Akiyama Yoshifuru

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Akiyama as a general

Akiyama Yoshifuru ( Japanese 秋山 好 古 ; * February 9, 1859 in Matsuyama ; † November 4, 1930 ibid) was a general in the Imperial Japanese Army and was considered the founder of the modernized Japanese cavalry after the Meiji Restoration . He was the older brother of the Japanese Vice Admiral Akiyama Saneyuki .

Early life

Akiyama Yoshifuru at a young age

Akiyama was born the third son of an impoverished samurai family in Matsuyama in what is now Ehime Prefecture. Due to the lack of money in his family, he was forced to work as a stoker and porter in a public bathhouse as a child for only a small wage.

At the age of 18, he enrolled in 1877 at the Rikugun Shikan Gakkō , the Imperial Japanese Army Academy. He then attended the Army College and was sent to France as a military attaché to learn modern cavalry tactics. This is a peculiarity in that the Japanese army was mainly oriented towards the army of the German Empire in its modernization efforts at that time .

Akiyama was very pale for a Japanese and had relatively large eyes, which is why his European teachers like Jacob Meckel often mistook him for a European exchange student at the Army Academy . He also gained a reputation as a womanizer while in France, despite not finding himself attractive. He was considered impartial and bon vivant who spent a large part of his wages on sake . He often drank it on duty, which established his reputation as a heavy drinker.

Military career

From July 1901 to October of the same year, Akiyama served as Lieutenant General in command of the China Garrison Army in Tianjin . His first military service was in the First Sino-Japanese War as commander of the cavalry troops of the 1st Division . During the Boxer Rebellion , he returned to China with the 5th Division . In the Russo-Japanese War he led the cavalry detachments of the same division in the Battle of the Shaho , the Battle of Sandepu and the Battle of Mukden .

In 1913 he was given command of the 13th Division and after his promotion to general in 1916, Akiyama took over the command of the Imperial Guard . After only one year, however, he was sent to the Japanese-occupied Korea to take command of the local Chosen Army . In 1920 he was finally appointed inspector general of military training , which he remained until his retirement in 1923.

After his retirement he went back to his hometown Matsuyama, where he became the director of the Hokuyo Middle School ( 北 予 中 学校 , Hokuyo chūgakkō ), today's Matsuyama Kita High School in Ehime Prefecture. He died in 1930 and was buried in Matsuyama.

Akiyama is one of the protagonists of the popular novel Saka no Ue no Kumo by the author Shiba Ryōtarō . The novel was filmed as a television series from 2009 to 2011 and was broadcast in 13 episodes by the Japanese broadcaster NHK .

literature

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