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The war began on July 25, 1894; the Treaty of Peace, which made Japan the supreme power in the Extreme East, was signed at Shimonoseki on April 17, 1895. Before fighting actually began, the Japanese took possession of Seoul, and seized the palace on some trumpery excuse that Korean soldiers had fired on them and they had therefore been obliged to enter and guard the royal apartments.
Under Seward the United States did, indeed, work in concert with European powers to force the opening of the Shimonoseki Straits in 1864, and a revision of the tariff in 1866. Subsequently, however, the United States cooperated with Japan in her effort to free herself from certain disadvantageous features of early treaties.
It left the flank of the westward-marching troops constantly exposed to attack from the coast where the Taira fleet had full command of the sea; it invited enterprises against the rear of the troops from the enemy's position at Yashima in Shikoku, and it assumed the possibility of crossing the Strait of Shimonoseki in the presence of a greatly superior naval force.
The war between China and Japan in 1894-5, terminating in the Treaty of Shimonoseki, which ceded to Japan the Liaotung Peninsula, showed Russia that if she was not to be forestalled she must be up and doing.
Shimonoseki is quite an important point commercially, but our stay was, as I say, one of convenience only, since we took the train at 9.30 for Miyajima and the Sacred Island.
Li Hung-chang was then sent to Japan to sue for peace, and while there he was shot in the cheek by a fanatical member of the Soshi class. This act brought him much sympathy he was then seventy-two years old; and in the treaty of Shimonoseki, which he negotiated, better terms perhaps were obtained than would otherwise have been the case.
The army in Korea had been crushed by an enemy superior in numbers and in everything else but bravery; and at the moment of Frobisher's return the peace envoys were in the act of concluding the treaty of Shimonoseki.
Passing the following night at Hakama, I pull out next morning for Shimonoseki. Traversing for some miles a hilly country, covered with pine-forest, my road brings me into Ashiyah, situated on a small estuary. Here, at Ashiyah, I indulge in nay first simon-pure Japanese shave, patronizing the village barber while dodging a passing shower.
He was restored, indeed, to a seat on the Tsungli Yamen, or Board of Foreign Affairs, but, for twelve months, it seemed as if, despite the support of the Empress-dowager Tsi An, his influence would never revive. The two years that followed the Shimonoseki Treaty gave a breathing spell to China, and should have been devoted to energetic reforms in the military and naval administration.
Early on the morning of November 9 we pass through the strait of Shimonoseki into the Inland Sea, the Mediterranean of Japan, which lies between the islands Hondo, Kiu-shiu, and Shikoku. The scenery which unfolds itself on all sides is magnificent, and is constantly changing.
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