page_title: Enomoto Takeaki
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Enomoto Takeaki / Biography / Early life
caption_attribution_description: 日本語: 榎本武揚。1864年オランダのハーグにて
context_page_description: Viscount Enomoto Takeaki was a Japanese samurai and admiral of the Tokugawa navy of Bakumatsu-period Japan, who remained faithful to the Tokugawa shogunate and fought against the new Meiji government until the end of the Boshin War. He later served in the Meiji government as one of the founders of the Imperial Japanese Navy.
context_section_description: Enomoto was born as a member of a samurai family in the direct service of the Tokugawa clan in the Shitaya district of Edo (modern Taitō, Tokyo). Enomoto started learning Dutch in the 1850s, and after Japan's forced "opening" by Commodore Matthew Perry in 1854, he studied at the Tokugawa shogunate's Naval Training Center in Nagasaki and at the Tsukiji Warship Training Center in Edo.
  At the age of 26, Enomoto was sent to the Netherlands to study western techniques in naval warfare and to procure western technologies. He stayed in Europe from 1862 to 1867, and became fluent in both the Dutch and English languages.
  Enomoto returned to Japan on board the Kaiyō Maru, a steam warship purchased from the Netherlands by the Shogunal government. During his stay in Europe, Enomoto had realized that the telegraph would be an important means of communication in the future, and started planning a system to connect Edo and Yokohama. Upon his return, Enomoto was promoted to Kaigun Fukusōsai (海軍副総裁), the second highest rank in the Tokugawa Navy, at the age of 31. He also received the court title of Izumi-no-kami (和泉守).
caption: Enomoto Takeaki, aged 19.
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