The mastery of the Far East; the story of Korea's transformation and Japan's rise to supremacy in the Orient

Front matter

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Photograph from Underwood and Underwood, y. Y.

Preface

The problems that centre in the Far East had assumed large proportions before the outbreak of the European War in 1914. Since then they have attained a magnitude that renders them of even more profound significance to the world. A new alignment of races is developing. I have discussed in other volumes the relations of China and the Philippine Islands to this movement, and I now turn to Korea and Japan. The general idea of this book is that the Korean Peninsula is the strategic point in the mastery of the Far East. I, therefore, first describe the country and people, and then discuss the struggle between China and Japan for the possession of Korea, and its culmination in the China-Japan War; the diplomatic and military struggle between Russia and Japan for the coveted prize, and its culmination in the Russia- Japan War; the supremacy in the Far East that Japan won by her victory in that memorable conflict; the policies and methods of Japan in governing a subject people; the characteristics of Japan as the Imperial Power in Asia and a world-power of the first magnitude; and the place and influence of Christian missions as one of the most potent of the enhghtening and reconstructive forces which are operating in the Far East and which hold the promise of a better world order.

The materials for this volume were gathered during two journeys to the Far East and in the studies and correspondence of many years. Some sharply controverted questions have been necessarily discussed, and the author cannot reasonably anticipate immimity from the criticisms of those who will differ with him. He can only say that he has sought to be fair and just. Any one who tries to keep in the middle of the rather tortuous road that runs between those who regard the Japanese as a model people and

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PREFACE those who regard them as '^varnished savages/^ and between those who assert that the Koreans are afflicted saints and those who assert with equal vehemence that they are ^Hhe most contemptible people on earth/ ^ must expect to be assailed from both sides.

While the Japanese have rightly restored the ancient name of the country, Chosen, and have adopted their own spellings of the names of several cities and other places, I have followed the advice of the publisher in adhering to the names that have been sanctioned by long usage in Western lands. The changed terminology has not yet become sufficiently familiar in North America and Great Britain to enable many English readers to recognize Seoul in Keijo and Pyongyang in Heijo, or to know that when a time-table schedules the arrival and departure of trains at Seidaimon, the railway-station in the capital is meant.

156 Fifth Avenue, New York,

January 1, 1919.

Part I Korea— The Strategic Point In The Far East

CHAPTER PAGE

I. The Land of Korea 3

II. The Vanished Days of Old Korea 20

III. The Korean People 44

IV. Korean Customs, Education, and Literature . . 64

V. Religious Beliefs of the Koreans 81

VI. A Ramble in the Interior 93

Part II The Struggle For The Possession Of Korea

VII. The Rival Claims of China and Japan and the

China-Japan War 109

VIII. Russia's Effort to Obtain Korea 127

IX. The Russia-Japan War 148

X. Causes and Effects of Russian Defeat . . . 166

XL The Portsmouth Treaty and the Anglo-Japanese

Convention 178

XII. Japanese Annexation of Korea ...... 195

XIII. Manchuria as a Factor in the Far Eastern Problem 208

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CONTENTS

Part III Japan— The Imperial Power In The Far East

CHAPTER PAGE

XIV. Japan and the Japanese 225

XV. Fundamental National Distinctions . . . 244

XVI. Japan as a Military Power 254

XVII. Japan’s Commercial Development .... 273

XVIII. The Struggle Between Autocracy and Democracy IN Japan 292

XIX. Social, and Economic Conditions .... 307

XX. Education in Japan 318

XXL Buddhism and Shintoism in Japan .... 328

XXII. Character of Japanese Rule in Korea . . 341

XXIII. Benefits of Japanese Rule in Korea . . . 354

XXIV. The Social and Morphine Evils .... 376

XXV. Japan and America 393

XXVI. Effect of the World War on the Position

OF Japan 416

XXVII. Deepening Complications with China . . . 430

XXVIII. Japan and Siberia 447

Part IV Christian Missions In The Problem Of The Far East

XXIX. The Influence of Christian Missions . . 469

XXX. Roman Catholic Missions in Korea . . . 487 XXXI. Protestant Missions in Korea ..... 500

CONTENTS

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CHAPTEB PAGE

XXXII. Korean Christians 524

XXXIII. Type and Problems of Korean Religious

Thought 539

XXXIV. The Politico-Missionary Complication in

Korea 559

XXXV. Japanese Nationalism and Mission Schools . 586

XXXVI. Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox Missions IN Japan 611

XXXVII. Protestant Missions in Japan 622

XXXVIII. Trend of Japanese Religious Thought . . 643

XXXIX. Japanese Testimony to Japan's Urgent Need 652

Index 663

ILLUSTRATIONS

Factors in the Mastery of the Far East Frontispiece

PACINO PAOB

East Gate, Seoul 16

A Korean OflBcial 32

Korean Women Washing Clothes, Seoul 66

Korean Peddling Fuel 72

Fusan 118

Unveiling the Monument to the Russian Dead at Port Arthur . . . 160

Mt. Fuji 232

A Road Scene in the Hakone District 240

Nagoya Castle 260

Bronze Statue of Buddha, the Daibutsu, at Kamakura 330

Shinto Torii (Gateway) at Miyajima 336

Procession of Shinto Priests to the Shrines of Ise 338

New OflBces of the Government-General, Seoul 366

Telephone Exchange in the Post-Office, Seoul 366

Post-Office, Seoul 366

Korean Students of the Mission Academy, Pyongyang 554

An Open-Air Christian Service in Fukui, Japan 632

MAP

The Heart of the Far East At end of volume

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Chapter I

The tide of the world’s travel has hardly more than touched Korea. Increasing numbers of travellers are visiting China and Japan, but most of them pass by their lesser neighbor. No famous temples, no beautiful palaces of the living or historic tombs of the dead attract the globetrotter. Squahd towns and villages and wretchedly poor people offer faint lure to the seeker for the artistic or the picturesque. And yet to the thoughtful student of human life, to one who would understand the deep imdercurrents of international affairs, and to one who would observe that most wonderful thing in the world, the spiritual transformation of a people, Korea is a deeply interesting land.

It is a small country compared with mighty China, which it adjoins; and yet it is of no inconsiderable size, having a length of 660 miles, a width of 150 miles, and an area of 84,173 square miles, or nearly one and a half times that of New England.

The coast-line is irregular and varies greatly in configuration. On the eastern side it is rather precipitous and with a small tide of only about two feet. The west coast slopes more gradually, and the surging tide sometimes attains a height of thirty-two feet. The whole extent of coast-line is about 1,940 miles. Harbors are not nmnerous, but there are several good ones. The best are Gensan on the northeast coast, Fusan and Masampo at the southern end of the peninsula, and Mokpo, Kimsan, Chemulpo, Chinnampo, and Yongampo on the west coast, though not all of these harbors are of equal excellence, some of them being unprotected when the wind is in certain directions.

The west coast is dotted with islands. They vary in size from mere rocks to mountain-crowned islands of considerable area. In some cases cliffs rise precipitously from the water’s edge; in others, noble forests clothe the hillsides, while now and then cultivated fields add their charm to the varied landscape. When the day is pleasant and the water is dotted by the sails of the quaint fishing-boats, the scene is very attractive. Through the transparent depths great beds of coral can be seen with their varying colors and exquisite filaments, the perennial fiowers of the sea.

Sailors, however, dread the dangers of this archipelago. It was first made known in Europe by Captain Basil Hall, of the Lyraj and Captain Maxwell, of the Alcestej in 1816. At that time its situation was not indicated on the Chinese charts, or on those made by the Jesuits of Peking. Indeed, at the time of my second visit, in 1909, these waters had never been adequately soimded and charted, and there was not a lighthouse or a buoy on the whole coast. Since then the Japanese have been preparing charts and placing lights and buoys to mark the channels. Navigation still remains more or less dangerous, for rocks and reefs are numerous, and tidal currents sweep in and out of these narrow passages with terrific force. When fogs descend upon them, as they often do, it is extremely difficult for the mariner to find his way. Many are the tragic shipwrecks that have resulted, and sorrowful is the toll of death which these treacherous seas have exacted.

The most notable of the islands which border the south and west coast are Quelpart and Kang-wa. The former is the largest island of Korea. It lies about sixty miles southwest of the peninsula, and has been called ^Hhe Sicily of Korea.” It has been well populated from an early period, and almost every arable square rod of ground is cultivated, even the mountainsides having been laboriously terraced. The inhabitants have not borne a good reputation, as the island was formerly used as a sort of “Botany Bay” for criminals and poHtical adventurers from the mainland. When it first appears in history it was an independent kingdom called Tam-na. At the end of the first century of the Christian era, there is a record of tribute sent to one of the petty kingdoms on the mainland; but long ago the island became an integral part of Korea.

Kang-wa Hes off the mouth of the Han River, and is a place of considerable historical interest. It has frequently served as a fortress and special refuge in time of danger for the royal family, while at other times it has provided a convenient place of banishment for princes and nobles who had incurred the imperial wrath.

One does not expect to find mighty streams in such a comparatively small coimtry, but the rivers of Korea make up in interest for what they lack in size. They come rushing down from the mountains, crooked and often difficult or impossible of navigation, but usually cool and sparkling, noisily tumbling through narrow gorges, rippling around bends and islets, and when they reach the lower levels becoming more turbid, indeed, but flowing smoothly and quietly to the sea.

The Yalu is the longest of Korean rivers, flowing from a source high among the Ever White Moimtains. For a considerable part of its course it forms the boundary between Korea and Manchuria, and it figures largely in the troubled history of the border. It is the Rubicon of this part of the world, whose crossing by armies has been the signal for many a war. The heavy rains of midsummer and the melting snows of spring often cause freshets and make the current so swift that the water becomes muddy; but at other seasons it is clear and attractive. The silt and gravel which it has carried down for ages have formed a delta through which the river makes its way by three channels into the Yellow Sea. The river is navigable about sixty miles from the sea to the ancient town of Chan-son.

The Tumen River rises on the eastern slope of the watershed of the Ever White Mountains, and runs northeasterly for more than one hundred and fifty miles before it bends southward to enter the Japan Sea within eighty miles of Vladivostok. It forms the northeastern boimdary between Korea and Manchuria, as the Yalu forms the boundary on the north and northwest. Like the latter, the current and depth vary greatly with the season. In dry weather the stream is shallow and peaceful, but in the spring and fall freshets it becomes a roaring torrent. In winter the passage is made easy by the ice, across which for centuries Koreans and Chinese have fled when they have had special reason for getting out of their respective countries with all haste.

The Tatong River was, in olden days, a boimdary stream for considerable periods. It is navigable for launches and small, flat-bottomed steamers to a point near Pyengyang, where it is four himdred yards wide, although the channel is crooked and there are many rapids and sand-bars. Boats can go some distance above Pyengyang when the water is high, but the river can hardly be called navigable above the city. As the mouth is only eighty miles from the Chinese ports of Chefoo and Teng-chou, Chinese invading expeditions often entered the country by the Tatong. When the two countries were not at war, Chinese pirates used the same convenient route. The Koreans kept sentries on this part of their coast for many centuries, and when Chinese vessels were seen approaching, signal-fires carried the messages of danger to other watchers on more distant hills, who in turn built other fires, so that in an incredibly short time beacons from scores of hill and mountain tops aroused the whole countryside.

A more important river is the Han. It, too, teems with historic associations since it is in the centre of the country, and, imtil the construction of the railway, furnished the most convenient route to Seoul, the capital. It rises in the Diamond Mountains of Kang-wen Province, only thirty miles from the Japan Sea. It is navigable for junks and light-draught steamers to Seoul, about fifty-six miles from its mouth, and smaller craft run up about one hundred and fourteen miles farther. Above that point rapids are numerous. The river is the great highway of travel and transportation for the populous provinces through which it flows, and hundreds of quaint boats dot its surface. It is a swift and crooked stream, and loaded with silt. The high tides of the western coast surge up the channel and check the current, but at low tide the river reasserts itself and pours its volume more swiftly than ever into the sea. The result of this alternate stopping and flowing appears in frequent changes of the channel, and in sand-bars, which make navigation difficult and treacherous except at high water. In 1845 the French vainly tried to find the channel, but in 1866 two of their warships managed to reach the capital. The Japanese, quick to see the advantages of river communication, have spent large sums in making a permanent channel, so that the river is likely to be even more important in the future than in the past.

Other rivers are the Rin-chin, which, rising in the mountains of Kang-wen, not far from Gensan, flows into the Han; the Keum, which flows into Basil^s Bay; the Mokpo, which empties into the Yellow Sea in the extreme southwest, and the Naktong, which flows into the Korean Strait, about seven miles from Fusan, and is navigable for junks and small steamers for one hundred miles, while boats drawing less than three feet can ascend seventy miles farther.

Lying between the thirty-fourth and forty-third parallels of latitude, the climate of Korea is that of the north temperate zone. The southern end of the peninsula is in the latitude of Maryland, and the northern end in that of Massachusetts, and the climate in general is not unlike that of the corresponding portion of the United States. The summers are hot and wet, but the other seasons, as a rule, are exceedingly fine. The rainfall is about thirty-six inches a year, the heaviest rains being in July and August. The winters are usually dry, clear, and crisp.

The country abounds in the vegetation of the temperate zone. The hillsides near the cities have been denuded of their forests, but farther back one finds forests of pine, oak, maple, birch, ash, and juniper. Flowers and flowering shrubs grow in delightful variety. Song-birds are few, and the traveller misses some of the melodious warblers of England and America; but the sportsman finds several varieties of wild ducks and geese. The imperial crane stalks solemnly about the rice-fields, and the splendid Mongolian pheasant is abundant. During our journey through the interior it was easy to keep our table well supplied with this most delicious of pheasants.

Animals are found in smaller numbers and more limited variety than in many other lands. I did not see a sheep or a goat anywhere, and was told that the grass was too sour for them. Deer, antelopes, and leopards are found among the mountains, and the diligent hunter may get a shot at a tiger. One would not naturally look in Korea for this savage lord of the wilderness, but here he is, not only on the lower slopes of the hills but even amid the snow and ice of the northern mountains. The natives fear the tiger, and as their weapons are poor he is very bold, prowling around the smaller villages and sometimes even crashing through the thatched roof of a hut to carry off a woman or child. There is a popular sa}dng among the Chinese across the border, that 'Hhe Koreans hunt the tiger during half the year, and the tigers hunt the Koreans during the other half.^’ In the regions infested by these dread beasts the terror of the people is so great that coolies are unwilling to travel at night, and if they are forced to do so, they wave torches and beat gongs, and shout at the top of their voices to keep up their courage and to frighten away any savage prowler. The tiger naturally figures largely in the superstitions and folk-lore of the common people, and many proverbs relate to him. The modem rifles introduced by the Japanese and the high value of the skins are now rapidly diminishing the number of these wild rovers. Five hundred tiger-skins were exported in a single year from Gensan, a rate which points to the early extinction of this true king of beasts.

Opinions differ as to the value of Koreans resources. One traveller declares that ^Hhere is absolutely nothing worth having in Korea, except perhaps a mineral wealth, only to be discovered by a vast expenditure of capital;

and that five-sixths of the country is occupied by lonely mountains or scantily clad hills/’ This is a superficial judgment. Mountains are usually ^Honely/’ au3rwhere, and some of the richest hills in the world are ^'scantily clad.” Mining can be carried on far more easily than in frozen Alaska, which has poured out golden streams. Geological explorations made since the Japanese occupation have disclosed a wealth of minerals. Gold, silver, copper, graphite, iron, coal, and chalk have been found, some of them in extensive deposits. The graphite of Ham-gyongdo averages eighty per cent fine as compared with the seventy-five per cent graphite of Italy. The region about Pyongyang has long had the reputation of being rich in gold and silver, but the mines were never worked to advantage until foreigners obtained the concessions. In 1909 there were 368 mines in Korea: 312 were owned and operated by Japanese and Koreans, jointly; 6 by Japanese and Americans, and 1 by Japanese and Germans. American concessionaires controlled 8, German 6, British 5, French 2, and Italian 2.^ The principal gold-mines are at Unsan, Chikusan, Suwan, and Kosung. Within a dozen years after the concession was granted in 1896, the Unsan mine had 3delded 1,637,591 tons of ore, valued at $10,701,157. A government coal-mine near Pyengyang produces 60,000 tons of anthracite a year. Iron ore is found in many parts of the country, and the mines at Changyang and Wuryul, in the Province of Whang-hai, are working profitable veins. There is a promising copper-mine at Kapsan. The Japanese are now actively developing the mineral resources of the country, and their thoroughness and modern scientific methods are meeting with an encouraging degree of success.

Agriculturally, Korea has great possibilities. It is true that the numerous mountains exclude large areas from cultivation, and I found a difference of opinion among residents as to whether the country could maintain a much larger population than it now has. I can only state that

* Iwaya Hosoi, engineer of the Japanese Bureau of Mines, in the Oriental Review, December 24, 1910.

my own observations in travelling about the country did not give me occasion to doubt. The bottoms of the more fertile valleys are well occupied by rice-fields; but I saw tens of thousands of acres of good-looking land which was either not cultivated at all or so slightly tilled that it was yielding only a small proportion of what it might be made to produce, while innumerable hill-slopes were wholly untouched. Such intensive cultivation and terracing of hillsides as one sees in Japan and Syria would enormously increase the agricultural output of Korea. Even under the crude and shiftless methods of the Koreans the land produces generous harvests of rice, beans, peas, barley, millet, cotton, tobacco, ginseng, and the castor-bean. The first two, being the staple food of the people, are the chief crops. Large quantities of millet are also raised. Not only is the grain a valued article of food, but the tall and strong stalk is put to a variety of uses. It supplies material for matting, fencing, and the poorer class of houses. The ginseng is the best in the world. A single guild formerly had the monopoly of exporting it, and its exclusive rights were protected by a law which inflicted the death penalty on any one who dared to ship the root out of the country. Smugglers, however, managed to do a thriving business in certain places, but so valuable is the root, and so imlimited is the demand for it in China, that the guild sometimes paid the King half a million dollars a year in royalties. The Japanese Government-General has taken over the monopoly and is doing everything in its power to foster the industry.

Less than ten per cent of the area of the country, and less than half of its arable land were under cultivation when the Japanese annexed the peninsula. With the modern methods of agriculture which the Japanese are now effectively teaching, Korea could feed double the number of people who now occupy it, to say nothing of the added means of wealth which the development of other resources and of manufacturing would bring. The fisheries alone might yield millions of dollars annually, for Korea has the sea upon three sides, and the waters teem with food-fish. Then it should be borne in mind that prior to the coming of the Japanese there was practically no factory population. The development of trade and manufactures would give employment to hundreds of thousands of people. There appears no reason to doubt, therefore, that Korea could easily maintain a far larger population than it has to-day.

Korean scenery does not at first impress one favorably. The hills look bare, and the traveller who sees them for the first time, especially in wintry weather, is apt to consider them gloomy and desolate as compared with the tree-clad hills of Japan. But a better knowledge of the country leads one to a juster appreciation. The landscape, save in a few places, is much diversified. Some of the valleys are wide and flat, but most of them gently rise to the bordering hills. A range of moimtains runs irregularly the entire length of the peninsula, with outflanking ridges of varying height. The range is not a lofty one, few peaks reaching an altitude of 5,000 feet, and only one, Mt. Paik-to-san (Ever White Head Peak), attains 8,000 feet. It is an extinct volcano, and the water-filled crater forms a lake of great beauty and of unknown depth. It is greatly revered, and not only Korean but Chinese and Japanese writers have sung its praises. It is popularly believed to be the abode of a goddess, who is the presiding deity of this range of mountains. The northern regions abound in bold moimtains, narrow valleys, and rushing streams. The Chang Syung and Syek Tong districts abound with villages of Alpine picturesqueness. Kwallondong, for example, nestles in a gorge that would make it famous if it were more accessible, while Kwen Myen lies cosily in one of the most lovely valleys in the world. Famous also are the Diamond Mountains, in the Province of Kang-wen, which Mrs. Isabella Bird Bishop so charmingly described. Of the cliffs and canyons viewed from the monastery of Chyang-yang Sa she says: “Surely the beauty of that eleven miles is not much exceeded anywhere on earth. The Western traveller who is tired of crowded resorts with their artiflcial social conventions may find in the mountains of Korea a charm which will well repay him for a journey half-way round the world.

Unlike Japan and China, Korea has no city which can be listed among the great cities of the world. It is a land of villages, with here and there a large town, and only occasionally one of considerable size. Fusan, at the southern end of the peninsula, is the place first seen by the average traveller. Being the Korean port nearest to Japan, it was naturally the first to come under Japanese influence. It was long considered a part of the domain of the lord of Tsushima, and in 1443 the prefect of Tongnai, near Fusan, entered into an agreement with the feudal lord of Tsushima by which the Japanese were given the right of permanent settlement. The Korean nobles who brought tribute to Japan sailed from Fusan, and at Fusan landed the invading armies of Hideyoshi in 1592 and 1593. For centuries after this, and through all the vicissitudes of unhappy Koreans relations with the contending powers of China and Japan, Japan managed to keep her hold upon this valuable port and the Japanese settlers had the unique distinction of being 'Hhe only Japanese colony in the world.’^ With the downfall of the Shogun and the feudal system in 1868, the suzerainty of Fusan was transferred from the feudal lord of Tsushima to the Mikado. The opening of the city as a treaty port in 1876 inaugurated a new era, and business and population began to increase. Growth became rapid after the Russia- Japan War and the completion of the railway to Seoul, three hundred miles northward. The contrast between my first and second visits, eight years apart, was amazing. The squalid town had become a bustling city. Great docks were being constructed. Shipping filled the harbor. Freight and passenger trains noisily rushed in and out of the new railway station. Shops and hotels were crowded. Large warehouses and public buildings were imder construction. Streets were being straightened and widened, and thousands of coolies were toiling on these and other improvements. The Japanese population has rapidly increased in the last decade, and the Korean population also has grown on account of the emplo3unent which the Japanese improvements have made available.

Chemulpo, on the west coast, was opened to foreign trade by the treaty of 1882, at which time it was a wretched fishing hamlet of only fifteen huts. . It soon came into importance as the gateway to the capital, twenty-six miles distant. The so-called harbor is hardly more than a roadstead, save as some small islands afford partial protection. A thirty-two foot tide on a sloping bottom means that at low water there is a wide mud flat. A few years ago, if the traveller arrived at that stage, as I did, his steamer had to anchor far out, and he had a sloppy and malodorous experience in getting ashore, first in a sampan, a clumsy, flat-bottomed boat sculled by a single oar, and then on the back of a coolie. The harbor facilities are now much better. Realizing the importance of the port, the Imperial Diet, in the spring of 1911, authorized the expenditure of three and a half million yen in six years for harbor improvements at Chemulpo, and June 11 of that year Governor General Terauchi inaugurated the work amid imposing ceremonies. The improvements include a wall 500 yards long, and a locked dock 120,000 square yards in area and 26 feet in depth. Vessels of 4,500 tons can be moored alongside the wall, and three movable cranes, with a lifting power of from one and a half to three tons, make quick work of loading and unloading the many steamers that make the place a port of call. There are stores in which one can buy many kinds of supplies, and for many years there was a hotel kept by a Chinese, where, if one were not fastidious, he could get something to eat and a place to sleep. Itai, the proprietor, was an alert and reliable man, who had so long responded to the call for a steward on a coasting steamer that the title climg to him after he opened a store and hotel on shore, and for years Steward's was famous. The engaging Celestial proved a friend in need to many a traveller, doing everything he could with a ready good nature which disarmed criticism. The hotel has now given way to Japanese inns, but Steward still conducts prosperous shops in Chemulpo and Seoul. Chemulpo figures prominently in the troubled history of Korea. Here the Japanese in 1894 sunk a Chinese transport and landed for their victorious march to Seoul; and here a Japanese squadron overwhelmed the Russian cruisers, Variag and Korietz, at the beginning of the Russia- Japan War, in 1904. The population has increased rapidly since the Japanese occupation. The Japanese quarter is large. Business has developed considerable proportions, and the docks are piled \\ath goods for the export and import trade of the interior cities.

Pyengyang, on the Tatong River, thirty-five miles from the port of Chinnampo, is the leading city in northern Korea. Although the census gives it only 51,846 inhabitants, it is the metropolis of about 4,000,000 people, who live in the forty-four counties of the North and South Pyeng-An provinces. The city stands on rising ground, and the view from the city wall includes the winding stream, a fertile valley, and ranges of noble hills. Pyengyang has historic associations, for it claims to have been founded more than three thousand years ago. Kija, the traditional founder of the city, is said to have been the first to observe that the site was shaped like a boat, and therefore that wells must not be dug, as they would make holes in the bottom and sink the city. He wanted a well for his own use, but to guard against the danger of scuttling the craft, he caused a huge metal bowl to be made and placed at the bottom of the well. Ever since, the people have continued to believe that the city lies in a boat. They placed heavy stone posts at the end of the valley to keep it from floating away, and they laboriously carried water from the river rather than run the risk of digging wells, which would have let the underlying water flood their habitations. Pyengyang was the scene of the decisive battle between the Chinese and Japanese in the China-Japan War of 1894. Most of the buildings were destroyed, and those that were left were looted by thieves, and the woodwork used for fuel by the victorious Japanese. The terror-stricken inhabitants, who had fled at the first sound of trouble, were slow to return, and the population of the city fell from 80,000 to 15,000. It has since increased, but it is only now regaining its former prosperity. Few visitors, however, would tarry long in Pyongyang if it were not for the world-famed missionary work, which will be referred to again in a later chapter.