Nomura Yasushi

Viscount Nomura Yasushi (野村靖, September 10, 1842 – January 24, 1909) was a bureaucrat, statesman and cabinet minister, active in Meiji period Empire of Japan.
Nomura was born as the second son of a low-ranked Ashigaru samurai in Hagi, Chōshū Domain, (currently Yamaguchi Prefecture). As a youth, he studied at Yoshida Shōin’s Shokansonjuku academy, where he joined the Sonnō jōi movement against the Tokugawa shogunate and the increasing foreign presence in Japan. He participated in the unsuccessful assassination attempt against the rōjū Manabe Akikatsu and in the burning of the British legation in Edo in 1862. He fought as a member of the Chōshū armies against the Tokugawa during the Second Chōshū expedition.
After the Meiji restoration, he went to Tokyo and entered into service of the new Meiji government, and was selected as a member of the 1871 Iwakura Mission, visiting the United States, Great Britain and other European countries. After his...