First Division Approaching Fengtian (Daiichigun Hôten-fu shingeki no zu), Meiji period, dated 1894

The central or remaining panel of the triptych depicting the First Division's advance toward Fengtian in 1894. This sheet, the second of three recorded impressions of this composition, was produced during the First Sino-Japanese War when Gekko contributed prolifically to the sensō-e genre alongside artists such as Kobayashi Kiyochika and Mizuno Toshikata. The central panel of such triptychs typically concentrates the most dramatic episode — a command scene, a charge across contested ground, or officers on horseback surveying the advance. The print employs the nishiki-e polychrome woodblock process on washi paper, with colors chosen to convey the season and the grey northern light of the Manchurian plain.