 However, the Imo mutiny had underscored the urgency of military expansion, as Japan's limited military and naval power was made apparent.In contrast to the Chinese who had quickly dispatched an expeditionary force to Seoul, where they quickly established order and controlled the situation with their military superiority over the rioters, the Japanese had been forced to pursue a reactive or passive policy.To many in the country, including Yamagata Aritomo, the lesson was clear — that a conscript army of forty thousand men was no longer adequate to Japan's needs and neither was a navy lacking transport ships to dispatch troops abroad