Japanese woodblock print book set which was banned at the time by the Shogun. It reports about the Opium Wars between Great Britain and China, by Sadahide.

The volumes include two double-page manuscript maps, one depicting shipping routes from Europe to Asia and the Americas; another of Asia with China, Choson (Korea), Taiwan, etc. There are also two superb double-page highly detailed sketches of fully fitted British Man-of-War ships; sketches of soldiers with weapons, a British Admiral, scenes of naval and land battles between the British Empire and the failing Qing Dynasty, a rare double page woodblock of black and white British sailors pillaging the Chinese and taking advantage of their women, a scene of the Treaty of Nanking between Great Britain and China, etc.  

With the Japanese becoming increasingly mindful of the demoralization of China by the Western powers, books like this were often banned or confiscated by the Tokugawa Shogunate. England, Russia, America, and other naval powers were all competing to open Japan for trade and it was felt that if the Japanese public knew what had happened in China there would be widespread panic. Just 10 years after this book set was published, Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in Japan in his Black Ships to force a treaty after nearly three centuries of isolation.