Scene from the 1939–1940 Winter Offensive in the Vicinity of Baotou, Suiyuan Province, during the Second Sino-Japanese War

From a distance, this composition appears as an expansive winter landscape. Close viewing reveals Japanese military troops and a convoy of camels traversing the snowy ground as well as several warplanes providing cover from the air. Various specific locales are identified through place names inscribed with Chinese-style characters. The setting is in and around the city of Baotou in the historical Suiyuan Province of Republican China, now part of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China. The subject is the 1939–1940 Winter Offensive in China during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945).

Above the lower right corner of the right-hand screen, the artist inscribed the name of the place where he made the painting as well as his signature (Bisen). An impression in bright red of a tall rectangular artist’s seal with the legend also reads Bisen. At the upper left of the left-hand screen, the artist inscribed a five-character couplet in two columns, followed by another signature (Bisen) with a square artist’s seal and the four-character legend (“Sōtō Gabi”) carved in relief.