Shiki Reports from China and Falls Ill on His Return

Masaoka Shiki was already a newspaper writer when he went to China for Nippon in April 1895. The war was approaching its treaty settlement. His assignment took him to Jinzhou on Liaodong; it was not attendance at every major battle of the preceding campaign.

The journey required traveling equipment as well as an arrangement with the newspaper. Shiki carried a bag and a bamboo cane containing a sword, received from the former Matsuyama ruling family. Both survive as objects associated with his service. They connect the literary assignment to the practical preparation for travel into a military setting.

On the voyage back in May, Shiki suffered severe hemoptysis, or coughing of blood, and received treatment in Kobe. Tuberculosis had been diagnosed years before the trip. The hemorrhage therefore marked a serious worsening of an existing illness, rather than proving that the war first caused his disease.

In August he returned to Matsuyama and stayed with Natsume Sōseki for fifty-two days. Their house became a setting for haiku activity while Shiki convalesced. The trip interrupted a developing career in print, and illness increasingly restricted his movement. It did not end his writing: criticism and poetry continued after the overseas assignment had become impossible to repeat.