On the morning of 27-28 July 1894, the two forces met just outside Asan in an engagement that lasted till 7:30am, the next morning. The battle began with a diversionary attack by Japanese troops, followed by the main attack which quickly outflanked the Chinese defences. The Chinese troops, witnessing that they were being outflanked, left their defensive positions and fled towards the direction of Asan. The Chinese gradually lost ground to the superior Japanese numbers, and finally broke and fled towards Pyongyang abandoning arms, ammunition and all its artillery. The Japanese took the city og Asan on July 29, breaking the Chinese encirclement of Seoul. The Chinese suffered 500 killed and wounded while the Japanese suffered 88 casualties. On 1 August, war was officially declared between China and Japan. The rationale given by the rulers of both nations might best be assessed by the comparison of the declarations issued from each; the language and tone being markedly different. In the case of Japan:   Issued in the name of the Meiji Emperor, the tenor of the Japanese declaration of war appears to have had at least one eye fixed on the wider international community; using phrases such as 'Family of Nations', the 'Law of Nations' and making additional references to international treaties. This was in sharp contrast to the Chinese approach to foreign relations, (historically noted for refusing to treat with other nations on a diplomatic footing, and instead insistent on such foreign powers paying tribute to the Chinese Emperor as vassals - "see Tributary system of China"). In keeping with the traditional Chinese approach to its neighbours, the Guangxu Emperor thus proclaimed:   In the latter declaration of the Chinese Emperor, the palpable disdain for the Japanese can be surmised from the repeated use of the term "Wojen", (which translates to the intentionally-offensive term " 'dwarf' "). This use of the pejorative to describe a foreign nation was not unusual for Chinese official documents of the time; so much so, that a major bone of contention between Imperial China and the Treaty Powers of the day had previously been the habitual use of the Chinese character 夷, ('Yi'...which literally meant 'barbarian'), to refer to those termed otherwise as 'Foreign Devils', (typically, those powers occupying the Treaty Ports). The use of the term 'Yi' (夷) by Chinese Imperial officials had in fact been considered so provocative by the Treaty Powers, that the collective bundle of accords known as the Treaty of Tientsin, (negotiated in 1858 to end the Second Opium War), explicitly proscribed the Chinese Imperial Court from using the term 'Yi' - to refer to officials, subjects, or citizens of the four belligerent powers, (namely, the Russian Empire, France, Great Britain and the United States of America); the signatories seemingly feeling it necessary to extract this specific demand from the Xianfeng Emperor's representatives.