, formally "Ikeda Chikugo no kami Nagaoki", was the governor of small villages of Ibara, Bitchū Province (

Okayama Prefecture is a Prefectures of Japan, prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,826,059 (1 February 2025) and has a geographic area of 7,114 Square kilometre, km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture ...

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, during the end of the

Tokugawa shogunate The Tokugawa shogunate, also known as the was the military government of Japan during the Edo period from 1603 to 1868. The Tokugawa shogunate was established by Tokugawa Ieyasu after victory at the Battle of Sekigahara, ending the civil wars ...

. 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 List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

. 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 Matthew Perry in 1854. The order The edict was based on widespread anti-foreign and legitimist ...

" (攘夷実行の勅命) issued by

Emperor Kōmei Osahito (22 July 1831 – 30 January 1867), posthumously honored as Emperor Kōmei, was the 121st emperor of Japan, according to the List of Emperors of Japan, traditional order of succession.Imperial Household Agency (''Kunaichō'')孝明天皇 ...

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

sakoku is the most common name for the isolationist foreign policy of the Japanese Tokugawa shogunate under which, during the Edo period (from 1603 to 1868), relations and trade between Japan and other countries were severely limited, and almost all ...

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

Shanghai Shanghai, Shanghainese: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: is a direct-administered municipality and the most populous urban area in China. The city is located on the Chinese shoreline on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the ...

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

, and

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

through the

Suez Canal The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest ...

. His mission visited the

pyramids A pyramid () is a Nonbuilding structure, structure whose visible surfaces are triangular in broad outline and converge toward the top, making the appearance roughly a Pyramid (geometry), pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid ca ...

, a feat which Antonio Beato photographed at the time. He finally arrived in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

and then

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, where he met with

Napoleon III Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...

and with

Philipp Franz von Siebold Philipp Franz Balthasar von Siebold (17 February 1796 – 18 October 1866) was a German physician, botanist and traveller. 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 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.

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 Ibara, Okayama

See also

External links