Editing Samurai (section)

====Samurai as diplomatic ambassadors====
[[File:Hasekura in Rome.JPG|thumb|[[Hasekura Tsunenaga]] portrayed during his mission in Rome by [[Archita Ricci]], 1615]]

In 1582, three ''[[Kirishitan]]'' ''daimyō'', [[Ōtomo Sōrin]], [[Ōmura Sumitada]], and [[Arima Harunobu]], sent a group of boys, their own blood relatives and retainers, to Europe as [[Tenshō embassy|Japan's first diplomatic mission to Europe]]. They had audiences with King [[Philip II of Spain]], [[Pope Gregory XIII]], and [[Pope Sixtus V]]. The mission returned to Japan in 1590, but its members were forced to renounce, be exiled, or be executed, due to the Tokugawa shogunate's suppression of Christianity.

In 1612, [[Hasekura Tsunenaga]], a vassal of the ''daimyo'' [[Date Masamune]], led a diplomatic mission and had an audience with King [[Philip III of Spain]], presenting him with a letter requesting trade, and he also had an audience with [[Pope Paul V]] in Rome. He returned to Japan in 1620, but news of the Tokugawa shogunate's suppression of Christianity had already reached Europe, and trade did not take place due to the Tokugawa shogunate's policy of ''sakoku''. In the town of Coria del Rio in Spain, where the diplomatic mission stopped, there were 600 people with the surnames Japon or Xapon as of 2021, and they have passed on the folk tale that they are the descendants of the samurai who remained in the town.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20210316-81043/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231128162019/https://japannews.yomiuri.co.jp/society/general-news/20210316-81043/|title=Faithful legacy of the 'samurai ambassador'|publisher=|date=16 March 2021|archive-date=28 November 2023|access-date=15 February 2024}}</ref>

At the end of the Edo period ([[Bakumatsu era]]), when [[Matthew C. Perry]] came to Japan in 1853 and the ''sakoku'' policy was abolished, six diplomatic missions were sent to the United States and European countries for diplomatic negotiations. The most famous were the [[Japanese Embassy to the United States|US mission in 1860]] and the [[First Japanese Embassy to Europe (1862)|European missions in 1862]] and [[Second Japanese Embassy to Europe (1864)|1864]]. [[Fukuzawa Yukichi]], who participated in these missions, is most famous as a leading figure in the modernization of Japan, and his portrait was selected for the [[10,000 yen note]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/pickup/016/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230223100039/https://www.ndl.go.jp/portrait/pickup/016/|script-title=ja:世界を見たサムライ達|language=ja|publisher=[[National Diet Library]]|archive-date=23 February 2023|access-date=15 February 2024}}</ref>