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Updated: May 14, 2025
She despatched to Pyong-yang an envoy named Chen Weiching known in Japanese history as Chin Ikei who was instructed not to conclude peace but only to make such overtures as might induce the Japanese to agree to an armistice, thus enabling the Chinese authorities to mobilize a sufficient force. Konishi Yukinaga fell into this trap.
The forecast was that the Koreans would offer their chief resistance, first, at the capital, Seoul; next at Pyong-yang, and finally at the Yalu, as the approaches to all these places constituted positions capable of being utilized to great advantage for defensive purposes."* *Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th edition; article "Japan," by Brinkley.
The distance from Seoul to Pyong-yang on the Tadong is 130 miles, and it was traversed by the Japanese in eighteen days, ten of which had been occupied in forcing the passage of the Imjin. On the southern bank of the Tadong, the invaders found themselves in a position even more difficult than that which had confronted them at the Imjin.
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.
"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.
Neither Chinese nor Japanese history comments on the instructive fact that the arrival of this army under the walls of Pyong-yang was China's answer to her envoy's promise of a satisfactory peace, nor does it appear that any discredit attached to Chen Weiching for the deception he had practised; his competence as a negotiator was subsequently admitted without cavil.
The King did not halt until he had placed the Imjin River between himself and the enemy. Moreover, as soon as he there received news of the sack of the city, he renewed his flight northward and took up his quarters at Pyong-yang. It was on the 12th of June that the Korean capital fell, and by the 16th four army corps had assembled there, while four others had effected a landing at Fusan.
This powerful army moved across Manchuria in the dead of winter and hurled itself against Pyong-yang during the first week of February, 1593. The Japanese garrison at that place cannot have greatly exceeded twenty thousand men, for nearly one-half of its original number had been detached to hold a line of forts guarding the communications with Seoul.
"It is true that Konishi Yukinaga, who commanded the first division, desired to continue his northward march from Pyong-yang without delay. He argued that China was wholly unprepared, and that the best hope of ultimate victory lay in not giving her time to collect her forces. But the commander-in-chief, Ukita Hideiye, refused to endorse this plan.
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