François Léonce Verny, (2 December 1837 – 2 May 1908) was a French officer and naval engineer who directed the construction of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in Japan, as well as many related modern infrastructure projects from 1865 to 1876, thus helping jump-start Japan's modernization. Early life Léonce Verny was born in Aubenas, Ardèche. He studied at Lyon and then went on to the prestigious École Polytechnique in 1856. He entered the Institute for Applied Maritime Science at Cherbourg in 1858, where he became a Naval Engineer. He worked for the French state in the arsenals of Brest and Toulon. China mission Verny was sent to Ningbo and Shanghai in China from 1862 to 1864, to supervise the construction of four gunboats for the Chinese Navy, as well as a new shipyard. During that time, he was also French Vice-Consul in Ningbo. Career in Japan Japan had started a modernization effort in 1853 and the Tokugawa government decided to build a modern naval shipyard and arsenal in collaboration with the French government. Verny was persuaded to go to Japan by his distant relative, French ambassador Léon Roches in September 1865, who negotiated the substantial annual salary of $10,000. He stayed on after the Meiji Restoration overthrew the Tokugawa government, continuing to work for the new Meiji government for a total of 12 years, returning home to France on 13 March 1876. Yokosuka arsenal Verny was appointed chief administrator and constructor of the Yokosuka Naval Arsenal in 1865. Yokosuka was chosen because it was a well protected inlet, in close proximity to Yokohama and Tokyo. The same year, he briefly returned to France to purchase all necessary machinery and recruit French naval experts from Brest, Toulon, and Cherbourg (45 families in all) to help organize the construction of the arsenal. During the months in France, Verny also helped in the negotiations for the First French Military Mission to Japan, consisting of military advisors under Jules Brunet to help train and re-equip the Tokugawa army from 1867, and to assist it in the Boshin War against the Satchō Alliance. In Yokosuka, Verny trained 65 Japanese technicians and hired 2500 workers. The construction of the shipyard itself was only the central point of a major infrastructure development project, which encompassed foundries, brick kilns, gunpowder and weapons factories, an aqueduct and hydraulic power facilities, modern buildings and technical schools to train Japanese technicians were