In view of all these facts, the assembled Admirals at
Taira have decided that it would be foolish to march on Pekin without much larger forces than are at their disposal. They have thirteen thousand men, counting four thousand Japanese ; but Taku itself must be garrisoned, and they have to relieve Tientsin, which is besieged by a force reported to number ninety thousand soldiers, aided by the populace of a city which has become vast. Heartbreaking as their decisicin is, it is undoubtedly wise, as is also the resolve not to give the Japanese a separate mandate. Such a mandate would have involved two terrible risks. The Japanese might have been defeated, in which case no white man in China would have survived, or the Japanese might have mastered the Govern- ment of China, in which case the " Yellow Peril" would have been upon us in full force.
Previous page
