in the mid-1880s, the battle plans formulated
by the Japa nese Navy had assumed that its opponent would be China. It
followed the strategy it had developed under the guidance of John Ingles, a
British Royal Navy captain and adviser to the Japa nese Naval Staff Col-
lege from 1887 to 1893: build ships with high speed and superior firepower
and send them to battle in a straight line. The Japa nese had determined that
in battle, all ten of its ships would move together.
China, in contrast, had four fleets and twice as many ships as Japan. The
Beiyang Fleet, under the direction of Li Hongzhang, China’s largest fleet,
took part in the war with Japan, but China was so lacking in unity that its
other three fleets never joined in. Although China’s ships were not as fast
as Japa nese ships, they included two large armored battleships purchased
from Germany, for which Japan had no counter parts. However, its other
ships were old and obsolete. Nevertheless, Chinese ships had the advantage
of having two bases in the vicinity— Port Arthur (Lushun) on the Liaodong
Peninsula and nearby Weihaiwei, on the tip of the Shandong Peninsula.
On July 29, four days after the sinking of the Kowshing, some 3,000 Japa-
nese troops attacked a camp of Chinese soldiers just south of Seoul. On
August 1, the Japa nese declared war and landed additional troops at Pusan.
China responded and declared war on the same day. Japan quickly gained
dominance in the areas just south of Seoul, but it took some weeks for Japa-
nese troops to advance beyond Seoul and prepare for battle at P’yongyang,
where most of the Chinese troops were located.
Knowing that P’yongyang was well defended, the Japa nese first focused
on Moktan- tei, the Chinese fortress north of P’yongyang. Moktan- tei was
at a higher elevation than P’yongyang, and from there the Japanese fired
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their artillery down into P’yongyang, which led the Chinese to surrender
the city on September 15. The Chinese troops offered some re sis tance, but
they ran out of ammunition. Some have estimated that as many as 2,000
Chinese and 700 Japa nese troops perished at P’yongyang.2 The battle for
P’yongyang represented a major victory for the Japa nese. The remaining
Chinese troops quickly retreated northward, crossing the Yalu River back
into China and ending the Chinese presence in Korea.
On September 17, the day after the end of the P’yongyang battle, a naval
battle later known as the Battle of the Yalu, took place in the Yellow Sea near
the mouth of the Yalu River. The Beiyang Fleet, built to protect China’s
coastline, had difficulties operating on the open ocean, where Japa nese ships
moved easily. China was able to use its two armored German battleships, but
the ships could move at a maximum speed of only fifteen to sixteen knots,
whereas the Japa nese ships could move at speeds of more than twenty knots.
The Beiyang Fleet’s ten ships, arranged in a V formation, were outmaneu-
vered by the faster Japa nese ships, which attacked from the side and the
rear. The armor on the Chinese ships was not pierced, but with their fire-
power the Japa nese were able to kill many of the Chinese sailors on deck.
Five of the Chinese ships were sunk, and China suffered an estimated one
thousand casualties. Other Chinese ships that had been damaged retreated
to Port Arthur to undergo repairs. Only one Japa nese ship was damaged,
and it was able to get away. Evans and Peattie, in their monumental study
of the Imperial Japa nese Navy, Kaigun, attribute the Japa nese victory in the
Battle of the Yalu to the superior speed of their ships, the homogeneity of
their ships in the battle line, the superiority of their firepower, and their
strategy of waiting to fire until close, then maneuvering to the side and
behind to continue the attack. The reputation of the Beiyang Fleet was se-
riously damaged by its loss; the Japa nese Navy’s victory gave it command
of the seas, enabling Japan to move its troops around at will.
On September 25, a week after the naval defeat at the Battle of the Yalu,
the Guangxu emperor announced that because of the suffering of Chinese
soldiers and civilians, the empress dowager would not hold her sixtieth
birthday party.
During the night on October 24, the Japa nese secretly erected a pon-
toon bridge across the Yalu River, enabling Japa nese troops coming from
Korea to cross. They arrived in Manchuria by 4:00 a.m. the following
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Rivalry in Korea and the Sino- Japanese War, 1882–1895
morning. After crossing the Yalu, Japan’s main targets were Dalian and Port
Arthur, the ports on the Liaodong Peninsula. By the time Japan’s troops
reached the Liaodong Peninsula it was winter, and the soldiers marching
through heavy snow made easy targets, enabling the Chinese to push them
back. Nevertheless, by December 9 the Japa nese had taken control of Port
Arthur.
Until the
capture of Port Arthur, foreign correspondents covering the
war had reported favorably on the battlefield conduct of Japan’s soldiers. But
Japa nese troops, following savage combat with Chinese forces in the pre-
ceding weeks, were in a vengeful mood as they approached Port Arthur. On
entering the nearly empty city, out- of- control soldiers brutalized the re-
maining inhabitants, killing a reported 2,000 residents, 1,500 of whom
were noncombatants. Chinese and Western newspapers carried stories of
Japa nese troops engaged in drinking and sex orgies and committing atroci-
ties on the local populace— a preview of the vio lence that would take place
in Nanjing four de cades later.
An investigation that was immediately ordered by the commanding gen-
eral, Oyama Iwao— the same Oyama who had supported the establish-
ment of the Japa nese Red Cross Society— found reasonable cause in the
actions of the Japa nese troops, a finding disputed by Oyama’s legal adviser,
Ariga Nagao, who had witnessed the events at Port Arthur firsthand and
concluded that under international law Japan bore ultimate responsibility.
Ariga wrote his own account, in French, which was published in French for
a foreign audience and then immediately translated into Japa nese for in-
structional use at Japan’s military acad emy. But the news reaching the Japa-
nese public was only about Japan’s great success, which was celebrated by
huge victory parades in Tokyo.
Having captured Port Arthur, the Japa nese moved on to capture the
other major port for the Beiyang Fleet, Weihaiwei, at the tip of the Shan-
dong Peninsula, which was accessible by ship from Port Arthur. In
January 1895 Japa nese forces landed not far from Weihaiwei, and by coordi-
nating its land and naval forces, Japan took control of the naval base and
destroyed much of the Chinese fleet that was there. Now Japa nese troops
were in a strong position to attack Beijing.
On February 12, when it became clear that the Beiyang Fleet had suf-
fered a strategic defeat, Admiral Ding Ruchang, a respected officer who as
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a cavalry officer had helped suppress the Taiping and Nian Rebellions and
who had led the Beiyang Fleet since 1886, and his deputy, taking responsi-