People・Kagoshima

Okubo ToshimichiŌkubo Toshimichi

A childhood friend of Saigo Takamori from the same Kajiya-cho neighborhood, Okubo became one of the leading figures of the Restoration and drove state-led industrialization as Japan's first Home Minister. He forced Saigo's political defeat in the 1873 debate over invading Korea and was himself assassinated in Tokyo in 1878, the year after the Satsuma Rebellion.

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