CAPTURE OF PING-YANG, September 16th.
Mr. Jernigan, the United States consul-general at Shanghai, wrote as follows:
“Had it been known to the Chinese authorities that the limits of my power as a protector of Japanese interests extended only to an inquiry after arrest, all the students, fifty, would have been summarily arrested, and it is believed here, as summarily dealt with as were their two fellow students. I do not hesitate to conclude that the delay caused by the course of this consulate general in the case of the two Japanese students, prevented the arrest of as many as two hundred Japanese upon mere suspicion, and has probably saved many from being executed and others from being held for ransom.”
With this sort of a warning before them, the remaining Japanese residents in Shanghai, who numbered about seven hundred persons, consequently determined to quit the place at the earliest possible moment. The Yokohama Specie bank transferred its business for the time to a French bank and closed its doors. The Japanese storekeepers sold off their stocks with all speed, and prepared to leave in the first steamer for their native country.
Let us turn now to the hostile operations in Corea involving the rival forces. In the last chapter the operations were related up to July 30, on which date the Japanese drove the Chinese troops out of their intrenched position at Asan. Five days later, on the 4th of August, the conquerors re-entered Seoul in triumph, leaving the retreating Chinese to make their way to their friends far to the northward. Barbarous as it might have been in the Chinese to have no commissariat, they had in such an encounter the advantage in marching, and were able to make a retreat so successfully as to win the admiration of those who can recognize even that sort of merit.
To understand the movements of forces from this period of the war, it must be remembered that we have to do with a single Japanese force, landing at Chemulpo and commanding and occupying Seoul, from which center the movements were carried on. There were, however, two Chinese forces, the original garrison of Asan, a port forty miles south of Seoul, and a large force advancing by the road which enters Corea at its northwest corner at Wi-ju. China anxious to meet and annihilate at one blow if possible her despised foe, threw the latter body of troops, drawn largely from the Manchoo garrisons, into the Corean peninsula, where they advanced about one hundred and seventy miles inside the border to the banks of the Tatong River at Ping-Yang. The Japanese were awaiting the shock a little to the north of Seoul, and such was the strength of their position that the Chinese, instead of advancing upon them, halted at the capital city of the province, Ping-Yang, assuming the defensive there and strongly fortifying it. One week after the capture of Asan and the beginning of the retreat of the Chinese, the van of the victorious army started from Seoul, marching towards Ping-Yang, one hundred and forty miles distant, whence they were destined five weeks later to be once more victorious in expelling the Chinese.
General Yeh, with his four thousand Chinese, made, as has been said, a masterly retreat. Accompanied by many Coreans who joined his standard when he was compelled to abandon his untenable position, he struck northeastward and after twenty-five days effected a junction with the Chinese main body at Ping-Yang, August 23. His column kept to the mountains, where travel was difficult, and it was harassed by the enemy all along the route. Nevertheless, the troops marched three hundred and fifty miles through this almost impassable country, breaking through the Japanese lines at Chong-ju, and reaching their friends at last.
The Japanese army, advancing on Ping-Yang at the same time, was approaching that position by a course parallel with that of the Chinese, but to the westward of it. The opposing forces were near enough to one another that detached bodies frequently met in conflict, and the skirmishes resulting were reported by whichever band happened to be victorious, as a brilliant victory for the army. Because of this condition of affairs, many battles were reported from one side or the other that were scarcely mentioned by the opponents, whichever force it might be, and the war spirit was thus constantly fed in China and Japan without anything of considerable importance really happening.
About the middle of August the Japanese scouts pressing forward from Pongsan came across an advance guard of the Chinese, who had seized the telegraph line. A brisk skirmish ensued and the scouts fell back. A few days later the Chinese advance guard, numbering five thousand men, encountered the Japanese troops guarding the Ping-Yang passes, and drove them out. Two days later an advance was made on the Japanese skirmish lines, and the Japanese were again defeated, this time being turned back as far as Chung-hwa, some twenty miles south of Ping-Yang.