Page:The Truth about China and Japan - Weale - 1919.djvu/64

 and the policy of Tientsin. This man, later to aspire to the throne of China, had returned to Seoul as Imperial Resident—having induced Li Hung Chang to consent to this cunning step because Japan only possessed a Minister Plenipotentiary.

And so at last the storm is there on the horizon-line; plainly to be seen by those with vision.

China, after the lesson of the Tonkin war with France (1884-85), had commenced the fortification of Port Arthur under Li Hung Chang's guidance. She likewise vastly improved her navy, which soon included two ironclads and a number of good cruisers, placing the whole under the joint command of a Chinese admiral and a British admiral. But in 1890 the Englishman lost his post as the result of a petty dispute—and China's fate in Korea was sealed. Corruption and inefficiency soon reigned supreme in the new navy, which might have repeated the performance of the Korean armoured ships of the sixteenth century, but which went into action in 1894 at the Battle of the Yalu with sand-filled shells, and so changed all history.