Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/72

 and checked the country's capacity to maintain its own independence. Japan did not claim for herself any rights or interests in the peninsula superior to those possessed there by China. She was always ready to work hand in hand with the Middle Kingdom in inaugurating and carrying out a system of reform. But there was not the remotest probability that China, whose face had been contemptuously set against all the progressive measures adopted by Japan during the preceding twenty-five years, would join in forcing upon a neighbouring kingdom the very reforms she herself despised and abhorred, were her cooperation invited through ordinary diplomatic channels only. It was necessary to contrive a situation which would not only furnish clear proof of Japan's resolution, but also enable her to pursue her programme independently of China's endorsement, should the latter be finally unobtainable. She therefore met China's notice of a despatch of troops with a corresponding notice of her own, and the month of July, 1894, found a Chinese force assembled at Ya-shan and a Japanese force occupying positions in the neighbourhood of Söul. China's motive for sending troops was nominally to quell the Tonghak insurrection, but really to reaffirm her own domination in the peninsula and to reseat in the administrative saddle men under whose guidance the country was losing all capacity for independence. Japan's motive was to secure a position such as would