Takashima Tomonosuke

Takashima Tomonosuke
Takashima Tomonosuke
高島鞆之助
	Minister of War of the ; Japanese Empire
	In office; May 17th, 1891 – 8 August 1892
Monarch	Meiji
Preceded by	Ōyama Iwao
Succeeded by	Ōyama Iwao
	In office; 20 September 1896 – 12 January 1898
Preceded by	Ōyama Iwao
Succeeded by	Katsura Tarō
Personal details
Born	December 18, 1844; Lieutenant General
Commands	IJA 4th Division
Battles/wars	Boshin War; Satsuma Rebellion

Viscount Takashima Tomonosuke (高島鞆之助, 18 December 1844 – 11 January 1916) was a

Meiji period Japan. Part of Sophia University in Tokyo

is located on the site of his house.

Born into a samurai family of Satsuma Domain (present day Kagoshima Prefecture, Takashima studied at the Han school Zōshikan. He fought in the Boshin War to overthrow the Tokugawa shogunate, and was a member of the personal guard of Emperor Meiji in 1869, and was named a chamberlain in 1871. With the creation of the Imperial Japanese Army in 1874, he was commissioned as a colonel and made commandant of the Kyododan (School for Non-commissioned Officers) in 1875.

In 1877, he was promoted to major general at the time of the

Imo incident in Korea. He was promoted to lieutenant general in 1883. In 1884, Takashima was ennobled with the title of viscount (shishaku) under the kazoku peerage system.^[1]

Takashima resumed command of the Osaka Garrison from 1885, and was appointed the first commander of the Osaka-based IJA 4th Division after the reorganization of the Imperial Japanese Army into Divisions, based on reforms initiated by the Prussian general Jakob Meckel in 1888.^[2]

Political career

In 1891, Takashima was named

Privy Council the following year. A strong supporter of the 1895 Japanese invasion of Taiwan, Takashima subsequently served as the first Vice Governor-General of Taiwan after the First Sino-Japanese War. In 1896, at the request of Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi he established the Colonial Administration Department

encourage Japanese investment and settlement in Taiwan.

From September 1896, Takashima resumed the post of Army Minister under the 2nd cabinet of Prime Minister Matsukata Masayoshi, holding that post until September 1898, when he retired from military service. He was appointed again to the Privy Council from 1899 to his death due to an Intracranial hemorrhage in 1916. His grave is at the Aoyama Cemetery in Tokyo.