Korea and her neighbors / A narrative of travel, with an account of the recent vicissitudes and present position of the country

by Isabella L. Bird

General Tso’s troops, demoralized by his death, sought refuge everywhere from the deadly fire of the Japanese, a part flying back to their forts within the wall, while many, probably blinded and desperate, rode along the pine woods which densely cover the broken ground outside, by a path along a wide dry moat, which, three weeks later, when Mr. Moffett returned, was piled with the dead bodies of their horses.

In the bright moonlight night which followed that day, the Japanese stormed and took by assault the three Chinese forts on the three summits of the ridge, which were the key of the position, enabling them to throw their shell into the Chinese forts and camps within the wall. The beautiful pavilion at the angle of the wall is much shattered, and big fragments of shell are embedded in its pillars and richly carved woodwork. So desperately hurried was the flight of the vanquished from the last fort which held out, that they were mown down in numbers as they ran down the steep hill, falling face foremost with their outstretched hands clutching the earth.

All was then lost, and why that doomed army, numbering then perhaps 12,000 men, did not surrender unconditionally, I cannot imagine. During the night, abandoning guns and all war material, the remains of Tso’s brigade and all the infantry and unwounded men passed through the deserted and silent city, surged out of the Potong Mön, crossed a shallow stream, and emerged upon a plain girdled by low hills, and intersected by the Peking road, the eastern extremity being occupied by some Chinese forts and breastworks. Tso’s cavalry attempted to cross the plain and gain the shelter of some low hills, while great numbers of the infantry took to the Peking road.

The horrors of that night will never be accurately known. The battle of Phyöng-yang was lost and won when the forts were taken. What remained was less of a battle than a massacre. Before the morning, this force, the flower of the Chinese army as to drill and equipment, had perished, those who escaped never reappearing as an organized body. It is estimated that from 2,000 to 4,000 men were slain, with thousands of horses and bulls, the cavalry being literally mown down in hundreds, and lying, men and horses, heaped “in mounds.” For the Japanese had girdled the plain with a ring of fire. Mr. Moffett, who was there three weeks later, described the scene even then as one of “indescribable horror.” Still, there were “mounds” of men and horses stiffened in the death-agony, many having tried vainly to extricate themselves from the pile above them. There were blackened corpses in hundreds lying along the Peking road, ditches filled up with bodies of men and animals, fields sprinkled with them, and rifles, muskets, paper umbrellas, fans, coats, hats, swords belts, scabbards, cartridge boxes, sleeves, and everything that could be cast away in a desperate flight strewing the ground. Numbers of the wounded crept into the deserted houses and died there, some of the bodies showing indications of suicide from agony, and throughout this mass of human relics which lay blackening and festering in the hot sun, dogs, left behind by their owners, were holding high carnival. Even in my walks over the battlefield, though the grain of another year had ripened upon it, I saw human skulls, spines with ribs, spines with the pelvis attached, arms and hands, hats, belts, and scabbards.

On a lofty knoll within the wall, the Japanese have erected a fine monolith to the memory of the 168 men they lost. They turned the temple of the God of War into a hospital, and there, cela va sans dire, their wounded were admirably treated, and in another building the Chinese wounded were carefully attended to, though naturally not till many of them had died of their wounds on the battlefield. A ghastly retribution followed the neglect to bury the Chinese dead, for typhus fever broke out, and its ravages among the Japanese troops may be partially estimated by the long lines of graves in the military cemetery at Chemulpo.

Outside the wall, in beautifully broken ground, roughly wooded with the Pinus sinensis, there are still bullets in the branches, many of which were splintered by the iron hail, and the temple at the tomb of Kit-ze, the founder of Korean civilization, must have been the centre of a deadly fight, for its woodwork is riddled with bullets and damaged by shell, and on its floor are great dark stains, where, when the fight was over, the Japanese wounded lay in pools of blood.

At some points, specially at the mud forts by the ferry, the Chinese made a very determined stand for ten hours, so that the Japanese troops wavered, and were only recovered by a gallant dash made by General Oshima. Probably the battle of Phyöng-yang decided the fate of the campaign.

ALTAR AT TOMB OF KIT-ZE.

Mr. Yi found an old book in eighteen vols. for sale, which gives a history of this city. Most Korean matters are lost in obscurity after one or two centuries, but the story of Phyöng-yang takes a bold backward leap and deals fearlessly with the events of centuries B.C. Kit-ze, whose fine reputed tomb and temples in the wood are still regarded with so much reverence that a stone tablet on the road below warns equestrians to dismount in passing so sacred a place, and who is said to have emigrated from China in 1122 B.C., and to have founded a dynasty which lasted for seven centuries, made Phyöng-yang his capital. The temple at his reputed grave, though full of bullets, is in admirable repair, and its rich decorations have lately been renovated, a phenomenon in Korea. Near the city is the standard of land measurement which he introduced, illustrated by ditches and paths cut, it is said, by himself.