Oguri Tadamasa: The Shogun's Last Engineer

Yokosuka, Gonda, and the sites behind the 2027 Taiga drama

小栗上野介忠順 · 1827–1868 · last checked 2026-10-25 Draft

When the Tokugawa shogunate collapsed in 1868, the new Meiji government executed one of its senior officials on a riverbank in the mountains of Gunma. There was no trial. He was 41.

The man was Oguri Tadamasa — also known as Oguri Kozukenosuke — and the dry dock he commissioned at Yokosuka outlived the government that killed him.

In January 2027, NHK will put him at the centre of its year-long Taiga drama, Gyakuzoku no Bakushin, with Matsuzaka Tori in the lead and Adachi Naoko writing. It is the first Taiga in years to tell the Bakumatsu period from the shogunate’s side rather than the victors’. For visitors, that means a set of sites that have been quiet for 150 years are about to get busy.

Here is what is actually there, and how to see it.

Part 1 — Yokosuka: what he built

Oguri’s argument was simple and, at the time, unpopular: Japan could not defend itself without the industrial base to build and repair its own ships. In the 1860s he pushed through the construction of the Yokosuka Ironworks, bringing in French expertise to do it. The engineering was led by François Léonce Verny.

The park on the Yokosuka waterfront is the one place where that partnership is made explicit.

Part 2 — Gonda: where it ended

After Edo surrendered, Oguri withdrew to Gonda, his family’s fief in what is now Kurabuchi, Takasaki City, Gunma. He was arrested there by the new government’s forces and executed shortly afterward.

Standing on the hill at Gonda is the part of the trip that gives the story its weight. You are where a man who had crossed the Pacific and built a shipyard was waiting for the end of his world.

Part 3 — The two-day route

The two halves of Oguri’s story sit on opposite sides of Tokyo, which makes a single loop awkward. The version that works:

Day 1 — Yokosuka. Verny Park and the Verny Memorial Museum in the morning. Return to Tokyo, then travel on to Takasaki in the afternoon.

Day 2 — Gunma. Pick up a car at Takasaki. Drive to Kurabuchi for Tozenji and the Gonda site. Then head north to Ikaho Onsen for the night.

Ending in an onsen is not a detour. Kurabuchi is an hour of mountain driving from anywhere useful, and Ikaho is the closest place where that drive ends in a hot spring rather than a station platform.

Check rooms in Ikaho for your dates

If you are staying near Yokosuka instead, the first night is better spent in Tokyo or Yokohama. Yokosuka itself is a short enough hop that a dedicated stay buys you little.

Part 4 — Fact and legend

Oguri attracts stories. Some are documented; some have grown in the retelling. It is worth knowing which is which before you stand in front of the grave.

Documented

• He served on the 1860 Japanese embassy to the United States, crossing the Pacific and travelling through America.
• He drove the Yokosuka Ironworks project, with Verny as chief engineer.
• He withdrew to Gonda, was arrested, and was executed in 1868 without trial.
• His grave is at Tozenji in Kurabuchi.

Often retold, and worth treating with care

• The much-quoted line that a later admiral thanked Oguri’s family after a naval victory, crediting the Yokosuka dock, is repeated constantly in Japanese popular history. Treat it as part of how he is remembered rather than as settled record.
• Descriptions of him as the father of Japan’s modernisation are a later verdict, not a contemporary one.

The drama will lean on the legend, because drama does. The sites are more interesting if you can tell the two apart.

Before you go

• Tozenji and the Gonda site: check current access and hours. This is a working temple in a rural district.
• The memorial hall: under construction with a December 2026 target. Opening details were not public at the time of writing.
• Kurabuchi: rent a car. Public transport exists but is sparse, and you will lose the day to timetables.
• Timing: the drama begins 10 January 2027. Expect the Gunma sites to be busier from that month, and expect local exhibitions and routes to appear around the broadcast.

Ikaho’s inns fill fastest on weekends and through the autumn colour season. If your dates are fixed, book the room before you fix the rest of the itinerary.

See availability in Ikaho Onsen