------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s Note:
This version of the text cannot represent certain typographical effects.
Italics are delimited with the ‘_’ character as _italic_.
Footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are
referenced.
There are numerous illustrations, the captions of which are retained in
this version. These have been moved to fall on paragraph breaks.
Minor errors, attributable to the printer, including several associated
with pagination and indexing, have been corrected. Please see the
transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the
handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: BATTLEFIELD OF PING-YANG.]
[Illustration]
The War in the East.
JAPAN,
CHINA,
AND COREA.
A complete history of the War: Its causes and
results; its campaigns on sea and land; its
terrific fights, grand victories and
overwhelming defeats.
With a preliminary account of the customs, habits
and history of the three peoples involved. Their
cities, arts, sciences, amusements and
literature.
BY
TRUMBULL WHITE,
Late Correspondent of the “North China Daily News,” and the “Kobe
Herald.”
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
JULIUS KUMPEI MATUMOTO, A.M.
OF TOKIO, JAPAN.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
TEITOKU MORIMOTO, J.C. FIREMAN,
and others.
P.W. ZIEGLER & CO.,
PHILADELPHIA, PA.; ST. LOUIS, MO.
Copyrighted, 1895, by
TRUMBULL WHITE
PREFACE.
Some striking act in a man’s career is necessary to attract general
attention to him. The one who moves along through his path in life doing
nothing out of the ordinary, will win few glances from the public, and
little will the world notice his existence. Worthy of the worthiest he
may be, but if he does nothing to demonstrate it, how shall the world
know his merit or his strength? But with all this true, it does not
follow that it is man’s duty to seek an occasion to advertise these
qualities. Only when the necessity for action arises, then should he
act, and then will the world know what his ability and character are.
The same is true as to the nations of the earth. Those years during
which they move onward in their national life and history in peace and
quietness, however full of latent strength they may be, are not the ones
which command the attention of the eyes of the world. It is the year of
supreme test, of struggle, moral or physical, that furnishes crucial
testimony what the nation really is. War is always a curse unless it be
waged to advance justice and assure more worthy peace. But if such a war
be necessary, the progress of it, the results, and the lessons they
teach are essential to the student of humanity, in whatever quarter of
the globe the battles are.
China, Japan and Corea are a strange trinity to most of us in the
western world. Separated from us by long distances and by immense
differences in race, in language, in religion, and in customs, they have
been known here only through the writings of the comparatively few
travelers who exchange visits. Of late years, it is true, the hermitages
of the Orient have been opening to freer intercourse, trade and treaties
have multiplied, and students have come to us for the knowledge we could
give them. But there was needed a great movement of some sort to awaken
the Orient from its centuries of slumber, and to make known to us the
truth of eastern affairs. Nothing could do this as the War in the East
has done. We can study its conduct and its results if we will, in a way
to teach us more of the characteristics of the three nations than we
could learn in any other way.
It has been the object of the author in the present volume, to record
the facts of the war and its preliminaries so clearly that every seeker
for knowledge might trace the lessons for himself. To justify this
effort, it is necessary to say no more than that the conflict involves
directly nations whose total population includes more than one-fourth of
the human race. And the results will affect the progress of civilization
in those countries, as well as the commercial and other interests of all
the European and American nations.
Invertebrate China, with scorn of western methods, and complacent rest
in the belief that all but her own people are barbarians, had to face an
inevitable war with Japan, the sprightly, absorbent, adaptive,
western-spirited, whose career in the two score years since her doors
were opened to the call of the American Perry has been the marvel of
those who knew it. And the conflict was to be on the soil of the Hermit
Nation, Corea, “the Land of Morning Calm,” for centuries the land of
contention between “the Day’s Beginning” and “the Middle Kingdom.”
It is to record the history and description of these realms and peoples
in sufficient detail to make plainer the facts of the war that the
preliminary chapters are written. The work must speak for itself. The
importance of the subjects included in the volume must be the
explanation of any inadequacy of treatment.
TRUMBULL WHITE.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PART I. CHINA, THE CELESTIAL KINGDOM.
CHAPTER I.—History from the Earliest Times to First Contact 33
with European Civilization
CHAPTER II.—History from First Contact with European 71
Civilization to the Outbreak of the War with Japan
CHAPTER III.—The Chinese Empire, its Geography, Government, 99
Climate, and Products
CHAPTER IV.—The Chinese People, their Personal 135
Characteristics, Manner of Life, Industries, Social
Customs, Art, Science, Literature, and Religion
--------------
PART II. JAPAN, THE ISLAND EMPIRE.
CHAPTER V.—History from the Earliest Times to First Contact 187
with European Civilization
CHAPTER VI.—History from First Contact with European 223
Civilization to the Present Time—How the United States
Opened Japan to the World
CHAPTER VII.—The Japanese Empire, its Geography, Government, 265
Climate, and Products
CHAPTER VIII.—The Japanese People, their Personal 285
Characteristics, Manner of Life, Industries, Social
Customs, Art, Science, Literature, and Religion
--------------
PART III. COREA, THE HERMIT NATION.
CHAPTER IX.—History from the Earliest Times to the Present 327
CHAPTER X.—The Kingdom of Corea, its Geography, Government, 372
Climate, and Products
CHAPTER XI.—The Coreans and how they Live, their Personal 391
Characteristics, Industries, Social Customs, Art, Science,
Literature, and Religion
--------------
PART IV. THE WAR BETWEEN JAPAN AND CHINA.