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Updated: June 9, 2025
It was arranged that an army of 100,000 Chinese and Mongols should embark at a port in Fuhkien opposite the island of Formosa, and should ultimately form a junction in Tsushima Strait with an armada of 1000 Korean ships, carrying, in addition to their crews, a force of 50,000 Mongols and 20,000 Koreans.
To reach the island from the Japanese side was always an easy and safe task, but in the fifty-six-mile channel that separates Tsushima from the peninsula of Korea an invading flotilla had to run the risk of an attack by Korean warships.* The army assembled at Nagoya totalled over three hundred thousand men, whereof some seventy thousand constituted the first fighting line and eighty-seven thousand the second, the remainder forming a reserve to meet contingencies.
In 1905, after the battles of Tsushima and Mukden, it became clear to impartial observers that Russia could accomplish nothing further at sea, and Japan could accomplish nothing further on land. The Russian Government was anxious to continue the war, having gradually accumulated men and stores in Manchuria, and greatly improved the working of the Siberian railway.
In achieving this feat the Russians appeared off Tsushima in the Straits of Korea, on June 15th, and the transports which they sunk or disabled carried heavy guns for the bombardment of Port Arthur.
Unfortunately, the annals of medieval Japan are singularly reticent as to the details of battles. There are no materials for constructing a story of the events that occurred on the Tsushima shores, more than six centuries ago. We do not even know what force the defenders of the island mustered. But that they were much more numerous than on the previous occasion, seven years before, is certain.
On news of the Port Arthur sortie, the Vladivostok squadron, which hitherto had made only a few more or less futile raids on Japanese shipping, advanced toward Tsushima Straits, and met there at dawn of August 14 a slightly superior force of 4 cruisers under Kamimura.
Thus, with the bitter experience of Shiragi's treachery fresh in her recollection, she did not execute a Shiragi spy seized in Tsushima, but merely banished him to the province of Kozuke.
It is most regrettable that the nation's treasure should thus be squandered upon foreign luxuries. The amount of currency needed at home and the amount produced by the mines should be investigated so as to obtain a basis for limiting the foreign trade at the open ports of Nagasaki, Tsushima, and Satsuma, and for fixing the maximum number of foreign vessels visiting those places."
The Russians had been consistently defeated on land and had lost their entire fleet at the battle of Tsushima. The Japanese were apparently on the highroad to victory. But in reality, Japan's success had been bought at an exorbitant price. Intelligent observers in the diplomatic world who were in a position to realize the truth knew that neither nation could afford to go on.
Of three possible routes to Vladivostok through the Tsugaru Strait between Nippon and Yezo, through the Strait of La Perouse north of Yezo, or through the Straits of Tsushima the first was ruled out as too difficult of navigation; the second, because it would involve coaling off the coast of Japan. Tsushima remained.
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