Sino-Japanese War: Japanese Military Might Captures Pyongyang (Nisshin sensô, Nissei Heijô shôhô zu)

A panel from Gekko's coverage of the Battle of Pyongyang, fought on September 15–16, 1894, in which combined Japanese army columns converged on the Korean capital and routed the Qing garrison after intense street fighting and artillery exchanges. This sheet—one of at least three versions Gekko produced of this engagement—likely forms part of a triptych or sequential series, with each panel depicting a distinct phase of the assault: the approach, the breach of the city walls, or the pursuit of retreating Chinese troops. Sensō-e triptychs were the dominant format for representing large-scale battles, allowing publishers to sell sheets individually or as sets. Gekko's figures would be rendered with the energetic brushwork characteristic of his martial subjects, with massed infantry, regimental banners, and distant fortifications establishing scale. The title cartouche reads Nisshin sensō, Nissei Heijō shōhō zu, situating the sheet firmly within the commercial war-print genre that dominated Tokyo publishing houses from August 1894 onward.