, formally "Ikeda Chikugo no kami Nagaoki", was the governor of small villages of

Ibara is a Cities of Japan, city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. The city was founded on March 30, 1953. , the city has an estimated population of 41,460 and a population density of 170 people per km². The total area is . Mergers On March ...

Bitchū Province was a province of Japan on the Inland Sea side of western Honshū, in what is today western Okayama Prefecture. It was sometimes called , with Bizen and Bingo Provinces; those three provinces were settled in the late 7th Century, dividing fo ...

(

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,906,464 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefectur ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, during the end of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate (, Japanese 徳川幕府 ''Tokugawa bakufu''), also known as the , was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005)"''Tokugawa-jidai''"in ''Japan Encyclopedia ...

. He was, at 27, the head of the Second Japanese Embassy to Europe (Japanese:第２回遣欧使節), also called the Ikeda Mission, sent in 1863-1864 by the

to negotiate the cancellation of the open-port status of

Yokohama is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of To ...

. The mission was sent following the 1863 "

Order to expel barbarians The was an edict issued by the Japanese Emperor Kōmei in 1863 against the Westernization of Japan following the opening of the country by Commodore Perry in 1854. The order The edict was based on widespread anti-foreign and legitimist sentim ...

" (攘夷実行の勅命) issued by

Emperor Kōmei was the 121st Emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession.Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')孝明天皇 (121)/ref> Kōmei's reign spanned the years from 1846 through 1867, corresponding to the final years of the ...

, and the

Bombardment of Shimonoseki The refers to a series of military engagements in 1863 and 1864, fought to control the Shimonoseki Straits of Japan by joint naval forces from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States, against the Japanese feudal domain of ...

incidents, in a wish to close again the country to Western influence, and return to

sakoku was the Isolationism, isolationist Foreign policy of Japan, foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, for a period of 265 years during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countri ...

status. Nagaoki left with a mission of 36 men on a French warship, stopped in

Shanghai Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flow ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

through the

Suez canal The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...

. His mission visited the

pyramids A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...

, a feat which

Antonio Beato Antonio Beato (1835–1906), also known as Antoine Beato, was an Italian-British photographer. He is noted for his genre works, portraits, views of the architecture and landscapes of Egypt and other locations in the Mediterranean region. He wa ...

photographed at the time. He finally arrived in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

and then

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, where he met with

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was the first President of France (as Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) from 1848 to 1852 and the last monarch of France as Emperor of the French from 1852 to 1870. A nephew ...

and with

Philipp Franz von Siebold Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveler. He achieved prominence by his studies of Japanese flora (plants), flora and fauna (animals), fauna and the introduction of ...

. He stayed at the

Grand Hotel A grand hotel is a large and luxurious hotel, especially one housed in a building with traditional architectural style. It began to flourish in the 1800s in Europe and North America. Grand Hotel may refer to: Hotels Africa * Grande Hotel Beir ...

in Paris. The request to close Japanese harbours to Westerners was doomed as Yokohama was the key springboard for Western activity in Japan. The mission was a total failure. Nagaoki however was very impressed with the advancement of French civilization, and became very active in promoting the dispatch of embassies and students abroad, once he had returned to Japan. He was finally put under house arrest by the Bakufu. Nagaoki brought many documents from France, related especially to physics, biology, manufacture, textiles and also fermentation technologies. He is considered as one of the fathers of the wine industry in Japan.

The Last Samurai ''The Last Samurai'' is a 2003 epic period action drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz from a story devised by Logan. The film stars Ken Watanabe in the ...

star

Shin Koyamada is a Japanese Americans, Japanese-American actor, producer, entrepreneur, martial artist, and philanthropist. He is best known for his starring roles in ''The Last Samurai'' and the Disney's movie ''Wendy Wu: Homecoming Warrior'' on Disney+. He ...

, who's also from Okayama Prefecture same as Nagaoki, made his full feature documentary called Wine Road of the Samurai (2006), which was nationally broadcast by

Japan News Network The , or JNN, is a Japanese commercial television network run by TBS Television. The network's responsibility includes the syndication of national television news bulletins to its regional affiliates, and news exchange between the stations. Its ...

in Japan. Koyamada followed his footsteps traveling to France and Egypt where Nakagoki and 36 Samurai traveled to.

External links

The samurai who dreamed of a wine-producing Japan
* https://web.archive.org/web/20090525090114/http://www.tk-ryoma.com/cgi/mt/archives/2007/10/post_230.html {{DEFAULTSORT:Ikeda, Nagaoki 1837 births 1879 deaths Samurai Members of the Second Japanese Embassy to Europe People from Okayama Prefecture

See also

External links