Ch 28 - The Sino-Japanese WarThe End GameJapanese troops ruthlessly suppressed a resurgent Tonghak revolt intent on exterminating the sect altogether. The Japanese First and Second Army Corps pushed the Chinese Huai Army down the Liaotung Peninsula and captured Port Arthur and the fleet naval base at Weihaiwei. Suspicion and trepidation plagued Chon Pong-jun as he monitored Japanese activity in Kyonggi Province throughout the summer months of 1894. Although evidence is lacking to support the claim, it is quite plausible the Taewongun secretly encouraged Chon to take to the battlefield against the Japanese. Whether or not there was a connection, just after the October harvest, Chon Pong-jun again raised the Tonghak banner and the once quiescent Tonghak Army came to life again. In the first Tonghak revolt, Choe Si-hyong, leader of the Northern Assembly of Tonghak, denounced an armed uprising as an act of treason against the nation and a betrayal of the founder's teachings. It was only the peasants of the Southern Assembly who remained determined enough to fight to achieve their aims. This time, following the short-lived truce with government forces, the Northern Assembly joined in the struggle and the peasant army rose to the call in greater numbers than before. Realistic or not, for the first time in Korea's history a rebellion arose with the conscious intent of destroying the basic system of government and structure of society. As many as 100,000 peasant soldiers assembled under field leadership in Cholla Province alone. In Chungchong Province an immense force assembled at Nonsan. Even the Tonghak spiritual leader Choe Si-hyong emerged from hiding to lend his encouragement to the fight. Chon Pong-jun led his forces northward with the avowed intent of expelling the Japanese from Korea. In other provinces, Tonghak farmers engaged the Japanese in numerous harassing actions, attacking supply bases and cutting lines of communication. With most of its combat troops pursuing the Chinese, the suddenness of the uprising surprised the Japanese and they suffered a number of battlefield reverses. They did not suffer long. The Japanese quickly regained the advantage and turned against the Tonghak with ruthless efficiency. A battalion of First Army troops broke from the fighting front and marched south in three columns, accompanied by a contingent of Korean government soldiers. As the Japanese moved toward the strategic town of Kongju in early November, they made first contact with the Tonghak main force in Chungchong Province. In a desperate week-long battle, the modern weapons and training of battle-hardened Japanese troops wore down the weakened Tonghak peasant army. Broken and defeated, the peasant force withdrew southward, leaving behind many dead and wounded. Japanese troops continued to pursue the main force through Cholla Province as it retreated in disarray and tried to disappear into the countryside. On October 27, 1894, General Soroku Kawakami, Deputy Chief of Staff of Japan's Imperial Headquarters under General Prince Arisugawa Taruhito, issued an order to "kill all peasant army men." Despite the cessation of armed resistance, at least 2,000 Japanese troops swept through Kyonggi, Kyongsang, Chungchong and Cholla provinces between November and March 1895, hunting down, capturing and killing Tonghak troops wherever they found them. The Japanese were not content with merely suppressing the revolt, they were bent on exterminating the Tonghak sect entirely. Japanese troops arrested Chon Pong-jun on December 28, and sent him to Seoul. Most of the other Tonghak leaders were also caught soon afterward. Choe Si-hyong and a few remaining leaders managed to escape arrest and went back into hiding, later to pass their beliefs on to succeeding generations. Although the slaughter in the provinces continued until the end of January and sporadic outbreaks occurred throughout 1895, the Tonghak movement was no longer an effective force. After Chon and his associates were executed, the few remaining pockets of Tonghak resistance gave up the fight and quietly slipped away to hide. The Tonghak movement began as a domestic revolution led by impoverished yangban against Korea's oppressive yangban society. It took its direction and cohesion through the institutional structure of the Tonghak religion. Years earlier, the movement had the opportunity to reform and strengthen Korean society, but that time had long since passed. The social ills and government evils it protested had been overshadowed by Japan's menacing presence and economic aggression. Chon Pong-jun's second uprising was largely the direct consequence of Japan's intervention in Korea. In the end, Tonghak peasant soldiers found themselves trapped between a corrupt Korean power structure and aggressive Japanese imperialism. Ironically, instead of securing freedom and justice for the oppressed, the Tonghak Rebellion played directly into the hands of a foreign power bent on conquest. After pushing the Chinese out of Pyongyang, the Japanese army in Korea was reorganized into the First Army Corps under the command of General Yamagata Aritomo. The newly formed corps included Lieutenant General Nozu Michitsura's Fifth Provincial Division from Hiroshima and Lieutenant General Katsura Taro's Third Provincial Division from Nagoya. The Fifth Division consisted of the Ninth Brigade under Major General Oshima Yoshimasa and the Tenth Brigade under Major General Tatsumi. The Third Division consisted of Major General Oseka's Fifth Brigade and Major General Oshima Hiroshi's Sixth Brigade.
General Sung-ching stationed a powerful detachment at Hushan, an important outpost across the Ai River, which flows into the Yalu. On the night of October 24, Japanese troops successfully built a pontoon bridge across the Yalu beneath Hushan and moved into position for an assault without being detected. The Japanese assaulted Hushan at 5:00 p.m. the next day. The fighting ended around 10:30 p.m., when the Chinese deserted the fortified position. The same night, Chinese troops to the west withdrew from their headquarters at Chiulien-cheng without putting up much resistance. General Yamagata's troops easily occupied Antung without much trouble and established a provisional civil administration under the guidance of Baron Komura Jutaro, Japan's Minister of Foreign Affairs, to govern the Chinese population in the seized territory. To the north, the retreating Huai Army set fire to the city of Feng-hwang-cheng (modern Fengcheng) as they continued their westerly retreat. Japan successfully crossed the Yalu River and established a firm foothold on Chinese territory with the loss of only 4 killed and 140 wounded. After taking the city of Chiulien-cheng, General Yamagata split the First Army Corps into two groups. Lieutenant General Nozu Michitsura's Fifth Provincial Division headed north toward Mukden in the bone-chilling cold of a severe Manchurian winter. Lieutenant General Katsura's Third Provincial Division moved west along the Liaotung Peninsula in hot pursuit of Huai Army units that had fled toward Ta-ku-shan (modern Gushan) on the coast. The Third Division took Ta-tung-kau (modern Donngang) and Ta-ku-shan in quick succession by November 5. Turning north, they overran Chinese defenders at Siu-yen (modern Xiuyan) on November 17. General Oyama Iwao's Second Army Corps landed near Pi-tse-wo (modern Pikou) on the south coast of the Liaotung Peninsula on October 24 to join the drive into China. The Second Army consisted of Lieutenant General Yamaji's First Provincial Division from Tokyo and the Twelfth Brigade, Sixth Provincial Division from Kumamoto. After going ashore just ninety miles northeast of Port Arthur, the Second Army Corps pushed down the peninsula. General Yamaji's troops took Kin-chow on November 6 and Talienwan the next day, capturing twenty-four Krupp guns and forcing the retreating Chinese into a defensive pocket at Port Arthur. Garrisoned by some 9,000 Chinese troops defending twenty-two forts around the port city, Port Arthur had a celebrated reputation for being an impregnable stronghold. Although Li Hongzhang had spent millions in silver and as long as sixteen years to build the defenses at Darien and Port Arthur, he got no use out of either. Just after midnight on November 21, soon after the moon appeared over the eastern horizon, the Second Army Corps launched a massive night attack from the rear. The battle raged through the night and by noon the next day, Japanese troops had taken every important landward defense position, including the Itsu-shan (Chair Hill) forts. Shore-based strongholds such as Hwang-chin-shan (Golden Hill) put up stiff resistance and did not fall until late in the day after a devastating artillery bombardment. Huai Army soldiers withdrew from every fortified position around the port that night and withdrew into the city of Port Arthur, leaving behind some 57 large-caliber and 163 small-caliber guns. The taking of Port Arthur was accompanied by a great deal of savagery on both sides. Many Chinese troops changed into civilian clothing to blend in with the local population and avoid capture. Japanese troops faced the constant danger of Chinese snipers firing at them from rooftops and buildings. The bloodshed that followed the fall of the city needlessly aggravated the general butchery of the fighting. Enraged by the sight of the decapitated heads of their comrades hanging from trees and the eaves of houses in Port Arthur, Japanese troops ran wild through Port Arthur for several days, randomly hacking to pieces hundreds of defenseless Chinese and killing any adult male who offered resistance. The death toll reached nearly 4,000. The Battle for Port Arthur cost the Japanese just 29 killed and 233 wounded. Japanese ships removed sea mines from the harbor entrance and entered the harbor on the night of November 24. Admiral Ting Ju-Chang and the remnants of the Beiyang Fleet were long gone, having steamed out of Port Arthur on October 18 The battered Beiyang Fleet limped back to its home port at the Weihaiwei Naval Base, where Chinese commanders sorrowfully reported to Li Hongzhang that not a single ship was seaworthy, let alone capable of combat operations. The Chinese Government laid the blame for the Chinese defeat squarely in the shoulders of Viceroy Li Hongzhang and Admiral Ting Ju-Chang. In sharp contrast, British Admiral Freemantle met Admiral Ting in Weihaiwei on October 27, while the admiral still suffered from burns he received in the Yalu River battle, and described him as a "brave and patriotic man." The brutality exhibited at Port Arthur embarrassed the Japanese government, which quickly began a major propaganda campaign to convince the world of its "moral and military superiority over China." In answering its critics, Japanese diplomats in Washington pointed out that Americans had committed their own atrocities at such places as Andersonville and Wounded Knee, and that British and Russian troops had also occasionally been guilty of wanton destruction and outrages. The Sino-Japanese war had begun with a series of swift victories for Japan and the entire Japanese nation was behind the war effort. Ecstatic over the military's success, the people called for continuation of the war until Beijing fell. Even Christian leaders in Japan regarded the military effort against China as a just war that was being fought to help Korea rid itself of Chinese oppression. The Chinese however, were having second thoughts about continuing the war. In November 1894 Prince Gong, head of the Zongli Yamen, sought the services of Colonel Charles Denby, the United States minister to China in Beijing, to act as mediator between China and Japan. With Japanese troops already across the Yalu River in the Liaotung Peninsula and Port Arthur and Darien occupied, Prince Gong indicated that China was willing to settle the war through negotiations, pay an indemnity and recognize Korea's independence. The Japanese considered the offer insufficient, but did express a willingness to talk. By an imperial edict of December 21 two Chinese officials were ordered to set out for Japan to open peace talks; one was Chang Yin-huan, a Cantonese minister of the Zongli Yamen and junior vice president of the Board of Revenue; the other was Shao Yu-lien, acting governor of Hunan Province and former chargé d'affaires of the Chinese legation in St. Petersburg. Since Minister Mutsu had told Edwin Dun, America's minister to Japan in Tokyo, that Japan would not object if China initiated the peace talks through the United States, Dun and Colonel Denby assumed the roles of intermediaries. Neither Chang nor Shao understood the diplomacy of war however, and Denby became more of an adviser than an intermediary. Since Denby could not travel to Japan, the Chinese government employed a private American citizen to accompany the peace mission as its official adviser. Their selection was John W. Foster, the former Secretary of State, and a man who was on good personal terms with Foreign Minister Mutsu. No sooner was his selection announced than Foster was swamped by offers from American bankers, arms merchants, railroad magnates, ship builders, and oilmen; all with lucrative propositions. He refused them all to give his focused attention to the Chinese. During their initial meeting with the Chinese mission at Hiroshima on February 1, 1895, the Japanese humiliated the Chinese before peace talks were even convened. After dealing with such matters as the official language of the talks and the exchange of appropriate credentials, Japanese Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi and Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu toyed with Chang and Shao over the issue of their credentials, stating that neither held sufficient rank or authority to negotiate a peace with Japan. They indicated a preference for someone with more stature, someone like Prince Gong or Viceroy Li Hongzhang. After its success at Port Arthur, plans were set in motion to deal with the one remaining Chinese military threat to Japan; the Beiyang Fleet at Weihaiwei. General Oyama Iwao's Second Army Corps was ordered to the Shantung Peninsula to support a combined land-sea assault against the Weihaiwei naval base. General Yamagata's First Army Corps spent the winter months on the Liaotung Peninsula, readying itself to take the offensive in southern Manchuria at a later date. While China's peace mission was being rebuffed in Hiroshima, the Japanese moved into position to take the naval stronghold of Weihaiwei in northeastern Shantung Province, which along with Port Arthur commanded the entrances to the Gulf of Bohai. Between January 20 and 24, 1895, Second Army Corps landed without resistance at Yungcheng Bay, just 12 miles west of Weihaiwei. The troop buildup consisted of Lieutenant General Sakuma Samata's Second Provincial Division from Sendai, and Lieutenant General Kuroki Tanemoto's Sixth Provincial Division from Kumamoto, less the Twelfth Brigade. The two divisions set out for Weihaiwei on January 26 along two routes, planning to move into position behind Weihaiwei's defensive fortifications by early February. The march to Weihaiwei began a two-week-long combined assault by land and sea against the Chinese forts and warships anchored at the naval base. The severe winter cold handicapped attackers and defenders alike. Between January 31 and February 1, a massive snowstorm with roaring winds swept the area, dropping temperatures to -26 degrees Centigrade. Naval gunfire from the Beiyang Fleet, anchored just 2,000 meters offshore in the lee of Liugongdao Island, and 68 big guns at twelve forts surrounding the area pounded the Japanese as they approached the walled city of Weihaiwei. The Japanese returned fire with a nine hour long artillery barrage that silenced the forts around Weihaiwei. Chinese troops evacuated the city and troops of the Second Army Corps moved in on February 2 and secured its position ashore. The final destruction of the Chinese fleet belonged to Vice Admiral Ito Sukeyuki and the Japanese Imperial Navy. Ironically, the two opposing admirals were personal friends. Before the final assault began, Admiral Ito sent an emotional letter to Admiral Ting Ju-Chang expressing his deep regret that the two men had to meet each other under such dire circumstances. Admiral Ito appealed to Ting's patriotism and advised him to avoid unnecessary loss of life and destruction by surrendering. He also invited Admiral Ting to Japan as an honored guest until war's end, at which time he could return to China and help set its foreign policy on a sound basis. Admiral Ito's letter visibly moved the Chinese commander, who responded in part, "I am thankful for the admiral's friendship, but I cannot forsake my duties to the state. The only thing now remaining for me to do is to die." The Beiyang Fleet at Weihaiwei consisted of 15 warships, including the iron-clad battleships Ting-yuen and Chen-yuen, and 13 torpedo boats. Admiral Ito commanded a force of 25 warships and 16 torpedo boats. With fire support from the Second Army ashore, the final destruction of the Beiyang Fleet seemed a foregone conclusion. Vice Admiral Ito's fleet, operating from its anchorage at Yungcheng Bay, began shelling the forts on Liugongdao Island and Ridao Island on January 30, and continued pounding those positions off and on until February 7, when a sustained attack began. Admiral Ting resisted valiantly despite being bottled up at Weihaiwei, even with the harbor entrances protected by 248 sea-mines and massive log booms. On February 4, after cutting a path through the log booms, ten Japanese torpedo boats entered the harbor and attacked the Beiyang Fleet at anchor. One battleship was sunk at the cost of two torpedo boats. The following night, four torpedo boats resumed the attack and sank three more Chinese warships. The battleship Ting-yuen suffered serious damage that night after being struck by a Japanese torpedo and numerous hits from Ito's big guns. Captain Liu Buchan knew that surrender was not an option and ordered the fatally wounded ironclad scuttled, thus ending his battleship's brilliant and tragic life. Admiral Ting's 13 torpedo boats broke out of the anchorage and tried to escape toward Chifu. Japanese gunners destroyed six of the boats and the captured the rest. On February 9, General Oyama successfully took command of the land defenses surrounding the harbor and turned captured Chinese guns against the badly damaged remnants of the Beiyang fleet. Within hours, Japanese gunners sank the heavy cruiser Ching Yuen and silenced the forts on Ridao Island and the eastern forts on Liugongdao Island. Admiral Ting Ju Chang saw no honorable exit from an impossible situation. He surrendered the forts and the remaining eleven ships of his fleet to spare his men from a pointless slaughter. On the morning of February 12, a small gunboat flying a white flag approached Vice Admiral Ito's flagship, the Matsushima. Captain Ching of the armed sloop Kwang Ping delivered a letter from Admiral Ting Ju-chang to Admiral Ito. In this letter the Chinese commander formally surrendered all of his ships remaining in the harbor and all the forts and supplies on Liugongdao Island. Admiral Ting requested that all Chinese and foreign officers, soldiers and civilians on land and at sea around Weihaiwei be allowed to depart without harm. He also proposed that Admiral Freemantle, the British Commander-in-Chief of the British China Squadron, should guarantee the China's faithful performance of the conditions of surrender. After reading Admiral Ting's letter, Vice Admiral Ito held a conference with his senior army and navy officers, many of whom advised him not to allow the Chinese to leave, but to take them as prisoners. Admiral Ito's personal admiration for his friend's devoted service to China overruled their advice. Ito ordered Admiral Ting's request to be granted. In his reply to Admiral Ting, Ito agreed to release all men on parole and again advised him, for the sake of his own safety and the future good of China, to be Japan's honored guest. Admiral Ito declined Ting's proposed guarantee of the surrender by Admiral Freemantle, saying it would be unnecessary. Ito trusted Admiral Ting's honor as a gallant soldier and true gentleman. In addition to the letter, Admiral Ito sent gifts to both Admiral Ting and Liu Buchan, captain of the battleship Ting Yuen. The once mighty Beiyang Fleet was gone and thousands of gallant Chinese soldiers and sailors died with it. They fought bravely to save China, despite being handicapped by corruption, treachery and incompetence at home. After composing an appropriate dispatch to Li Hongzhang, Admiral Ting Ju Chang and a number of his principal staff officers, knowing that their ungrateful country would prove less merciful than their honorable foe, swallowed lethal doses of opium. The following morning, Captain Ching once again visited the Matsushima, this time with the Chinese flag at half-mast. He carried Admiral Ting's reply and sorrowfully announced that the admiral, Captain Liu and a number of other officers had committed suicide. All arrangements for the Chinese surrender were conducted with utmost honor shown to Admiral Ting, whose body was returned ashore aboard a captured Chinese warship. As agreed, Vice Admiral Ito ordered the release of 5,124 men on parole. The 23-day siege of Weihaiwei officially ended February 12, 1895, with the raising of the Japanese flag aboard the surrendered battleship Chen Yuen and the remaining ships of the Chinese fleet. Having successfully taken control of the Gulf of Bohai, Vice Admiral Ito returned to Hiroshima on March 3. Before the spring of 1895, Japan had trapped the Chinese armies in Manchuria and controlled all roads leading to China. The Third Division, First Army Corps, took the city of Haicheng on December 13 and repulsed three separate attempts by the Chinese to retake it in January and February. The First Division, Second Army Corps, swept north then west to take Niuchwang (modern Yingkou) on March 4. Just two days later, the First and Third Divisions jointly attacked Tianzhuangtai on the north bank of the Liao River and burned it to the ground to deny the city to the Chinese. The Japanese Army was poised and ready to invade China proper. When it became clear that China could do nothing to prevent the Japanese from advancing on Beijing and taking the city, Li Hongzhang, recently criticized and degraded for the failure of his expensive and highly praised armed forces, was pushed to the fore and appointed China's sole plenipotentiary to Japan. Though now seventy-three years of age, his six-foot height, dark, piercing eyes and fine physique was a presence that commanded attention in any foreign circle. Li's credentials fully empowered him to negotiate with the Japanese, to arrive at the terms of a peace treaty and to sign and seal it. Li and his diplomatic mission arrived in Shimonoseki, Japan, on March 15. At 3 o'clock on the afternoon of March 20, talks were begun with Japan's minister Mutsu and Premier Ito. Li's secretary, Lo Feng-loh, did most of the interpreting during the first conference. Unlike Li Hongzhang, whose trip to Japan was his first outside China, Lo had been educated in the West. Exceptionally knowledgeable on a wide variety of subjects, Lo was one of a number of brilliant young Chinese who found it impossible to make good use their education at home, where Confucian learning and the national examinations were the only ladder to success. When Ito asked him why it was that China was so weak in war and so backward in Western accomplishments, Lo noted half in jest: "You see, in our younger days we knew each other as fellow-students, and now you are Prime Minister in your country and I am an interpreter in mine." Li began the talks by asking for an immediate armistice before opening peace negotiations; a suspension of hostilities on land and at sea and a maintenance of the status quo for a time. In response, Ito and Mutsu presented Li with a ten-point proposal from the Japanese government. The Japanese were determined to not only humble China while they had the opportunity, but to get tangible rewards as well. Foremost on their list of demands was Korea's independence, an indemnity for damages, the cession of territory, and future commercial and navigational privileges in China. The seventy-three-year-old Li could not find it within himself to accept such terms and had a difficult time dealing with the younger Ito (55) and Mutsu (52). He could find no way to get a psychological advantage in the talks. After the talks broke up late in the afternoon of March 24, Li Hongzhang stepped into his sedan chair to return to his quarters. While Li was being carried through a narrow street lined with curious onlookers, twenty-six-year-old Koyama Toyotaro, a fanatic wearing an expensive kimono, stepped out of the crowd, ran up to Li with a pistol and shot him in the face at very close range. Stoically, Li remained seated and calmly asked one of the bearers for a handkerchief to stop the bleeding. He was carried to his quarters, where he got out of the chair and calmly walked to his room. The bullet lodged near Li's cheekbone, about an inch below his left eye, and it was decided the bullet should be left alone. Within two weeks the wound healed without complications. In one of history's stranger twists, the brazen assassination attempt produced a remarkable reaction from the Japanese - a sense of guilt and shame. A Japanese citizen had attacked a man who, though an enemy, was nevertheless a guest in their country. The highly embarrassed Japanese immediately declared an armistice, fearing in part that Li may decide to walk out of the peace talks and, taking advantage of his wound, persuade the Western Powers to intervene on China's behalf. The Meiji Emperor sent a formal apology and men of all classes sent Li expressions of sympathy. Japanese newspapers changed their tone from one of belligerence to praise for Li's many accomplishments. This episode so upset the Japanese government that on the day after the shooting Foreign Minister Mutsu personally visited Li's son, an attache in the Chinese delegation. He told him that, The misfortune of Li is also the fortune of the Great Qing Empire. From now on peace terms will be more easily arranged and the Sino-Japanese war will be terminated. Li recovered from his wound and resumed negotiations on April 10. One week later, on April 17, 1895, China and Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki Japan attempted to calm both Great Britain and Russia by giving assurances that it was interested only in reforms in Korea, not control. Korean territory would not be taken. Great Britain was more concerned with trade than territory and felt satisfied with the treaty terms. After all, any new commercial advantages granted by Japan or China would automatically extend to the British under the terms of most-favored-nation status. China agreed to pay Japan an indemnity of ¥360 million and for the first time gave Japan most-favored-nation status. Japan also gained extraterritorial privileges, including the right to open manufacturing and industrial facilities on mainland China. The ports of Chunking, Soochow, Hangchow, and Sha-shih were opened to Japanese trade and Japanese ships were given free passage on all inland rivers. The treaty also called for China to cede the Liaotung Peninsula, including Darien and Port Arthur, the island of Taiwan and the Pescadores Islands to Japan, territorial acquisitions that ominously revealed Japanese ambitions to build its own East Asian empire.
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