NHK Educational TV's program "The Power of Our Ancestors: The Fountain of Wisdom" (Tuesdays at 10pm) will be teaching us the wisdom of our ancestors. On July 29th, they will be focusing on Shimazu Shigehide, who is played by Tanaka Kotaro in the NHK's taiga drama "UNBOUND (Berabou)".
The subtitle of the program that day was "I love foreign countries! The secret to making the Satsuma domain a first-class domain." Shimazu Shigehide's greatness was his drive. On his long journey between Kagoshima and Edo on alternate attendance days, he always made a detour.
He interacted with monks at the Obaku sect temple in Uji, Kyoto, the center of Chinese language research, became friendly with the head of the Dutch trading post in Nagasaki, and even met with Siebold, his great-grandson Nariakira, and others three times when he came to Edo. In order to study Japanese medicinal herbs, he also made full use of a secret technique during the period of national isolation, by having a doctor in Beijing appraise them through the Ryukyu king.
What were the true intentions of Shimazu Shigehide, nicknamed the “Dank-loving Daimyo”?
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