Matsukata Masayoshi

Prince was a Japanese politician who was Prime Minister of Japan from 1891 to 1892 and 1896 to 1898. Early life Matsukata Masayoshi was born on 25 February 1835, in Arata, Kagoshima, Satsuma Province (present-day Shimoarata, Kagoshima, Kagoshima Prefecture), the fourth son of Matsukata Masayasu and his wife Kesaku. His family was of the samurai warrior nobility class. Both his parents died when he was 13 years old. At the age of 13, he entered the Zoshikan, the Satsuma domain's Confucian academy, where he studied the teachings of Wang Yangming, which stressed loyalty to the Emperor. He started his career as a bureaucrat of the Satsuma Domain. In 1866, he was sent to Nagasaki to study western science, mathematics and surveying. Matsukata was highly regarded by Ōkubo Toshimichi and Saigō Takamori, who used him as their liaison between Kyoto and the domain government in Kagoshima. Knowing that war was coming between Satsuma and the Tokugawa, Matsukata purchased a ship available in Nagasaki for use in the coming conflict. This ship was then given the name Kasuga. The leaders of Satsuma felt the ship was best used as cargo vessel and so Matsukata resigned his position as captain of the ship he had purchased. Just a few months later the Kasuga did become a warship and it fought in the Boshin War against the Tokugawa ships. At the time of the Meiji Restoration, he helped maintain order in Nagasaki after the collapse of the Tokugawa bakufu. In 1868, Matsukata was appointed governor of Hita Prefecture (part of present-day Ōita Prefecture) by his friend Okubo who was the powerful minister of the interior for the new Meiji government.