The Sino-Japanese War, 1894-95
The ensign of the Qing Dynasty Beiyang Fleet (twice side by side to fill up the space).
Roots of the Conflict
This French cartoon from c. 1890 perceptively states the principal cause of the conflict: Japan and China are both fishing for the same fish - Korea. In the background, Russia watches with avid interest: a Russia for once not caricatured as a huge, clumsy bear, but bearing an uncanny resemblance to Josef Stalin!
By the time the conflict broke out in 1894, Japan had emerged from her centuries of isolation and boldly stepped into the modern world, adopting Western-style education and industry. Coming to the throne just as Japan was forced to open to the West, the Meiji Emperor had pulled off a slick move by opposing the forces of feudalism, making anyone who obstructed his reforms guilty of personal disloyalty to the throne. The Mikado and his counselors shrewdly picked the very best European models on which to base their new, western-style military: the Prussian Army for their land forces and Britain's Royal Navy for their ironclad steam navy. While this led to some cultural rivalry between the services (Japanese army officers famously sported dueling scars and clicked their heels like the Kaiser's men, while Imperial Japanese naval officers affected monocles and called each other "old chap"), Japan's military was soon the finest homegrown force in all Asia, land or sea. Its first test in full-scale warfare was the Sino-Japanese conflict.
This was to be a war for territory -- for control of Korea. Japan specifically targeted tottering China, a traditional rival and enemy since the time Kublai Khan tried to invade the Japanese home islands (1274 and 1281) and lost his fleet to an enormous typhoon -- a "kami-kaze," or divine wind. Now the positions were somewhat reversed. Riven by internal revolt and beggared by the huge indemnities levied by the Western powers increasingly since the Opium Wars of 1840 and 1860, China had lost much of her sovereignty; had sacrificed control over her own finances to pay the ruinous indemnities to the imperial Powers. The Koreans (a tributary state to the Manchu empire) were glad to play both ends, provoking the Japanese and then beseeching the Dragon Throne for protection. Hesitantly, the Manchu dynasty stepped forward with its best troops and modern steam navy to beat back the semi-barbarian Japanese. Japan held no illusions: she was making a bid to join the club of imperial powers who took what they wanted by force and then made their victims pay for the military operations that victimized them. Japan's first bite was to be Korea and the Liaodong Peninsula just NW of Korea, a strategic key to Manchuria's mineral wealth, containing easily defensible deep-water ports like Dalian and Lüshun (Port Arthur). It would then be a relatively easy matter to ship Manchuria's high-quality coal and iron ore to the vast complex of steelworks, armories and shipyards Japan was constructing on the northwest coast of Kyushu -- the closest part of Japan to Manchuria. Not coincidentally, this region contained Japan's principal naval base at Sasebo, a satellite base at Nagasaki and easy access to the base at Kure on the Inland Sea. It was here that Japan's warship manufacturing base was getting started; by the end of WWI these yards would be busily rolling out dreadnought battlecruisers and 700-foot, 16" gunned battleships that made every navy in existence take notice.
The Fleets Contrasted
But in the 1890s, Japan was still buying its ironclad warships overseas. Nor had China neglected modernization, though in that vast realm adopting western ways was fraught with more difficulties and contradictions than in Japan. China had been deeply hurt and humiliated time and again at the hands of the western "barbarians"; these continual losses of face, coupled with the increasing internal troubles in China, had fanned the flames of xenophobia and resistance to all things western. It was thus something of a coup that reformer Li Hongzhang (together with Prince Kung and other progressive-minded officials) had been able to bring forth a modern naval establishment: A steam battle fleet, together with the shipyards and arsenals to supply it, located in Shanghai. By 1888, China fielded a fleet of some 78 steel warships, mostly built in England, Germany, and Italy. The battleship Chen Yuen (left) and her sister Ding Yuen, mounting four 12-inch guns apiece, were built at Vulkan Werke in Stettin, Germany in 1882-5 for the Imperial fleet. A large number of steel cruisers mounting 6-inch and 8-inch guns made China's navy the biggest in Asia. On paper the Chinese fleet outnumbered the Japanese almost 4:1, and was rated 8th best in the world. Many of the officers were experienced Europeans acting as mercenaries in the Qing dynasty's service; Adm. Ting's co-captain was an American, Phil McGuffin, USN (ret.).
The Japanese fleet, commanded by Vice Adm. Ito, was under the influence of French 1880s doctrine, with a short-lived affiliation with the French navy cemented by the residence of naval architect Émile Bertin, who later rose to become Chief Constructor for the Marine Nationale Française. Bertin designed the protected cruisers Matsushima and Itsukushima, each mounting a single 12.6" Canet gun and a dozen 4.9" weapons, and both built in France. The jeune école philosophy had swayed Japanese naval purchases and strategy, especially after France's overwhelming victory over China in 1885. After a naval rout, Vietnam and present-day Cambodia and Laos were forcibly joined to the French Empire in a union that would last until 1956. Otherwise the IJN was largely British-built, ranging from the Izumi (ex-Esmeralda, purchased from Chile), a 4,300-ton Elswick cruiser armed with two 10" and six 6" breech-loading guns, to the old Fuso, a central battery ship built in Britain in 1878 and modernized in the early 1890s for the war that was by then imminent. On paper there was narrow Chinese superiority. Paper didn't tell the whole story, though. Administrative control of the Chinese fleets lay with regional mandarins. These local fiefdoms were not accustomed to coöperating and making rapid decisions in the national interest. So when the Beiyang (Northern Division) fleet went to meet the Japanese, though it was only the largest of China's 4 regional fleets, it did so with no backup from the other 53 warships in the Imperial Chinese Navy. Japan benefited from central control and clear lines of authority, running directly from the Mikado, who was revered as divine.
Moreover, the Chinese fleet had been in decline since 1889 due to a lack of interest in naval matters at the palace. The Dowager Empress Cixi, well along in her seemingly endless career of misrule, commandeered the moneys appropriated for maintaining the Navy and spent them on luxuries for herself, including a lavish landscape garden whose scenic lakes were filled with carved stone boats -- a slap at the Prince and the reformers. (The gardens may still be seen on the grounds of the Forbidden City.) Morale in the fleet had slipped since funds for training and operations started being siphoned off. At the time the war began, there had been no target practice in the Beiyang fleet for months. Guns were used (in one case) for storing pickles; in another, the ship's officers had stripped the armament and sold it on the black market for ready cash. Just as in the earlier wars with the British, corruption in contracting ate away at the military effectiveness of the Chinese Navy: many shells were found to be filled with flour, water, cement powder, and other fillers instead of explosives. Finally, the entire fleet had been inspected recently, so the ships were freshly coated with flammable paints and varnishes inside and out.
The Battle of the Yalu
As hostilities began, the Japanese occupied the Korean peninsula on the pretext of preserving its independence. Having coerced cooperation from the decadent Korean dynasty, they invested the city of Pyongyang in August 1894; their fleet methodically destroyed all Chinese ships they found in harbor. Japanese Marshal Yamagata surrounded the city and defeated the defenders under Gen. Tso, who was killed in the battle, Sept. 15-16, 1894. The following day the 25 ships of the Beiyang Fleet sailed into Korea Bay to cover a troop landing at the mouth of the Yalu. There they met the 21 ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy in what became known as the Battle of the Yalu (right). Adm. Ting Zhuqang in the Ding Yuen -- a cavalry officer recently assigned to command the Beiyang Fleet -- opened fire prematurely with his guns pointed dead ahead, destroying his own flying bridge and inflicting blast damage and perforated eardrums on himself and his staff; he was in the sick bay for most of the fight. Although the Chinese fought stoutly in most cases, they did so without their commander. Their ships were older and slower than the Japanese (15 kts versus as fast as 23), and, dare one say, handled with less finesse. And their defective ammunition failed to explode on impact time and again. The war of mobility advocated by the jeune école now served the Japanese well. They clearly had caught on to using speed and maneverability to advantage in action, enveloping the Chinese in a near-complete ring of fire and destroying 8 of Adm. Ting's best ironclads, including the cruiser Chih Yuen: sinking 5, killing some 850 Chinese sailors, wounding a further 500. The Chinese caused serious damage to 4 of the Japanese vessels and casualties of 90 killed and about 200 wounded, but withdrew on Ting's order as their ammunition ran out. Meantime on land, Yamagata routed Chinese forces and marched to the Yalu, the traditional border between Korea and Manchuria (well remembered from the more recent Korean War of 1950-53). In November, Marshal Oyama laid siege to Lüshun (Port Arthur), taking the fortress by storm on the 20th-21st as Ito's torpedo boats rushed the harbor entrance and turned their machine-guns on the garrison once inside. And once within the town walls, the Japanese troops massacred the defenders to a man, then fell to looting the town to avenge supposed ill-treatment of Japanese POWs, in an incident that quickly got out of hand. The 3 days' riot that ensued was sensationalized further by the international press.
The Siege of Weihaiwei & the End Game
Having captured the Liaodong Peninsula, Oyama and Adm. Ito continued wreaking havoc on Chinese fortifications in the Shandong Peninsula on the opposite side of the Gulf of Chihli (or Bohai Gulf). Adm. Ting's forces had retreated to their fortified base at Liukung Island in Weihai Bay. During the 23-day siege, they suffered further attrition defending against the bombardment of Weihaiwei, with Chen Yuen running hard aground and halving Chinese battleship strength (she was later refloated and taken into the Japanese fleet). In a battle fought in -26-degree (F) cold, the Japanese crossed the ice to storm Weihaiwei. On Feb. 12, 1895 Ting bowed to the inevitable and surrendered the remnant of his fleet and the great forts guarding the approaches to Beijing. His flagship was defiantly blown up by her crew to deny her to the Japanese. Japan thus picked up one recent ironclad and a half-dozen serviceable cruisers -- in need of some repair, it is true, but at a nominal cost. In a tragic sequel, Adm. Ting refused Adm. Ito's offer of asylum in Japan; Ting and the greater part of his staff all committed suicide instead. Apparently the cult of seppuku was not unique to the Japanese military class; certainly the shame of defeat is universal. How much greater that shame must be for the servants of an ancient Power, a leader in civilization for over 2,500 years, now clearly going to the dogs.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki
The Japanese were now in a most advantageous position as the Chinese delegation under Li Hongzhang sued for peace in March 1895. An extremely punitive peace, along the lines of the treaty that concluded the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was hammered out at Shimonoseki, overlooking the straits between Kyushu and Honshu -- looking towards the great Yawata Steelworks then under construction at Fukuoka. As was common practice in those days, Japan's occupation of Port Arthur and the Liaodong territory was euphemistically called a "lease" (the U.S. presence on Cuban soil at Guantánamo is so designated to this day). Japan's primacy in Korea was recognized (Japan annexed the territory in 1910). China was assessed an indemnity of £25 million, equal to 15% of Japan's GNP -- and they couldn't very well say no. Japan also swallowed what remained of the Chinese imperial fleet -- to make it that much easier the next time she had a go at China, one supposes. With her newfound wealth, Japan hastened to order a half-dozen of the latest pre-dreadnought battleships from British yards -- and settled in for a lengthy occupation of Weihaiwei to guarantee the indemnity would be paid on schedule. So far things seemed quite satisfactory from the Japanese point of view. At left, the Chen Yuen in drydock at Shanghai (click image to enlarge). She and her sister Ding Yuen, Ting's flagship, were China's most advanced warships present at the Yalu, having been delivered in 1885. Specifications for the pair: 308' x 59' x 20' Displacement: 7,430 tons std; 7,670 tons deep laden. Armament: four 12" in barbettes, with all-round 3.5" gun shield. Two 5.9" in single turrets, bow & stern. Six 37mm Hotchkiss machine guns. 3 torpedo tubes. Protection: 14" compound armor on citadel only. 3" armor on secondary turrets. Fuel capacity: 1,000 tons. Speed: 15.7 kts. (more like 15 at the battle). Crew: 350.
The Tripartite Intervention
But some members of the imperialist "club" were not at all pleased at the prospect of their would-be new member. As nonwhite applicants to country clubs can attest, becoming the first person of color to stroll the links can be fraught with controversy; so much more so with becoming a member of the most exclusive club of all. The principal troublemaker was Russia, the avaricious presence in our old cartoon at the top of the page; coveting the very territories Japan had won by force of arms, with willing compliance from the Kaiser and more reluctant complicity by the French. In what became known as the Tripartite Intervention, the three Powers demanded that Japan relent and give the territories back to China "to guarantee China's sovereignty." In a display of unvarnished hypocrisy that would remain unequaled until the Soviet-Nazi Pact of 1939, the continental Powers backed up the demand with a massive naval and troop buildup in the Bohai Gulf, threatening joint action against Japan if she did not comply; and Japan had no choice but to knuckle under. No sooner had Japan backed down than Russia coerced these very same territorial rights for herself that she had so recently denounced Japan for getting. The difference, of course, was that Japan had won these privileges on the battlefield, while Russia merely exacted them by blackmail. This was only too typical of Russia's behavior in the Far East all through the period.
Naturally enough, this incident and the monumental bad faith of Russia spawned bitterness and outrage in Japan. The continuing belittling behavior and offhanded attitude of the Tsar's servants (particularly Viceroy Alexeiev at Port Arthur) rubbed ever more salt into Japan's wounds. By 1898 Russia had moved into Port Arthur and begun to transform it into a formidable fortress and naval base from which the Tsar could base economic exploitation of Manchuria, railroad building, and further military adventures aimed at Japan and China, and indirectly at Britain and other imperial rivals. Half of Japan's hard-won war gains had been given to a dangerous, treacherous rival, one new to a region that was old familiar turf for Japan. And it had been a great loss of face to submit to the Tripartite sabre-rattling. Japan was seething.
The Rise of the "Yellow Peril" Myth
One aspect that particularly rankled the Japanese was the blatant way Russia and her henchmen in the Intervention played the race card. It may not have been coincidental that right at this time, a great deal of literature about the "Yellow Peril" found its way into print. Partly used as an excuse to limit immigration to the U.S., part as a means of chastising Europeans for being too slack and luxury-loving and exhorting them to become more militaristic, the literature was a new branch of the jingoistic fiction of empire so much in vogue, from The Boys' Own Paper to Rudyard Kipling's Barrack Room Ballads. Hitherto the racism of these writings had been aimed primarily at East Indians, Black Africans, and Native Americans; now "Orientals" started getting hit thick and hard. The Germans were among the most active and inventive purveyors of the Yellow Peril myth; the term "Yellow Peril" was coined by Kaiser Wilhelm himself, in fact; governing several million Chinese in his Shandong colony, he was apparently feeling the heat from the new Power active in that neighborhood (note on map that Weihaiwei is only 200 km, or 124 mi., from Qingdao as the gull flies). The Kaiser's feelings on race are on record and consistent. Many anecdotes center around his despatch of a 30,000-man force to wreak bloody vengeance on China after the Boxer Rebellion of 1900.
It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows, and in the wake of Russia's duplicity in the Tripartite Intervention, Great Britain reached out to Japan. Japan's capital ships had been built in Britain and many of her leading naval commanders studied in British naval academies and served with the British fleet. So it was that in 1902 Britain signed her first ever foreign alliance: the Anglo-Japanese Pact of 1902. This was certainly aimed at Russia, Britain's rival in the "Great Game" wherein Britain sought to secure the Khyber Pass region and protect her Indian Empire.
Britain continued arming and training Japan in hopes she would fight a proxy war against Russia and win. Few other European Powers took the Japanese seriously; perhaps knowing the capabilities of her military minds at first hand, the British were more respectful of the disciplined Sons of Nippon. (Japan was also an excellent customer of Armstrong, Vickers, John Brown et al. as she raced to build up her predreadnought fleet to fight the Russians.) Thus it was that when Japan and Russia came to blows in 1904 -- fighting a much longer and more costly war over the same ground Japan had won from China ten years earlier -- the Japanese burned to prove themselves with an even more sweeping victory. In 1905 Japan did get to keep the territories she won by force of arms; but she was once again forced to abandon some of her broader war aims, ones which would give her legitimate membership in the "club." Once again she was blackballed, denied a large indemnity for what had been a much longer, harder, more expensive war. Now that she had defeated a proper Caucasian Great Power fair and square, the hysterical racism reached an even louder pitch than when she had triumphed over China. For a full analysis, read our history of the Russo-Japanese War.
A Sino-Japanese War Picture Gallery
Japanese cruisers sink Chinese merchant shipping at Pyongyang, provoking confrontation with China.
A view of the Battle of the Yalu, one of several by Kobayashi Kiyuchika, a Japanese artist who documented the entire conflict superbly -- from the Japanese point of view.
A triumphalist woodblock print, also by Kobayashi, treats the sinking of a Chinese vessel with considerable imagination. Where are the ghosts? Maybe you can see them when you click the image to enlarge.
Adm. Ting and staff (including European captains) surrender what is left of the Beiyang Fleet after the naval battle and bombardment of Weihaiwei, Feb. 1895. The Chinese navy did not adopt western-style uniforms until 1909.
Click image to enlarge.
The Chinese emissaries, including Li Hongzhang, meet with their Japanese counterparts to negotiate the Treaty of Shimonoseki, April 1895.
The 4,150-ton cruiser Yoshino was built by Armstrong's in Britain, had a 2½" protective deck and mounted six 6" guns. At 23 kts. she was the swiftest in the Japanese fleet in 1894-5. Ship was sunk in a collision with the Kasuga in 1904.
The heaviest units in the Japanese fleet were a sort of hybrid protected cruiser/battleship built in France. They were custom designed for the IJN by Émile Bertin, later to be Chief Constructor of the French Navy. These 3 ships each carried one 12.6" Canet gun each en barbette and a dozen 4.7" on broadside. The Itsukushima (shown), completed 1889, carried the big gun forward (schematic); her sister-ship Hashidate was built to the same design in Japan, completing 1891. The Matsushima of 1890 cleverly rearranged the same elements, mounting the gun aft, and actually proved a faster and handier ship (schematic) and was Ito's flagship at the Yalu and later. But over all these were not successful ships; they were certainly not beautiful. Accordingly, as soon as the Chinese indemnity payments started rolling in, Japan went shopping at British shipyards. Ten years later Japan's British-made battle fleet annihilated a largely French-built (or at least French-influenced) Russian armada, validating Japan's choice in providers.
The 220-foot, 3,700-ton central battery ship Fusô, built in Britain in 1878, was one of the oldest ironclads in the Japanese battle fleet in 1894-5. Protected by a 4½" belt of obsolete wrought-iron armor, she carried six 9.5" (240mm) guns and 8 MG. At the Yalu she took 8 direct hits, killing 2 crewmen and wounding 12.
The Chen Yuen taken into Japanese service as the Chin En (the Japanese pronunciation of her name, written with the identical Chinese characters). She was later in the fleet that fought the Russians at Tsushima in 1905. Enlarge
After Port Arthur surrendered, Japanese troops butchered the remaining garrison and ransacked the town. The American and world press exaggerated this misbehavior, using the incident to push the "yellow peril" button. No such outcry went up 5 years later when the allied western nations pillaged Beijing in the wake of the Boxer Rebellion.
War is never easy on civilians. In an age before photojournalism came of age, the combat correspondent artist depicted the scenes of struggle and suffering, often with remarkable clinical precision. Here on-the-scene artist H.W. Korkworth has rendered the despair of one unfairly despoiled civilian family in Manchuria (click image to see the fine detail). They sit in the street next to their ruined home, their butchered pony lying in the snow and their few undamaged possessions heaped in the roadway. The mother buries her face in her hands in despair as her young son tries to comfort her; Cossacks ride off into the snowy night, he gazes after them. Will he grow up determined to avenge this moment, hating the soldiers who did this to his family and the country that sent them? One wonders.
The elite members of the Imperial Club show little enthusiasm for their new member. The cartoonist pokes fun at the Japanese's inappropriate mix of old and new attire: full western frock coat combined with traditional wooden geta on his feet, umbrella held awkwardly under the arm; buck-toothed grin and slitted eyes are easily identifiable racist stereotypes.
This British "chromo" cartoon of 1901 lampoons the situation after the Boxer Rebellion was quelled: The imperial powers cluster around the prostrate carcass of the golden dragon, China, to claim their share. Newcomers Japan (sabre-toothed tiger, with samurai short sword in mouth), Italy (toothy dog in carabinieri garb) and U.S. (one of 3 eagles) are just as aggressive, though not as large, as the Russian bear and British lion. France is seen here as a rooster, Austria the two-headed eagle. In truth, economic decline and social instability had wracked China since the 1860s. Even so, by 1900 signs of imminent collapse were appearing -- a collapse greatly hastened by the dynasty's siding with the Boxers. The several years of foreign occupation and looting that ensued destabilized Chinese society and resulted in increased foreign control and further deligitimization of the dynasty. In 1902, when order was restored, it had barely 10 years to live. The toothless Republic that succeeded it never established broad national control. In less time than it takes to tell, China broke down into chaos, civil war, and warlordism -- when combined with the 8-year Japanese invasion and occupation, a dark tunnel of horrors from which the population did not emerge until 1950. This fine drawing may serve as a metaphor for the squabble of the imperial powers over how best to dismember the defunct Chinese Empire. Click here for an enlarged view.
