JAPAN
equivocal declaration of resolve to oppose Japan's proceedings by force of arms. Seeing, then, that China was preparing to send reinforcements, Japan warned the Peking Government of the construction she must place upon any act of the kind. Nevertheless China not only despatched troops by sea to strengthen the camp at Ya-shan, but also sent an army overland across Korea's northern frontier. It was at this stage that an act of war occurred. Three Chinese men-of-war, convoying a transport with 1,200 men, encountered and fired on three Japanese cruisers. One of the Chinese ships was taken; another was so shattered that she had to be beached and abandoned; the third escaped in a dilapidated condition, and the transport, refusing to surrender, was sunk. This happened on July 25th, and an open declaration of war was made by each Empire six days later.
The narrative set down above represents the last chapter only of a history having its beginnings a quarter of a century earlier. From the moment that Japan applied herself to break away from Oriental traditions, and to snap from her limbs the fetters of Eastern conservatism, it was inevitable that a widening gulf should gradually grow between herself and China, the inveterate representative of those traditions and that conservatism. Thus the struggle that occurred in 1894 was rather a contest between Japanese progress and Chinese stagnation than a fight to determine
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