Shimonoseki, Japan, June 8 1915
For the Japanese men standing in this room this moment was a dream come true. In the past 20 years Japan had been in three wars. In each of those wars Japan had been victorious. Once against the Russians, and twice against the Chinese. However it was the second victory over China that they believed cemented their status as a great power. True the Americans could still knock them down a peg if they so choose to. But they were a great power now and no one could denial that fact now.
For the Chinese in the room it was a living nightmare. Once again they had been defeated by a former vassal state. However this lost was more painful than 1895. Far more painful. Two of the Chinese signers were paining to ask the Americans for political asylum in their nation. They knew full well that they would be viewed as traitors to China and would be hunted down and kill, most likely in the worse possible way. Another member of the Chinese delegation had a pistol waiting for him his hotel room. The fourth was going to ask the Germans for political asylum.
However for China there was no choice left for them. They had lost, again. Rebellions against Peking were breaking out all across China. Before they sailed for Shimonoseki they had received a report that the Russians had occupied a number of Turkish districts in Xinjiang. However this was unconfirmed at the moment with the Russian Ambassador in Tokyo saying he didn’t know what the Chinese were talking about.
As the last Chinese member of the Chinese delegation signed the Second Treaty of Shimonoseki all they knew for sure was the 20th Century in Asia would be a Japanese Century. Indeed the Land of the Rising Sun now had a very promising future. They knew there would be challenges ahead, but the future was bright and full of promise. For the Chinese this date would generally come to be viewed as the start of Chinese Civil War.
Article One
-China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty of island Hainan and the provinces of Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang.
Article Two
-China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty the Kwantung Lease Territory to be hence for known as Ryojun.
Article Three
-China cedes to Japan in perpetuity and full sovereignty the Japanese Concession of Tientsin. China further cedes 15 Hectare in Tientsin to Japan in perpetuity as well as full sovereignty that is attached to the Japanese Concession post-1902.
Article Four
-All Chinese citizens in the territory named in Article One, Two, and Three of this treaty have till April 6 1917 to decide if they keep their Chinese citizenship and emigration to China or becoming subjects of the Japanese Emperor and renounce their Chinese citizenship.
Article Five
-China agrees to pay Japan a war indemnity of 400 million Kuping Teal.
Article Six
-China is barred for further coastal or island concessions to other nations save for Japan.
Article Seven
-China cedes ownership of the Hanyeping mining and metallurgical complex to Japan.
Article Eight
-China re-confers Most Favored Nation status for Japan.
Article Nine
-China cedes ownership of the cruiser known as Chao Ho to Japan, to be hence for known as Naniwa.
Article Ten
-Japanese Police will have full rights of investigation and arrest to investigate the death of the Japanese Ambassador to the Empire of China on December 7 1914. They will have the full support the Chinese Police.
All told the Second Sino-Japanese War lasted just over seven months. For the Japanese they had lost just under 8,000 men killed in the war. Just over 15,000 men were wounded in service of the Emperor. For the Chinese it had been far worse. Just over 30,000 men of the Beiyang Army. A further 4,000 men died in service for China during the war. Close to 50,000 men were wounded in service of the Chinese state. The Beiyang Army was broken as a force in Chinese political matters. It was one of the leading causes to the Chinese Civil War, a civil war that would end till the Shanghai Accords in 1927.
Japan added some 318,000 sq miles of territory to her empire with the Second Treaty of Shimonoseki. This effectively double the size of the Japanese Empire overnight. It would be another month before the Imperial Japanese Army reached the farthest parts of their new territories in Manchuria. Even then it stretched the Imperial Japanese Army to its logistical limits. Now the question remained, would the British drag the Japanese into a war with the European Powers, because Japan was about tapped out and needed peace, not war.
