At the close of this regrettable civil war General Oyama was sent to Europe specially to study the working of the military systems then in operation, and he visited the principal capitals and made himself master in every instance of the needful details. He spent much time in Berlin during this later visit to Europe, for the German system had been definitely adopted in Japan as the most suitable to the needs of the nation. But he did not wholly dissociate himself from his former friends in France, and in the course of his stay took opportunity more than once to pass a day or two in Paris, combining pleasure with profit, for he continued to find in the methods of the French most valuable features, admirable from every point of view, but especially so when applied under given circumstances to the peculiar needs of the Japanese army. It was designed that the studies to which he had to devote himself in Berlin should be of a character to enable him to render Marquis Yamagata the maximum of assistance in the grand work of reorganising the army and providing adequately for military education. When, therefore, his mission in Europe was deemed sufficiently accomplished he was recalled to Tokio and made Chief of the Staff under General Yamagata, and when in 1890 Marquis Yamagata was the Minister-president of State in the First Cabinet formed after the proclamation of the New Constitution, Marshal Oyama, as he had by that time become, held the portfolio of Minister for War. That administration lasted until April 1901, and was followed by the Matsukata and Ito Cabinets, in both of which Oyama Iwao was War Minister, and when in 1894 the great conflict with China began, he begged to be relieved of his post in the administration with all speed in order that he might be able to take part in the actual fighting in Manchuria. He was given the command of the Second Army Corps, Marshal Yamagata being at the time with the First Army in Liao-tung, and while the preparations for despatching the Second Army over-sea to the capture of Port Arthur were in progress, the Commander of it dwelt at the town of Hiroshima, in south-west Japan, close to the port of embarkation, named Ujina. While organising the expedition he took up his quarters in a very unpretending little shop in Hiroshima, and there the final arrangement of the campaign was planned in company with the late General Kawakami, by common consent esteemed the greatest of Japan’s strategists.