Li Hung Chang to the effect that no help need be looked for. After the terms of surrender were agreed upon, the Chinese admiral committed suicide. After the fall of Wei-hai-Wei, the Japanese in Manchuria continued their advance, and captured the twin city of Newchang, thus placing themselves between Mukden and the Chinese capital. When spring was about to open, they possessed an army of 100,000 men, ready to move upon Pekin, and there is no doubt that they could have taken the city speedily and easily. Two months previously, the Chinese had sent to Tokio a pretended peace mission with inadequate powers, but now the Pekin government, recognizing the impossibility of resistance, appointed Li Hung Chang plenipotentiary, and dispatched him to Shimonoseki, which he reached on March 20, 1895. Luckily for the success of his mission, he was shot in the cheek by a fanatic four days after his arrival, while he was returning from a conference with Count Ito, the representative of Japan. This outrage aroused great sympathy for Li Hung Chang, and, to prove the sincerity of his regret, the Mikado consented to an armistice, and sensibly modified the terms of peace upon which he had originally insisted. On April 17, 1895, the Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed, and, on May 8, the ratifications were exchanged at Chefoo. The provisions of the treaty may be briefly summed up as follows: The Chinese were to surrender the islands of Formosa and the Pescadores, and also, on the Asiatic mainland, the southern part of the province of Shingking, including the Regent’s Sword peninsula, and, of course, the naval fortress of Port Arthur. By way of pecuniary indemnity, China was to pay 200,000,000 Kuping taels, or, say, $170,000,000, in eight installments, with interest at the rate of five per cent on those unpaid. The commercial concessions were to include the admission of ships under the Japanese flag to the different rivers and lakes of China and the appointment of consuls; and the Japanese were to retain Wei-hai-Wei until the whole indemnity had been paid and an acceptable commercial treaty had been concluded. These terms were by no means excessive, in view of the completeness of the Japanese triumph, but they gave great umbrage to Russia, which foresaw that the presence of the Japanese on the Regent’s Sword peninsula would prove an obstacle to its plans of southward extension through Manchuria, and to the attainment of an ice-free port. Moreover, had the Japanese been suffered to remain on the mainland of Asia, they, instead of the Russians, would have become preponderant at Pekin. Accordingly, the Czar’s advisers, having secured the co-operation not only of their French ally, but also of Germany, proceeded to make a diplomatic move, the aim of which was to despoil the Mikado of a part of the fruits of victory. Scarcely was the ink dry on the Treaty of Shimonoseki, when Japan received from the three European powers just named a polite