United States or Guatemala ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Russia had succeeded in humiliating Japan by inducing France and Germany to cooperate in a demand that she should evacuate the Liaotung Peninsula, ceded to her, under the Treaty of Shimonoseki, by China. Forced to obey, Japan entered on another nine years of preparation, to enable her to cross swords with the Colossus of the North.
Ureshino and the baths are some little distance off the main road to Shimonoseki; so, not caring particularly to go there, I continue on to the village of Takio, where rainy weather compels a halt of several hours. Everything is so delightfully superior, as compared with China, that the Japanese village yadoya seems a veritable paradise during these first days of my acquaintance with them.
Taiping rebellion Tanaka, Gen. Taonanfu administration Tariff reformation Tax collection Tayeh iron mines Tibet, independence of recognized by Russia Tieh Liang Tientsin rebellion of the Military Governors Tong Kwan Palace, the battle at Tong Shao-yi Treaty of Shimonoseki Treaty-ports, economical effects of Tsao-ao, Gen.
For some time after the revision of the Shimonoseki Treaty, the Chinese seem to have imagined that the Czar had intervened from disinterested motives, but Count Cassini, the Russian minister at Pekin, eventually made it clear that the interposition would not be gratuitous.
When, therefore, after the second Peace of Shimonoseki, Japan was compelled to relinquish all her possessions on the mainland and to console herself for her shattered hopes with a few million taels, every Japanese knew that the lost booty would at some time or other be demanded from Russia at the point of the sword.
In many respects they have surpassed their teachers. After a whole day in Nagasaki we steam out to sea again and make northwards round Kiu-shiu to the beautiful narrow strait at Shimonoseki which leads to the Inland Sea. Unfortunately it is pitch dark when we pass Admiral Togo's fleet. He has just been engaged in manoeuvres with eighty-five of Japan's two hundred modern warships.
The Czar's government, accordingly, determined to interpose, and, having secured the co-operation of its French ally, and also of Germany, it presented to the Mikado, in the name of the three powers, a request that he should waive that part of the Shimonoseki Treaty which provided for the surrender of the Liau-Tung Peninsula.
When the Choshu feudatory attempted to close the Shimonoseki Strait by means of cannon, the Bakufu sent a commissioner to remonstrate. But the Choshu samurai insisted that they had merely obeyed the sovereign's order, and the better to demonstrate their resolution, they put the commissioner to death. Thus directly challenged, the Bakufu mustered a powerful force and launched it against Choshu.
They passed safely through the straits of Shimonoséki, admiring the caves, the surf, the multitudes of sea-fowl, the silver streams falling down from the heights of Kokura, on the opposite side of Choshiu, and from mountains four thousand feet high, and made beautiful with terraces and shrubbery. Through the narrow strait where the water ran like a mill-race, the steamer ploughed her way.
The young man in charge knows never a word of English, and his stock of "English books" consists of primers, spelling-books, etc., for the use of school-children. The architecture of the villages above Shimonoseki is strikingly artistic. The quaint gabled houses are painted a snowy white, and are roofed with brown glazed tiles of curious pattern, also rimmed with white.
Word Of The Day