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This sea was dotted with innumerable fishing-boats. Indeed, Japan's sea-fisheries must be one of her most valuable assets. Moji harbour is a beautiful one, has an inlet and an outlet, but appears land-locked. On the mainland side is Shimonoseki, where Li Hung Chang signed the Peace Treaty with Japan, and where he was later wounded by an assassin. Nagasaki has also a fine harbour.
Satsuma had witnessed the bombardment of Kagoshima in 1863; Choshu, the bombardment of Shimonoseki in 1864. Evidently the only chance of being able to face Western power would be through the patient study of Western science; and the survival of the Empire depended upon the Europeanization of society.
As a last refuge the Taira leaders made their way to the Straits of Shimonoseki, where they had a large fleet of junks. The final struggle in this war took place in the fourth month of the year 1185. Yoshitsuné had with all haste got together a fleet, and the two armies, now afloat, met on the waters of the strait for the greatest naval battle that Japan had ever known.
The Choshu daimyo found the edict so congenial that, without waiting for the appointed day, he opened fire on American, French, and Dutch merchantmen passing the Strait of Shimonoseki, which his batteries commanded.
On April 17 the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, and, on May 8, the ratifications were exchanged at Chefoo. The terms of the original treaty were these: First, China was to surrender Formosa and the Pescadores Islands and the southern part of the Shingking province, including the Liau-Tung, or Regent's Sword Peninsula, and of course, also, the naval fortress of Port Arthur.
This town lay on the northern shore of Shimonoseki Strait, and had long been the principal emporium of trade with China and Korea. But the ruler of the fief, though courteous to the new-comers, evinced no disposition to show any special cordiality towards humble missionaries unconnected with commerce.
The interference of the European powers in the Peace of Shimonoseki in 1895 robbed Japan of nearly all the fruits of her victory over China.
On the boat from Kobe to Shimonoseki, passing through the famous Inland Sea of Japan, which, by the way, reminds one of the eastern shore of Maryland, we met a young Englishman returning to Shanghai. We three, being the only first-class passengers on the boat, naturally fell into conversation.
The adopted national game for youths seems to be base-ball, and not cricket as in China. Next I went to Kobe, via Osaka, the great manufacturing centre of the Empire. At Kobe took another Japanese steamer for Shanghai, calling at Moji, Shimonoseki and Nagasaki, and traversing the wonderfully beautiful inland Sea of Japan, a magnified, and quite as beautiful, Loch Lomond.
From them we gather that Chuai who was the second son of Yamato-dake and is described as having been ten feet high with "a countenance of perfect beauty" was a remarkably active sovereign. While in the latter province he received news of a revolt of the Kumaso, and at once taking ship, he went by sea to Shimonoseki, whither he summoned the Empress from Tsuruga.
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