It was seized in November 1897 by the German fleet, nominally to secure reparation for the murder of two German missionaries in the province of Shantung.
The Wei dynasty, to which Tsaou-tsaou belonged, reigned in northern China, and at this day a considerable manufacture of glass is carried on at Po-shan-hien in Shantung, which it would seem has existed for a long period.
At various times it has discharged its waters alternately on one side or the other of the great mass of mountains forming the promontory of Shantung, and by mouths as far apart from each other as 500 m.
Since 1887 there have been a series of smaller outbreaks, mostly at points lower down and in the neighbourhood of Chinanfu, the capital of Shantung.
When war broke out between China and Japan in 1894, he was appointed commander in-chief of the second Japanese army corps, which, landing on the Liaotung Peninsula, carried Port Arthur by storm, and, subsequently crossing to Shantung, captured the fortress of Wei-hai-wei.