Liaodong Peninsula

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The Liaodong Peninsula (sim. ch. 辽东半岛) is a peninsula in the Liaoning province of northeastern China, historically known in the west as southern east-Manchuria. Liaodong (formerly Liaotung) means "East of the Liao". The Liao River was a river during the Warring States that divided the Yan commandries of Liaoxi (Simplified Chinese: 辽西)(west of the Liao) and Liaodong.

[edit] Geography

The peninsula is situated at the north of the Yellow Sea, between the Bohai Sea to the west and the Korea Bay to the east.

It forms the southern part of a mountain belt that continues northward in the Changbai Mountains. The part of the mountain range on the peninsula is known as the Qian Mountains.

The two seaports, Dalian (Dairen in Japanese) which lies midway along the peninsula at its narrowest point and Port Arthur/Lushun (now a consolidation of several municipalities known as Lüshun City), which is located at its southernmost point. Lüshun City is the governmental district seat of the southernmost 'Dalian districts' (county-level government), known as Lüshunkou ('Lüshun Port', literally), organized under the sub-provincial city of Dalian. Lushun/Port Arthur has a large lake-like naturally-protected harbor and semi-sheltered outer roadstead making it very attractive to imperialist powers at the end of the nineteenth century. Dalny/Dairen/Dalian's harbor required greater investment, initially supplied by the Russians, but turned into a first class city under the Japanese period of administration (1905 — 1945) The two ports are about 25 miles apart by rail, but about 40 nautical miles apart by sea. Lüshun is 550 rail miles south of the Manchurian railroad hub city of Harbin on the historic Southern Manchurian Railway (today's CER, which construction was one of the underlying casus belli of the Russo-Japanese War.

[edit] History

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The peninsula was an important battlefield during the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), which the Japanese won handily, inflicting a crippling loss on the Chinese Empire from which it never recovered, as the worlds imperialist powers, then extracted one unequal concession after another, circling like jackals. The peninsula was ceded to Japan by the Treaty of Shimonoseki of April 17, 1895 but Japan was forced to give it up ('recede' it to China) after the Triple Intervention of April 23, 1895 by Russia, France and Germany. This caused huge resentment among the Japanese people and government — and eventually led to the Russo-Japanese War (1904 — 1905) when bi-polar negotiations over various rights on the peninsula, Manchuria, and Korea broke down, due to Russia's unwillingness to treat seriously with Japan as another power. Both sides were preparing for war as 1903 progressed, but the Japanese had anticipated a war with some one of the imperialist western powers eventually starting immediately after the Triple Intervention, and had a war plan ready contingent upon negotions failing, having scant success from the time the talks began in 1902; The Russians were sending forces and materials to Manchuria, but had not put together a comprehensive war plan, feeling that Japan would never attack, and that they had six months or so to get one together. The Russians were probably over confident due to the recent completion of the single tracked Trans-Siberian Railway and Manchurian Railways allowing men and materials to flow reasonably freely down its 5,500 mile length.

Both sides declared war somewhat after the actual start of hostilities in the Battle of Port Arthur at the tip of the Liaodong. Port Arthur and the Liaodong north to Marduk were central to the entirety of the war, as they had been during the First Sino-Japanese conflict. The war had many 'firsts' and military lessons: the largest opposing field armies, theretofore, naval actions between the most (modern) equally matched naval forces, the most decisive naval victory since Trafalgar, extensive machine gun and rapid fire artillery duels.

As a consequence of the Treaty of Portsmouth (September 5, 1905), which ended the Russo-Japanese War, both sides agreed to evacuate Manchuria and return its sovereignty to China, but Japan was given the lease for the Liaotung/Liaodong which had been coherced by the Russian government from the much weakened Qing dynasty then ruling China.