The battles of P’yŭng-yang and Yalu changed all this. In the first place it was discovered that the Chinese, with equal or superior numbers, could not hold a strongly defensive position against their assailants. The Chinese had everything in their favor so far as natural surroundings went. They lacked the one essential and it was the demonstration of this lack at P’yŭng-yang that made the world begin to doubt whether the Chinese would really do what was expected of them.
The battle of the Yalu, while technically a drawn battle, proved that the Japanese could stand up against superior ships and hold them down to a tie game. The Chinese ammunition was exhausted and if darkness had not come on the Japanese would have discovered this and the big Chinese vessels would have been captured. From that day the progress of the Japanese was an unbroken series of victories. The myth of China’s strength was shattered and the whole history of the Far East, if not of the world, entered upon a new and unexpected phase.
We have already mentioned that 4,000 Chinese troops had been landed at the mouth of the Yalu to reinforce the army that had been gathered there for the invasion of Korea. That invasion was destined not to be carried out, for the routed Chinese army from P’yŭng-yang came streaming north in headlong flight and the Japanese followed them up just fast enough to worry them but without making it necessary to encumber themselves with prisoners. It shows how perfectly the Japanese had gauged the calibre of the Chinese that they should have driven them on in this contemptuous manner. When the Japanese arrived at the Yalu they found that the Chinese had occupied an advantageous position on the further side and would attempt to block the advance but it was too late to stem the tide of Japanese enthusiasm. The passage was made with ease, the Chinese quickly put to flight and the war left Korean territory, not to return.
The subsequent operations of war are of surpassing interest to the general historian but they cannot be called a part of Korean history, so we shall be compelled to leave them and go back to the peninsula, where the results of Japan’s victories were to be keenly felt.