The last onslaught was made and met, but before another could be made night had begun to fall and the Japanese, themselves not far from exhaustion, deemed it wise to withdraw[withdraw]. This battle has been called a Japanese victory and probably with reason, though according to the dictum of modern naval warfare a decided Japanese victory could have been achieved only by capturing or disabling the two Chinese iron-clads which were the soul of the Chinese fleet. Technically the failure to do this made it a drawn battle, each side retiring unconquered. But there is every reason to believe that this battle, in reality, decided the Japanese supremacy over the Yellow Sea.
The land battle at P’yŭng-yang and the naval battle off the mouth of the Yalu opened the eyes of the world to the fact that Japan was a power to be reckoned with. The incident at P‘ung Island and the battle of Asan[Asan] had proved nothing except the fact that Japan was fully prepared to go to extremities and that the war was actually begun. It is probable that a majority of intelligent people thought the Japanese would fall an easy victim to the Chinese forces. On the sea China had several war-vessels that far out-matched anything which Japan possessed and on land she had unlimited population from which to recruit her armies. She had enjoyed the assistance of many foreign military and naval men in getting her army and navy into shape, and in addition to this she had the sympathy of Great Britain in the struggle. It was freely predicted that the superior quickness of the Japanese might bring her certain small victories at first but that as time went on and China really awoke to the seriousness of the situation a Chinese army would be put in the field which would eventually drive the Japanese off the mainland. The Japanese invasion of 1592 was cited to show that though momentarily successful, the Japanese would be ultimately defeated.
The battles of P’yŭng-yang and Yalu changed all this. In the first place it was discovered that the Chinese, with equal or superior numbers, could not hold a strongly defensive position against their assailants. The Chinese had everything in their favor so far as natural surroundings went. They lacked the one essential and it was the demonstration of this lack at P’yŭng-yang that made the world begin to doubt whether the Chinese would really do what was expected of them.
The battle of the Yalu, while technically a drawn battle, proved that the Japanese[Japanese] could stand up against superior ships and hold them down to a tie game. The Chinese ammunition was exhausted and if darkness had not come on the Japanese would have discovered this and the big Chinese vessels would have been captured. From that day the progress of the Japanese was an unbroken series of victories. The myth of China’s strength was shattered and the whole history of the Far East, if not of the world, entered upon a new and unexpected phase.
We have already mentioned that 4,000 Chinese troops had been landed at the mouth of the Yalu to reinforce the army that had been gathered there for the invasion of Korea. That invasion was destined not to be carried out, for the routed Chinese army from P’yŭng-yang came streaming north in headlong flight and the Japanese followed them up just fast enough to worry them but without making it necessary to encumber themselves with prisoners. It shows how perfectly the Japanese had gauged the calibre of the Chinese that they should have driven them on in this contemptuous manner. When the Japanese arrived at the Yalu they found that the Chinese had occupied an advantageous position on the further side and would attempt to block the advance but it was too late to stem the tide of Japanese enthusiasm. The passage was made with ease, the Chinese quickly put to flight and the war left Korean territory, not to return.
The subsequent operations of war are of surpassing interest to the general historian but they cannot be called a part of Korean history, so we shall be compelled to leave them and go back to the peninsula, where the results of Japan’s victories were to be keenly felt.
Chapter XVIII.
A great Crisis.... condition of affairs in Seoul.... flight of Chinese.... Tă-wŭn-kun summoned to palace.... new Cabinet.... tribulations of Min Yong-jun.... Commission on Reforms appointed.... names of Government offices changed.... list of proposed reforms.... the currency.... new coinage.... revenue reforms.... a national bank.... standardization of weights and measures.... past abuses rectified.... foreign advisers.
The year 1894 marked the greatest crisis in Korean history since the seventh century, when the kingdom of Silla gained control of the whole peninsula. Considering the fact that so many of the old abuses survived after the year 1894, the above statement may seem extreme but the facts of the case warrant it. From the early years of the Christian era Korea had been moulded by Chinese ideas and had been dominated by her influence. There was no time from the very first when Korea did not consider China her suzerain. In a sense this was natural and right. Korea had received from China an immense number of the products of civilization. Literature, art, science, government, religion—they had all been practically borrowed from China. It is a thing to be marvelled at that Korea through all these centuries has preserved any semblance of individualism. She never would have done so if there had not been a radical and ineffacable[ineffacable] difference between the Chinese and the Korean which no amount of moulding could remove.
Never once during all those centuries did Korea attempt or desire to throw off the garment of her vassalage. And even in this crisis of 1894 it was not thrown off through any wish of the Korean government or people but only through hard necessity. There had been no radical change in the mental attitude of the great mass of Koreans which demanded the severing of the tie which bound them to China and even at this year of grace 1904, there is every reason to believe that a great majority of Koreans would elect to go back under the mild and almost nominal control of China. The change is not one of attitude on the part of the Korean but it is the fact that the war proved to the world the supineness of China and made it forever impossible to revive her claim to suzerainty over Korea or even, it is to be feared, to hold together her own unwieldy bulk. The outward influence of China upon Korea has ceased and other influences have been at work which are slowly drawing her away from her servile obedience to Chinese ideals. This was the first necessary step to the final emancipation of Korea and her national regeneration. It should be carefully noted that from the earliest centuries the Chinese implanted in the Korean no genuine seed of civilization and progress but simply unloaded upon her some finished products of her civilization. These the Koreans swallowed whole without question, unmindful of the fact that by far the greater part of them were wholly unsuited to the Korean temperament. The result was that as time went on these Chinese impositions were overlaid with a pure Korean product just as the little leaden Buddhas that are thrust into the shell of the pearl oyster become coated over with mother-o’pearl. Buddhism came from China but Korea has so mingled with it her native fetichism and animism that it is something radically different from the original stock.