It is not customary to associate Japan with the Crimean War yet there is a very real connection. When the Russo-Turkish conflict expanded into a general European struggle it made out of the North Pacific and the seas around Japan a new arena of friction. Until March of 1854 the fighting had been confined to the Black Sea and the Near East, but with the entrance of Great Britain and France into the war on the side of Turkey the Asiatic colonies and commercial settlements of Russia were brought within the scope of hostilities. Europe, however, continued to remain the major sphere of battle, which fact tended to eclipse the significance of events that were taking place in and around Japan. Historical treatment of the period of the Crimean War has naturally dealt with these more important phases, ignoring almost entirely the Far East.

In the latter half of the first century A.D. a Chinese scholar picked up his brush and began to compile historical records. A political indiscretion prematurely terminated his labors, but he gave twenty years of his life to the task. The result of his work is one of a group of compilations that constitute part of the world's most remarkable historical literature. The scholar was Pan Ku (32–92 A.D.), and the work that consumed much of his life is known as the Han shu, i.e., Han documents, or Documents of the [former] Han dynasty.

Early on the morning of September 1 we set out from Chih-fang for Wu-ch'ang. Breakfast need not be mentioned. We were unable to purchase even any scraps that might fill our mouths and bellies. We had not been travelling long when we noticed a temple on a high piece of land among the fields. We then left the main road and walked in the direction of the temple, thinking to seek a little food there. [Li] Han-chün was with us too; Chan Ta-pei had gone on ahead by himself in the sedan-chair. I do not remember the name of the temple. When we arrived there, we found that it was only a ruined one; there was not the shadow of even a beggar.