Expenditures of the Russo-Japanese war / by Gotaro Ogawa.

4 EXPENDITURES OF THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

the floodgate of European influence was turned on East Asia,
diplomacy with respect to which became extremely precarious.
In this situation Russia boldly took drastic measures in Manchuria and Korea, in order to carry out her prescribed program, while Japan had merely to watch over the Russian
moves and concentrate her attention on the expansion and
repletion of armaments.
Japan, after expelling China's influence from Korea by
the Sino-Japanese War, had pursued single-handed a policy
of shielding the peninsular Kingdom from foreign aggression.
In October, I894, she had proposed that the Seoul Government reform its institutions and methods in accordance with
the twenty articles of administrative plan outlined by her
representative in Korea. The adoption of this suggestion
by Korea had greatly strengthened the political influence of
Japan there, so that not only had the Cabinet at Seoul been
composed of pro-Japanese men, but every department of the
administrative government had Japanese advisers and the
Korean troops had been trained by Japanese officers. But
this reform was somewhat too radical and the public sentiment of the Korean people soon began to drift away from
Japan. This was a fine opportunity for the Russian Minister
at Seoul, who had been making friends with the Korean court
and secretly extending Russia's influence over the peninsula,
to manipulate the anti-Japanese elements from behind the
curtain and assist in their intrigues no less than three times.
The political crises of July and October, I895, fortunately
ended in the suppression of hostile elements and the maintenance of the pro-Japanese Ministry, but the Japanese influence suffered a gradual decline, especially after the second
commotion, in which the Queen was atrociously murdered.
The last-mentioned incident made the King bitterly hate
Japan, and fanned the flame of popular indignation against
the Japanese. This was due to the fact that, when the proJapanese party entered the palace with a band of troops
before their opponents' conspiracy had taken practical shape,
Queen Min, considered the central figure of the anti-Japanese