Kunitake Watanabe
Viscount Watanabe Kunitake was a Japanese politician, cabinet minister and deputy Prime Minister, who lived in the Meiji and Taish periods. Noted primarily for his role as finance minister, he was also the younger brother of Count Watanabe Chiaki.
Watanabe was born in 1846. in the hamlet of Tobori in Shinano Province, now part of Okaya, Nagano Prefecture, where his father was a samurai in the service of Takashima Domain. He lost his parents while still a small child and was raised by his grandparents and elder brother. After attending the domainal academy to study military arts, he was sent to Edo to enroll in the academy run by Sakuma Shzan. However, after Sakumas assassination, he stayed at the domains Edo residence, where he studied the French language. In 1868, he was sent to Kyoto as part of the retinue of his daimyo, Suwa Tadaaya, who had been assigned guard duties at Kyoto Palace, and it was at this time that he first met kubo Toshimichi, whom he refused entrance to the Palace on the grounds that his pass was not in order.
Source: Wikipedia