Brave Harada Jukichi Opens Gembu Gate at Pyongyang

Brave Harada Jukichi Opens Gembu Gate at Pyongyang by Mizuno Toshikata is a senso-e print from the Sino-Japanese War, preserved through ukiyo-e.org's aggregation of the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria collection (image reference dscn1402). Harada Jukichi was an Imperial Japanese Army private who became one of the most celebrated heroes of the war for his role at the Battle of Pyongyang in September 1894; according to widely reported accounts, he scaled the walls of the city's Gembu gate (Hyonmu-mun) and helped open it for advancing Japanese forces. The episode was repeated so often in newspapers, school readers, and prints that Harada became a household name. Toshikata, a Yoshitoshi student trained in biographical narrative, produced multiple senso-e prints during the war, and his Harada designs are among the most reproduced examples of the genre. The composition draws directly on Yoshitoshi's earlier model of giving valor a single named face, while adapting it to the visual demands of modern combat — including the fortification, the rifle, and the uniform of the conscript Imperial Army. Among Meiji prints of the 1890s, senso-e were the genre with the largest commercial reach, and a print like Brave Harada Jukichi at Pyongyang would have circulated widely in homes, shops, and inns. The ukiyo-e.org record does not provide a precise date or publisher, but the subject anchors the print firmly in the autumn 1894 to spring 1895 publishing run that defined the senso-e boom.