Ōmura Masujirō

Omura Masujirō (Japanese大村 益 次郎; * May 30, 1824; † December 7, 1869 ) was a Japanese military leader and military expert, who is regarded as the founder of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Omura came from a village in the province of Suo (today the city of Yamaguchi in Yamaguchi Prefecture ). Early on he became interested in Western studies ( Rangaku ), and especially for the western medicine. He was sent by the fief Chōshū to study at the Tekijuku in Osaka under Ogata Koan, later Philipp Franz von Siebold, Nagasaki.

In 1853 he was hired by the feudal Uwajima ( today Ehime Prefecture) as Militärinstrukteur, from 1857 he taught at the Military Academy of the shogunate, the Kōbusho in Edo.

In 1862 he was again recalled to Chōshū to teach at the local military academy and to reform their army. He gained a reputation as a brilliant tactician when he struck the troops of Tokugawa Shogunate, which had been sent in 1866 against Chōshū to flight. He distinguished himself further out in the campaigns of the Boshin War against the Shogun.

After the Meiji Restoration, he was Deputy Minister of Military Affairs. As such, he caused with a proposal of a general conscription controversy because it would have the end of the prior Samurai result.

In October 1869, he was attacked in Kyoto by a group of disgruntled ex- samurai and seriously injured. He died the following month of his injuries. His proposals for the creation of a modern Western-style army were, however, continued by his protege, Yamagata Aritomo.

Omura is a large bronze statue of the first in Japan to Western-style honored in the middle of Zeremonialweges to the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo.