Ōmura Masujirō
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Ōmura Masujirō (大村 益次郎?), (30 May 1824 - 7 December 1869) was a Japanese military expert who is regarded as the creator of the Imperial Japanese Army.
Ōmura was from a village in Suo Province (present day Yamaguchi city, Yamaguchi Prefecture. From an early age, he was interested in rangaku, and especially in western medicine, and was sent by the Chōshū domain to study at the Tekijuku under Ogata Koan in Osaka, and later under Philipp Franz von Siebold in Nagasaki. He developed an interest in western military techniques from the 1850s.
In 1853, he was recruited by the Uwajima domain (present-day Ehime Prefecture) as a military instructor, and from 1857 taught at the Shogunal military academy, the Kobusho, in Edo.
In 1862, he was recalled to Chōshū to teach at the domain's military academy and to reform the domain's army. He developed a reputation as a brilliant tactician when he routed troops of the Tokugawa bakufu sent against Chōshū in 1866, and distinguished himself in the campaigns of the Boshin War to overthrow the Shogun.
After the Meiji Restoration, he became Vice Minister for Military Affairs; however, he created tremendous controversy over his proposals for universal conscription, which would effectively end the role of the samurai. In October 1869, he was attacked and severely wounded by a group of disgruntled ex-samurai in Kyoto. He died the following month of his injuries, but his proposals for the creation of a modern western-style army were carried through by his protégé, Yamagata Aritomo.
Ōmura is honored by a large bronze statue in the middle of the ceremonial approach to Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo.
[edit] Reference and further reading
- Akamatsu, Paul. Meiji 1868: Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Japan. Trans. Miriam Kochan. New York: Harper & Row, 1972.
- Beasley, W. G. The Meiji Restoration. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972.
- Beasley, W. G. The Rise of Modern Japan: Political, Economic and Social Change Since 1850. St. Martin's Press, New York 1995.
- Craig, Albert M. Chōshū in the Meiji Restoration. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961.
- Jansen, Marius B. and Gilbert Rozman, eds. Japan in Transition: From Tokugawa to Meiji. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986.
