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Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95
Sino-Japanese War of 1894-95
The war between the Chinese and Japanese started over Korea. Japan which had only in the past few decades had come out 200 plus years of national seclusion, had come to had some European taste, a notable one was that for an empire. They viewed making their own empire along western lines as the best way to keep from becoming a western vessel state or outright colony like other once great empires were becoming in Southeast Asia. However, for the Japanese their nation was lacking in natural resources needed to build a modern industrial state. Outside of coal everything had to be imported in to turn the once hermit kingdom into a modern power. Many within the Japanese Government viewed Korea as a dagger pointing right at the heart of their nation that had be brought under their control if they were to prosper.
In 1894, the Kingdom of Joseon as Korea was then known was more or less a puppet of the Qing Empire. Even through the Qing Empire as China was then known then had suffered embarrassing defeats at the hands of Westerns for decades now. However, many within the Qing Court viewed themselves as the strongest Empire in Asia. They have even embarked on a series of reforms to transform their nation into something that could stand up to the western nations and reserve the tied that had started with the First Opium War in which western powers had enforced their will on the Chinese people. Their goal was to finally to make Western Nations to so respect to the Chinese people.
The only problem was the Chinese of the Qing Court were hopeless corrupted. Public corruption was nothing new, and indeed all states suffered from it to some degree. However, the scale of the corruption within the Qing Court was mind blowing. Officers of all ranks of the Beiyang Army and Navy regularly embezzled funds which had caused the Beiyang Navy to stop buying newer warships from overseas shipyards as they simply didn’t have the money to buy more ships with the scale of this embezzlement. In 1891 they stopped buying ammo for both the army and navy as those funds were moved to renovate the Summer Palace in Peking. In one even more surprising case the captain of the flagship of the Beiyang fleet, the Dingyuan, pawned one of the 12 inch guns of his ship[1]. On top of the massive opium use within the Beiyang military system and political rivalry of the other military systems within the Qing Empire meant the Chinese were truthy fall weaker than they looked on paper. Put together with the fact they hadn’t sent officers to Europe and the Americas to study modern military tactics was asking basically the same as asking someone to put a match to a piece of paper that had been soak in kerosene only no one really under stood this at the time.
Even through tensions between China and Japan were running high in the summer of 1894, they hadn’t reached the point of open war. Things came to a head through when the Kingdom of Joseon suffered a peasant rebellion[2] and requested help from the Qing Empire. The Qing then sent help without informing the Japanese which broke a number of agreements and treaties the two had with each other. This in turn caused the Japanese to send its own troops into Korea. Even through the Qing forces were already leaving Korea as they hadn’t been needed to put town this peasant rebellion, the Japanese used this window to empower a pro-Japanese Korean faction and allow them to take control of the Kingdom of Joseon. The Qing viewed this as an act of war against them and declared war on the Japanese on July 25th 1894. At the time many who were looking at this war as the then ongoing Italo-Ethiopian War was viewed as just another colonial campaign came to study this war. Many believed that the Chinese would soundly defeat the Japanese.
Fighting had taking place between the Chinese and Japanese even before the official Chinese declaration of war against the Japanese. Because of the poor state of the roads in Manchuria and Korea the easiest way to move troops was via the Yellow Sea. Even through war hadn’t been declared yet, things were reaching the breaking point between the two Asian nations. Not wanting to be seen as backing down and not ready to risk their most advance fleet in the Beiyang, the Chinese rented a British flag transport to reinforce their troops at Asan. The Chinese ran into Japanese cruiser squadron and the first signs of Chinese incompetent showed themselves at this battle. In the action that followed the Chinese munity on the British transport when the British crew decided to follow international law and return to China. The transport was sunk in turn by the Japanese. The Japanese also captured both of the gunboats that the Chinese were using to escort the transport.
This caused a diplomatic incident between the British and Japanese. The Chinese who believed they could crush the Japanese when to war siting this action as their reason for war. However, a British court later ruled that the Japanese had followed the rules of international law when dealing with a ship that had mutinied. Even through the Japanese had refused to save the Chinese who had abandon ship caused a black eye in the view of the world. This started a comedy of errors by the Chinese in this war.
Through what could only be called gross incompetent, the Chinese Army at Pyongyang was encircled by the Japanese. This was the second army to surrender to the Japanese since the start of the war, with the smaller army at Asan had already surrender. Even through the Japanese outnumbered the Chinese at Pyongyang, they suffered a faction of the casualties. The Japanese in turn wasn’t ready for the flood of Chinese prisoners. Even after the 3,000 dead Chinese there was 13,000 prisoners who walked into prison camps when they surrender September 3rd.
With their position coming part in Korea the Chinese started trying to reverse the course of the war. They wanted to hold the Japanese south of the Yalu River to keep them out of China itself. When the earlier half measures not being enough they committed the bulk of the Beiyang Fleet to guard a convoy of a new army to enter Korea and shore up the failing positions there. The Japanese fleet under Ito Sukeyuki was able to trap the Chinese who had orders not to travel before the Yalu River between the Yalu and their naval base at Port Arthur. With the Japanese ships being quicker than the Chinese the Chinese wasn’t able to out run the Japanese.
With the Chinese being trapped they tried to fight their way out. Only when they started trying to fire their guns did they learn that their ammo was either the wrong size of ammo or their power was filled with cement. The lack of crew training also a major effective in the battle itself as the Chinese guns fired at a far reduced rate of what could they. They also open fired at a range far to great range that furtherly caused them to use their limited ammo supply for no effect. It also seem the Chinese had no idea how to save guard their fleet from the actions of the Japanese which was taking their edges they were taking in the course for the battle. The Battle of the Yalu River was a decisive Japanese Victory. They forced the armored cruiser Jingyuan, protected cruiser Zhiyuan, and cruiser Jiyuan along with nine merchant ships to strike their colors. They also sunk the armored cruiser Laiyuan, protected cruiser Jingyuen, and Heien a coastal defense ship.
With the victories at Yalu River and Pyongyang by the end of October the Japanese Army enter Manchuria. Like in Korea the Chinese lead by commanders who were grossly negligence in their commands and should have never been anywhere near their commands. They were in these commands because of their political skills instead of their abilities to lead troops into battle. This led to the Japanese Army even through smaller to running circles around the Chinese in Manchuria. It also led to the surrender of Port Arthur to the Japanese on November 15th. A French Army officer who was attached to the Japanese army later said that if commanded by a proper command the forts that had defended Port Arthur would had held for years instead of the single day it fell in.
The Japanese started to run into a foe that they couldn’t defeat however falling the fall Port Arthur. This was international finance. Following the start of The Island War two major sources of funding in Germany and the United States dried up. Even the British sources dried up to some degree. This caused the Japanese to enter winter quarters instead of staying on the offensive following their victory at Port Arthur as they couldn’t afford to stay on the offensive and pay for everything that was needed to be paid for in a war. They started prepping for an offensive in the spring.
With the defeat of the Germans in the Pacific War the British approved a major loan at low rates to the Japanese as they started looking for a nation that could possibly be used as a counter weight to the Americans in the Pacific. This allowed the Japanese to restart their offensive earlier than they planned. On April 5th the Japanese started their offensive which they had slated to start in May. This was the Shandong Campaign. And with the new funding the Japanese who were still trying to force China to agree them push harder than they had in Manchuria.
The Battle of Wiehaiwei started three days later. Wiehaiwei was where the remaining units of the Beiyang Fleet were hold up and the Japanese needed to remove these units to the threat to their navy and merchant marine so they could invade Formosa which had become the goal of the Japanese in this war. Even through the Chinese had been given this pause in fighting before the start of the Shandong Campaign, they had failed to use it. Many officers were still more worried about how they were doing than how their nation was going to perform in the war. Opium smoking was becoming a major problem with some units as they viewed fighting the Japanese as death sentence. Without the officers trying to maintain discipline the problem grew into an epidemic at Wiehaiwei.
Wiehaiwei fell in 5 days. Admiral Ding Ruchang committed suicide instead of surrender to the Japanese. Even through, he ordered the Beiyang Fleet to scuttle itself before he killed himself that order never reached the ships in the harbor. The Japanese was able to capture two battleships and a number of lesser vessels. With the Beiyang Fleet destroyed or captured the Qing Empire finally agreed to ask for terms.
Only the Japanese were ready yet. They used legal tricks to stall the Chinese peace delegation as they launched their invasion of the invasion of Pescadores Islands. The islands fell fairly quickly and by April 30th they were under their control. With those islands under their control, the Japanese finally started peace talks.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on May 9th. Under the terms of the treaty the Chinese recognized the full and total independence of Korea. All forms tribute and performance ceremonies that Korea once paid to China was ended. China ceded in perpetuity and full sovereignty of the Pescadores Island Group, Formosa, the city of Wiehaiwei[4][5]. China would further pay Japan 255 million kuping taels worth of silver. China granted Japan most favored nation status and open a five different of ports to Japanese trade.
[1] I’m fairly sure this happened OTL, but I can’t remember where I read this. So why not happen ITL?
[2] Basically the OTL Donghak Peasant Rebellion, but ITL its called something else.
[3] This area is defind as OTL Huancui District, Rongcehng, Shandong, and Wendeng District.
[4] Russia overplayed their hand and let it become known if the Japanese took any part of the Liaodong Peninsula it was war. Instead they switched their focus to the Shandong Peninsula. The Russians didn’t object to this, neither did the British. So its theirs now.
The war between the Chinese and Japanese started over Korea. Japan which had only in the past few decades had come out 200 plus years of national seclusion, had come to had some European taste, a notable one was that for an empire. They viewed making their own empire along western lines as the best way to keep from becoming a western vessel state or outright colony like other once great empires were becoming in Southeast Asia. However, for the Japanese their nation was lacking in natural resources needed to build a modern industrial state. Outside of coal everything had to be imported in to turn the once hermit kingdom into a modern power. Many within the Japanese Government viewed Korea as a dagger pointing right at the heart of their nation that had be brought under their control if they were to prosper.
In 1894, the Kingdom of Joseon as Korea was then known was more or less a puppet of the Qing Empire. Even through the Qing Empire as China was then known then had suffered embarrassing defeats at the hands of Westerns for decades now. However, many within the Qing Court viewed themselves as the strongest Empire in Asia. They have even embarked on a series of reforms to transform their nation into something that could stand up to the western nations and reserve the tied that had started with the First Opium War in which western powers had enforced their will on the Chinese people. Their goal was to finally to make Western Nations to so respect to the Chinese people.
The only problem was the Chinese of the Qing Court were hopeless corrupted. Public corruption was nothing new, and indeed all states suffered from it to some degree. However, the scale of the corruption within the Qing Court was mind blowing. Officers of all ranks of the Beiyang Army and Navy regularly embezzled funds which had caused the Beiyang Navy to stop buying newer warships from overseas shipyards as they simply didn’t have the money to buy more ships with the scale of this embezzlement. In 1891 they stopped buying ammo for both the army and navy as those funds were moved to renovate the Summer Palace in Peking. In one even more surprising case the captain of the flagship of the Beiyang fleet, the Dingyuan, pawned one of the 12 inch guns of his ship[1]. On top of the massive opium use within the Beiyang military system and political rivalry of the other military systems within the Qing Empire meant the Chinese were truthy fall weaker than they looked on paper. Put together with the fact they hadn’t sent officers to Europe and the Americas to study modern military tactics was asking basically the same as asking someone to put a match to a piece of paper that had been soak in kerosene only no one really under stood this at the time.
Even through tensions between China and Japan were running high in the summer of 1894, they hadn’t reached the point of open war. Things came to a head through when the Kingdom of Joseon suffered a peasant rebellion[2] and requested help from the Qing Empire. The Qing then sent help without informing the Japanese which broke a number of agreements and treaties the two had with each other. This in turn caused the Japanese to send its own troops into Korea. Even through the Qing forces were already leaving Korea as they hadn’t been needed to put town this peasant rebellion, the Japanese used this window to empower a pro-Japanese Korean faction and allow them to take control of the Kingdom of Joseon. The Qing viewed this as an act of war against them and declared war on the Japanese on July 25th 1894. At the time many who were looking at this war as the then ongoing Italo-Ethiopian War was viewed as just another colonial campaign came to study this war. Many believed that the Chinese would soundly defeat the Japanese.
Fighting had taking place between the Chinese and Japanese even before the official Chinese declaration of war against the Japanese. Because of the poor state of the roads in Manchuria and Korea the easiest way to move troops was via the Yellow Sea. Even through war hadn’t been declared yet, things were reaching the breaking point between the two Asian nations. Not wanting to be seen as backing down and not ready to risk their most advance fleet in the Beiyang, the Chinese rented a British flag transport to reinforce their troops at Asan. The Chinese ran into Japanese cruiser squadron and the first signs of Chinese incompetent showed themselves at this battle. In the action that followed the Chinese munity on the British transport when the British crew decided to follow international law and return to China. The transport was sunk in turn by the Japanese. The Japanese also captured both of the gunboats that the Chinese were using to escort the transport.
This caused a diplomatic incident between the British and Japanese. The Chinese who believed they could crush the Japanese when to war siting this action as their reason for war. However, a British court later ruled that the Japanese had followed the rules of international law when dealing with a ship that had mutinied. Even through the Japanese had refused to save the Chinese who had abandon ship caused a black eye in the view of the world. This started a comedy of errors by the Chinese in this war.
Through what could only be called gross incompetent, the Chinese Army at Pyongyang was encircled by the Japanese. This was the second army to surrender to the Japanese since the start of the war, with the smaller army at Asan had already surrender. Even through the Japanese outnumbered the Chinese at Pyongyang, they suffered a faction of the casualties. The Japanese in turn wasn’t ready for the flood of Chinese prisoners. Even after the 3,000 dead Chinese there was 13,000 prisoners who walked into prison camps when they surrender September 3rd.
With their position coming part in Korea the Chinese started trying to reverse the course of the war. They wanted to hold the Japanese south of the Yalu River to keep them out of China itself. When the earlier half measures not being enough they committed the bulk of the Beiyang Fleet to guard a convoy of a new army to enter Korea and shore up the failing positions there. The Japanese fleet under Ito Sukeyuki was able to trap the Chinese who had orders not to travel before the Yalu River between the Yalu and their naval base at Port Arthur. With the Japanese ships being quicker than the Chinese the Chinese wasn’t able to out run the Japanese.
With the Chinese being trapped they tried to fight their way out. Only when they started trying to fire their guns did they learn that their ammo was either the wrong size of ammo or their power was filled with cement. The lack of crew training also a major effective in the battle itself as the Chinese guns fired at a far reduced rate of what could they. They also open fired at a range far to great range that furtherly caused them to use their limited ammo supply for no effect. It also seem the Chinese had no idea how to save guard their fleet from the actions of the Japanese which was taking their edges they were taking in the course for the battle. The Battle of the Yalu River was a decisive Japanese Victory. They forced the armored cruiser Jingyuan, protected cruiser Zhiyuan, and cruiser Jiyuan along with nine merchant ships to strike their colors. They also sunk the armored cruiser Laiyuan, protected cruiser Jingyuen, and Heien a coastal defense ship.
With the victories at Yalu River and Pyongyang by the end of October the Japanese Army enter Manchuria. Like in Korea the Chinese lead by commanders who were grossly negligence in their commands and should have never been anywhere near their commands. They were in these commands because of their political skills instead of their abilities to lead troops into battle. This led to the Japanese Army even through smaller to running circles around the Chinese in Manchuria. It also led to the surrender of Port Arthur to the Japanese on November 15th. A French Army officer who was attached to the Japanese army later said that if commanded by a proper command the forts that had defended Port Arthur would had held for years instead of the single day it fell in.
The Japanese started to run into a foe that they couldn’t defeat however falling the fall Port Arthur. This was international finance. Following the start of The Island War two major sources of funding in Germany and the United States dried up. Even the British sources dried up to some degree. This caused the Japanese to enter winter quarters instead of staying on the offensive following their victory at Port Arthur as they couldn’t afford to stay on the offensive and pay for everything that was needed to be paid for in a war. They started prepping for an offensive in the spring.
With the defeat of the Germans in the Pacific War the British approved a major loan at low rates to the Japanese as they started looking for a nation that could possibly be used as a counter weight to the Americans in the Pacific. This allowed the Japanese to restart their offensive earlier than they planned. On April 5th the Japanese started their offensive which they had slated to start in May. This was the Shandong Campaign. And with the new funding the Japanese who were still trying to force China to agree them push harder than they had in Manchuria.
The Battle of Wiehaiwei started three days later. Wiehaiwei was where the remaining units of the Beiyang Fleet were hold up and the Japanese needed to remove these units to the threat to their navy and merchant marine so they could invade Formosa which had become the goal of the Japanese in this war. Even through the Chinese had been given this pause in fighting before the start of the Shandong Campaign, they had failed to use it. Many officers were still more worried about how they were doing than how their nation was going to perform in the war. Opium smoking was becoming a major problem with some units as they viewed fighting the Japanese as death sentence. Without the officers trying to maintain discipline the problem grew into an epidemic at Wiehaiwei.
Wiehaiwei fell in 5 days. Admiral Ding Ruchang committed suicide instead of surrender to the Japanese. Even through, he ordered the Beiyang Fleet to scuttle itself before he killed himself that order never reached the ships in the harbor. The Japanese was able to capture two battleships and a number of lesser vessels. With the Beiyang Fleet destroyed or captured the Qing Empire finally agreed to ask for terms.
Only the Japanese were ready yet. They used legal tricks to stall the Chinese peace delegation as they launched their invasion of the invasion of Pescadores Islands. The islands fell fairly quickly and by April 30th they were under their control. With those islands under their control, the Japanese finally started peace talks.
The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on May 9th. Under the terms of the treaty the Chinese recognized the full and total independence of Korea. All forms tribute and performance ceremonies that Korea once paid to China was ended. China ceded in perpetuity and full sovereignty of the Pescadores Island Group, Formosa, the city of Wiehaiwei[4][5]. China would further pay Japan 255 million kuping taels worth of silver. China granted Japan most favored nation status and open a five different of ports to Japanese trade.
[1] I’m fairly sure this happened OTL, but I can’t remember where I read this. So why not happen ITL?
[2] Basically the OTL Donghak Peasant Rebellion, but ITL its called something else.
[3] This area is defind as OTL Huancui District, Rongcehng, Shandong, and Wendeng District.
[4] Russia overplayed their hand and let it become known if the Japanese took any part of the Liaodong Peninsula it was war. Instead they switched their focus to the Shandong Peninsula. The Russians didn’t object to this, neither did the British. So its theirs now.
- Jim Smitty
- Word Count: 2.1k