First Sino-Japanese War

The **First Sino-Japanese War** (, ; 1 August 1894–17 April 1895) was a war between the Qing dynasty and the Empire of Japan. After it won the war, Japan signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki with China in 1895.

## Comparison of military powers

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## Status of Chinese fleets

China had 65 warships before the outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War. They were divided into four fleets (Beiyang Fleet, the Nanyang Fleet, the Guangdong Fleet and the Fujian Fleet). Only the Beiyang Fleet participated in the war. To save their ships, the other fleets' commanders did not join the war.

The Beiyang Fleet had 25 warships. Dingyuan and Zhenyuan were the most powerful warships in the fleet and were made in Germany. Dingyuan had 6,000 horsepower and displaced 7,670 tons loaded. Some other Beiyang ships were made in Britain. Nevertheless, as Empress Dowager Cixi wanted to build a grand garden, she embezzled money that had been allocated for further expanding the Beiyang Fleet. That meant that the commanders did not have enough money to buy the latest weapons for the fleet. Most of the warships in the fleet were not well equipped before the war.

## Status of Japanese fleets

There were 240,616 soldiers who could be mobilized in Japan before the outbreak of the war. Also, there were 32 battleships and 24 torpedo boats in the Imperial Japanese Navy. All of them had the latest and the newest weapons.

## Main battles

**Battle of the Yalu River**

On 17 September 1894, the Beiyang Fleet and the Imperial Japanese Navy fought at the Yalu River, the border between China and Korea. During the battle, the commander of the Beiyang Fleet was Ding Ruchang, originally a cavalryman, and Sukeyuki Ito was the commander of Japanese fleet. The battle lasted five hours. Finally, four battleships of the Beiyang Fleet was destroyed, and 1,000 soldiers were killed. Only one battleship was lost by the Japanese. The commander of the Beiyang Fleet retreated to the port of Lushun.

**Battle of Lushunkou**

On 17 September 1894, the Japanese armies occupied the fortresses with powerful cannons and cities in Lushun and Dalian. The Japanese troops entered the cities and killed 20,000 Chinese civilians within four days. The incident was historically called the Port Arthur massacre.

**Battle of Weihaiwei**

In January 1895, the Japanese armies invaded Weihaiwei. The Beiyang Fleet was fairly defeated, and 11 battleships of the team were seized.

## Other websites

- Video footage of a naval battle during the war

## Infobox (military conflict)

- **conflict**: First Sino-Japanese War
- **image**: Sino Japanese war 1894.jpg
- **caption**: First Sino-Japanese War, major battles and troop movements
- **date**: 1 August 1894 – 17 April 1895
- **place**: Korea, Manchuria, Taiwan, Yellow Sea
- **territory**: Qing China, China loses the influence of the Korean Peninsula to the Empire of Japan.
Qing Dynasty China cedes Taiwan, Penghu, and the Liaodong Peninsula to the Empire of Japan.
- **result**: Empire of Japan, Japanese victory; a significant loss of prestige for the Qing Dynasty. Korean Empire, Korea becomes independent from China.
- **combatant1**: Qing Dynasty, Qing Empire
- **commander1**: **Guangxu Emperor**
 Shoushan of Qing dynasty, Shoushan
 Li Hongzhang
 Ding Ruchang
 Deng Shichang
- **commander2**: **Emperor Meiji**
 Yamagata Aritomo
 Itoh Sukeyuki, Itō Sukeyuki
- **strength1**: 630,000 men
Beiyang Army
Beiyang Navy
- **strength2**: 240,000 men
 Imperial Japanese Army
Imperial Japanese Navy
- **casualties1**: 35,000 dead or wounded
- **casualties2**: 1,132 dead,
 3,973 wounded
 11,894 died of disease