Takashima Shūhan

was a Japanese samurai, ballistics expert, and military engineer in Bakumatsu period Japan. He is significant in having started to import flintlock guns from the Netherlands at the end of Japan's period of Seclusion, during the Late Tokugawa Shogunate. Throughout his life Takashima Shūhan was one of the early Japanese reformists who argued for the modernization of Japan in order to better resist the West. His experience was close to that of Sakuma Shōzan, who was also attacked for adopting Western ideas.

Shogunate official Demonstration of Western firearms by Takashima Shūhan in 1841. In 1840, Takashima was made a toshiyori, or Senior Administrator, for the city of Nagasaki. From 1840, following the outbreak of the Opium War in China, Takashima appealed to the Shogunate to reinforce Japan's military capabilities. The war in China had made clear that traditional ways were not sufficient to keep the Westerners at bay, and that radical modernization, especially that of artillery, was needed to be able to resist.

Takashima Shūhan established two companies of infantry equipped with guns, as well as one artillery battery, making him Japan's first modern student of Western arms. but on allegations of mismanagement of the Nagasaki Kaisho and smuggling, rather than sedition or treason. Takasaki had a very strong enmity with the Nagasaki bugyō, who had always been jealous that the position was very lucrative, comparable to that of a 100,000 koku daimyō, and this was exploited by the rōjū Mizuno Tadakuni, who was concerned that Takashima's plans to manufacture bronze cannon would hinder the production of coinage which was under his purvey. Takashima was sent to Oshi Domain in Musashi Province, but returned to official favor with the arrival of the Perry Expedition in 1853,

He died in 1866 at the age of 69. His grave is at the temple of Daien-ji in Bunkyō, Tokyo, and was designated a National Historic Site in 1943.

Takashima Shūhan residence The site of the house where Takashima Shūhan lived in Nagasaki is preserved as a National Historic Site. The main residence of the Takashima family was built in Ōmura-chō (present-day Banzai-chō) by Shuho's father, Takashima Shirobei Shigenori, but it was completely burned down in a fire in 1838, and the family subsequently lived in a villa in the current location of Higashikojima-chō. The two-story wooden villa was built in 1806 and was called "Useirō" (雨声楼). Shūhan spent 1838 to 1842 at this villa, until at the age of 60 when he was appointed as the gunnery instructor in Edo. The villa still existed when the site was designated as a historic site in 1922, but was destroyed in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. After the war, the site was sold and the garden lost its original state, with only the stone and earthen walls, well, and stone lanterns remaining today. The site is about a 3-minute walk from the Shokakuji stop on the Nagasaki Electric Tramway from Nagasaki Station.