The Prime Minister's residence in Tokyo was a house of ghosts. Twenty-four hours earlier, this room had echoed with arrogant laughter and bold proclamations of victory. Now, it was steeped in a silence so profound it felt like a physical presence, broken only by the rustle of paper and the ragged breathing of powerful men confronting an unthinkable reality. The air, once thick with cigar smoke, now seemed thin and cold, charged with the static of disbelief and incandescent rage.
Prime Minister Ito Hirobumi sat at the head of the long, low table, his face ashen. In his hands, which trembled almost imperceptibly, was the full, hand-written report from the captain of the cruiser Naniwa, one of the few escort ships to have escaped the slaughter and limped back to Sasebo. He had been reading aloud, his voice growing more hollow and strained with each devastating sentence. The rest of the cabinet—the same men who had clamored for war—sat like stone statues, their faces masks of shock.
Ito's voice cracked as he read the final, damning lines. "'…the Chinese fleet appeared from the fog as if by sorcery. Two ironclad battleships of immense size, supported by a full squadron of cruisers. Their fire was immediate, accurate, and overwhelming. The transport fleet was annihilated in less than one hour.'" He took a shaky breath. "'The Kowshing attempted to surrender and was fired upon and sunk. An act of utter, primitive barbarism. Estimated losses exceed six thousand souls. Officers, soldiers, crewmen. All lost.'" He let the paper drop from his fingers. It fluttered to the table, a flimsy testament to a monumental disaster.
"He concludes," Ito whispered, his voice failing him, "'The invasion is a failure. We have suffered the greatest naval disaster in our nation's history.'"
For a long moment, no one spoke. The words hung in the room, an epitaph for their ambitions. Six thousand men, the core of their modern army, now lay at the bottom of the Yellow Sea. Their bold gambit had not just failed; it had been crushed, humiliated, erased.
It was Army Minister Yamagata Aritomo who broke the silence, his grief and shock transmuting into pure, unadulterated fury. He slammed his fist down on the table, the sharp crack making every man in the room jump.
"Barbarism!" he roared, his face contorted in a mask of rage. "The Chinese are savages! Animals! Firing on a surrendered ship! This is not war! This is piracy! This is a stain on the honor of all warriors, a crime that cries out to Heaven for vengeance!"
Foreign Minister Mutsu Munemitsu, whose triumphant smirk had been replaced by a venomous scowl, shot to his feet. "How?!" he screamed, his voice shrill. "How did their fleet know where to find ours? They were waiting for us at Pungdo! They knew our route, our speed! We have a traitor in this government! A Chinese spy in the cabinet! Or their intelligence services… they are far greater than we could have ever imagined!"
The Naval Minister, Saigo Tsugumichi, whose own ships had failed to protect the transports, looked defensive and angry. "Our cruisers were faster! They should have been able to protect them! What were our captains doing? Why were they so far ahead of the main body?" He was already trying to shift the blame, to find a scapegoat for the navy's failure.
Into this maelstrom of recrimination and rage, an aide entered, moving with the terrified caution of a man walking into a tiger's den. He carried a dispatch on a silver tray. It was the formal diplomatic protest from the Qing government, delivered just moments ago by the Chinese legation in Tokyo.
Ito picked up the document with a sense of profound dread. He began to read it aloud. The room, already simmering with rage, began to boil. He read QSH's masterfully crafted, condescending prose about the "tragic incident," the "illegal and clandestine" Japanese fleet, and the Qing's "reluctance" to use force. When he reached the part where the Chinese Emperor expressed his government's deep sorrow and "mourned the loss of life" caused by "Japan's reckless aggression," Mutsu let out an inhuman cry of fury.
"They dare?!" he shrieked, snatching the paper from Ito's hand. He tore it from the Prime Minister's grasp and crumpled it into a tight ball, his knuckles white. "They dare?! They ambush our fleet, they murder six thousand of our soldiers, they commit an act of savagery that would make a barbarian blush, and then they demand an apology from us?!" He threw the crumpled paper to the floor. "They call us the aggressors?! This is an insult of a magnitude I cannot begin to comprehend! It is as if a murderer sent a letter of condolence to his victim's family, blaming them for being in the way of his knife!"
Yamagata was on his feet now, his hand on the hilt of the ceremonial katana he still wore with his Western-style suit. "This cannot stand! We cannot allow this narrative, this grotesque lie, to take hold in the world! We must respond! This demands a response written in blood!"
Ito Hirobumi looked at the faces around him—the rage, the humiliation, the burning thirst for revenge. He saw now that his initial fears about walking into a trap had been dwarfed by the reality of the disaster. But he also saw the political truth of the moment. There was no turning back. Peace was impossible. To even consider the Qing's insulting demands would mean the immediate collapse of his government. He and every man in this room would be forced to commit seppuku to atone for the shame. Humiliation had not made them cautious; it had made them infinitely more dangerous.
His own weariness and dread hardened into a cold, grim resolve. He had led them into this disaster; he would have to lead them out of it.
"Gentlemen," Ito said, his voice now devoid of all emotion, as cold and hard as river stone. "Recriminations are useless. We were outmaneuvered. We were arrogant. We underestimated the enemy. That was a fatal mistake." He looked around the room, meeting the eyes of each minister. "We will not repeat it."
He stood up, placing his hands flat on the table. "There can be no talk of peace. There can be no negotiation. To accept their terms would be the end of this government and the end of Japan as a rising power. It would be a national suicide. We have only one path forward: we must avenge this defeat. We must grind their fleet to dust and their armies to powder. We must prove to them, and to the world, that the Battle of Pungdo was a fluke, a coward's lucky shot in the dark."
The fury in the room began to coalesce into a new, unified, and desperate purpose.
"Here is what we will do," Ito continued, his voice taking on the sharp tone of command. "All talk of a limited war is over. This is now a total war for the survival of our national honor. Minister Saigo, the full Combined Fleet will sail under the command of Admiral Ito Sukeyuki. Its sole purpose is to seek out and utterly destroy the Beiyang Fleet. No more transports, no more landings, until we have absolute, unquestionable control of the sea."
He then turned to Yamagata. "General, you will prepare the entire First Army for deployment. Fifty thousand men. Once the sea is ours, you will not land at Asan. That plan is dead. You will land directly on the Liaodong Peninsula. We will cut the head off the snake. We will strike at China itself."
Prime Minister Ito walked to the large map of Asia hanging on the wall. He stared at it, his face grim. The initial, arrogant plan for a quick, glorious victory was a smoldering ruin. In its place was a desperate, furious resolve for total war, born from the ashes of a national humiliation. Qin Shi Huang had wanted a war to test his new nation. Now, he had one.