He was born in a Confucian scholar's family serving Tosa Domain and made excellent grades in a hanko (domain school), and he was interested in the internal and external tension circumstances at the end of the Edo Period, and learned Western studies in Nagasaki and then studied hard in the Navy Training Center in Edo.
土佐藩に仕える儒学者の家に生まれ、藩校でも優秀な成績を修めたが、幕末の緊張する内外の情勢に関心を持ち、長崎で蘭学を学び、続いて江戸の海軍操練所でも勉学に励んだ。