Kodama Gentaro (1852–1906) was a Japanese army general and statesman who became the fourth Governor-General of Taiwan in 1898. Before him, the early years of Japanese rule had been mired in difficulty by continual armed resistance and huge fiscal deficits, to the point that some even proposed selling Taiwan. Kodama's most crucial step on taking office was to recruit the physician Goto Shinpei as head of civil affairs, granting him real power and full trust; together they formed the famous 'Kodama–Goto system' that laid the foundation of Japanese colonial rule and modernization in Taiwan. Governing on what Goto called 'biological principles,' they first carried out large-scale surveys of land, population and old customs and then pushed institutional reform on that basis: they established the baojia system to strengthen public order, reorganized the monopolies on opium, camphor and salt to enrich revenues, and developed sanitation, railways, harbours and urban construction, turning Taiwan's long-deficit finances into self-sufficiency. Though authoritarian in method and merciless in suppressing resistance, this system did set colonial governance on a stable course. Because Kodama concurrently held high posts at home for years and took part in the Russo-Japanese War as chief of staff of the Manchurian Army, the practical administration of Taiwan was largely entrusted to Goto. He left the post of Governor-General in 1906 and died that same year. The framework of rule and construction he established profoundly shaped Taiwan for the following decades.

• 1898 Became the fourth Governor-General of Taiwan

• 1898 Recruited Goto Shinpei to drive modernization