Yamagata Aritomo

Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922) was a Bakumatsu patriot and Meiji-era elder statesman from the Chōshū domain, who served twice as Prime Minister and was one of the supreme powers in modern Japan. As a disciple who studied at Yoshida Shōin's Shōka Sonjuku, he participated in the anti-shogunate movement and Restoration, and after the Meiji era laid the foundations of the Japanese Army, dominating Meiji politics for a long period through the backing of the Chōshū clique.

Yamagata was born into the family of a lower-ranking samurai of the Chōshū domain, received intellectual guidance from Yoshida Shōin at Shōka Sonjuku, and participated in the Kiheitai (irregular militia) created by Takasugi Shinsaku, displaying military talent in the Four Borders War (Second Chōshū Expedition). During the Boshin War, he fought in various locations as an important commander of the new government forces.

After the Meiji Restoration, Yamagata took the helm of the Army Ministry and promoted the development of modern Japan's military system, carrying forward the aspirations of Ōmura Masujirō. In 1873, he promulgated the Conscription Ordinance, establishing the principle of universal military service not limited to the samurai class—a change that fundamentally altered the raison d'être of the samurai, who had held a privileged status through the sword.

Politically, as the leader of the Chōshū clique (army clique), he led Meiji and Taishō politics alongside Itō Hirobumi. He served as Prime Minister twice, in 1889 and 1898, devoting particular effort to establishing and maintaining the independence of the military (the supreme command). His influence was enormous throughout the Meiji and Taishō eras, and he moved politics from the shadows as a "genrō" (elder statesman) until late in his life.

In the realm of Japanese swords, Yamagata was a Bakumatsu patriot who mastered the sword, yet also the figure who ended the military role of the blade as the father of the modern army. The conscription system and military reforms he led made rifles and bayonets the standard equipment of Japanese soldiers in place of swords. However, Yamagata also had a literary side—he loved Japanese poetry and garden design, leaving famous gardens such as Murinan in Kyoto. He is a rare figure who, even after relinquishing the sword, spent his later years as an inheritor of Japan's aesthetic sensibility and spiritual culture.