Kodama Gentarō
Kodama Gentarō was born in Japan on March 16th, 1852 and is the Japanese General. At the age of 54, Kodama Gentarō biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.
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Kodama began his military career by fighting in the Boshin War for the Meiji Restoration against the forces of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. He was appointed a non-commissioned officer on 2 June 1870, advanced to sergeant major on 10 December, and promoted to warrant officer on 15 April 1871. He was commissioned a second lieutenant on 6 August and promoted to lieutenant on 21 September. He was promoted to captain on 25 July 1872 and to major on 19 October 1874.
As a soldier in the fledgling Imperial Japanese Army, he saw combat during the suppression of the Satsuma Rebellion. He later enrolled in the Osaka Heigakuryo (大阪兵学寮) Military Training School). Successive and rapid promotions followed: lieutenant-colonel on 30 April 1880, colonel on 6 February 1883, and major-general on 24 August 1889.
Kodama was appointed head of the Army Staff College, where he worked with German Major Jakob Meckel to reorganize the modern Japanese military after the Prussian military.
Kodama went on to study military science as a military attaché to Germany. After his return to Japan, he was appointed Vice-minister of War in 1892.
After his service in the Sino-Japanese War (1894–1i95), Kodama became Governor-General of Taiwan. During his tenure, he did much to improve on the infrastructure of Taiwan and to alleviate the living conditions of the inhabitants. He was promoted to lieutenant general on 14 October 1896. Having proved himself an excellent administrator, Kodama spent the following decade serving as Minister of the Army under Prime Minister Itō Hirobumi. Kodama retained the post and took on the concurrent roles of Minister of Home Affairs and Education under the following prime minister, Katsura Tarō.
On 6 June 1904, Kodama was promoted to full general. However, he was asked by Marshal Ōyama Iwao to be Chief of General Staff of the Manchurian Army during the Russo-Japanese War. That was a demotion for him in terms of rank, but he nevertheless chose to take the position; the sacrifice elicited much public applause. Throughout the Russo-Japanese War, he guided the strategy of the whole campaign, as General Kawakami Sōroku had done in the First Sino-Japanese War ten years earlier. The postwar historian Shiba Ryōtarō gives him complete credit for Japan's victory at the Siege of Port Arthur, but there is no historical evidence for that, and Kodama kept quiet about his role in the battle. After the war, he was named Chief of the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff but died soon afterwards.
Kodama was raised in rapid succession to the ranks of danshaku (baron) and shishaku (viscount) under the kazoku peerage system, and his death in 1906 of a cerebral hemorrhage was regarded as a national calamity.
