Excerpt from The Far East and the New America, Vol. 4: A Picturesque and Historic Account of These Lands and Peoples Japanese arms exposed the weakness of an empire that sprawled over a large part of Asia. Taking advantage of its inability to resist, foreign nations demanded conces sions which were granted to prevent still greater misfortunes. But the rapacity of European governments knew no bounds. In retaliation for the murder of two German missionaries, Germany seized Kiao Chou and imposed other demands, - exacting an indemnity far dispr0portionate to the seriousness of the crime committed. Russia. Which had forced Japan to relinquish the Liao Tung peninsula, occupied Talien Wan and Port Arthur. To preserve the balance of power in the north of China, Great Britain acquired \vei - hai-wei. France took possession of Kwang - chow Bay, and Great Britain added the Kowloon promontory to Hong-kong. Spheres of influence were outlined and the chancellories of Europe frankly described the territories their gov ernments should seize in case of partition. Railroad and mining concessions were demanded as matters of right. The coastwise trade, which had been historically carried by native junks, was largely transferred to foreign steamers. Spoliation seemed to be the fate of China. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.