Yamagata Aritomo

Meiji period postcard of Yamagata Aritomo

Yamagata Aritomo (山県 有朋; April 22,1838â€"February 1,1922) was a Japanese military leader and politician, and the fourth (December 24, 1889â€"May 6, 1891) and 11th (1898â€"1900) Prime Minister of Japan. He was the first Prime Minister after the opening of the Imperial Diet. He had led the newly modernized Imperial Army against a rebellion led by Saigo Takamori in 1877 and then became one of the central figures in the Japanese army until the 1920s, but also an influential politician. He also was a talented garden designer and today the gardens he designed are known masterpieces of Japanese style gardens, such as the garden of the villa Murin-an in Kyoto.

Yamagata was born in a lower-classed samurai Family of Hagi, the capital of the feudal domain Choshu-han. He went to Shokasonjuku, a private school run by Yoshida Shoin and studied Chinese thought. In 1863 he did a good job as a commander of Kihei-tai, a troop newly organized by Choshu-han. During the Boshin War he was appointed a staff officer.

In 1869 he went to Europe together with Saigo Tsugumichi under the governmental order to research military system of European Forces. After his return to Japan in 1870, Yamagata energetically modernized the Japanese army, which he modeled after the Prussian army. The Japanese army began subsequently began a draft that same year. In 1873 he was appointed Army Minister and continued to develop the Army. He and his follower Katsura Taro pushed through the foundation of the General Staff Office, which became the main source of Yamagata's political power and that of other military officers. He had the emperor Meiji write the Imperial Rescript to soldiers and sailors as well. This document was considered the moral core of the Japanese Army until its end in 1945.

In 1883 he was appointed to the Lord Chancellor, the highest bureaucrat position in the system before the Meiji Constitution. He suppressed the Free Democratic Movement, requesting for participation to politics by people, and ordered the formation of the local administrative system, which would consist of city, county and prefectural systems.

Under the Meiji constitution he was appointed to the Prime Minister twice in 1889 and 1898. In 1891 he received the honor of Genro, or official elder statesman. He showed his leadership on military issues during the First Sino-Japanese War as the Supreme Commander of the First Army and Russo-Japanese War as the Chief Officer of the General Staff Office in Tokyo.　After the death of Ito Hirobumi in 1910 he became the most influential politican in Japan and remained so until his death in 1922, although he retired from active politics after the Russo-Japanese War. He retained, however, honorary titles like that of the Elder Statesman as well as the Presidency of the Privy Council.

In the anime Rurouni Kenshin, Aritomo Yamagata briefly enters the story to invite Himura Kenshin to join the army, as Kenshin's combat skills are legendary. Kenshin declines the offer.

In 1906 He was appointed to the Order of Merit by King Edward VII.