After the bombardment, Tokyo Bay was left littered with wreckage. Japanese civilians busied themselves clearing the ruins, and the scene was especially miserable.
As the saying went: "Revenge should not be left overnight." With the defeat at the Battle of Malacca, the Japanese Navy had lost control of the seas, and the Spanish Navy immediately came charging in.
Intercepting merchant ships and shelling ports had now become part of the Spanish Navy's daily routine. It was as if they felt ill all over if they did not come stir up trouble for a day.
Perhaps driven by hatred, or perhaps seeking to settle the Philippines' security problem once and for all, the Spaniards performed especially conspicuously in the war against Japan.
Against this backdrop, the Japanese naturally suffered a bloody run of misfortune. The Japanese public, already gripped by anxiety, now fell into panic.
The Holy Roman Empire's reckoning, which they had expected, had not arrived—but the Spaniards' revenge came first.
If they could still save themselves in dealings with the Holy Roman Empire by invoking "striking at Russia," then there was simply nothing to discuss between the Tokyo Government and the Spaniards.
One was at the easternmost edge, the other at the westernmost edge, with a whole chain of countries between them. Whether the Russian Empire was doing well or badly had not the slightest thing to do with Spain.
Not only did their spheres of influence not border one another, they rarely even had conflicts of interest in international trade.
Emperor Meiji had been having an especially difficult time lately. How to shake off Spain's entanglement had become the Japanese Government's greatest immediate problem.
Saionji Kinmochi said, "Over the past half month, we have successively lost more than a hundred vessels, large and small. Now even fishing boats