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Help translation old paybook

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alvaro

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Hi all.

I have bought this paybook 2 months ago, and I have been translating it, but I have not been able to understand the first 2 rows.
This soldier fought in the russo-japanese war. 第三師団.

The next entries in the register are as follows:

July 9 battle in the vicinity of Kaiping 蓋辛.
July 23-25 Battle in the vicinity of Tashihchiao 大石橋.
August 1-3 Battle in the vicinity of Haicheng 海城.
August 26-27 Battle in the vicinity of 鞍山站：Anshan Railway Station
August 30-31 Battle in the vicinity of 首山堡、Shoushan Hill
September 2-3 battle in the vicinity of 遼陽 Liaoyang.

Then, he sailed from Dalian to Ujinamachi.

Could somebody help me with this paybook?.



I would be very grateful.
Thanks in advance.
 
Its full of names of Chinese locations that are a bit hard to decipher. It starts on Meiji 37 (1904), with him departing from a port (I can't read) and landing at another city (?) on May 22nd. Then the next line (in red) is another narration of the journey, again with names I can't read (can only read "May 26th, landed near XXXX. June 14th, battle near XXXX").
 
Thank you very much Majestic.

I don't know if you can identify any of the kanji of the places. If so, it would be a great help.

Thank you again.
 
Hello again Magestic.
Thanks to your data, I have been able to read the first port:
宇品 Ujinamachi.

Very dificult to read.
If you can identify any of the kanji of the places, They would be welcome.


This is progressing. The next place: Landed in 清国 (Qing) 盛京Liaoming (省.....)

Thank you.
 
Last edited:
Yes - those are correct. Departing the port of Ujina (宇品港) and entering Qing, in Shenjing-sheng (清国盛京省) known today as Lioaning sheng 遼寧省 (or 辽宁省 in simplified Chinese). I can't pick out where they landed...?免斉？

Absolutely no clue as to the next two places. Were they headed towards Beijing?
 
Last edited:
Hello.

Yes, you were right 蓋平 Kaiping.

On the other hand, I think it could be 清国(盛京省)狙免斉. I think this place would be next to Pitzuwo.
And I think that the battle on 26th is part of the battle of Chinchou, and the battle on 14th is part of the battle of Te-li-ssu, as the dates match.
 
Is it possible to show us the kanji name of those places? The former one looks like 缶州, and the latter would be 小？家？.

The next sentence is

June 21, battle near 北部？手(or 平)廟,

and the next one to "September 2-3 battle near 遼陽 Liaoyang" is

September 3, 負傷、野戦病院ニ入院 injured, entered a field hospital.
 
Thank you Toritoribe.

I had read that he went into hospital, but I hadn't identified the reason.

On the other hand, as wikipedia says: Battle of Te-li-ssu 得利寺の戦い, and battle of Nanshan 南山の戦い Chinchou (Jinzhou 金州)
 
Those names (Telissu = 得利寺, and Nanshan 南山) don't appear in his diary.
The battle he was involved with on the 10th (could be 9th) happened a few days before Telissu, and his writing here is completely illegible to me. It must be some place located between Jinzhou (金州) and Telissu, which should narrow it down considerably, but I'm at a loss. Then, directly after that he is involved in a battle at a place which is similarly illegible (maybe includes 平廟 or 平廓?). Again, the location must be close to Telissu, but I can't find it.

I made a map to help sort out these names. He was clearly headed to Liaoyang.
 

Attachments

  • 3rd Army progress.webp
    81.2 KB · Views: 194
Hello.

They are probably names of small localities near Telissu and Nanshan, which are difficult to locate.

You have done a very good job of showing the path the soldier took.

On the other hand, may I ask one last question?.
I realised I made a mistake thinking he was returning to Ujina. It is another place which is repited twice.
The first kanji I think it is 宇, but the second one I am unable to identify, could you?.



Thank you very much.

Kind regards.
 
Ujina is correct, but the timing is wrong. He got injured during the battle of Liaoyang on the 2-3 of September 1904. He was transported to a hospital (location illegible). He then left China (illegible which port he left from) on September 19th.

From there it jumps ahead a year to 1905 (this is the "38" in the diary, which means Meiji 38). He once again leaves the port of Ujina, Japan, on September 11th, 1905. He arrives in Dairen on the 15th. He appears to be assisting with the resupply or preplenishing of troops in the area. On the 28th, he finishes his work and returns to the port at Dairen, where he again boards a ship and heads back to Ujina, arriving finally back at Ujina on October 2nd, 1905.
 
Thank you very much Magestic.

It was strange to me to see Ujina twice and I thought it was incorrect.
In all the paybooks I have Ujina or another port in Japan is the final destination.

I was a bit lost with the chronology of events.
Thank you very much for the clarification.



Note: The port is underlined in the picture:

 
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Yes, the battle on 26th is at 金州 Kinshū/Chinchou, not 缶州 which I wrote in my previous post.

There is no 得利寺 in his dairy, as Majestic-san wrote.

After he arrived at 大連 Dairen/Dalian on September 15th, he moved and arrived at 鉄嶺 Tetsurei/Tieling on 19th, and then he did his jobs Majestic-san wrote there. The jobs completed on 21st. He left Tieling on 26th, and arrived at Dalian on 28th.


alvaro said:
Note: The port is underlined in the picture:
Click to expand...
Right, 柳樹屯 is the name of the port he left on September 19th, 1904.


EDIT:
I found in your map that the location of the battle on June 14th was 李家屯, which I wrote 小？家？in my previous post.
 
Last edited:
Great - I added the new cities just for completeness.
Toritoribe-san what is the kanji he typically uses after 戦? I can't figure it out.
 

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  • 3rd Army progress.webp
    81.8 KB · Views: 177
Note, the actual English spellings of the Chinese cities names is likely somewhat different from I wrote. There are different systems for transliterating Chinese names into English, and I didn't aim for consistency here - just used whatever google gave me as the most likely choice. And, the names of the cities may have changed over time. Also, the Japanese may have used different names for the cities, and they most likely used different English spellings too. Anyway, a researcher should be able to make sense of it all by looking at the kanji.
 
Thank you very much for all your effort.

At th beginning of the XX century, they usually wrote:
戰闘ニ参興

Later, as Toritoribe says, they used a simplificate form:
戰斗ニ参加
 
The word you mentioned must be 参與, not 参興. 與 is the traditional form of 与, and 参与（する） means "to participate in~". Thus, it's a different word from 参加（する）. The meanings are similar, though.
 
Thank you Toritoribe for the clarification. A small mistake on my part.
 
Alvaro - how did you discover/buy this pay book (or diary). It was a very interesting look into the events of 1904.
 
Hello Majestic.

I used to buy them on ebay, but lately I buy them on yahoo auctions.
2 weeks ago I bought an older one. Very difficult to translate for me. The writing is quite complicated, but I have seen that it refers to the boxer rebellion and the russo-japanese war.

 
Yes, you can see 明治三十三年六月二十九日清国事変 in the picture "thumbnail3", and the officer's names in the Russo-Japanese War like 第二師団長西島中将 or 後備歩兵第五旅団長栗飯原少将 in "thumbnail2". They are 西島助義 Nishijima Sukeyoshi and 粟飯原常世 Aihara Tsuneyo, respectively.

西島助義 - Wikipedia

ja.wikipedia.org

粟飯原常世 - Wikipedia

ja.wikipedia.org
(all in Japanese)
 
Thank you very much.
Don't worry about the translation of the information about the officials. The online translators work very well.
 
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