In those days Japan was still a closed nation, and in China Hung Hsiu-ch'uan had set up the Taiping Celestial Kingdom at Nanking. Japan had no diplomatic relations with the Ch'ing dynasty, but a group of scholars was sent to Shanghai to gather trade information, my grandfather among them.
那時日本正處於鎖國時代，中國則正當洪秀全佔領南京建立太平天國，雖然日本和滿清沒有邦交，但基於貿易考量，仍派遣一批儒學者到上海蒐集資料，我的祖父便是其中一人。