Tōgō also had a time limit. The capture of the Pescadores needed to be accomplished in less than a fortnight, as by early April most of the troop transports would be required back in the north for a renewed advance on China. That, at least, was the official explanation. The more complex one was that the Chinese, too, would be hoping to reach an agreement with their enemies before the spring thaw and would be crazy not to sue for peace before the Japanese advanced any further. The expedition to the Pescadores was hence a realistic and somewhat cunning scheme – the best chance the Japanese had of seizing a delineated and defensible pocket of new territory before the expected armistice.
Tōgō did not take the direct route from Japan, but instead steamed along the east coast of Taiwan, a region largely regarded as lawless and ‘unoccupied’ except for aboriginal tribesmen. This tactic ensured that the approach of his fleet avoided any chance contacts with China’s southern navy. Tōgō rounded the southern tip of Taiwan and headed back north, approaching the Pescadores from the opposite direction that anyone would have expected. If any Chinese vessels had been lurking in Taiwanese waters on the lookout for a Japanese attack, they would have had nothing to report. Tōgō had effectively sneaked up on the Pescadores from behind.15
The Yoshino and the Naniwa approached the islands in rolling seas, with a grey, overcast sky that made it difficult for them to see the sun. Twenty miles off his planned course, Tōgō ruled that the seas were too rough for smaller boats to put ashore and instead reconnoitred the islands from a distance. Tōgō was surprised to see a French flag fluttering above the Pescadores’ main town of Magong. Worried by the presence of the French, the rough seas and the notorious shoals and reefs of local waters, Tōgō decided to attack the island from the open sea, rather than sailing into the sheltered harbour. The greater part of his ships were to bombard the outer fort while the Akitsushima, with her shallower draft, was to steam into the harbour itself, drop anchor at the closest possible approach to land, and then fire her guns into the town to cover the arrival of the troop ships behind her.
However, as the Japanese fleet manoeuvred into position, there was a sudden, grinding shudder aboard the Yoshino. The helmsman had not seen one of the treacherous reefs and had inadvertently run the Yoshino right onto it. Notably, Tōgō said nothing. As the overall commander of the expedition, he was not responsible for any incidental issues aboard the Yoshino, and so stood quietly to one side while the ship’s captain attempted to get her off the rocks. Eventually, it became apparent that the Yoshino was unlikely to get herself free before high tide, whereupon Tōgō transferred his flag to another ship.
It was therefore aboard his old command, the Naniwa, that Rear Admiral Tōgō led the assault on the Pescadores Islands. The fleet made four runs at the shore batteries, looping in from 6,000 to 4,000 metres’ range, before circling out for another pass. On each occasion, the Japanese vessels hit targets on the shore, while the Chinese fort failed to score any damaging hits against their attacker. On the fourth run, the fort seemed to have fallen silent, and the Akitsushima began her dash for the shoreline. When her captain judged that it was unsafe to advance any closer, she dropped her anchor, which was the signal the troops had been waiting for.
As the landing boats sped from behind the Akitsushima towards the shore, the guns in the fort suddenly opened up again, this time aiming at the soldiers and marines as they splashed through the shallow waters onto the beach. ‘The enemy replied,’ wrote Tōgō with characteristic understatement, ‘but though their aim was often good, their range-finding was faulty and we did not suffer any damage.’16
Tōgō lent support from the sea while the troops struggled to set up their own field guns. Once the land forces had their own artillery pieces up and running, the capture of the Pescadores was a foregone conclusion, and the resistance faded away. On 24 March, the Japanese flag was raised at Magong. The British warship HMS Leander arrived in Magong harbour that same day and fired a 21-gun salute in honour of the Rising Sun – Japan’s acquisition had been acknowledged by a foreign power.
Not every British Empire presence in the area was as welcome. Tōgō remained suspicious that the Chinese might be using foreign vessels to run guns across the strait. Over the next two weeks, he made two patrols of the surrounding area, and boarded a British merchantman, although the ship was found to be transporting no suspicious items. The worst attack, however, came in an invisible form. One of the ‘Japanese’ troop transports had been a British vessel, acquired for Japanese use shortly before the outbreak of hostilies. A veteran of the East Indies trade, the ship had supposedly been disinfected before entering Japanese service, but was the likely vector for an outbreak of cholera on the Pescadores which claimed many more lives than the invasion itself. Safe from such afflictions at sea, Tōgō busied his own crew with more mapping. As the Yoshino’s brief distress had shown, the Japanese were still lacking charts of local waters, and Tōgō took the chance to survey some of the coastal areas along the Fujianese coast.
While Tōgō and the rest of the Pescadores expedition poked around south Chinese harbours, the negotiations in Japan proceeded. Notification reached the Japanese fleet on 24 April that an agreement had been signed and that the fleet was to be recalled. Tōgō consequently reached port in Sasebo on 5 May.
The initial terms of the peace treaty showed the scale of the Japanese victory. The Japanese would stay in Weihaiwei until such time as the Chinese government had paid a massive war indemnity. Port Arthur and the Liaodong Peninsula would remain in Japanese hands. China unilaterally recognised the independence of Korea – this carefully worded statement ensured that Korea was out of the Chinese sphere of influence, but by no means safe from future Japanese interference. The terms of this agreement, however, did not please other powers.
In particular, the Japanese occupation of the Liaodong Peninsula was seen by Tsarist Russia as a threat to its own interests in the region. The Russians, joining forces with the French (who owed them a favour under the terms of another treaty), and the Germans (who would do anything to keep the Tsar focused on Asia instead of Europe), lodged a formal protest in what is now known as the Triple Intervention.
While Japan might have been confident in the victory against China, she was in no condition to fight a war against one or more European powers. In a humiliating climbdown, Japan pulled out of Liaodong in return for a slightly higher indemnity payment. Russia then rushed in to occupy much of Liaodong itself, while other European powers swiftly seized nearby ports in order to counter-balance Russian interests. To the Japanese, who had hoped to be one of the imperialist powers themselves, it was as if their own interests were rudely shoved aside by the longer-serving members of a club that still refused to admit them. The sole exception was Taiwan, which neither the Chinese nor Europeans cared enough about to fight over. Much of what the Japanese had fought for in the north of China was lost to them by the terms of the Triple Intervention. Ironically for Tōgō, he and his men had laboured hardest and longest over the Yellow Sea area, but won their most enduring victory over Taiwan, which would remain Japanese territory until 1945.
As the man who led the Japanese acquisition of Taiwan, Tōgō remained a hero, while many generals, admirals and politicians of the Sino-Japanese War were tainted by their association with the Triple Intervention. The Triple Intervention was to signify the beginning of a new era in Japan. It led to riots in the streets and protests from the right wing, and was the first visible sign in Japan that the country would not simply be made welcome among the other powers if it imitated their behaviour. By expanding its sphere of influence into mainland Asia, Japan had also inadvertently found itself a new potential enemy – Tsarist Russia, which had ambitions in northern Chinese territory.
None of this, however, was the Navy’s problem. Tōgō’s more immediate concern was a return to Taiwan as an escort for the occupation force. Caught up in the arguments over the coasts of the Yellow Sea, China had given relatively little thought to the fa
te of Taiwan. Only a few years before, the Chinese government had even dared to claim that tracts of Taiwan remained lawless and free from the Emperor’s jurisdiction. The island was long regarded as a haven for pirates, ne’er-do-wells and tropical diseases; and in some quarters of Beijing, its handover to Japan was regarded as a subtle revenge. The Chinese had only conquered Taiwan in the first place to prevent piratic rebels from using it as a base, and the mood in Beijing was generally one of good riddance.
That, at least, was the official story. However, as in Vietnam and Korea, the Chinese gave the appearance of disinterest while secretly favouring ‘local’ groups with pro-Chinese sentiments. The Japanese fleet that sailed for Taiwan to occupy this spoil of war did so with the expectation of trouble, which arose soon after Tōgō sighted land.
9
Republicans and Rebels
Even as the Japanese fleet had been underway, the abandoned residents of Taiwan sought a new protector, to the extent of asking if the island might be admitted to the British Empire. This strange request being refused, the Chinese on Taiwan pursued a cunning diplomatic option. Even if abandoned by the Chinese Empire, the people of Taiwan could refuse to be co-opted into that of the Japanese. Accordingly, even as Tōgō was lowering boats at the mouth of the Danshui River that led to the city of Taipei, officials on land proclaimed the Republic of Formosa.
Tang Jing-song, formerly the Governor of Taiwan, was now its President. Liu Yong-fu, like Tang a veteran of the Sino-French War, was dragged out of retirement as the commander of the new Republic’s army. The Republic’s troops were, of course, largely comprised of those same men who had until the previous day thought of themselves as Chinese subjects. Consequently, although the Sino-Japanese war had been declared over, Rear Admiral Tōgō was sailing into an unexpected coda – a war of conquest against an all-new enemy that proclaimed itself to be an independent Taiwan.
Off the Danshui fort, Tōgō saw a new and unfamiliar flag flying in the rain – a writhing yellow tiger, set on a sea-blue background with thunderbolts and crashing breakers. Tōgō did not recognise the new flag, but soon understood its implications when land forces began firing on the Naniwa’s boats.
The newly-proclaimed Republic’s hold on the local people was unclear, but the resistance at Danshui was enough to persuade Tōgō to seek another place to put his marines ashore. Leaving two ships at Danshui to guard the river entrance, Tōgō headed to the north-eastern tip of Taiwan. He bypassed Jilong, where he had once scouted on shore in the company of the French, and found a place suitable for a landing. The soldiers were put ashore without trouble and faced a march over rocky terrain to Jilong. The date for the attack on Jilong itself was fixed for 3 June, with temperatures in Taiwan already soaring and many of the soldiers still misguidedly equipped for a Manchurian winter.
Tōgō made no secret of his intentions. On 2 June 1895, the Naniwa led three other ships in a leisurely, uneventful pass of Jilong and the fortress above it. Tōgō wished to reacquaint himself with the fortifications he had last seen some ten years previously. The following day, he took up position some 3,000 metres off the coast and began a bombardment of Jilong. However, driving rain made it difficult for Tōgō’s spotters to ascertain where the shells were landing, and the final assault on Jilong was largely an army matter.
With Jilong in Japanese hands, Tōgō returned to Danshui and bombarded the fort there, awaiting the arrival of reinforcements overland. With both routes to Taipei now in the possession of the Japanese, the inland city fell soon afterwards. Safe aboard a navy vessel anchored off Jilong, Admiral Kabayama solemnly took his oath of office as the Governor of Taiwan, but Tōgō was not present. Like many of the other navy vessels, the Naniwa was patrolling Taiwanese coastal harbours, still wary of anti-Japanese insurgents. Other vessels shipped Chinese prisoners home by the hundreds, dumping them in Fujian where only some of them truly belonged.
Tōgō suffered a relapse of his rheumatism in the hot, muggy Taiwanese summer, but refused to admit it. Instead, he allowed himself the indulgence of a chair on the bridge of the Naniwa, and continued to direct operations. Taiwan had three major population centres, Taipei, Taizhong and Tainan – literally Tai-north, -central and -south. The south and central regions of the island remained the epicentre of resistance, particularly around Tainan, which had been the island’s capital during the period of Chinese rule.
In a reflection of the progress of conquest, and its proximity to a new authority, Taipei became the new capital. Tōgō was present at a marine assault on Xiangshan near Taizhong in July. In October, he was put in charge of picking up the soldiers he had left on the Pescadores and bringing them over to Taiwan itself for more active service. This began sooner than expected, as insurgents were waiting on the beach at Putai. Instead of peacefully disembarking his soldiers, Tōgō found himself running into a two-hour battle.
By 21 October, the Japanese net was closing around the local resistance. Tōgō’s report of his campaign against the Republicans is over in only a few lines – a repetitive series of encounters in which the ships engaged the coastal forts, providing cover for a landing party which then took the forts by storm. This simple scheme worked on at least three separate occasions, until Tōgō and his marines took the final prize: Tainan.
Five thousand defenders made their last stand at Anping, a coastal fortress on the outskirts of Tainan. Originally built by Dutch merchantmen as Fort Zeelandia, it had been captured in the 17th century by the ‘pirate king’ Coxinga, and had been used as the centre of government during his descendants’ brief hold on the island. Tōgō was present as commander of naval forces when Admiral Kabayama made a pious procession to the temple in Tainan dedicated to Coxinga. The ‘pirate king’, as the Japanese never tired of reminding the locals, had been born in Nagasaki to a Japanese mother and hence could even be regarded as the first Japanese ruler of the islands. In that regard, so claimed Kabayama, he could be seen to be liberating the island from unwelcome Chinese usurpers and restoring it to Japan, where it belonged. Just to make matters clear, Coxinga was deified soon afterwards and added to Japan’s Shintō pantheon.1
Rear Admiral Tōgō was himself recalled home on 16 November 1895, after five months at sea. He was decorated for his achievements in Taiwan, and appointed a member of the committee of the Admiralty. He received a hero’s welcome everywhere but in his own home, where his mother received him back under her roof with stoic impassivity. She ushered him into the place of honour in the family’s living room, knelt before him, and bowed low. ‘It is,’ she said gravely, ‘the power of His Majesty the Emperor.’ Tōgō did not ask if she meant the victory, or his safety, or something else. He merely bowed in return, and, true to form, said nothing at all.2
As Tōgō approached his fiftieth birthday, he was ordered back on land, as director of the Higher Naval Academy, a Tokyo institution for advanced training of naval officers. He was determined to push the trainees under his command into thinking more like European officers, and tried several experiments. One was to encourage them in games of strategy, which he recommended in a memo:
As I perceived that for increasing the power of rapid judgement in questions of tactics, it would be useful to make the head alert by means of such a game as chess, I commenced recently to study the Englishman Jane’s book on chess and although I have not yet been able to attain the results expected, still, if I can get new ideas and make some improvements, it cannot be said to have been a waste of time. If we exploit the idea of this game, we shall surely reach points which will be of use to the study of the art of war.3
Tōgō also encouraged the young officers to ask themselves how their counterparts in other navies were thinking or were being encouraged to think. Secretly, he commissioned a translation of a book on naval strategy by Vice Admiral Stepan Makarov, a prominent Russian naval officer. The translation was eventually printed and kept on the shelf of the academy library, but Tōgō purloined an advance copy for himself and pored over it line-by-li
ne, making detailed annotations and notes in the margin. He kept the manuscript with him on his flagship for several years, and appears to have hidden it from his subordinates.4
The academy appointment gave him considerably more time at home with his family than he had previously enjoyed, and also led to several opportunities to serve on courts martial. Compared to the action he had seen in Chinese waters, it was uneventful. A trip to a hot springs in 1897 suggests that the aging sailor continued to be troubled by rheumatism; however, promotion to Vice Admiral in May 1898 implies that this was not serious enough to worry his superiors. In 1897, he represented the navy at the funeral of the Meiji Emperor’s stepmother, the Empress Dowager.5
Tōgō was a respected figure in the Japanese military, but still lowly in comparison with some of the senior admirals. More exciting foreign junkets went to his superiors, including the coronation of the new Russian Tsar, Nicholas II, where a group of Japanese diplomats attempted to broker a deal with the young ruler over the situation in the Far East.
Ever since the Triple Intervention, Russia and Japan had continued to clash over Korea and Manchuria. While Tōgō had been in Taiwan, a group of Japanese agents had murdered the influential Queen Min of Korea in a botched attempt at a coup, leading her husband King Gojong to seek sanctuary in the Russian legation.6 In February 1896, Russian troops in nominal support of King Gojong landed at Chemulpo and marched on Seoul, in much the same fashion as the Japanese had once done themselves. The coup undid much of the advances that the Japanese had made since 1882, leading some Japanese diplomats to wonder aloud if Japan and Russia should not agree to divide Korea between them at the 38th Parallel.
But while the Japanese attempted to agree on Korea and Manchuria with the Tsar, it was their old enemy, Li Hongzhang, who came home with a deal. Unlike his right-hand man, Admiral Ding, the old Viceroy of maritime China had survived the purges following the defeat of the Sino-Japanese War. Discredited but still in power, he made a number of secret deals with the Russians, designed, in old-style Chinese fashion, to pit one enemy against another and so to keep China from having to fight either of them. Fatefully, the Tsar’s ministers wanted to interest the Chinese in the Trans-Siberian Railway – a wondrous monument to Western civilisation intended to stretch from the Pacific coast all the way to Moscow. It would, they said, work wonders for trade and make it easy for China’s new-found Russian friends to come to their aid in case the Japanese launched a new attack. Li’s treaty with the Russians was also concluded in the utmost secrecy – the deal appears to have been done without the knowledge even of the Chinese Empress Dowager, and its existence did not properly come out until 1922.7
Admiral Togo Page 14