The study of twenty years of history proves this assumption to be correct. Ever since 1895, Japan has been driving wedges into the Yangtsze Valley of a peculiar kind to form the foundations for her sweeping claims of 1915. Thus after the war with China in 1894-95, she opened by her Treaty of Peace four ports in the Yangtsze Valley region, Soochow, Hangchow, Chungking and Shasi; that is, at the two extreme ends of the valley she established politico-commercial _points d'appui_ from which to direct her campaign. Whilst the proximity of Soochow and Hangchow to the British stronghold of Shanghai made it difficult to carry out any "penetration" work at the lower end of the river save in the form of subsidized steam-shipping, the case was different in Hunan and Hupeh provinces. There she was unendingly busy, and in 1903 by a fresh treaty she formally opened to trade Changsha, the capital of the turbulent Hunan province. Changsha for years remained a secret centre possessing the greatest political importance for her, and serving as a focus for most varied activities involving Hunan, Hupeh, and Kiangsi, as well as a vast hinterland. The great Tayeh iron-mines, although entirely Chinese-owned, were already being tapped to supply iron-ore for the Japanese Government Foundry at Wakamatsu on the island of Kiushiu. The rich coal mines of Pinghsiang, being conveniently near, supplied the great Chinese Government arsenal of Hanyang with fuel; and since Japan had very little coal or iron of her own, she decided that it would be best to embrace as soon as possible the whole area of interests in one categorical demand--that is, to claim a dominant share in the Hanyang arsenal, the Tayeh iron-mines and the Pinghsiang collieries.[14] By lending money to these enterprises, which were grouped together under the name of Hanyehping, she had early established a claim on them which she turned at the psychological moment into an international question. We can pass quickly by Group IV which is of little importance, except to say that in taking upon herself, without consultation with the senior ally, the duty of asking from China a declaration concerning the future non-leasing of harbours and islands, Japan has attempted to assume a protectorship of Chinese territory which does not belong to her historically. It is well also to note that although Japan wished it to appear to the world that this action was dictated by her desire to prevent Germany from acquiring a fresh foothold in China after the war, in reality Group IV was drafted as a general warning to the nations, one point being that she believed that the United States was contemplating the reorganization of the Foochow Arsenal in Fuhkien province, and that as a corollary to that reorganization would be given the lease of an adjoining harbour such as Santuao.