553 CANDIDATES FOR COMMISSIONS IN THE CHINESE ARMY PRACTISING ARCHERY AT PEKIN CHAPTER V THE BATTLE OF PING-YANG.

WAR having been declared,the Japanese Government began to ele.-patch large reinforcements to Korea, not merely Peonies," just outside the northern walls of the city.

Ping-yang stands on the right or west bank of the Tatung River, a wide and deep stream which makes a deep bend and almost incloses it on three sides. The shape of the walled city is a flattened oval,the oneof the longer sides lying along the river bank. At the north end tlae ground rises sharply to Mount Mok-tan, but all round the country is hilly. The Chinese did not rely for tlae defenceof the city on its ancient fortifications, which consisted of a high embattledwall, with numerousgates, each crowned by a pagoda-like ornamental structure ofpainted and gilded woodwork. They had erected a number of square earthwork forts on and around Mount Mok-tan, and on the lower ground between the wall and the river at the south end of the town. There was a bridge of boats across the river,and at the further end of this they had erected another group of forts,-with two advanced works to watch tlae high road to the south and to Seoul. Several Krupp with a viewtoholding Seoul against theChinese, but with the object of driving them out ot the country and carrying the war into Manchuria.

A Chinese force, the numbers of which were enormously exaggeratedby current report,had advanced from the Yalu River to Ping-yung, where it had been reinforced by troops sent across the sea from Taku, and by the detachment that Yeh had saved from the lost battle near Asan. Ping-yang, a walled city of about 20,000 inhabitants, was a place famous in the history of Korea. It had once been the capital of the country in the days before Seoul became the residence of the Court. When the Japanese invaded Korea at the end of the sixteenth century, the} had captured Ping-yang, but this had marked the furthest limit of their conquests. In 1592 they had been attacked and defeated by a mixed Chinese and Korean army on the hilly ground about Mount Mok-tan, "the Hill of