Tani Tateki
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Tani Tateki (谷 干城? 18 March 1837-13 May 1911) was a statesman and lieutenant general in the Imperial Japanese Army in Meiji period Japan. He was also known as Tani Kanjo.
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[edit] Early life
Tani was born in [Kochi]], Tosa Province (present-day Kochi Prefecture as the 4th son of a local samurai. He was sent to Edo in 1857, and became active in the sonno joi movement. In 1866, he was ordered by his domain to go to Nagasaki, where he met Goto Shojiro and Sakamoto Ryoma, who convinced him to meet with Saigo Takamori in Edo the following year, and to work for an alliance between Tosa and Satsuma.
[edit] Military career
Tani fought in the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa bakufu, leading imperial forces in the north Kanto, and Aizu-Wakamatsu campaigns.
After the Meiji restoration, Tani became a general in the Imperial Japanese Army, and helped suppress a number of samurai uprisings in Kyushu, including theSaga Rebellion and Jimpuren Rebellion, and withstanding a siege of 52 days in Kumamoto castle against Saigo Takamori in the Satsuma Rebellion. Tani also took part in the Taiwan Expedition of 1874.
Afterwards, he was head of the Imperial Japanese Army Academy before retiring from active service in 1881.
[edit] Meiji bureaucrat
Tani was one of the founders of the conservative political party, Chuseito, in 1881. He also became president of the Gakushuin Peers School in 1884.
In 1885, he joined the first Ito Hirobumi cabinet as the first Minister of Agriculture & Commerce, however, he soon resigned over dissatisfaction with what he perceived to be the weak and vacillating foreign policy of Inoue Kaoru, especially with regards to the revision of the unequal treaties.
In 1890, he was ennobled with the rank of shishaku (viscount) in the kazoku peerage system, and became a member of the House of Peers.
[edit] References
- Keane, Donald. Emperor Of Japan: Meiji And His World, 1852-1912. Columbia University Press (2005). ISBN: 0231123418
- Hillsborough, Romulus. Shinsengumi: The Shogun's Last Samurai Corps. Tuttle Publishing (2005). ISBN: 0804836272
