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

A companion to Gekko's other print of the same engagement, this sensō-e depicts Japanese forces in pursuit of retreating Qing troops following the fall of Jinzhoucheng (Kinshûjô) on the Liaodong Peninsula in November 1894. Jinzhou guarded the narrow neck of the peninsula north of Port Arthur; its capture opened the final approach to the heavily fortified naval base. Pursuit imagery occupied a distinct compositional register within sensō-e: rather than the ordered formations of assault prints, pursuit scenes show broken ground, scattered retreating figures, and Japanese soldiers in dynamic forward motion—subjects that communicated both enemy collapse and Japanese momentum. Gekko's rendering likely contrasts the disciplined Japanese advance with the disordered Qing withdrawal, using open landscape terrain—the flat agricultural land of the Liaodong Peninsula—as a backdrop that emphasizes the scale of the rout. Color printing conveys autumnal light conditions consistent with the November timeframe, distinguishing this sheet from the summer or spring palette of earlier campaign prints.