Maejima Hisoka is the person who started Japan's postal system during the Meiji Era. He is known as the “father of Japan's modern postal system” and is still famous today because his picture is on the one-yen stamp.

   During the Edo Period, letters were only carried by express messengers between major cities, and sometimes they did not reach their destination. But when Hisoka started working for the Meiji government, he worked hard to establish a postal system. In 1872, they set up a system that delivered letters to all parts of Japan for the same price.