274, large numbers of
Manchus were raised for service in Japan, and placed under General
Hung. (Sani-chin may perhaps stand for the Chinese word Tsiang-chun,
or "general.") It appears that, toward the end of that year, fifteen
thousand men in nine hundred ships made a raid upon some point in
Japan; but, although "a victory" is claimed, no details whatever are
given beyond the facts that "our army showed a lack of order; the
arrows were exhausted; we achieved nothing beyond plundering." The
three islands raided were Tsushima, Iki, and one I cannot identify,
described in Chinese as I-man.

The Japanese annals confirm the attack upon Tsushima and Iki, adding
that the enemy slew all the males and carried off all the females in
the two islands, but were unsuccessful in their advance upon the Dazai
Fu. The enemy's general, Liu Fu-heng, was slain; the enemy numbered
thirty thousand. The slain officer was, perhaps, a relative of Liu
T'ung, who served again in China.

In the year 1275 two more envoys bearing Chinese names were sent with
letters to Japan, "but they also got no reply." The Japanese annals
confirm this, and add that "they came to discuss terms of peace, but
their envoy, Tu Shi-chung--whose name corresponds--was decapitated."
This is true, but he was not decapitated until 1280, and, as is well
known to competent students, Japanese history is always open to
suspicion when it conflicts with Chinese, and too often "touches up"
from Chinese.

In 1277 some merchants from Japan appeared in China with a quantity of
gold, which they desired to exchange for copper _cash_. The following
year the "coast authorities"--probably meaning at Ningpo and Wenchow,
where even now, as I found in 1884, immense quantities of old Japanese
copper cash are in daily use--were instructed to permit Japanese
trade. But preparations for war still went on, and the head-quarters
of the army were fixed at Liao-yang, where General Kuropatkin fixed
his more recently. Naval preparations were particularly active during
1279, and Corea was invited to make arrangements for boats to be built
in that country, where timber was so plentiful--evidently alluding to
the Russian "concessions" on the Yalu. Large numbers of ships were
also constructed in Central China. During this year a defeated Chinese
general in Mongol employ, named Fan Wen-hu, advised that the war
against Japan should be postponed "until the result of our mission,
accompanied by the Japanes