[
    {
        "id": 216420,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 179,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "129\n\nChemulpo (later Inchon). This would drive north along thawing and impassable roads, across the Yalu River into Manchuria, heading for Liaoyang and Mukden (now known as Shenyang) north of the Liaodong peninsula. Then, with what remained of the Russian fleet bottled up in the harbour at Port Arthur, the second and main force would be landed some thirty miles north of Dalny (Dairen to the Japanese and now known as Dalian) cutting off Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong peninsula. The final stage was the landing of a third Japanese army in January 1905 and its assault on Port Arthur. The war began as planned with a Japanese 'Pearl Harbor' bombardment at Port Arthur, taking the Russian fleet by surprise.\n\nAlthough the Japanese met with a number of set-backs their overall plan succeeded. The crowning moments were the Fall of Port Arthur at the beginning of January 1905 and the Battle of Tsushima in May 1905, the titanic clash between the Japanese fleet and the Russian Baltic Fleet, the latter having made its slow progress across the world from Latvia in October 1904 to Tsushima seven months later, and to its fate and destruction. News of the devastating Japanese victory alarmed a number of Chinese officials who, whilst they did not wish Japan to lose, had not wanted her to gain such an overwhelming victory.\n\nFinally, after the eighteen month campaign the land war ended with the destruction of the Russian army before Mukden. The succeeding months were a matter of Japanese mopping-up operations and the capture of Liaoyang and Mukden.\n\nDuring the final stages of the war the Japanese finally took the fighting on to 'sacred' Russian territory when they invaded the large island of Sakhalin. This was of great political importance as it was regarded as Russian territory and, with rioting on the streets of the Russian major cities, the Russians realised that they had lost. Also at that point, Japan now holding most of the cards, but militarily and financially exhausted, sought President Roosevelt's good offices to bring about a peace conference. This took place in September 1905 concluding with the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth in the United States. The Russians ceded the Guandong peninsula (Chinese territory) and half of the island of Sakhalin to Japan but without having to pay any indemnity. The Russians, so the Japanese believed, had been allowed by the Americans to get away without paying any financial compensation.",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 216421,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2003",
        "page_number": 180,
        "title": "RAS-2003",
        "content_text": "130\n\nThe Treaty showed Japan that white races would stand together against the yellow, and the Japanese as a race were mortified at what they were convinced was a dishonourable peace.\n\nThe peace treaty provided for, amongst other things, the mutual withdrawal of Russian and Japanese armies from Manchuria within eighteen months; and the return of Manchuria to China except for the leased territories of Liaodong (Guandong) and the southern section of the Manchurian Railway which was transferred to Japan by Russia.\n\nHowever, at a Conference held in Peking in December 1905 at which the Chinese government approved the Treaty, the now enfeebled and impotent Qing dynasty gave Japan even greater rights in Chinese territory than had been agreed in Portsmouth. The Japanese had now acquired rights and concessions on Chinese territory for the first time.\n\nChinese involvement\n\nIt has not been my intention to describe the detailed progress of the war as this has been covered in numerous books and articles, but to highlight how the Chinese were involved. It has proved disappointing to find that even when China and the Chinese position are referred to, writers usually skim over the subject in a single page or two.\n\nThe Russian promise to evacuate territories in Manchuria occupied after the Boxer insurrection was ignored and the progressive Russification of the Three Provinces could only mean one thing - that the Russians had no intention of withdrawing. During 1903 the Chinese Government showed a firmer attitude in their request for promises from the Russian Minister relating to the evacuation of Manchuria. Japanese strong moral support acted as an incentive to the more progressive Chinese to strengthen the influence of the few patriotic Chinese statesmen who had the welfare of the Empire at heart. Meetings of the literati in most of the larger cities in China during October 1903 denounced Russia in no uncertain terms. Little could be expected from the Empress Dowager and her clique. One day she ranted on hearing some real or fancied desecration by Cossacks in the former Manchu capital at Mukden where the ancestors of the Manchu ruling clan were buried, and threatened reprisals; the next day she was considering possibilities of closer links between Russia and China and even, perhaps,\n\nPage 180\n\nPage 181",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2003.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/2v242g390",
        "rank": 0
    }
]