20th Century
The Yasuda focus on banking was narrowed by the merger of eleven Yasuda-controlled banks into the Yasuda Bank in 1913. The post-merger bank was by far the largest of all the zaibatsu banks.
Yasuda Zenjirō was assassinated in 1921 when he refused to make a financial donation to an ultra-nationalist. Zenjirō's son, Zennosuke Yasuda, assumed leadership of the zaibatsu. By 1928, the Yasuda zaibatsu was ranked behind only the Mitsui and Mitsubishi groups in total capital. In that year, the Yasuda zaibatsu encompassed 66 companies and reported total capital of ¥308 million.
During World War II, the Japanese government began forcing consolidation of major financial institutions. In January, 1942, Hajime Yasuda, the head of the conglomerate, announced that all Yasuda family members would withdraw from related and subsidiary companies, assuming new leadership positions as board members over all zaibatsu concerns.
Read more about this topic: Yasuda Zaibatsu
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“I conceive that the leading characteristic of the nineteenth century has been the rapid growth of the scientific spirit, the consequent application of scientific methods of investigation to all the problems with which the human mind is occupied, and the correlative rejection of traditional beliefs which have proved their incompetence to bear such investigation.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)