Toshimichi Okubo (1830-1878) was one of the leaders of the Meiji restoration in Japan and perhaps the dominant figure in the new government in its early years. He played a key role in the consolidation of the government.

Toshimichi Okubo was born on Aug. 10, 1830, in Kagoshima, the castle town of Satsuma, a feudal domain in southern Kyushu. He was the eldest son of a lower-ranking samurai family. After attending the domain's academy, he began his career as a minor official. Because he strongly advocated a policy of internal reform and Westernization within Satsuma, he soon became a confidant of its lord, Nariakira Shimazu. As a central figure in the domain government during the early 1860s, Okubo advocated the moderate policy of union between court and shogunate, which stressed the need to share decisions on national policies between the two.

Beginning in 1865, at the time of the shogunate's expedition...