Yamagata Aritomo

was a Field Marshal in the Imperial Japanese Army. He was twice Prime Minister of Japan. Yamagata was the founder of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Career.
Yamagata was born June 14, 1838, in Hagi. Hagi was the capital of the feudal domain of Chōshū (present-day Yamaguchi prefecture). He was schooled by his father. Yamagata studied Japanese and Chinese literature. He learned the martial arts of "Jujutsu". Yamagata also learned the military use of the spear and how to fence.
He went to "Shokasonjuku", a private school run by Yoshida Shōin. There, he helped overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. He was a commander in the "Kiheitai". This was a semi-military organization created along semi-western lines by the Chōshū domain. He was a staff officer in the Boshin War (1867 to 1868).
After the Tokugawa were overthrown, Yamagata and Saigō Tsugumichi traveled abroad in 1869. They were sent to research the military systems of western countries. Yamagata was impressed with the Prussian military. After a year Yamagata returned and reported directly to Emperor Meiji in Tokyo. He was made "Assistant Vice Minister of Military Affairs". He used the military theories of Carl von Clausewitz and Prussian war games to change Japan's army. He became War Minister in 1873. He modernized the Imperial Japanese Army and made it like the Prussian army. He started military conscription in 1873.
Personal life.
Yamagata had no children. He adopted a nephew to be his heir. The nephew was Yamagata Isaburō, the second son of his oldest sister. Then, Isaburō became a career bureaucrat, cabinet minister, and head of the civilian administration of Korea. In his later life he enjoyed landscape architecture, poetry and the rituals of the tea ceremony. Yamagata died on February 1, 1922.