Battle of Heijo (Pyongyang)

Battle of Heijo, the Japanese reading of Pyongyang, refers to the September 1894 engagement that gave the Japanese army control of the Korean capital region during the First Sino-Japanese War. Migita Toshihide produced multiple senso-e responding to the Pyongyang campaign, and this sheet, held in the Art of Japan collection and reproduced on [ukiyo-e](/glossary/ukiyo-e).org, belongs to that run. As a Yoshitoshi student, Toshihide had been trained to organise multi-figure action across a single horizontal field, and Meiji prints of the Pyongyang battle gave him the chance to deploy that training at scale. The composition typically places Japanese forces advancing from one side, Qing defenders falling back along the other, and a contested middle ground anchored by a flag or a commander. Toshihide's drawing of military equipment, modern Japanese uniforms, Qing banner-army costume, the carbines and sabres of the period, is consistent with the documentary tone publishers wanted to project: the senso-e was meant to look like reliable visual news. Pyongyang prints of this kind were produced in significant numbers because the capture of the city was the first decisive land victory of the war, and any successful designer working in Tokyo through autumn 1894 contributed to the genre. Within Toshihide's career, this sheet sits among his strongest Sino-Japanese War subjects.