Diplomat and a scholar of Chinese classics. During the restoration period at the end of the Edo period, he devoted himself to national affairs as a feudal retainer of the Kumamoto domain. After the Meiji Restoration, he worked at the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In 1875, he accompanied MORI Arinori to Qing dynasty China, and in 1880 he became the consul in Tianjin, where he negotiated the jurisdiction over Ryukyu issue. In 1882, he became the Minister to Korea but was involved in the Gapsin Coup, and resigned after dealing with its aftermath. As a professor at the Imperial University of Tokyo, he lectured on Chinese classics, received the Imperial Academy Prize in 1914, and became a doctor of literature. His writings include “Sashi kaisen”.