Japan: Saigo Takamori (1828-1877) with his officers, from the French news magazine 'Le Monde Illustre',...

Saigo Takamori (1828-1877) was one of the most influential samurai in history, and seen by many as the last true samurai. Saigo lived during the late Edo and early Meiji Period, and had been born as Saigo Kokichi, taking the given name Takamori when he became an adult. He also wrote poetry under the name Saigo Nanshu. Saigo was from the Satsuma Domain (modern Kagoshima Prefecture, and started life as a low-ranking rural samurai. Saigo slowly rose to power and influence, assuming command over Satsuma and its soldiers, and he was a vocal opponent of the negotiated solution that led to the Meiji Restoration, though he still held a key role in the Meiji government. His opposition to modernisation and commerce with the West, as well as his desire to go to war with Korea, eventually led him to retire from government and begin formulating the Satsuma Rebellion. Saigo began attracting disaffected samurai to his banner, and eventually rose up in revolt to the government trying to disarm them in 1877. Saigo led the rebels, a mixed force of 40,000 samurai, against the much larger Imperial Army, which numbered around 300,000. The Imperial Army was well equipped and militarily modernised, and the Satsuma Rebellion soon dwindled to barely 400 samurai warriors during their final stand at the Battle of Shiroyama. Saigo committed seppuku rather than surrender, and he would later be pardoned posthumously in 1889. With his death ended the reign of the samurai.