Yamagata Aritomo

Yamagata Aritomo (1838-1922) was a late-Tokugawa-era activist from Chōshū Domain and a genrō (elder statesman) of the Meiji period. He was one of the most powerful figures in modern Japan and served twice as Prime Minister. As a disciple who studied under Yoshida Shōin at Shōka Sonjuku, he took part in the overthrow of the shogunate and the Restoration. After the Meiji period began, he laid the foundations of the Japanese Army and, backed by the Chōshū clique, dominated Meiji politics for a long time.

Yamagata was born into the family of a lower-ranking samurai in Chōshū Domain, and at Shōka Sonjuku he received intellectual inspiration from Yoshida Shōin. He joined the Kiheitai, which Takasugi Shinsaku had founded, and in the Shikyō War (Second Chōshū Expedition) he demonstrated military talent. In the Boshin War he fought in various places as an important commander of the new government forces.

After the Meiji Restoration, Yamagata took a central role in the Army Ministry. Carrying on the aspirations of Ōmura Masujirō, he promoted the development of Japan's modern military system. In 1873 he promulgated the Conscription Ordinance, establishing the principle of universal military service that was not limited to the samurai class. This fundamentally changed the very meaning of the samurai, whose privileged status was bound up with the Japanese sword.

Politically, as the leader of the Chōshū clique (army faction), he led politics of the Meiji and Taishō periods together with Itō Hirobumi. He served as Prime Minister on two occasions, in 1889 and 1898, and devoted himself especially to establishing and maintaining the independence of the military, the supreme command (tōsuiken). His influence was enormous throughout the Meiji and Taishō periods. Until his later years, he moved politics from behind the scenes as a genrō (elder statesman).

In relation to Japanese swords, Yamagata devoted himself in his youth to gekiken and sōjutsu, and was known within the domain as a skilled practitioner of Hōzōin-ryū sōjutsu (spearmanship). On the other hand, as the father of the modern army, he also brought an end to the military role of swords. The conscription system and military reforms he led replaced swords with bayonets and rifles as the standard equipment of Japanese soldiers. Yet Yamagata also had a cultured, literary side, and he loved waka poetry and gardens. He left behind celebrated gardens, typified by the Murin-an garden in Kyoto. Even after giving up swords, he spent his later years as a successor to Japanese aesthetic sensibility and spiritual culture, making him a rare figure.