428 



JAPAN. 



An imperial edict of December 28, 1872, 

 establishes general liability to military service. 

 The time of service is three years. The stand- 

 ing army in time of peace is 35,564 men ; in 

 time of war, 50,230. The execution of the 

 edict has already begun, but has met in several 

 districts with considerable opposition. The 

 navy was composed of seventeen vessels (two 

 iron-clads), of an aggregate of seventy guns, 

 and 2,300 horse-power; it was manned by 

 1,200 men. 



The first railroad of Japan, from Tokio to 

 Yokohama, was opened in November, 1872; 

 it has a length of eighteen miles. It was at 

 once used so much that, early in 1873, a double 

 track had to be laid. A second railroad, from 

 Hiogo to Osaka, of about equal length, was to 

 be opened in the course of the year 1874. 



The electric telegraph connects (since the 

 beginning of 1873) the towns of Nagasaki, 

 Osaka, Hiogo, Kioto, Yokohama, and Tokio, 

 with each other, and with other countries of 

 Asia and Europe. 



A general post-office was established in Feb- 

 ruary, 1873. The number of post-offices in 

 1872 was 1,174; the number of letters for- 

 warded, 2,509,032. The Government has is- 

 sued stamped envelopes and postal-cards. 



The expedition which the Japanese Govern- 

 ment at the close of 1873 was preparing against 

 the savages of Formosa was put off to May, 

 1874. It consisted of about 3,000 men, and 

 was under the chief command of General Saigo. 

 Among the foreign officers accompanying it 

 were two Americans, Oassel and Wasson. Soon 

 after landing, the troops had an encounter 

 with the natives, in which 48 of the latter 

 were killed and wounded. The result of this 

 encounter filled the natives with terror, and 

 they fled into the mountains of the interior. 

 The troops fortified their camp on the Lang- 

 kian Bay, from which columns of 500 were 

 sent out into the interior to search for the 

 enemy. The expedition was chiefly directed 

 against the Bootan tribe and its allies, in all 

 five tribes, with only about 600 armed men. 

 The majority of the tribes, thirteen in number, 

 with about 1,700 armed men, who were under 

 a common supreme chief, Tok-et-a, concluded 

 a treaty of peace with the Japanese. These 

 operations against the savages were continued 

 with great vigor, and the object of the expedi- 

 tion, to punish them severely, was fully at- 

 tained. At the same time the Japanese estab- 

 blished forts and roads, and began the culture 

 of silk and cotton. As China claims sover- 

 eignty over the island of Formosa, though it 

 was admitted that the tribes of the eastern 

 coast were actually independent, the Japanese 

 expedition led to diplomatic complications be- 

 tween the Governments of China and Japan. 

 The commander of the Japanese troops in For- 

 mosa notified the Governor - General of the 

 Chinese province of Fo-Kien, of which For- 

 mosa is a part, that his Government, which al- 

 ways took a fatherly care of its subjects and 



was therefore indignant at the cruelties com- 

 mitted by the Formosans, had sent him to 

 confer with the Formosan chiefs in order that 

 they might teach their subjects to behave bet- 

 ter in future, and that the malefactors might 

 be punished. The Governor-General, in his 

 reply, compared the aborigines of Formosa 

 with the savage mountaineers of several prov- 

 inces of China proper, who also were actually 

 independent, though, as their territories were 

 fully inclosed by China, the sovereignty of the 

 latter was undisputed. The authority of Vat- 

 tel was invoked to prove the correctness of 

 his position ! In a second dispatch the Gov- 

 ernor-General informed Saigo that he had not 

 received any direct orders from Peking con- 

 cerning the Formosan affairs. As the Japanese 

 commander-in-chief asserted that an agree- 

 ment had been arrived at between the Foreign 

 Office at Peking and the Japanese minister, he 

 asked for a copy of any documents relating to 

 the agreement. In the mean time an ultima- 

 tum had been addressed by the Chinese Gov- 

 ernment to Japan to withdraw the troops from 

 Formosa within three months. While waiting 

 for an answer from Japan, the^Chinese were 

 making active preparations for war. 



Bodies of troops were moved southward, 

 others were under orders to be ready when 

 called for ; gunboats were taken off from the 

 half-naval, half-commercial service in which 

 they had been employed on the coast, and con- 

 centrated in and about the Formosan waters; 

 the large frigate on the stocks in the arsenal 

 at Shanghai was hurried toward completion, 

 and the arsenal artificers were more than usual- 

 ly busy in manufacturing shot, shell, and tor- 

 pedoes. The Chinese commissioner sent to 

 Formosa, Shen, moreover, urged upon Li Hung- 

 chang, the Viceroy of Chich-li, the impera- 

 tive necessity of at once ordering out from 

 Europe two first-class iron-clads, and establish- 

 ing telegraphic communication between Tia- 

 wan-fu, the capital of Formosa, and Foochow, 

 on the main-land. These propositions received 

 Li Hungchang's support in a memorial to the 

 throne, and the initiative taken toward carry- 

 ing out the second project by commissioning 

 the manager of the Great Northern Telegraph 

 Company to proceed to Foochow in order to 

 lay down a wire as far as the Pagoda anchor- 

 age, the first officially authorized telegraph in 

 China. The Japanese, on their part, strictly 

 watched the proceedings of the Chinese. Aka- 

 mats, the second in command, went to Shang- 

 hai with a serviceable frigate, the presence 

 of which occasioned much uneasiness in the 

 minds of the local authorities, and they made 

 inquiries in various directions as to how far it 

 would be practicable or prudent to request 

 her to leave the port. Their inquietude was 

 increased by visits which some members of 

 the expedition made to the river-ports, where 

 Japanese had not hitherto been seen. 



The Chinese commissioner to Formosa, on 

 his return home, was either partly or wholly 



