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The Ganghwa Island incident occurred on 20 September 1875 when Japanese troops clashed with Korean troops on Ganghwa Island, the site of the previous Korean battle with America in 1871.

Relations between the Empire of Japan and Joseon had been poor since 1868, when the Joseon emperor Gojong refused to recognize Emperor Meiji's imperial regime in Japan due to his use of the same honorifics as the Emperor of Qing China, to whom Joseon owed its fealty. Over the next several years, the Koreans continued to refuse Japan's claims of equality with China. On 20 September 1875, when the Japanese gunboat Unyo, which had been surveying Korean coastal waters, landed troops at Ganghwa Island to request water and provisions, the Korean shore batteries fired on the Japanese, leading to a battle between the two forces. The Japanese troops torched several houses on Ganghwa Island and engaged the Korean troops, and their modern rifles outmatched the Koreans' matchlock muskets, resulting in heavier Korean casualties. New of the incident reached Japan on 28 September, resulting in the dispatch of gunboats to Busan to protect Japanese residents there. The Imperial Japanese Navy also blockaded Ganghwa Island and demanded an official apology from the Joseon government, resulting in the dispatch of a diplomatic mission which signed an "unequal treaty", the Treaty of Ganghwa, with Korea on 27 February 1876, opening Korea to Japanese and Western trade.

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