In the Battle of Nanshan Our Troops Took Advantage of a Violent Thunderstorm and Charged the Enemy Fortress (Jinraifûu Nanzan no eki waga gun noshite tekirui o tosshin su)

This print commemorates the Battle of Nanshan in May 1904, when Japanese forces stormed Russian fortifications on Nanshan Hill near Dalian during the Russo-Japanese War. The title foregrounds the thunderstorm under which the attack was launched, giving Kiyochika license for one of the most atmospheric subjects available to a printmaker working in the kosen-ga tradition: lightning, rain, and battlefield smoke rendered through dramatic tonal contrasts. Figures of charging infantrymen would be silhouetted against a sky fractured by lightning, their movement energized by diagonal compositional lines. The dramatic weather functions simultaneously as naturalistic detail and as metaphorical framing — the storm as an extension of Japanese martial force. Block printing of night rain typically required careful registration of overlapping blue-black and grey tones to achieve depth without muddying the image.