THE JAPANESE INVASION OF CHINA.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 236, 3 October 1894, Page 4

THE JAPANESE INVASION OF CHINA.

China is now in the unhappy position of an invaded country, dissension and scarcely dissembled rebellion in its midst and the enemy at its gates. The enterprieing Japanese seem to have paralysed the two arms of the Chineso defences, Bobb o n ]and and on Bea they bave been victorious, and now they have pushed hostilities so far as to invade China. Corea is no longer the seat of war. According to our cablegrams to-day, the Japanese have swept the Chinese oub of Corea, and are now marching on in a sort of triumphal procession bound for Pekin. It appears that two separate Japanese armies are marching on the one objective point, the capital of the Chinese empire. One army has occupied Meichow, on the road to Moukden and Fekin, unopposed. The obher army, thirty thousand strong, which set sail* from V-ho Japanese porfe of Hiroshima the other day, has landed at Shintung, a seaport in the Gulf of Pe-chi-li, and is approaching Tien-tsin, which is only a short distance away from the coast. This army is, therefore, only about a hundred milea distant from Pekin, of which city Tien-tsin is the port. Tho Japanese seem now to bo within measurable distance of the Chinese-capital, and should tbey' succeed in capturing Tien. t3in, and in defeating the Chinese army of 25,000 troops, which is reported to be concentrated to the east or coast side of Pekin', their progress to the gafcee of the Emperor's'

city will nob be difficult. The China* army seems to ba demoraliied -ana^? heartened by the successes of the JapanoW '" 'arms. The garrison of Moukden iap Sn i? stricken, and daily executions J, found necessary in the at Tien-tsin, ,*'to encourage ,the others/ Tien-tsin, which, it seems? may;. ; t»U into the han3a of the JaDanesa vor» shortly, and thus open up tbJa' ; way to Pekin, lies 80 miles south-east blfti* capital of the Empire, being situabedafc tfo ; confluence of the Poi-hoo and Yun-fat Rivers, some miles from the., sea;'* Th* population is estimated at close on a tnilliQ^ souls. The city stands on a mound which is supposed bo be artificial, the plain around being often entirely submerged fdurin^ha rainy season.' The city is dirty («jfi;u n ; healthyiand is surrounded by a wallarii a ditch into which all the refuse isCcaat, Tien-tsin ib a great entrepot for salt Thj port is closed to shipping from December to March of each year by ice. Th'eforei^ trade is very large, and" besides this, great commercial activity goes on between Tien. f .;. tsin and native ports, etc. Here the treaty was signed in 1858, and ratified at Pekin ia 1860, by which ib was made anj open poet. Two miles below the city is the conceßeion, or quarters for foreigners, where the'foreign consuls and merchants reside. Our cable, grams show that ■" frightful dieorganiea. tion "exists in the Chinese army, anddfa; order is rampanb throughout the service^S Under these circumstances, ib will not bY surprisingjif the well-drilled and• wejil-dU^ ciplined troops of the Mikado carry every, thing before them. | " ; ' Additional inbereeb is imparted.to "thi Chinese crisis by the news per cablegriia thab in consequence of the threatening attitude of the Chinese populace towards Europeans, a detachment of1 six thousand British" troops is' to be sent from India to the Chinese Empire in order to protect English interests and residents in the treaty ports of China, of wKicH; tKei;d ( are in all twenty-one, including all thY large seaports. The treaty ports open.to foreign trade are :—Newchwang, ;Tien. tsin, Chefu, Ichang, Hank6w,?; Kin,' kiong, W'uhu, Nankin, Chin Kiang, Shanghai, Ningpo, Wanchu, Fuchaiu; Tarasui, Taiwan, Takaukon, ' Amoy,' Swatow, Canton, Kienchu, and Pakhoi. Theae porfcs were opened to foreign?trade at various times during the period between 1854 and 1877. Tientsin^ .which'the Japanese are now approaching,'is one of the principal treaty ports. At present thi position of European residents in some of these ports may well be imagined to be onoi of some risk, in view of the sudden anil fanatical outbreaks for which the lower orders of the Chinese have become somtf?" what notorious. '% ' ' .