Keijirō Amenomiya

Amemiya Keijiro (Japanese 雨宮 敬次郎 Amemiya Keijiro:, October 24, 1846 – January 20, 1911) was a Japanese entrepreneur, financier, and investor. One of the leaders of the regional Koshu Zaibatsu, a group of Koshu merchants who banded together to engage in business. His nickname was "king of speculators" (Japanese: 投機界の魔王) and "the railroad king of the Meiji era" (Japanese: 明治の鉄道王).

Biography Amemiya Keijiro was born on October 24, 1846, in the village of Ushioku, Kai Province, into the family of a feudal lord.

Keijiro began his business with street trading, which proved profitable. Later he engaged in financial transactions, in particular currency exchange, silver and gold.

He moved to Yokohama in the early 1870s and tried to work in the market for raw silk, Western silver, and silkworms. From November 1876 to June 1877, he travelled abroad to the United States and Europe. After that, he decided to invest in the fields of social infrastructure, which were profitable in the western countries, such as railroads, iron manufacturing, and water supply. Amamiya conceived of the "Yamanashi Railway Plan", which would extend the Koumu Railway westward to connect Hachioji and Kofu, and was at odds with Ippei Wakao, who had conceived of the "Koshin Railway Plan".

In 1891, he became a director of the Kawagoe Railway (now Seibu Kokubunji Line). In the same year, he was awarded the first Medal of Honor, and in 1892, he founded Nippon Cast Iron Company and delivered iron pipes for water supply to the then city of Tokyo. However, in 1894, a problem of delayed delivery arose, and Keijiro was criminally prosecuted.

In 1893, he became a director of the Hokkaido Colliery and Railway Company and initiator of the Keikyu Corporation. in Sakuragaoka, Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture (now Umezonocho, Atami City). There is a monument to the place of his death in the present Atami Plum Garden.