The air in the Prime Minister's residence in Tokyo was thick with the smoke of expensive cigars and the palpable heat of outrage. An emergency cabinet meeting had been called, and the mood was dangerously volatile. At the center of the storm was the Foreign Minister, Mutsu Munemitsu, a man whose ambition was matched only by his hawkish nationalism. He stood before the low table, holding the official Qing notification as if it were a piece of filth.
"Prime Minister! Gentlemen!" Mutsu's voice was sharp, cutting through the tense silence. "It is exactly as our sources in Beijing predicted! The Qing are sending troops to Korea! They have the audacity to call it a 'small constabulary force,' but we all know what it truly is! It is a blatant, arrogant attempt to turn Korea into a full protectorate and slam the door on decades of our influence and investment!"
The Army Minister, Yamagata Aritomo, a grizzled samurai veteran who saw the world as a contest of wills, slammed his fist on the table. "Two thousand men! It is an insult! A pathetic force designed specifically to test our resolve! They spit in the face of the Empire! We must respond, and we must respond with overwhelming force! I demand we dispatch a full division immediately! Secure Hanseong before the Chinese can even unload their supplies!"
A chorus of assent went around the room. The younger, more aggressive members of the Meiji government, men who had grown up in the shadow of Western power and were desperate to prove Japan's own strength, were practically vibrating with war fever.
Only one man urged caution. Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi, the architect of the Meiji Constitution and a man of immense intellect and shrewdness, held up a hand for silence. He was the one who had personally negotiated the Treaty of Tianjin with Li Hongzhang years ago. He understood its nuances better than anyone.
"Gentlemen, please!" Ito pleaded, his voice a calm island in a sea of fury. "We must not be rash. We must not be led by emotion. The Qing, for all their arrogance, have acted within the precise letter of the treaty. They have notified us of their action, as stipulated. If we send troops, we are bound by that same treaty to notify them in return. To land soldiers on Korean soil without doing so would make us the aggressors. It would cede the moral high ground and could alienate the Western powers whose neutrality we require."
Mutsu let out a short, derisive laugh. "Moral high ground? Diplomatic niceties! Prime Minister, while we sit here drafting polite letters and worrying about the opinions of fat British merchants, the Qing army will be fortifying the peninsula! The port of Asan will become a Chinese fortress! By the time our notification arrives in Beijing, the war will be lost before it has even begun!" He leaned forward, his eyes burning with conviction. "The Western powers do not respect protocol; they respect strength! They respect action! We must act now, decisively, and show them that there is a new master in Asia!"
The Naval Minister, Saigo Tsugumichi, a formidable man from the powerful Satsuma clan, chose that moment to add more fuel to the fire. "There is more," he said, his deep voice silencing the room. "Our intelligence from our legation in Hanseong is deeply troubling. The court there is in a frenzy. There are rumors, now accepted as fact, of a letter, supposedly from Inoue-san, implicating our Enlightenment Party allies in a plot to overthrow the Korean King."
Ito felt a cold knot tighten in his stomach. This was the detail that worried him most. A peasant rebellion that springs up at the perfect time, an immediate Qing intervention, and now a conveniently discovered letter that implicates Japan. It was too neat. Too perfectly orchestrated. It felt less like a series of coincidences and more like a carefully laid trap. But looking around the room at the flushed, determined faces of his cabinet, he knew his fears would be dismissed as weakness. The momentum for war was too great.
"The Queen's faction is using this supposed plot to whip up anti-Japanese sentiment," the Naval Minister continued. "If we do not intervene, our allies in the Korean court will be purged within the week. We will lose everything we have worked for over the past twenty years."
The argument was decisive. The combination of national pride, strategic fear, and the perceived threat to their assets in Korea was too powerful to resist.
Ito Hirobumi sighed, a deep, weary sound of resignation. He saw the path ahead clearly, and it was fraught with peril, but the will of the cabinet was clear. He was a prime minister, not a dictator.
"Very well," he said, his voice heavy. "The die is cast. Authorize the deployment of the 9th Infantry Brigade. Eight thousand men, with artillery and engineering support."
A wave of triumph washed over the room. Mutsu's face split into a victorious grin.
But Ito raised his finger, his expression stern. "But I insist—insist—that a notification of our own be drafted and dispatched to the Qing court immediately. We must at least maintain the appearance of legality. We will state that the presence of Qing troops has created a state of emergency, and we are sending our own forces to protect our citizens and our legation in Hanseong."
Mutsu Munemitsu bowed, a model of deference now that he had gotten his way. "Of course, Prime Minister. A letter will be drafted with the utmost urgency." He allowed himself a small, predatory smile. "It will be dispatched on the next scheduled ship to Tianjin. Which, by a fortunate coincidence of the naval schedule, departs a full day after the troop transports have already set sail."
The unspoken meaning hung in the air, thick and heavy. The troops would land, march inland, and secure their objectives long before the Qing government was even officially aware they were coming. They were consciously, deliberately choosing to violate the treaty. Ito closed his eyes, a profound sense of dread settling over him. He had just authorized the first great foreign war of the Meiji era, and he was certain they were walking into it blind.
A day later, at the bustling naval port of Sasebo near Nagasaki. The docks were a scene of disciplined chaos. Thousands of Japanese soldiers, clad in modern, dark blue, Western-style uniforms and armed with Murata repeating rifles, marched in perfect columns up the gangplanks of a fleet of chartered steam transports. Their movements were crisp, professional, and filled with a palpable sense of purpose. This was not the feudal army of a shogun; this was the modern military machine of an aspiring empire.
On the deck of the lead transport, a colonel with a fiercely waxed mustache and a gleaming sword at his hip addressed his assembled men. His voice rang out across the water, filled with the fiery spirit of the age.
"Soldiers of the Emperor! For too long, the decadent, sleeping Qing have lorded over Asia by reputation alone! They are a rotten tree, waiting for a strong wind to push them over! Today, we are that wind! We sail to Korea to protect our interests, to bring enlightenment to that backward nation, and to show the world the martial spirit of the new Japan!"
He paused, drawing his sword and pointing it toward the sea. "We will be in Hanseong in three days! We will show the Qing the difference between a real army and their rabble of opium-smokers! For the honor of the regiment! For the glory of Japan! For the Emperor!"
He raised his sword to the sky. "Tenno Heika Banzai!"
A single, unified roar erupted from thousands of throats, a sound that shook the very timbers of the ships. "BANZAI! BANZAI! BANZAI!"
The cry was one of absolute confidence, of a nation hungry to prove itself on the world stage. The shark had not only taken the bait; it was leaping into the boat with its teeth bared, utterly convinced of its own power. As the ships' horns blared and they began to pull away from the docks, the sky above, which had been clear moments before, began to fill with dark, gathering storm clouds.