ROUTED CHINESE FLYING BEFORE THE VICTORIOUS ENEMY.
With the tragic destruction of the Kow-shing, the war was begun most disadvantageously to the Chinese. Being by one and the same stroke deprived of the expected re-enforcements and cut off from the sea, the small force at Asan had either to fight to the death, surrender, or make good their retreat by a long and dangerous flank march. This last course was adopted, and after making sufficient stand to cover their retreat, not without inflicting loss on the enemy, they succeeded in joining the Chinese army which had entered Corea from the north-west. The numbers of the retreating force were given as four thousand, but they were certainly less.
SKIRMISH ON JULY, 27TH. (Drawn by a Chinese Artist.)
The simultaneous engagements by land and sea on the same day, July 25, proved that the Japanese had determined to begin the war in earnest. The naval action in which two Chinese ships were waylaid as they were leaving the Corean coast, served to prove that the Chinese ships could both fight and run away, and that the Japanese ships were very ably manœuvred, but the affair had little other significance.
Enraged by the sinking of the transport in time of nominal peace, the emperor of China ordered the fleet, over the head of Li Hung Chang, to pursue the enemy to destruction. In obedience to the imperial mandate, the Pei-yang squadron, in the early days of August, steamed for the Corean coast, but before sighting it steamed back again. The viceroy Li then interested himself to obtain a modification of the decree, and the fleet was commanded to remain on the defensive for the special protection of the Gulf of Pechili, which instruction held good until the middle of September, when the fleet was forced to accept battle off the Yalu river.
BEFORE THE WALL OF SEOUL. (Drawn by a Chinese Artist.)
August 1st, troops were ordered to enter Corean territory from the Manchoorian side, and in the course of the month a considerable force had filtered its way to the city of Ping-Yang, the strongest strategical point in western Corea, and even to a considerable distance beyond. The massing of these troops was conducted in the old rough-and-tumble, half-hearted Chinese fashion. There was no head, but separate and rival commands, each general looking only to the viceroy, Li Hung Chang for orders and supplies, and receiving more of the former than of the latter.
These Chinese generals are an old world curiosity, scarcely conceivable in our age. They might be described as army contractors rather than fighting agents, for like the civil mandarins they buy their posts as an investment. The battalion or camp is farmed, as regards its expenses, by the general, who draws from government a lump sum for the maintenance of the force, and makes his economies according to his conscience, by falsifying his muster roll and defrauding his men. At the battle or rout of Ping-Yang there were soldiers who were three, four, and even five months in arrears of pay, some generals deliberately calculating on the casualties of war to reduce the number of eventual claimants on the pay fund. The most notorious offender, General Wei of Ping-Yang notoriety, who had less than half the troops he drew pay for, and these mostly untrained coollies, hustled into the ranks to take the place of unpaid deserters, and in whose program fighting had no place, had paid certain influential persons liberally for his command. Desertion, it may be observed in passing, is not regarded as a calamity by an avaricious Chinese general.