event forced them to a breaking point. It was the Tonghak rebellion, which brought military forces of Japan and China face to face in Korea. The Tonghak (or "Learning of the East") party was a secret organization, whose doctrines were embodied in a collection of tenets based upon Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Both the practical aims and the real strength of the party were then little known. Its conduct in 1894, however, led to an international crisis of which it could not have had the slightest expectation. In May the society rose in insurrection against the universal corruption and oppression of the Korean officials, who were then under the powerful control of the family of the queen, the Min. The Min, whose safety was thus threatened, despite an opposition in the court against the proceeding, appealed, on their initiative, to the assistance of China through the minister at Seul, who had really suggested the move. Here was a long-awaited opportunity for China to recover her lost ground in Korea and once more assert her suzerain rights over the peninsula. The Peking government at once dispatched forces toward Korea, at the same time notifying Japan, in accordance with the Tientsin Convention, that China had been requested by Korea to send troops to suppress the Tonghak rebellion, and that she had consented to "protect the tributary state." On the same day, June 7, Japan replied in two messages, one acknowledging the receipt of China's notice, but declining to admit that Korea was tributary to her, and the other announcing that Japan also would send soldiers to Korea. To this China retorted, saying that as Japan had not been requested by Korea to dispatch forces, the object of her expedition must be to protect Japanese subjects in the peninsula, which circumstances made it unnecessary for Japan to send too large forces or to allow them to go too far into the interior. Japan's answer was that the sending of the troops was in accordance with the Korean-Japanese convention of 1882, and that she had the right to determine the number and disposition of her own forces. The first detachment of the Japanese soldiers escorting Minister Ōtori reached Seul on June 10, and the Chinese troops landed at Asan the next day. If the order had been reversed, China might have regained, temporarily at least, her control over the Korean kingdom, and Japan's ardent wish to reform and strengthen Korea as an independent state might have remained unfulfilled. From her vantage ground, however, Japan made a move which in fact created the critical point of the affair, for, on June 17, her foreign minister, Mutsu, proposed to China to suppress the Tonghak insurrection by joint forces, and then reform the Korean internal government also by joint action, so as to insure stability and peace in the kingdom. It now rested with China to avoid all danger by joining hands with Japan in eradicating evils in the