Before the outbreak of the Sinico-Japanese war, China had long been regarded not only by Western nations, but by the Japanese themselves, as far above our country in national strength, not to speak of the superiority of wealth as well as of civilisation in general. Though the victory of the expeditionary troops sent by Hideyoshi over the Chinese reinforcements despatched by the Emperor of the Ming to succour the invaded Koreans was sufficient to wipe off the military humiliation which our army had suffered on the peninsula nine hundred years before, and had much to do in enhancing the national self-confidence against the Chinese, the renewed imitation of her civilisation during the Tokugawa Shogunate turned the scale again in favour of China even to the eyes of the Japanese intelligents, and we had been constantly overawed by the influence of the big continental neighbour. So that the formal annexation of the Loochoo Islands in the first decade of the Meidji era against the opposing Chinese claim was considered to be a great diplomatic victory of the new government. The failure of the French expedition added also to the credit of the unfathomable force of the Celestial Empire. The grand Chinese fleet which visited our ports in the year previous to the war was thought to be more than our match, and made us feel a little disquieted. Contrary to our anticipation, however, battle after battle ended in our victory in the war of 1894-1895, and Korea was freed from Chinese hegemony by the treaty of Shimonoseki. Though some of the important articles of the same treaty were made useless by the intervention of the three Western powers, the war proved on the whole very beneficial to our country. The growth of the consciousness of the national strength emboldened the people to develop their activity in all directions. Several new industries began to flourish. The national wealth increased remarkably so as to enable the government to adopt a monometallic currency in gold. Education, high as well as low, was encouraged by the increase of various new schools and by the strengthening of their staffs. We laboured very hard for the ten following years, and then the Russo-Japanese war took place.