Sino-Japanese War: Pursuing the Retreating Enemy at Jinzhoucheng (Nisshin sensô Kinshûjô tsuigeki no zu)

This sensō-e depicts Japanese forces in hot pursuit of Chinese troops withdrawing from Jinzhoucheng (Kinshûjô) following the fall of that fortified town on the Liaodong Peninsula, a key preliminary to the assault on Port Arthur in November 1894. The pursuit print was a recognized sub-genre within war imagery, emphasizing the completeness of a Japanese victory by showing the enemy in flight rather than in defensive formation. Gekko's composition likely extends over an open landscape, with Japanese cavalry or infantry pressing forward across flat terrain while scattered Qing soldiers retreat toward the horizon. The spatial organization would use orthogonal recession—roads, ditches, or rows of vegetation—to draw the eye toward the vanishing point, a technique Gekko employed throughout his war series to convey depth in outdoor scenes. This first of two versions on the same subject may represent the opening phase of the pursuit; its companion print would provide a variant viewpoint or later moment in the same action.