Sino-Japanese War: The Occupation of the Port Arthur Battery (Nisshin sensô, Ryojunkô hôdai nottori no zu)

This sensō-e records the Japanese capture of the coastal artillery batteries at Port Arthur (Ryojunkô) in November 1894, an assault that gave Japan control of the peninsula's principal deep-water harbor and the Qing Navy's main northern base. The battery emplacements—modern fortifications equipped with large-caliber guns—had been constructed with Western engineering assistance, and their fall to Japanese infantry in a single day shocked European military observers. Gekko's composition likely depicts the moment of Japanese soldiers scaling the earthworks or manning the captured guns, with the harbor visible in the background and the smoke of the engagement still present in the middle ground. This print shares its subject with the companion sheet in Gekko's series (slugged with an 'n' suffix) but renders the same event through a distinct viewpoint or compositional approach, reflecting the standard practice of issuing multiple treatments of major victories. The print belongs to the broader graphic documentation of a campaign that Gekko covered more comprehensively than almost any other artist of the period.