Chapter 15 Chapter 14 Wei Yuan and "Pictures of Sea Country"

The gunfire of the Opium War awakened the ancient sleeping lion in the East, and opened the prelude to China's unprecedented changes in the past thousand years since the Shang Dynasty.Some advanced intellectuals finally opened their eyes and discovered a more powerful world beyond the Celestial Dynasty.Wei Yuan is one of the famous ones, known as the first person in modern China to open his eyes to see the world. Wei Yuan, styled Mo Shen, was born in Shaoyang, Hunan.In the fifty-ninth year of Qianlong (1794), he was born in a landlord and bureaucratic family. When he was ten years old, his hometown was hit by a disaster, and the family fell into ruin.Because of his poor family, Wei Yuan couldn't afford to read books, so he had to borrow books from private schools. Because of his hard work, he passed the examination at the age of fifteen.He was enthusiastic about studying China's practical problems, liked to discuss current affairs, and became a famous thinker during the Opium War.

From the outbreak of the Opium War, Wei Yuan began to pay attention to understanding and researching the Western world. One day in September 1840, the British army occupying Dinghai sent personnel to spy on the military situation in order to plan a battle plan to attack the mainland of China.An artillery officer named An Tude secretly went to survey and draw maps near Dinghai, but was captured by the local people and sent to the Yamen of the prefect of Ningbo. Wei Yuan was very happy when he heard the news, and immediately rushed to Ningbo to interrogate An Tude himself.An Tude explained to Wei Yuan the combat intentions and weapons of the British army, and also talked about some British history, geography, economy and politics in detail.Afterwards, Wei Yuan wrote "A Brief Note on England" based on An Tude's confession, and introduced the basic situation of Britain's history and geography to the Chinese for their reference.

One evening in August 1841, Wei Yuan welcomed Lin Zexu, who was dismissed from office by Emperor Daoguang due to the Sino-British War and was about to be dispatched to Yili, Xinjiang, on the wharf near Zhenjiang. When people with lofty ideals meet each other, they can't help but have mixed feelings and sigh with emotion.At Wei Yuan's residence, Lin Zexu carefully opened a cloth bag, pointed to a large bundle of books and newspapers inside, and said: "This is the foreign material I collected and translated from books and newspapers in Macao when I was in Guangdong. Now I am dispatched to Yili, Xinjiang, and the journey is far away. I don't know when and when I will return. I want to give these things to you. If you On the basis of these materials, I can write a book introducing the situation of overseas countries and change the ignorance of Chinese people about the world, which will realize my long-cherished wish.”

Wei Yuan took the heavy cloth bag from Lin Zexu, and said excitedly: "This is also my long-cherished wish. I will write it out as soon as possible and live up to your entrustment." After Lin Zexu left, Wei Yuan collected more extensively. The world is determined to compile a comprehensive work on world history and geography on the basis of Lin Zexu's "Sizhou Zhi" about the geography and history of various countries in the world. In August 1842, Wei Yuan was very angry when he heard that China was forced to sign the "Treaty of Nanjing" because of the failure of the Opium War. He accelerated the pace of writing and worked day and night. The name of the book is "Pictures of Sea Countries", which is the first encyclopedia-style precious book for advanced Chinese intellectuals to understand and understand the Western world after the defeat of the Opium War.

The first draft of "Haiguo Tuzhi" is fifty volumes.In the preface of the book, Wei Yuan put forward two anti-aggression programs of "attacking the barbarians with the barbarians" and "using the barbarians' skills to control the barbarians". "Using barbarians to attack barbarians" means uniting with other countries to attack foreign invaders; "learning from barbarians to control barbarians" means learning advanced science and technology and military training methods from Western countries to defeat foreign invaders. Through his personal experience of participating in the anti-British struggle during the First Opium War, Wei Yuan believes that these Western invaders have three advantages over China: first, they have warships that travel like flying; The third is to have rigorous training methods.Therefore, if China wanted to avoid failures like the Opium Wars, it was necessary to have a firearms bureau for manufacturing weapons, invite technicians from France and the United States to teach technology, and select Chinese craftsmen to learn manufacturing to strengthen national defense.

"Illustrations of Haiguo" is also an unprecedentedly detailed and accurate work on world geography in China. The book uses a huge space to introduce the history and geography of various countries in detail, and contains 77 maps of various kinds. Maps of all continents and maps of various countries provide a detailed introduction to the overall picture of the earth, latitude and longitude, five continents, and four oceans. Starting from the standpoint of anti-aggression, Wei Yuan advocated learning from the enemy's strengths and making up for one's own weaknesses in military technology, using "learning from the barbarians" as a means and "controlling the barbarians" as the goal, and took the first step to learn from the West.The meaning of this "first step" is obviously different from that of some advanced Chinese intellectuals learning Western science and technology from the late Ming and early Qing to the Kangxi period. This is a kind of learning from "backward" to "advanced". Recognize the shortcomings of the "Heavenly Dynasty"; and the learning in the Kangxi period was a kind of "equal" skill learning, learning a "different skill" rather than a "long skill".Naturally, such study would not attract the attention of most intellectuals at that time, but Wei Yuan's study full of "anxiety" awareness gradually made Chinese intellectuals vigilant.

This can also be seen from the changes in Wei Yuan's own reform thinking.Faced with the corruption of the Qing Dynasty, Wei Yuan advocated reform and demanded innovation.He emphasized that "small changes lead to small reforms, major changes lead to major reforms, small reforms lead to small reforms, and major reforms lead to major reforms."But before the Opium War, what he wanted to "change" and "reform" was to "enhance the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages" in the aspects of water transportation, millet salt, reclamation, and river water conservancy.After the Opium War, according to "Pictures of Haiguo", his reform thoughts developed. Illustrations and materials of Western ship guns and equipment, and advocated the establishment of civilian industries, and put forward the suggestion that "coastal merchants, who voluntarily set up factory bureaus to build ship equipment, or use it or sell it for themselves, listen to it", and even envied the United States. The federal system praises Switzerland, which "does not have a monarchy, but only officials and nobles to manage state affairs", as the "Peach Blossom Garden of the Western Land".

Wei Yuan’s masterpiece "Pictures of Sea Countries" about the geography, historical situation and social status of various countries in the world broadened the horizons of Chinese people and took the first step to learn from Western civilization. had a huge impact. "Haiguo Tuzhi" also traveled across the ocean and spread to Japan, where it was translated into various versions by Japanese reformers, which had a considerable impact on Japan's Meiji Restoration. Wei Yuan's reform thoughts, although there is a faint call for the development of the market economy, and some words that praise the Western democratic republic, but the footsteps have not crossed the threshold of imperial autocracy. The way to revive the country's prestige.