Great Battle for the Occupation of the 203-meter Hill (Dai gekisen nihyakusan kôchi senryô)

Hill 203 (Nibyakusan-kochi) overlooking Port Arthur was the site of one of the most costly engagements of the Russo-Japanese War, where Japanese forces under General Nogi Maresuke suffered catastrophic casualties in repeated frontal assaults from August through December 1904. Kiyochika's print depicts the battle's climactic phases, likely showing infantry advancing under artillery fire across the barren hillside. His war prints from this period use dense figural compositions with explosions, smoke, and massed troops, departing from the atmospheric restraint of his earlier Tokyo views in favor of kinetic combat narrative. The subject was among the most extensively documented of the entire war by Japanese printmakers, with Kiyochika's version distinguished by his particular treatment of light and smoke.