Japanese-Chinese war. Japanese occupation

Each nation that took part in World War II has its own start date. The inhabitants of our country will remember June 22, 1941, the French - 1940, the Poles - September 1939. The Chinese do not have such a date. For the Celestial Empire, in fact, the entire beginning of the 20th century was a continuous string of wars that ended about sixty years ago with the founding of the PRC.

In the second half of the 19th century, China experienced a period of anarchy and disintegration. The dynasty of the Qing emperors, which was the descendants of the Manchurian horsemen who arrived from the Amur northeastern lands and captured Beijing in 1644, completely lost the militant determination of their ancestors, by no means gaining the love of their subjects. The huge empire, which at the end of the 18th century provided almost a quarter of world production, half a century later, suffering defeats from the army of Western states, made more and more territorial and economic concessions. Even the proclamation of the republic during the Xinhai Revolution, which took place under calls for the restoration of former power and independence in 1911, did not essentially change anything. The opposing generals divided the country into independent principalities, constantly fighting with each other. Control over the outskirts of the country was finally lost, foreign powers increased their influence, and the president of the new republic had even less power than the earlier emperor.

In 1925, Jiang Zhongzheng, known as Chiang Kai-shek, came to power in the nationalist Kuomintang Party, which controlled the southwestern lands of China. Having carried out a series of active reforms that strengthened the army, he undertook a campaign to the north. Already at the end of 1926, the entire south of China fell under his control, and the following spring, Nanjing (where the capital was moved) and Shanghai. These victories made the Kuomintang the main political force that gave hope for the unification of the country.

Seeing the strengthening of China, the Japanese decided to step up their forces on the mainland. And there were reasons for this. The top of the Land of the Rising Sun was very unhappy with the results of the First World War. Like the Italian elite, Japan, after the overall victory, saw itself left out. Issues unresolved after a military confrontation, as a rule, lead to a new struggle. The empire sought to expand the living space, the population grew and new arable land was required, a raw material base for the economy. All this was in Manchuria, where the influence of Japan was very strong. At the end of 1931, an explosion occurred on the Japanese-owned South Manchurian Railway. Under the guise of a desire to protect their citizens, Japanese troops flooded Manchuria. In an attempt to avoid open conflict, Chiang Kai-shek brought the attention of the League of Nations to reclaim China's legal rights and denounce the actions of the Japanese. A lengthy trial completely suited the conquerors. During this time, individual parts of the Kuomintang army were destroyed, the capture of Manchuria was completed. On March 1, 1932, the founding of a new state, Manchukuo, was announced.

Seeing the impotence of the League of Nations, the Japanese military turns its attention to China. Taking advantage of the anti-Japanese demonstrations in Shanghai, their aircraft bombed Chinese positions, and troops landed in the city. After two weeks of street fighting, the Japanese captured the northern part of Shanghai, but the diplomatic efforts of Chiang Kai-shek are bearing fruit - the envoys from the United States, England and France manage to stop the bloodshed and start negotiations. After some time, the League of Nations issues a verdict - the Japanese should get out of Shanghai.

However, this was only the beginning. At the end of 1932, Japanese troops added the province of Rehe to Manchukuo, coming close to Beijing. In Europe, meanwhile, there was an economic crisis, growing tension between countries. The West paid less and less attention to the protection of China's sovereignty, which suited Japan, opening up ample opportunities for further action.

Back in 1927, in the Land of the Rising Sun, Prime Minister Tanaka laid out a memorandum "Kodo" ("The Way of the Emperor") to the emperor. His main idea was that Japan could and should achieve world domination. To do this, she will need to capture Manchuria, China, destroy the USSR and the USA and form a "Prosperity Sphere of Great East Asia." Only at the end of 1936, the supporters of this doctrine finally won - Japan, Italy and Germany signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. The main opponent of the Japanese in the coming battle was the Soviet Union. Realizing that for this they needed a strong land foothold, the Japanese staged provocation after provocation on the border with China in order to find a reason to attack. The last straw was the incident on July 7, 1937, near the Marco Polo Bridge, which lies southwest of Beijing. Conducting night exercises, the Japanese soldiers began firing at the Chinese fortifications. Return fire killed one person, which gave the aggressors the right to demand the withdrawal of Chiang Kai-shek's troops from the entire region. The Chinese did not answer them, and on July 20 the Japanese launched a large-scale offensive, capturing Tianjin and Beijing by the end of the month.

Shortly thereafter, the Japanese launched attacks on Shanghai and Nanjing, which were the economic and political capitals of the Republic of China. To win the support of the Western community, Chiang Kai-shek decided to show the whole world the ability of the Chinese to fight. All the best divisions under his personal leadership attacked the Japanese landing force that landed in Shanghai at the end of the summer of 1937. He appealed to the inhabitants of Nanjing not to leave the city. About a million people took part in the Shanghai massacre. Three months of continuous fighting brought countless casualties. The Chinese lost more than half of their personnel. And on December 13, Japanese soldiers, without meeting resistance, occupied Nanjing, in which only unarmed civilians remained. In the next six weeks, a massacre of unprecedented scale was going on in the city, a real nightmare that entered as the "Nanjing Massacre".

The invaders began by stabbing twenty thousand men of military age outside the city with bayonets so that they would never again be able to fight against them. Then the Japanese moved on to the extermination of the elderly, women and children. The killings took place with particular brutality. Samurai tore out the eyes and hearts of living people, cut off their heads, turned the insides out. Firearms were not used. People were stabbed with bayonets, buried alive, burned. Before the murder of adult women, girls, old women were raped. At the same time, sons were forced to rape mothers, and fathers - daughters. Residents of the city were used as "stuffed animals" for training with a bayonet, poisoned by dogs. Thousands of corpses floated down the Yangtze, preventing ships from landing on the banks of the river. The Japanese had to use the floating dead as pontoons to get on the ships.

At the end of 1937, a Japanese newspaper enthusiastically reported on a dispute between two officers who decided to find out which of them would be the first to slaughter more than a hundred people with a sword in the allotted time. A certain Mukai won, killing 106 Chinese against 105.

In 2007, documents came to light from an international charity operating in Nanjing at the time. According to them, as well as records confiscated from the Japanese, it can be concluded that over 200,000 civilians were killed by soldiers in twenty-eight massacres. About 150,000 more were killed individually. The maximum number of all victims reaches 500,000 people.

Many historians agree that the Japanese killed more civilians than the Germans. A person who was captured by the Nazis died with a 4% probability (excluding the inhabitants of our country), among the Japanese this value reached 30%. Chinese prisoners of war did not have a single chance to survive at all, since in 1937 Emperor Hirohito canceled the action against them international law. After Japan surrendered, only fifty-six prisoners of war from China saw freedom! Rumor has it that on a number of occasions the Japanese soldiers, who were poorly supplied with provisions, ate the prisoners.

The Europeans who remained in Nanjing, mostly missionaries and businessmen, tried to save the local population. They organized an international committee headed by Jon Rabe. The committee fenced off the area, dubbed the "Nanjing Security Zone". Here, they managed to save about 200,000 Chinese citizens. Rabe, a former member of the NSDAP, managed to achieve the immunity status of the “Safety Zone” from the interim government.

With the seal of the International Committee, Rabe failed to impress the Japanese military who captured the city, but they were afraid of the swastika. Rabe wrote: “I had no weapons, except for a party badge and a bandage on my arm. Japanese soldiers constantly invaded my house, but when they saw the swastika, they immediately went away.”

The Japanese authorities still do not want to officially recognize the very fact of the massacre, finding the data on the victims too high. They never apologized for the war crimes committed in China. According to their data, "only" 20,000 people died in Nanjing in the winter of 1937-1938. They deny calling the incident a "massacre", saying that it is Chinese propaganda aimed at humiliating and insulting Japan. Their school history books simply say that "many people died" in Nanjing. Photos of massacres in the city, which are indisputable evidence of the nightmares of those days, according to the Japanese authorities, are fakes. And this is despite the fact that most of the photographs were found in the archives of Japanese soldiers, taken by them as memorable souvenirs.

In 1985, a memorial to those killed in the Nanjing Massacre was built in Nanjing. In 1995 it was expanded. The memorial is located in the place of mass grave of people. The mass grave is covered with pebbles. A huge number of small stones symbolizes the countless number of dead. Expressive statues are also placed on the territory of the museum. And here you can also see documents, photographs and stories of survivors about the atrocities committed by the Japanese. One hall shows hidden behind glass, a terrible section of a mass grave.

Chinese women forced into prostitution or raped have petitioned the Tokyo authorities for compensation. The Japanese court replied that the corresponding verdict could not be issued due to the limitation period for the commission of crimes.

Chinese-American journalist Iris Chan has published three books about the extermination of the Chinese in Nanjing. The first work was ten weeks among America's bestsellers. Influenced by the book, the US Congress held a series of special hearings, adopting in 1997 a resolution demanding a formal apology from the Japanese government for war crimes committed. Of course, Chan's book was banned from publication in Japan. In the course of subsequent work, Iris lost sleep, began to experience bouts of depression. The fourth book, about the Japanese takeover of the Philippines and the death march in Bataan, robbed her of her last spiritual strength. Having experienced a nervous breakdown in 2004, Chan landed in a psychiatric clinic, where she was diagnosed with manic-depressive psychosis. The talented journalist constantly took risperidone. On November 9, 2004, she was found shooting herself with a revolver in her car.

In the spring of 1938, the Japanese finally suffered their first defeat at Tai'erzhuang. They failed to take the city and lost over 20,000 men. Stepping back, they turned their attention to Wuhan, where Chiang Kai-shek's government was located. The Japanese generals believed that the capture of the city would lead to the surrender of the Kuomintang. However, after the fall of Wuhan on October 27, 1938, the capital was moved to Chongqing, and the stubborn Kaishi still refused to surrender. To break the will of the fighting Chinese, the Japanese began bombing civilian targets in all unoccupied major cities. Millions of people were killed, injured or left homeless.

In 1939, both in Asia and in Europe, a premonition of a world war arose. Realizing this, Chiang Kai-shek decided to buy time in order to hold out until the hour when Japan clashes with the United States, which looked very likely. Future events showed that such a strategy was correct, but in those days the situation looked like a stalemate. Major Kuomintang offensives in Guangxi and Changsha ended without success. It was clear that there would be only one outcome: either Japan would intervene in the war in the Pacific, or the Kuomintang would lose control of the remnants of China.

Back in 1937, an agitation campaign began to create good feelings for Japan among the Chinese population. The goal was to strike at the regime of Chiang Kai-shek. At the very beginning, the inhabitants of some places really met the Japanese as brothers. But the attitude towards them very quickly changed directly to the opposite, since Japanese propaganda, like German propaganda, convinced its soldiers too much of their divine origin, which gives superiority over other peoples. The Japanese did not hide their arrogant attitude, looking at foreigners as second-class people, like cattle. This, as well as heavy labor service, quickly turned the inhabitants of the occupied territories against the "liberators". Soon the Japanese were barely in control of the occupied land. There were not enough garrisons, only cities, key centers and important communications could be controlled. The partisans were in full swing in the countryside.

In the spring of 1940 in Nanjing, Wang Jingwei, a former prominent figure in the Kuomintang, removed from his post by Chiang Kai-shek, organized the "Central National Government of the Republic of China" under the slogan: "Peace, anti-communism, nation-building." However, his government failed to win much prestige from the Chinese. He was deposed on August 10, 1945.

On actions partisan detachments the invaders responded by sweeping the territories. In the summer of 1940, General Yasuji Okamura, who led the North Chinese Army, came up with a truly terrible strategy called "Sanko sakusen". In translation, it meant "Three all": burn everything, kill everything, rob everything. Five provinces - Shandong, Shanxi, Hebei, Chahar and Shaanxi were divided into sections: "peaceful", "semi-peaceful" and "non-peaceful". Okamura's troops burned down entire villages, confiscated grain and drove peasants to work digging trenches and building miles of roads, walls, and towers. The main goal was to eliminate enemies pretending to be locals, as well as all the men from fifteen to sixty who were behaving suspiciously. Even Japanese researchers believe that about ten million Chinese were enslaved in this way by their army. In 1996, the scholar Mitsuoshi Himeta made a statement that the Sanko sakusen policy led to the death of two and a half million people.

The Japanese also did not hesitate to use chemical and biological weapons. Fleas spreading the bubonic plague were thrown onto the cities. This caused a number of outbreaks of the epidemic. Special units of the Japanese army (the most famous of them - Division 731) spent their time putting terrible experiments on prisoners of war and civilians. Exploring people, the unfortunate were subjected to frostbite, sequential amputation of limbs, infection with plague and smallpox. Similarly, Unit 731 killed over three thousand people. The brutality of the Japanese varied in different places. At the front or during operations "Sanko sakusen" soldiers, as a rule, destroyed everything alive on the way. At the same time, foreigners in Shanghai lived freely. Camps for American, Dutch and British citizens organized after 1941 also had a relatively "soft" regime.

By the middle of 1940, it became quite clear that the undeclared war in China would drag on for a long time. Meanwhile, the Fuhrer in Europe was subordinating one country after another, and the Japanese elite were drawn to join the redivision of the world. The only difficulty they had was the direction of the strike - south or north? From 1938 to 1939, the battles along the Khalkhin Gol River and Khasan Lake showed the Japanese that there would be no easy victory over the Soviet Union. On April 13, 1941, the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact was signed. And even without paying attention to the insistent demands of the German command after June 22, its conditions were never violated. By this time, the Japanese army firmly decided to fight the United States, freeing the Asian colonies of European states. An important reason was the ban on the sale of fuel and steel to the Japanese, proposed by the United States to its allies. For a country that does not have its own resources, this was a very tangible blow.

On December 7-8, 1941, Japanese aircraft bombed Pearl Harbor, the base of the American Navy on the island of Oahu. The very next day, Japanese planes attacked British Hong Kong. On the same day, Chiang Kai-shek declared war on Italy and Germany. After four years of struggle, the Chinese have a chance to win.

China's assistance to European allies came in very handy. They fettered the maximum number of Japanese armed forces, and also helped on neighboring fronts. After the Kuomintang sent two divisions to help the British in Burma, President Roosevelt directly announced that after the end of the war, the situation in the world should be controlled by four countries - the USA, the USSR, Great Britain and China. In practice, of course, the Americans ignored their eastern ally, and their leadership tried to command Chiang Kai-shek's headquarters. Nevertheless, the mere fact that, after a hundred years of national humiliation, China was named one of the four main powers of the planet was very significant.

The Chinese did their job. In the summer of 1943, they held Chongqing and launched a counteroffensive. But, of course, the allies brought them the final victory. On August 6 and 9, 1945, nuclear bombs fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In April, the Soviet Union broke the neutrality pact with Japan and entered Manchuria in August. Nuclear bombings and a record-breaking offensive Soviet troops made it clear to Emperor Hirohito that it was useless to continue to resist. On August 15, he announced the surrender on the radio. I must say that few people expected such a development of events. The Americans generally assumed that hostilities would last until 1947.

On September 2, on board the USS Missouri, representatives of Japan and the allied countries signed an act of unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces. World War II is over.

After the surrender of Japan, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, which met in Tokyo, sentenced 920 people to execution, 475 people to life imprisonment, and about 3,000 Japanese received various prison terms. Emperor Hirohito, who personally signed most of the criminal orders, was removed from the accused at the request of the commander of the occupying forces, General MacArthur. Also, many criminals, especially senior officers, did not appear before the tribunal due to suicide after the emperor ordered to lay down their arms.

For establishing control over Korea, which before the war was a protectorate of China.

During the war, Japanese troops expelled the Chinese from Korea and invaded the territory of Manchuria. The Chinese Beiyang fleet was defeated at the Battle of Yalu, and then the naval bases of Luishun and Weihaiwei were taken. The war ended with a Japanese victory and the Treaty of Shimonoseki.

In China, the war undermined the prestige of the Qing dynasty, clearly indicating the failure of the country's modernization. The humiliating peace treaty was the catalyst for the revolutionary movement.

Fight for Korea

Since the Ming Dynasty, Korea has been a vassal of China. The kings of the Korean Yi Dynasty (1392-1910) sent three tributary embassies annually to the court of the Ming emperors, and four to the successive Qing emperors. Since 1637, Korea has received virtually no foreign embassies, with the exception of Chinese and, occasionally, Japanese.

"Discovery" of Korea

After "opening" China and Japan to trade, it was Korea's turn. However, due to the remoteness, the European powers showed little interest in Korea. Korea fell into the sphere of influence of Japan, which was rapidly growing after the Meiji restoration. In February 1866, the persecution of Christianity began in Korea, which was forbidden, European priests were killed. In October, the French organized a retaliatory punitive expedition. They were able to capture the city of Kangwa on the coast, but were defeated at the walls of Seoul. In August of the same year, the American merchant ship General Sherman arrived in Korea. The Americans behaved like pirates, for which the ship was burned after it ran aground and the crew was killed. In 1871 State Department sent an expedition to investigate, consisting of five warships. After the Koreans refused to talk, the Americans fired on Kangwa, but were forced to leave, as they did not have permission to conduct hostilities.

Treaty of Kangwa

After the Meiji restoration in 1868, the Japanese began to send embassies with requests to open trade. However, the Daewongun, Prince Regent of the underage King Gojong, despised Japan's modernization, and even considered it wrong to refer to the Emperor of Japan as "Imperial Highness". In response to this insult, the Japanese equipped in 1875 a punitive expedition consisting of several gunboats. The expedition was able to destroy the forts at Kangwa with artillery fire. After the initial success, six more ships were sent to Korea, and an emissary to Beijing to determine the Chinese response. The Chinese timidly replied that Korea had always been a tributary of China, but had complete freedom in internal and foreign policy. Thus, China encouraged Japan to open Korea to trade. In order to avoid a clash, the Qing diplomats recommended that Korea enter into negotiations. On February 24, 1876, the Kangwa Treaty was signed, according to which Korea was recognized as an independent state, equal to Japan, ambassadors were exchanged, and three Korean ports were opened for trade. In addition, the Japanese got the opportunity to buy land in Korea and the right of extraterritoriality (non-judgmental jurisdiction of Korean courts). The Chinese authorities decided that Korea should be opened to Western countries in order to counteract Japanese influence. Korea was forced to sign trade agreements with the United States, Britain, France, Russia, Italy, Austria, Belgium and Denmark.

Attempted military coup

In 1873, the independent reign of the young King Gojong began. Big influence politics was supported by his wife, Queen Ming, who fought for power with the Taewongun. Queen Ming, with the help of her clan and Japanese advisors, began reforms. The Taewongun, determined to limit her influence, staged a military coup using disgruntled discharged soldiers. In 1882, the royal palace and the Japanese legation were attacked. Queen Ming narrowly escaped death, and the Japanese legation was burned, killing seven officers. The uprising was crushed with the help of Chinese troops, Taewongun was arrested and taken to China. King Gojong came to an agreement with the Japanese, paying them 550 thousand US dollars, allowing them to keep troops in Korea and build barracks at the diplomatic mission.

Li Hongzhang

Itoh Hirobumi

After the 1882 uprising, Li Hongzhang, in charge of relations with Korea, initiated the signing of a new Sino-Korean treaty granting the Chinese the right to extraterritoriality and trade privileges. Yuan Shikai was sent for training Korean army, and six Chinese battalions were stationed in the country to maintain order and protect against the Japanese. After 1882, there was a struggle between the pro-Chinese and pro-Japanese parties at the Korean court. On December 4, 1884, when the Chinese withdrew three battalions from Korea to the ongoing Franco-Chinese war, the pro-Japanese party led by Kim Okkyun carried out a military coup. The royal palace was captured, the king was captured, and the pro-Chinese officials were killed. The rebellion, however, was put down by Yuan Shikai and the king was released. Kim Okkyun was able to escape to Japan.

The Japanese sent an emissary to Korea demanding reparations and an apology. Ito Hirobumi was sent to China to negotiate with Li Hongzhang. On April 18, 1885, they signed the Tianjin Treaty, according to which both sides were to withdraw troops from Korea, but had the right to re-introduce them to restore order, notifying the other side. In fact, Korea became a joint Japanese-Chinese protectorate.

At the same time, Great Britain and Russia began to exert growing influence on Korea. The Japanese government adopted a policy of encouraging China to prevent Western powers from entering Korea. Li Hongzhang appointed Yuan Shikai as an emissary to Korea, where he directed the courts, customs, trade, and telegraph services, becoming the most powerful man in Korea from 1885 to 1893. China began to exert more and more influence on Korea. The situation escalated when, in March 1894, a Korean killed the leader of the pro-Japanese Korean Party, Kim Okkyun, in Shanghai. His corpse was transported to Korea and displayed as a warning to the rebels. Many Japanese considered this an insult, although the Japanese Foreign Minister stated that the killing of a Korean in China by another Korean was not a matter of Japanese concern. Japanese secret societies began to agitate for the war.

Tonkhak uprising

Tonghaks were originally a religious sect. Donghak means "Eastern teaching", it was a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Being an unorthodox doctrine, Tokhaks were banned, and their leader - Cho Che-u - was executed in 1864. The sect went underground and recruited supporters. In 1892, the Tonkhaks tried to legalize themselves, but they were refused and ordered to disband the organization. Shortly thereafter, the Tonhaks, with the help of Japanese pan-Asian secret societies, began to organize mass protests against government corruption and the dominance of foreigners. And in January 1894, a full-scale uprising began.

In June, at the request of the Korean government, 2,300 soldiers from the Huai army were brought into the country. Using the pretext, Japan also transferred 8,000 soldiers to Korea. The Japanese, standing at Seoul, on June 26 demanded from the Korean king to carry out reforms of internal administration, which meant the transfer of Korea under the rule of Japan. The Korean government, on the advice of the Chinese, replied that it would start reforms after the withdrawal of Japanese troops. The situation was heating up. Russian, British and American efforts to resolve the problem peacefully were unsuccessful. Li Hongzhang decided to use the delay in negotiations to send reinforcements to Korea.

Side forces

Japan

Emperor Meiji's reforms, begun in 1868, prioritized the creation of a modern navy as well as a modern, professional army. The Japanese actively sent military officials abroad for training.

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was organized along the lines of the British. The fleet was created with the help of British consultants, and Japanese specialists were trained in the UK. Naval doctrine followed the tradition of the "young school", according to which ironclads were considered too expensive, and instead it was supposed to use fast cruisers with rapid-fire guns and destroyers armed with torpedoes.

By the beginning of the war, the Japanese had 12 modern ships(the 13th entered service during the war), one frigate and 22 torpedo boats. Eight ships were built in England, three in France and two in Japan. Before the war, on July 19, 1894, the Japanese created the Combined Fleet, bringing together the new ships of the Fleet constant readiness, and obsolete ships of the Western Fleet. The flagship was the cruiser Matsushima, built in France, commanded by the Combined Fleet, Count Ito Sukeyuki.

Imperial Japanese Army

The Japanese army went through modernization along the European lines. In 1873, a national conscription was introduced. Military schools and arsenals were built. The reform of the army took place with the help of French and later German advisers. The army was organized into divisions and regiments, engineering and artillery units were separate formations. By the beginning of the war, the number of Japanese troops was 120 thousand people, united in two armies and five divisions.

China

The basis of the army of the Qing dynasty was the Eight Banner Army, consisting of the Manchus and numbering up to 250 thousand soldiers. Two-thirds of it was stationed in Beijing, and the rest were distributed among the garrisons. major cities to avoid revolts. After the suppression of the Taiping Rebellion, Chinese provincial units were also formed, subordinate to the provincial governors. Because of this, almost only the Huai army and the Beiyang fleet, subordinated to Li Hongzhang, took part in the war. The governor of Guangdong, for example, explicitly stated that his province was not at war with Japan and refused to send the Guangdong fleet to Korea. The Chinese army had many problems: corruption, lack of pay and prestige, embezzlement of funds by officers, low discipline, opium smoking, poor supply due to lack of railways.

Beiyang Fleet

The Beiyang Fleet was one of the four modernized Chinese fleets. The fleet was sponsored by Li Hongzhang, viceroy of the capital province and close associate of Empress Cixi, because of which best ships. Before the war - the most powerful fleet in East Asia. However, there were many problems with corruption, discipline and ship maintenance. Sentinels spent their time gambling, watertight bulkheads were open, debris was thrown down the gun barrels, and gunpowder from high-explosive shells was sold.

The fleet included two turret battleships and eight cruisers, as well as gunboats, destroyers and auxiliary ships. The ships were built in German and English shipyards. Li Hongzhang appointed Ding Ruchang as Admiral of the Beiyang Fleet, and the German-built turret battleship Dingyuan was the flagship.

Huai army

The Huai army consisted of the troops of the Anhui provincial clique, the number reached 45 thousand people. Li Hongzhang supplied his troops with the best military equipment, hired foreign instructors, and reformed along European lines.

The course of the war

Commencement of hostilities and declaration of war

On July 23, 1894, Japanese troops entered Seoul, captured the Korean king, and formed a pro-Japanese government. Later, on July 27, the new Korean government "asked" Japan to expel the Chinese troops. And on August 26, Japan forced Korea to sign a military alliance treaty.

As early as July 22, the Chinese cruisers Jiyuan, Guangyi and Weiyuan entered the bay of the Korean port of Asan, escorting the transports Aizhen and Feijing with an infantry battalion on board. On July 23, the Japanese Combined Fleet put to sea, and a flying detachment of four fast cruisers separated from it. Fang Boqian, captain of Jiyuan and senior officer of the squadron, having received information about the actions of Japanese cruisers, sent Weiyuan to China and, with the remaining two cruisers, began to wait for the third transport - Gaosheng, accompanied by the messenger ship Caojiang. On July 25, a battle took place near Asan: three Japanese cruisers - Yoshino, Naniwa and Akitsushima, approached the bay and, without waiting for a declaration of war, opened fire on Chinese ships. The torpedo cruiser Guangyi was badly damaged and washed ashore, most of the crew escaped. The cruiser Jiyuan was also badly damaged, but miraculously managed to get away. The Japanese also shot at the approaching transport Gaosheng (a chartered English steamer), two battalions of Chinese infantry and 14 guns were killed along with the ship. The messenger ship Caojiang was hijacked.

The Chinese troops in Asan were in danger of being surrounded by more numerous Japanese troops. A consolidated Japanese brigade consisting of four thousand people under the command of Oshima Yoshimasa set out from Seoul. The bulk of the Chinese under the command of Ye Zhichao withdrew to Gongju, and the 2,000-strong detachment under the command of Nie Shicheng took up a convenient defensive position near Songhwan Station. On July 29, 1894, the Battle of Seonghwan took place. The Chinese repelled Japanese attacks all day and lost up to 500 soldiers, the Japanese - up to a thousand. After the battle, Nie Shicheng retreated to Gongju. The Japanese got 8 guns left by the Chinese due to the depletion of ammunition. On August 5, the Japanese brigade returned to Seoul, and the Chinese began a month-long march to Pyongyang, where they expected to link up with reinforcements.

On August 1, Japan and China officially declared war on each other. The successful rescue of the cruiser Jiyuan and the defense of Songhwan, which took place despite the numerical superiority of the enemy, had an encouraging effect on the morale of the Chinese.

Korean phase of the war

In China, the aged Li Hongzhang, the hero of the suppression of the Taiping uprising, was appointed commander of all troops. 56 thousand soldiers were hastily recruited. Four Qing armies headed from Manchuria to Pyongyang under the command of generals Zuo Baogui, Fengshenya, Wei Zhugui and Ma Yukun. On August 4, Chinese troops entered Pyongyang and began to fortify, at the end of August the detachments of Nie Shicheng and Ye Zhichao approached. Li Hongzhang appointed Ye Zhichao as commander of the unified army, now numbering up to 15,000 men. Ye Zhichao was corrupt, had little authority, and was reluctant to obey.

The 1st Japanese Army under the command of Marshal Yamagata Aritomo, consisting of the 3rd and 5th provincial divisions, and numbering up to 10 thousand people, headed towards Pyongyang in four columns. Two columns went by land, and two landed from the sea in Pusan ​​and Wonsan. Reinforcements continued to arrive from Japan; by early September, the number of Japanese troops in Korea had reached 100,000. The headquarters of the Japanese army was located in Hiroshima, and Emperor Meiji also went there. On August 26, Korea signed an imposed treaty of alliance that trusted Japan to expel Chinese troops from its territory. The attitude of the Korean people towards the Japanese was tense - the Japanese controlled only Seoul and the treaty ports through which reinforcements were brought. On August 28, the Korean king, under Japanese influence, began to carry out reforms: he introduced freedom of religion, abolished slavery, and the law was also abolished, according to which the entire family of the criminal was punished.

By September 15, the Japanese surrounded Pyongyang with three sides and began the Pyongyang battle. At 4:30 am, an attack began on the city from the front, across the Taedong River. The attack was accompanied by artillery shelling. The outcome of the battle was decided by the attack of the fourth Japanese column, which entered the rear of the Chinese from Wonsan. Many Chinese were killed, General Zuo Baogui also died, by 16:30 the garrison threw out a white flag. However, bad weather prevented the Japanese from occupying the city: it was already dark and there was a heavy downpour. At night, the surviving part of the garrison, about a quarter of the soldiers, left the city and headed for the city of Anju. In the morning, the Japanese entered Pyongyang, taking many prisoners, including General Wei Zhugui, as well as numerous trophies: a million US dollars, 36 guns, 1,300 horses, and a large amount of food and ammunition.

Battle of Yalu

Ding Ruchan

Ito Sukeyuki

On September 16, the Beiyang fleet arrived at the mouth of the Yalu River, escorting five transports. On the same day, Japanese Admiral Ito Sukeyuki, having learned about the departure of the Chinese convoy, left the old ships and destroyers with their transports at the mouth of the Taedongan River, and sent the main fleet forces to Yalu. By the morning of September 17, both fleets met in the Yellow Sea, and the Battle of Yalu began. Both fleets were roughly equal in strength, but differed greatly in composition. The Japanese had high-speed armored cruisers with numerous medium-caliber artillery, the four fastest cruisers were assigned to a special "flying" detachment. The Chinese had two battleships, which were superior in armament and armor to any Japanese ship, but the Chinese cruisers were smaller and worse than the Japanese ones.

The Chinese admiral Ding Zhuchan built his ships in a crescent: in the center, closer to the enemy, there were two battleships, weak ships at the edges. Chinese ships were preparing for a general dump and were supposed to operate in pairs of the same type. The gunboats and destroyers remained to cover the transport ships. Ito Sukeyuki built the Japanese fleet in a wake column, it was forbidden to break the line. In front of the column were the four cruisers of Rear Admiral Kozo Tsuboi's Flying Squad, who were allowed to operate independently. The Japanese column began to go around the Chinese system from the west.

The first shots were fired from Chinese battleships. On the Chinese flagship Dingyuan, the bridge was damaged by a blast from a volley of main battery guns. The officers, including Admiral Dean, are shell-shocked. The fire of the Japanese ships fell on the armorless cruisers Chaoyun and Yanwei located on the right, which received many hits and caught fire. The line of Chinese ships turned west and opened fire on the weak Japanese ships at the tail of the column. the Japanese corvette Hiei received many hits, and was able to escape only by boldly passing through the formation of Chinese ships. The headquarters ship Saikyo-maru was also hit, and the Flying Squad went to rescue it. Chinese ships lost formation and interfered with each other. The situation was complicated by the fact that on the flagship Dingyuan the foremast was blown off by a shell, and Admiral Ding could not hang signal flags. The cruisers Jiyuan and Guangjia fled the battlefield, while Chaoyun and Yanwei sank. The Chinese battleships left their cruisers to fight the Flying Squad alone, and headed towards the main Japanese forces. From the other side, delayed slow-moving Chinese ships approached them: the small battleship Pingyuan, mine cruiser Guangbing and the destroyers Fulong and Zuoyi. The Japanese admiral with difficulty got out of the encirclement, the flagship Matsushima was hit by a large projectile.

Further, the Japanese, taking advantage of superiority in speed, imposed on the Chinese a battle at medium distances, where Japanese rapid-fire guns were effective. The "flying detachment" walked around the Chinese cruisers. To increase the fire on the Chinese battleships, Ito Hirobumi decided to come closer. The Matsushima flagship received several hits from 12-inch shells from Chinese battleships, lost combat capability and was forced to leave the battle. The battleships received more than a hundred hits each, were badly damaged, but, thanks to powerful armor, they remained survivable. The Chinese cruisers were in the worst position, they were fired from all sides by the stronger Japanese. The cruisers Zhiyun and Jingyuan were sunk while trying to ram the Japanese. By four o'clock in the evening, the ships began to run out of ammunition, the opponents exchanged rare shots. Chinese battleships, taking advantage of the distance of the Japanese ships, went to connect with the cruisers.

Ito Hirobumi, seeing the construction of Chinese ships in a single wake column and the setting sun, and also fearing night attacks by Chinese destroyers, led the fleet back to the mouth of the Taedongan River. Admiral Ding remained on the battlefield to cover the pending landing of troops, and then proceeded to Lushun for repairs. Formally, Ding Ruchan was the winner, since he completed the task, and the battlefield was left to him. But the Chinese losses were enormous. The Chinese lost five cruisers and 850 people, the Japanese - about 300 people, 4 ships were badly damaged.

Manchurian front

The news of the defeats at Pyongyang and Yalu greatly upset the Chinese imperial court, where celebrations were being prepared to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Empress Dowager Cixi. 10 million liang (500 tons) of silver was spent from the treasury to prepare the holiday. Ye Zhichao was removed, instead he commanded ground forces appointed General Song Qing. Admiral Ding Zhuchang, who went to the base in Weihaiwei, was forbidden to go to sea.

After the defeat near Pyongyang, Chinese troops retreated to the Yalu River - the natural border between China and Korea. Chinese troops numbered 25 thousand soldiers, but were stretched along the northern bank of the river. Japanese scouts appeared on the south coast on October 6, and by October 20 the main forces of the 1st Army approached. On the banks of the Yalu River, the battle of Jiuliancheng took place. On the night of October 25, Japanese engineers built a pontoon bridge near the village of Yiju, and in the morning they launched an attack. The Japanese, who numbered no more than 15 thousand, taking advantage of the stretch of the Chinese troops, quickly moved and concentrated superior forces in separate directions. The main blow fell on Mount Huershan, where the Japanese concentrated 5 thousand people against two thousand soldiers of Nie Shicheng. After a bloody four-hour battle, an experienced general, having received no reinforcements, buried two guns and retreated. Song Qing was also unable to hold his ground and retreated.

On October 26, the Chinese retreated to Fenghuangcheng, and on October 29, the Japanese occupied it as well. After that, the Japanese 1st Army was divided into two parts: one went to the capital of Manchuria - the city of Shenyang (Mukden), and the second - to the naval base Lushun (Port Arthur). However, General Ma Yukun stopped the Japanese advance on Lushun. And Nie Shichen, in a bloody battle for the Lianshanguan Pass, forced the Japanese to abandon the attack on Shenyang, for which he was granted the title of military governor of Zhili Province.

Taking advantage of the fact that the main forces of the Huai army were pinned down by battle, the Japanese formed the 2nd Army, which set off by sea from Korea on October 23, and landed on the Liaodong Peninsula on October 24 in order to take Dalian and Luishun. Lüshun (Port Arthur) was a naval base with a convenient bay. The fortress was protected by hills with forts built on them, and was considered impregnable. On November 6, the Japanese captured Jinzhou with little resistance, and on November 7, Dalian, with no resistance, as the defenders fled to Lüshun during the night. In Dalian, the Japanese got the plans for minefields and fortifications of Luishun abandoned by the Chinese, as well as a convenient port for supplying troops. The Chinese Beiyang fleet remained in Weihaiwei, leaving Lushun to its fate.

The attack on Lüshun began on 20 November. There was panic among the defenders. Looting, robbery and looting began in the fortress, and most of the officers fled in two boats. General Xu Bandao made a successful sortie, captured many prisoners and trophies, but, not supported by other units, was forced to retreat. On the night of November 21, the Japanese launched a final assault. The Chinese units were demoralized and organized little resistance. By noon, the forts protecting the fortress from land were captured, and by evening the eastern coastal batteries surrendered. Only the troops of Xu Bandao managed to break through to the north, and he headed for Shenyang. Breaking into Lüshun, the Japanese found their prisoners with signs of torture. This, and the fact that many Chinese soldiers dressed in civilian clothes, was the reason for the start of the Lushun massacre, during which up to 20 thousand were killed. civilians. Only 36 people were left alive, who were ordered to bury the corpses.

Fall of Weihaiwei and Yingkou

The fall of Lüshun made a negative impression in Beijing. Li Hongzhang, declared guilty of military defeats, was removed from command, demoted and stripped of all titles. Empress Cixi retired so as not to be blamed for the defeats. Emperor Guangxu appointed Liu Kunyi as commander of the troops. The war devastated the Chinese treasury, the government was forced to borrow money from the British. In November, Grand Duke Gong and Li Hongzhang began to prepare peace negotiations, and in January 1895 a peace delegation was sent to Hiroshima. The Japanese, however, stopped the negotiations unilaterally, as they had not yet captured what they wanted to demand in the negotiations.

For complete dominance in the Yellow Sea, the Japanese decided to capture Weihaiwei and destroy the Beiyang fleet based there. Weihaiwei was a heavily fortified fortress, from land it was protected by 15 powerful modern forts, and from the sea by the Beiyang fleet, which still had 2 battleships, 5 cruisers, a training ship, 6 gunboats and 12 destroyers. The garrison of the fortress was 9 thousand people. From January 20 to 25, the Japanese landed the 3rd Army near Weihaiwei under the command of General Oyama Iwao, numbering up to 18 thousand soldiers. The Japanese fleet blocked both exits from the harbor, and a detachment of two thousand men blocked the only convenient road leading to the fortress. Japanese admiral Ito Sukeyuki sent a letter to Ding Ruchang offering to surrender, citing pre-war friendship. The Chinese admiral left him unanswered.

In the early morning of January 30, a Japanese column led by General Odera Yasuzumi stormed the eastern group of five forts. They were supported by mountain guns and cruisers. The garrisons of the two outermost forts, fearing encirclement, abandoned their fortifications. A fierce battle flared up for the easternmost fort. The dilapidated fort, shelled by Japanese ships, was taken by storm. Of the guns captured in the forts, the Japanese opened fire on the last two. Their garrisons blew up the fortifications and retreated to the coast, hoping for help from the Beiyang fleet. Ding Zhuchan landed a detachment of sailors to evacuate them, but the fire of Japanese guns drove the ships away from the coast and shot the Chinese. Few managed to escape. At two o'clock in the afternoon, the Japanese fleet maneuvered near the harbor, but did not dare to join the battle.

Admiral Dean decided to use the storm that began the next day to strengthen the defense. He believed that the fortress would soon surrender, but the fleet would be able to defend itself, based on the island of Lugundao. A detachment of sailors rendered useless the guns of the western forts, which could reach the island. On February 1, as Ding had predicted, the garrison left Weihaiwei and Japanese troops occupied it. With Ding on the island, only one and a half thousand soldiers of the garrisons of the forts and the civilian population, who feared a repetition of the Lushun massacre, remained on the island. The fleet was surrounded both from the sea and from land.

Since February 2, the Japanese fleet has bombarded Lugundao Island daily from long distances. On the night of February 3, 4 and 5, Japanese destroyers attacked the Chinese fleet. They managed to damage the battleship Dingyuan, which ran aground, and sank the cruiser Laiyuan and the training ship Weiyuan. Considering the Chinese fleet sufficiently weakened, Ito Hirobumi decided to attack with all his might on February 7th. The Japanese ships maneuvered and fired rapidly at the Chinese ships and forts. The Chinese responded energetically, several Japanese ships were damaged, among them was again the flagship Matsushima, which was demolished by the navigational cabin. The main success of the Japanese was the destruction of the fort on the island of Zhidao, where a powder warehouse exploded. On February 8, when the Japanese fleet again approached to bombard the forts, 12 Chinese destroyers unexpectedly broke out of the harbor. Admiral Ding ordered them to attack the Japanese, but Wang Ping, captain of the destroyer Zuoyi and senior in the squadron, decided to break through to Chifu (Yantai). The Japanese sent three cruisers to destroy them. Only the destroyer Zoi managed to escape, the rest of the ships were either sunk or washed ashore.

On the night of February 9, Japanese boats cut the boom that protected the entrance to the harbor, and by morning the engineers repaired the guns of the western forts, shooting through the entire bay and the island. In the morning the guns opened fire. Ding ordered them to be suppressed, but in a skirmish, the stranded battleship Dingyuan was blown up and the cruiser Zhenyuan was sunk. On February 11, Ding Ruchan received a letter from Li Hongzhang stating that help would not come, and on February 12, having ordered surrender, he committed suicide. The captains of two ironclads and the military commandant of Weihaiwei also shot themselves. The surrendered garrison and civilians were allowed to leave the city. As trophies, the Japanese got the battleship Zhenyuan, the cruisers Pingyuan and Jiyuan, as well as six Rendel gunboats.

On the Manchurian front, the Qing government decided to drive the Japanese out of China, for which it sent reinforcements: the Xiang and Hubei armies. The total number of Chinese troops reached 60 thousand people. General Li Kunya was tasked with stopping the Japanese offensive at the turn of the Liaohe River. From December to February, the Chinese launched unsuccessful counterattacks. And on February 28, the Japanese went on the offensive. On March 4, they captured Nyuzhuang, and on March 6, the large port of Yingkou.

Pescador campaign and the end of the war

After the loss of Weihaiwei, the Chinese imperial court called for peace. Li Hongzhang was reinstated in rank and rank, and was sent to Japan for negotiations. On March 19, 1895, he arrived in the city of Shimonoseki. The Japanese were stalling for time to capture the islands of Penghu and Taiwan. To do this, on March 24, they put forward obviously unacceptable demands: the transfer of Tianjin, Dagu and Shanhaiguan, which covered Beijing from the sea, to them. When Li Hongzhang refused, he was assassinated by a fanatic and dropped out of the negotiations for ten days.

On March 20, the Japanese fleet approached the Penghu Islands (Pescadores Islands), located between Taiwan and the mainland, with a 5,000-strong landing force. From March 23 to March 26, the Japanese took the fortifications on the islands and captured many trophies. The capture of the islands did not allow the Chinese to transfer reinforcements to Taiwan, and was a trump card in the negotiations.

On March 30, an armistice was declared in Manchuria, negotiations resumed on April 10, and a peace treaty was signed on April 17.

Treaty of Shimonoseki

On April 17, 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed. On the Chinese side, it was signed by Li Hongzhang, and on the Japanese side, by Ito Hirobumi. The terms of the agreement were as follows:

1. China recognizes the independence of Korea, thereby opening it up to Japanese influence.
2. China transfers to Japan in perpetual possession: the island of Taiwan (Formosa) and the Penghu archipelago (Pescadores Islands), as well as the southern part of the Liaodong Peninsula, including the ports of Dalian and Luishun (Port Arthur).
3. China pays an indemnity of 200 million liang of silver.
4. China concludes a trade agreement with Japan that is beneficial to her. For Japanese citizens, economic activity in China is allowed under favorable conditions.

The transfer of the Liaodong Peninsula to Japan was opposed by Russia, France and Germany, who did not want China to be excessively weakened, and also had their own interests in Liaodong. On April 23, the envoys of the three powers gave Japan "friendly" advice to refuse to join Liaodong in exchange for an increase in indemnity. On May 8, the final version of the Shimonoseki Treaty was ratified in Yantai. Instead of handing over Liaodong, China paid an additional 30 million liang of silver. Concessions under the pressure of the "triple intervention" were perceived in Japan as a humiliation.

The results of the war

Chinese soldiers and the civilian population of Taiwan did not want to pass into Japanese citizenship, and on May 23 they proclaimed the creation of the Republic of Formosa. The Japanese had to gradually occupy the island with battles. The self-proclaimed republic capitulated only on October 21, 1895.

This war was the first for Japan since the Meiji Restoration. The modernized and reformed army and navy showed their strength, skill and discipline. Victory in the war made Japan a leading regional power, equal to that of Europe.

For China, the war was a disaster: now it lost not only to the developed European powers, but also to the neighboring country, which until recently was a medieval feudal state. The war showed the corruption and incompetence of the Qing officials. Anti-Manchu and anti-foreign sentiments began to develop rapidly in the country.

Taking advantage of the weakening of China, in 1898 Russia signed an agreement on a 25-year lease of the Liaodong Peninsula, and began building a naval base in Port Arthur. At the same time, Germany rented Qingdao, and Great Britain rented Weihaiwei.

War 1984-85 between the Chinese Qing Empire and Japan was primarily a battle for influence over Korea. For many centuries the latter was the domain of China.

Two hundred years of self-isolation of Edo-era Japan ended after American intervention in 1854, when Officer Parry forced the Japanese government to open some seaports to trade in 1854. Literally over the next few years after the Meiji Restoration and the fall of the shogunate, Japan is transformed from a feudal society into a modern industrial state. Thousands of students and many delegations were sent to different countries to learn from science and art, so that Japan could become on a par with the Western powers.

In turn, Korea, in the old fashioned way, tried to completely eliminate or at least minimize foreign influence, preventing foreign embassies from entering its territory and even shelling foreign ships near its coasts.

Prerequisites for the start of the war

Thus, by the beginning of the conflict, Japan had about thirty years of reforms behind it, while Korea continued to live the old fashioned way, which made it vulnerable to a neighbor that was gaining strength. Japan wanted to limit foreign influence in Korea and end centuries of Chinese suzerainty. The presence of coal deposits and deposits of iron ore in Korea also played a significant role, which was also of considerable interest and carried potential benefits for the growing industrial base of Japan.

In 1876, despite the protest of the Korean isolationists, the Japanese-Korean trade treaty was signed. In addition, trade agreements were signed with other countries. Traditionally, Korea was an appendage of the Chinese Qing Empire, which exerted considerable influence on Korean officials, some of whom were conservative and wished to maintain traditional relations with China. The reformists, on the contrary, saw the country's future in alliance with Japan and Western countries.

China, weakened by the Opium Wars of 1839, 1856 with the British and the conflict of 1885. with the French, could not resist the invasion of the Western powers. Japan saw an opportunity to take China's place in its strategically important Korea.

Crisis of 1882

That year on Korean peninsula there was a severe drought, which led to unrest among the population. The military also showed dissatisfaction, since the state, which was on the verge of bankruptcy, delayed salaries for several months.

On July 23, 1882, a riot broke out in Seoul - troops, together with civilians, began to rob granaries. The next day, the mob attacked the royal palace, the barracks, and the Japanese legation. During the uprising, about 40 employees of the Japanese diplomatic mission were killed, the rest managed to escape.

In response, Japan sent four warships and troops to Seoul to protect Japanese interests, and then demanded reparations. In turn, China sent 4,500 troops to oppose Japan. Nevertheless, things did not come to an open conflict - on August 30, an agreement was signed under which 50,000 yen was paid to the families of the murdered Japanese employees and the Korean conspirators were punished. The Japanese government, in turn, also received 50,000 yen, an official apology, and permission to deploy troops to guard the diplomatic service in Seoul.

Gapsin coup

In 1884, a group of pro-American reformers overthrew the conservative pro-Chinese government of Korea in a bloody coup. However, with the assistance of the troops of the Qing Empire, led by General Yuan Shikai, the pro-Chinese faction regains its control over the state. As a result of these events, several people died and the Japanese legation was burned. This caused a crisis in relations between China and Japan, which was resolved by a peace treaty signed in Tanzqing. Under the terms of the agreement, both sides simultaneously withdrew their expeditionary forces from Korea. After the withdrawal of Chinese and Japanese troops, diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea resumed.

However, the Japanese were extremely unhappy with Chinese attempts to undermine their influence in Korea.

Tonkhak uprising

In 1884, a peasant uprising broke out on the Korean Peninsula. The poor of one of the provinces, outraged by the brutal exploitation of local officials, revolted. Several hundred people attacked the chancellery and expelled the official who caused them dissatisfaction with his excessive extortions.

The government ordered the district chief to investigate the incident, and he accidentally or deliberately accused several followers of the Donghak religion of inciting a riot, demanding a brutal reprisal, which only exacerbated the situation. The fading uprising broke out with renewed vigor.

The frightened government turned to the Qing dynasty with a request to send troops to suppress the peasant revolt. The Chinese government sent General Yuan Shikai as its plenipotentiary. Under the command of the general there were 2800 soldiers. Japan accused China of violating the Tanzin Treaty and, in turn, sent an 8,000-strong military expedition to Korea, ostensibly to ensure the safety of its citizens on its territory.

After the suppression of the uprising, China began to withdraw its troops, but Japan refused to do the same.

Conflict in Korea and the beginning of the war

In early June 1884, Japanese troops captured the royal palace in Seoul and captured King Gojong. On June 25, a new pro-Japanese government was elected, which gave Japan the right to expel Chinese troops from Korea. In turn, the Qing Empire refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new Korean government.

Japanese troops under the command of Major General Oshima Yoshimasa made a quick forced march from the southern part of Seoul to Asan, where they met with Chinese units at the Songwan Station east of the city. In the July 28 battle, Chinese troops could not withstand the onslaught of superior enemy forces and fled towards Pyongyang. According to some sources, the loss of the Chinese amounted to 500 people killed against 82 killed by the Japanese.

By August 4, the remnants of Chinese troops reached Pyongyang where they met with units sent to help from China. The total number of Chinese troops reached 13-15 thousand people. After fortifying the city, it was decided to keep the defense within its walls. By September 15, the Japanese army laid siege to Pyongyang from several directions. In a bloody battle, the defenders of Pyongyang suffered a crushing defeat. Taking advantage of an unexpected heavy downpour, the Chinese troops fled northeast towards the coastal city of Wuyu.

The losses of the Chinese amounted to about 2 thousand killed and 4 thousand wounded, while on the Japanese side there were only a little more than a hundred killed, four hundred wounded and three dozen missing. On September 16, the Japanese entered Pyongyang.

Battle of the Yalu River

The day after the battle for Pyongyang, at the mouth of the Yalu River, naval battle between the ships of the Japanese fleet and the Chinese Beiyang squadron.

The Japanese fleet consisted of two parts - four fast cruisers under the command of Tsuboi Kyozyo and the main squadron, commanded by Admiral Ito Sukeyuki. It included four cruisers, two battleships, a command ship and a gunboat.

The Chinese fleet consisted of 2 battleships, 10 cruisers, 4 destroyers and 2 gunboats (2 destroyers and gunboats did not take part in the battle).

Although the number of ships on the opposing sides was approximately the same, they differed greatly in composition. The Chinese squadron surpassed the Japanese in the number of large-caliber guns, but was seriously inferior in medium-caliber artillery. In addition, most of the Chinese weapons had a low rate of fire and were significantly outdated by the time of the battle. In addition, the Chinese ships were slower than the new Japanese cruisers.

During the battle, the Chinese managed to hit the Japanese flagship and inflict minor damage to one of the cruisers. At the same time, most of the ships of the Chinese squadron were seriously damaged due to the greater maneuverability and rate of fire of enemy ships. As a result of the battle, the Beiyang squadron lost 5 cruisers, and the rest needed serious repairs. The Japanese did not lose a single ship, and after a week of repairs, all the damaged ships were back in service.

The shocked Chinese government forbade Admiral Ding Zhuchang, who led the fleet, to get involved in a new battle with the Japanese squadron in order to avoid another loss. This decision provided the Japanese with dominance in the Yellow Sea, which made it possible to transfer new divisions to Korea.

The battle at the mouth of the Yalu River was the largest naval battle of that war and the main propaganda victory for Japan.

Invasion of Manchuria

After the defeat in Pyongyang, the Chinese abandoned North Korea and withdrew to their defensive positions along the Yalu River. The Japanese army, having received reinforcements, advanced towards Manchuria on October 10. On the night of October 24, the Japanese secretly crossed the Yalu with the help of a pontoon bridge. The next day they attacked the Chinese outpost of Hushan.

The Japanese divided their forces into two parts: one group went north to attack Mukden, while the second continued to pursue the retreating Chinese troops.

On October 24, the Japanese landed on the Liaodong Peninsula and quickly marched towards Qinzhou. After the Battle of the Yalu River and subsequent minor battles in the Liaodong Peninsula, Japan's goal was to capture the well-fortified and strategically important naval base of Lüshun (Port Arthur).

Battle of Lushun

The Qing Empire spent 16 years building this base, which surpassed Hong Kong in every way. The hilly landscape provided the city with natural protection, and thanks to the defensive structures and powerful artillery, Lushun was considered an impregnable fortress. Among other things, dry docks were located here, equipped with modern equipment for those times. The loss of the city also meant the loss of the ability to repair ships of the navy that were damaged in battle.

The city's situation was aggravated by the Chinese government's ban on the Beiyang fleet to engage in battle with the Japanese. Thus, the Chinese garrison in the city was deprived of the support of its fleet.

The shelling of the city began on November 20, causing panic in the ranks of the defenders of the fortress. The commandant, part of the officers and officials fled even earlier, taking valuables and leaving their people to their fate. For this reason, the next day, after the start of the assault on the fortress, the Japanese met almost no resistance. By lunchtime, Japanese troops occupied the forts that defended the fortress from land, and by evening captured coastal batteries. On the evening of November 22, the remaining defenders of the fortress left their positions, leaving the winners with more than 200 guns. The Japanese also got large reserves of coal, military equipment, and most importantly, intact shipyards.

Massacre in the fortress

After the Japanese soldiers entered the city, they stumbled upon the mutilated bodies of their previously captured comrades, put on public display. This spectacle aroused the fury of the Japanese, the victims of which were most of the city's population. The massacres continued for several days, and the scale of the massacre and the number of victims are discussed by historians until today. Researchers' data differ significantly - different sources they give figures from 13,000 to 60,000 people.

The fall of Lushun alarmed Beijing. In addition, the war significantly devastated the imperial treasury. The Chinese begin preparations for peace negotiations, but since Japan has not yet received everything it wanted, an agreement has not been reached.

Battle of Weihaiwei

The next strategic goal of the Japanese after the capture of Lüshun was the Chinese naval base Weihaiwei, located on the Shandong Peninsula. The conquest of this base would allow Japan to take full control of Bohai Bay, approach Beijing from the sea and eliminate the threat to Japanese sea supply routes from the remnants of the Beiyang fleet.

The Weihaiwei base was designed with the assistance of German advisers and, according to Western observers, was also superior to Hong Kong. British military adviser William M. Lang, assigned to the Beiyang Fleet, claimed the base was impregnable and scoffed at rumors of an impending Japanese attack. The defenses were a series of twelve land fortifications overlooking the harbor entrance, equipped with artillery pieces, and two fortified islands in the bay. Entrances to the harbor were blocked by booms to prevent attack from outside, and the remnants of the Beiyang fleet in the amount of 24 ships were based inside.

The operation began on January 18, 1895 with the bombing of the city of Dengzhou, located 160 km west of Weihaiwei. It was a distraction from the landing of the Japanese army on eastbound. The landing of the Japanese troops was carried out in difficult weather conditions, but it went almost unhindered and ended on January 22. Soon, after the regrouping of forces, the army began to move towards Weihaiwei in two columns. The Japanese fleet, in turn, took up a position in the bay in order to block the ships of the Beiyang fleet if necessary.

On January 30, a three-pronged attack began on land fortifications located on the south and east sides of the city. The Chinese units kept the defense for 9 hours, after which they left the fortifications. The Japanese troops took the city of Weihaiwei with virtually no casualties, as its garrison had fled the day before.

After the land fortifications fell into the hands of the Japanese, the position of the Chinese fleet became even more complicated. Now it became possible to shell Chinese ships from land, in addition to which the Japanese managed to remove the boom, which allowed them torpedo boats make night attacks. On February 7, during an attack by the Japanese fleet, three Chinese ships were sunk and another was seriously damaged. The Japanese also managed to destroy a defensive fort on one of the islands.

The final defeat of the Chinese side was becoming inevitable, and it was only a matter of time. The commander of the Beiyang Navy, Ding Ruuchang, and his deputy committed suicide. Scottish Vice Admiral McClure took command. On February 12, a message was transmitted to the Japanese about the surrender of the Chinese fleet.

After the fall of Weihaiwei, the Admiralty Council was abolished in Beijing as the Qing no longer had a navy. This battle was the last major battle of that war, as soon peace negotiations began between China and Japan. However, before the signing of the Treaty of Shimonoseki, several other small battles took place.

Treaty of Shimonoseki

On April 17, 1885, after difficult, almost monthly negotiations, a peace treaty was signed. Under its terms, the Qing Empire recognized the independence of Korea and gave Japan the Liaodong Peninsula, Taiwan and the Penghu (Pescadora) archipelago. In addition, China had to pay an indemnity of 200 million. Liang, to open some ports for trade, to give the Japanese permission to build industrial enterprises on their territory with permission to import industrial equipment, which opened up wide opportunities for the penetration of foreign capital.

Russia, Germany and France, which by that time had extensive contacts with China, perceived the conditions imposed by the Qing Empire as infringing on their interests. By their intervention, these countries forced Japan to abandon the Liaodong Peninsula in exchange for another 30 million. lyang.

Republic of Taiwan

When news of the terms of the Treaty of Shimonoseki reached Taiwan, a number of influential Taiwanese decided to oppose the Japanese annexation. On May 25, 1895, the creation of a free democratic republic Taiwan. However, the republic lasted only 5 months, and ceased to exist in October 1895 after the final defeat of the Republicans by Japanese troops.

The results of the war

During the hostilities, according to some sources, the number of deaths on the part of Japan was about 14 thousand people, on the part of the Qing - 10 thousand.

Japanese military successes during this campaign were the result of reforms initiated more than two decades ago with the start of the Meiji Restoration. The war demonstrated the superiority of Japanese tactics adopted from the Western powers.

The state's navy was modeled after the British navy, with Japanese cadets going to Britain to study maritime science, and British advisers going to Japan to train the navy. The land army was created on the model of the German-Prussian: German doctrines, military system and organization were adopted. In 1873, general military service was introduced.

The prestige of the country grew in the eyes of the whole world and made Japan the dominant state in the Asian region.

The defeat of China was a consequence of the high level of corruption in the government. The Qing Empire did not have a national army. After the Taiping uprising, the army was divided into separate parts, as a rule, along ethnic lines: Manchus, Hans, Mongols, etc. The war was fought mainly by the Beiyang fleet and the Beiyang army. However, the ships of the fleet were not properly maintained, and discipline among the troops was low. Other regional armies and fleets generally refused to participate in hostilities.

Traditionally, China assigned Japan a dependent position, including it in the sphere of its cultural influence. And although in the 19th century China had already suffered defeat from European powers, the victory of Asiatic Japan dealt a crushing blow to the prestige of the country. Inside China, the humiliating defeat catalyzed a series of political upheavals that culminated in the fall of the Qing Empire.

Korea proclaimed itself the Korean Empire and declared its independence from the Qing Empire. Under pressure from Japan, a series of reforms were carried out that abolished legalized slavery, the privileged classes, child marriage and proclaimed equality of rights and opportunities. An education reform was carried out and the Gregorian calendar was adopted instead of the Chinese.

Japan achieved most of its goals and brought Korea out of China's influence, but was forced to abandon the Liaodong Peninsula under diplomatic pressure from European countries and Russia, which had its own views on Port Arthur. In 1889, Port Arthur was leased by China to Russia for a period of 25 years. In addition, the Qing granted the Russians the rights to build a railway, canceling the previous agreement with the Japanese. Thus began a clash of interests between the two states in this region, which subsequently led to the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905.

China's allies and their goals during the Sino-Japanese War.

July 7, 1937 is considered the beginning of a full-scale war between Japan and China. The reason was an incident that happened near Beijing, on the Marco Polo Bridge, when there was a clash between Japanese and Chinese soldiers. In the period from 1937 to 1941, China was helped during the battle by the USA and the USSR, they wanted Japan to be completely mired in the war with China. But after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, the Sino-Japanese war ceased to be separate, it became one with the Second World War.
Each participant in hostilities, China and Japan pursued their own selfish goals. It is worth considering each separately in order to understand the reasons that led to the start of the war.
Japan wanted to destroy the Chinese government under the Chinese National People's Party and manipulate them like puppets in order to achieve their goals. The Japanese army recruited twelve divisions before attacking China. They numbered more than 250 thousand ordinary soldiers and officers, seven hundred aircraft, the number of tanks was more than four hundred vehicles and one and a half thousand guns for artillery. The army had high hopes for the navy. Often, amphibious assault forces were used to quickly capture the settlement. In general, the army had an advantage not only at sea, but also in the sky, thanks to good organization and mobility. The West did not approve of the aggression against China and imposed trade restrictions on Japan, because of this, Japan had problems with a lack of natural resources. All available resources were located in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, but they were under the control of Great Britain, the Netherlands and the United States. Japan decided to replenish its supplies and attacked Pearl Harbor.
In China, the National People's Party and the Communist Party fought for power all the time, although the power of the two parties adhered to the same goal, they fought in different ways. Common goals, pursued by the parties, were aimed at liberating the country from foreign oppression, opposing capitalism and the desire to revive their powerful state. At its core, this war is more like a war reviving a nation. Despite the fact that China was completely unprepared for a war with Japan, and she did not have good weapons, war was inevitable. With a large number of Chinese troops, they were much inferior in technical equipment, a complete lack of organization affected a large number of casualties during hostilities. To improve its army, China first resorted to the help of the Soviet Union, then the United States. Assistance was provided to improve aviation, in Chinese army sent experts on a voluntary basis to train Chinese pilots and participate in battles. The Chinese Communist Party did not engage in open battle with the Japanese army, they organized partisan movements in the occupied territories. However, they continued to compete with the National People's Party for supremacy after the end of the war.
The Soviet Union was ready to support China and any leading party, only to have them withdraw the hostile Japanese army away from their territory. The aggravated situation in the West of the USSR was enough, they wanted to keep a peaceful life in the east, so that there would be no war on two fronts. To do this, the USSR tried to rally the two warring parties so that China could resist the well-armed and trained Japanese army. After the signing of the non-aggression pact in August 1937, the Soviet government began to help China with weapons and ammunition, delivering them by sea. Several loan agreements were also concluded, according to his decision, the USSR undertook to deliver Soviet weapons; and a trade agreement under which Soviet specialists went to work in China various areas activities. They were mainly pilots, tank and aircraft assemblers, doctors and many others. With the help of Soviet military specialists, the loss of Chinese troops decreased, and a factory specializing in aircraft assembly was opened. But after the German troops attacked the USSR, relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated. Not believing in the victory of the USSR over Germany, China went over to the Western powers. In 1943 the USSR closed trade organizations and withdrew all of its specialists from China. This was the end of Soviet aid to China.
Great Britain was completely on the side of Japan and supported the aggression against China. She had claims against the ruling party, which canceled most of the foreign concession agreements and restored the right to set its own taxes without discussing them with the British government. After the outbreak of World War II, Great Britain entered the battle with German troops, and support for Japan, the UK paid very little attention.
The United States, before the attack of the Japanese army on Pearl Harbor, kept out of the war on the side. At the same time, they supplied the Chinese army with volunteers, and Japan was helped with equipment and oil. The shelling of Pearl Harbor left Japan without oil imports, and without it it was not possible to continue the war with China. During World War II, when the United States fought against Japan, China became its ally. The troops of the American army provided great assistance to China in the fight against Japan. In 1941, they allocated funding for the creation of a group of volunteers, they were supposed to replace the aircraft and troops of the Soviet Union withdrawn from China.
France, through whose lands all American aid was supplied, after the Pearl Harbor incident, declared war on Japan. She fought to maintain her control over the Asian colonies.
In general, each of the allies had their own goals, and they almost always differed from those of the Chinese parties.
It was the help from the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union that became the main criterion that helped to defeat Japan and liberate their territories. On September 9, 1945, the Sino-Japanese War ended with the surrender of Japanese troops. After the Cairo Conference, the Pescador Islands and Manchuria were added to the territorial map of China.

During a May 7, 2005, meeting between Chinese and Japanese foreign ministers, Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Matimura rebuked China, saying that Chinese school textbooks contained descriptions of the "cruelty and inhumanity" of Japanese soldiers. At the same time, the Japanese government itself has recently considered and approved a draft school history textbook, which distorts, whitewashes and embellishes Japan's aggressive past in every possible way. During a meeting with the Chinese Foreign Minister, Matimura "went on the offensive", calling the aggressors "victims". There is a typical case - the thief shouts: "Stop the thief!". Matimura's performance testifies to his lack of basic historical knowledge, as well as to his distorted perception of history.

First, during the years of the Japanese occupation of China, the Japanese really showed themselves to be cruel and inhuman aggressors. The assessment of the Japanese as cruel and inhuman aggressors is not just information in a textbook, it is a real assessment. Secondly, Chinese school textbooks do not fully describe the cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese, describing far from all historical events. Thirdly, information about the cruelty of the Japanese invaders is included in Chinese history books in order to recall one of the most important events of our era, to prevent a repetition of the tragic past and to strike at the Japanese right-wing radical forces seeking to distort historical truth.

In contrast to the situation in Germany, in Japan, the right-wing forces openly regret the defeat in the war and are proud of the militaristic past. They oppose "historical self-abasement" and for "the revival of the Japanese spirit."

From the end of the 19th century to the middle of the 20th century, Japan committed an amazing amount of crimes against the Chinese people. After the Sino-Japanese Jia-Wu War in 1894, Japan occupied Taiwan and received silver indemnities worth four and a half times the budget revenue of that year. After Russo-Japanese War Japan captured the Chinese ports of Lushun and Dalian. After the annexation of Korea in 1910, Japan in 1931 captured Manchuria - the Chinese Northeast. In 1937, the Japanese directed the spearhead of aggression to North, East and South China, and then occupied Southeast Asia. Everywhere they appeared Japanese invaders they sowed death and violence. The unprecedented atrocities of the Japanese continued throughout the aggressive war, which became a national tragedy for the Chinese people, claiming 35 million lives and causing damage in the amount of St. 600 billion US dollars.

Chinese history books do not fully reflect the cruelty and inhumanity of the Japanese in China. The following is a brief description of the most serious crimes of the Japanese invaders.

1. Repeated cases of large-scale massacre

After the occupation of the port city of Luishun on November 21, 1894, the commander of the 1st corps of the Japanese army and the commander of the regiment of the 1st division ordered a large-scale massacre of the Luishun people. Over 20,000 Chinese were killed within 4 days.

From May 3 to May 11, 1928, the Japanese, who attacked the Chinese province of Shandong for the second time, killed 6123 people in Jinan. Chinese diplomats and civilians, maimed 1.7 thousand people, caused property damage in the amount of 29.57 million yuan.

In Pingdingshan (not far from the Fushun coal mines) on September 16, 1932, the Japanese aggressors massacred the civilian population, killing more than 3 thousand people.

Having captured Nanjing on December 13, 1937, the Japanese, on the orders of their command, destroyed more than 300 thousand civilians of the city and disarmed prisoners of war within 6 weeks. This atrocity, which shocked the whole world, is not inferior to the atrocities of the German fascists in its scale and character.

2. The policy of "three clean"

In the war against China, the Japanese aggressors carried out a cruel policy of "three clean" - "burn clean", "kill everyone clean", "rob clean". So, in May 1942, the Japanese fascists carried out a punitive campaign against the village of Beitun in central Hebei. During the punitive operation, they poisoned more than 1,000 peasants and militias with poisonous gas. It is simply impossible to enumerate similar atrocities of the Japanese - punitive campaigns were a common practice of the invaders.

3. Bacteriological warfare

After the incident provoked by the Japanese on September 18, 1913, military doctor S. Ishii took the initiative to create a special unit to develop bacteriological weapons. The Japanese command approved this initiative and instructed Ishii to carry out this task. In 1932, Ishii's laboratory was moved from Japan to Northeast China, in Erbeiyin County, south of Harbin. In 1935, the base was moved to Pingfang County and was transformed into Detachment 731 of the Kwantung Army, the largest bacteriological weapons development special unit created by the Japanese in China. For 12 years, the detachment developed bacteriological weapons using the bacteria of plague, typhoid, dysentery, cholera, anthrax, tuberculosis, and others, and tested them on living people. More than 5 thousand prisoners of war and civilians became "experimental objects".

Bases for the development of bacteriological weapons were located in the Chinese cities of Changchun, Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, as well as in the countries of Southeast Asia (Singapore, Malaysia), the Japanese also created the corresponding units and laboratories in 53 large and medium cities of China. For example, in 1939, the “Togo 1644 Detachment” subordinated to S. Ishii was formed in Nanjing, and in October 1939, the “Beiping Jia-di 1855” detachment was formed.

From 1931 to 1945, the Japanese used bacteriological weapons at least 16 times on a large scale—during offensives, retreats, punitive campaigns, executions of the local population, destruction of partisans, attacks on air bases, and so on. The use of the bacteria of cholera, anthrax, paratyphoid, dysentery, diphtheria, relapsing fever, etc., led to the death of a huge number of the Chinese population. At least 270 thousand people. (excluding Chinese military personnel) died as a result of the use of bacteriological weapons by the Japanese fascists. There is no exact information about the countless number of "indirect" victims - people who died as a result of spraying bacteria after a direct bacteriological attack.

4. Chemical warfare

During the occupation, the Japanese used chemical weapons on a large scale, which led to numerous casualties among Chinese military personnel and civilians. In 1927 on Japanese islands plant for the production of chemical weapons. In 1933, work was completed on equipping the troops with chemical weapons, a school for the training of specialized military units was created, and "detachment 516" was formed, specializing in large-scale testing of chemical weapons.

Chemical weapons were used by the Japanese throughout the war for 8 years from 1937 to 1945. in 18 provinces of China. More than 2,000 battles have been accurately recorded, during which chemical weapons were used, which caused the death of more than 60,000 people. The actual number of cases of use of chemical weapons and the actual number of victims is much higher - according to Japanese statistics, chemical weapons were used much more often.

In July 1938, during the attack on Woqu, Shanxi Province, the Japanese used 1000 units. chemical bombs. During the battle of Wuhan, chemical weapons were used at least 375 times, using 48,000 poison gas projectiles. In March 1939, chemical weapons were used against Kuomintang troops quartered in Nanchang. The full staff of the two divisions died as a result of poisoning. Since August 1940, the Japanese have used chemical weapons along railway lines 11 times in North China, killing more than 10,000 Chinese troops. In August 1941, 5,000 servicemen and civilians were killed in a chemical attack on an anti-Japanese base. In Yichang, Hubei Province, 600 Chinese troops were killed and 1,000 people were injured as a result of spraying mustard gas. In May 1942, in the village of Beitang, Dingxian County, Hebei Province, over 800 Chinese who had hidden in an underground shelter were killed with chemical weapons (the "Beitang tragedy").

5. Use of "pleasure women"

During the aggressive war in Asia, the Japanese militarists actively used "women for pleasure" - hundreds of thousands of Asian women were kept by force and deception with army units, they were forced to accompany the Japanese army. The Japanese soldiers raped these women, committing inhumane crimes against them.

6 Chongqing bombing

From February 18, 1938 to August 23, 1943, the Japanese continuously bombed the temporary capital of the Republic of China - Chongqing. According to incomplete statistics, during this period 9.5 thousand sorties took place, 21.6 thousand air bombs were dropped, 11.9 thousand city residents were killed, 14.1 thousand were injured, 17.6 thousand buildings were destroyed. During the bombing, the tragedies "May 3-4", "August 19", "the tragedy of June 5" that shocked the whole world took place.

For example, during the evening (about 9 am) on June 5, 1941, 24 aircraft bombed the city in three batches for three hours. More than 10 thousand citizens hid in a bomb shelter designed for 4.5 thousand people. As a result of the bombing, a fire broke out in the bomb shelter, which killed 9992 adults and 1151 children, 1510 people. were seriously injured.

AT last years Japanese officials with renewed vigor are engaged in embellishing Japanese aggression during World War II. China and other Asian countries should be more active in spreading the truth about Japan's aggressive past.

(China Internet Information Center. China.org.cn) 05/24/2005