"Learn from foreigners and control them."
In the modern history of China, a famous thinker put forward a famous saying on how to resist foreign aggression and effectively attack the invaders-"Learn from foreigners to control them". On how to see the world with your eyes open, he wrote a famous book-ocean map. He is the patriot Wei Yuan.
Wei Yuan (1794- 1857), formerly known as Yuanda, was born in Jintan, Shaoyang, Hunan. When Wei Yuan was 2 1 year-old, his father Wei Banglu was transferred from the local government to Beijing as an official, and went to Beijing with his father. He has close contacts with patriots such as Lin Zexu and Gong Zizhen, and often talks about current politics. Because Wei Yuan is full of vigor and vitality, his thoughts are out of touch, and he is very dissatisfied in the field of fame. He spent most of his life as a film actor and writing.
Wei Yuan's works are rich, including Wu Sheng Ji, A New History of Yuan Dynasty, Poems of Qing Ye Zhai, Poems of Gu Weitang and Poems of Mo Zhen, etc.
Before the Opium War broke out, Lin Zexu was appointed as an imperial envoy to Guangdong to ban smoking. In order to understand the situation in foreign countries, he organized a team to translate foreign newspapers and books. He presided over the compilation of The History of Four Kingdoms, which described the geography and history of more than 30 countries on five continents. Later, Lin Zexu gave all the materials of The Romance of the Four Kingdoms to his friend Wei Yuan. On the basis of the annals of four continents, Wei Yuan wrote the annals of the sea countries.
1840 the opium war broke out. Due to the defeat of the war, Wei Yuan was indignant and patriotic. 184 1 in March, he angrily abandoned his pen to join the army, joined the governor of the two rivers and the resistance general Yu Qian, and went to the front line of Dinghai to make suggestions. 1842, he wrote a 50-volume marine atlas. Why did the author compile this book? Wei Yuan made it clear in the preface to the book Map of a Sea Country: "What is a book made of? It is said that "to attack foreigners, to pay foreigners, to learn from foreigners, and to control foreigners." "
In other words, the purpose of writing a book is to understand "foreign feelings" and help people learn "long skills" to resist foreign aggression and inspire national prestige. This has given a slap in the face to the die-hards who are arrogant and regard the advanced science and technology in the West as "fantastic in their skills and taking advantage of it" and blindly exclusive. Wei Yuan pointed out in the annals of nautical charts: "What is useful is strange skill rather than cunning." In dealing with foreign invaders, we should not "abandon their strengths and be willing to suffer", but "plug their weaknesses and take their strengths" Only those who are good at learning from the outside world can master the outside world.
From 1847 to 1848, Wei Yuan increased the Atlas of Sea Countries to 60 volumes and published it in Yangzhou. To 1852, expanded to one hundred volumes. This is the earliest masterpiece in China's modern history, written by China people themselves, introducing the situation of countries around the world. In addition to Sizhou Annals, the 100-volume edition of Guo Hai Tu Zhi has quoted 14 kinds of historical records, more than 70 works of various schools at home and abroad, in addition to more than 10 kinds of recitations and some personal data. It should be noted that its historical source is also the writings of foreigners. Among them, there are about 20 kinds of works, such as A Brief History of Foreign Countries by British Ma Lixun and Geographical Preparation by Portuguese Maggis.
In the modern history of China, Atlas of the Ocean is the first detailed and systematic work on world history. China began to introduce the knowledge of world history when he pushed Sima Qian's Historical Records in the Western Han Dynasty. Since then, many foreign biographies have appeared in the official history, but most of these records are concentrated in countries bordering China. Yao Ying's Chronicles of Four Continents and Travel Notes of Kang Qi only appeared in modern times. Chronicle of Four Continents is a pure translation, while Travels of Jian Kang is a miscellaneous note. However, Hai Guo Zhi not only made up for the shortcomings of Four Seas Records and Travel Notes of Kang Qi in compilation and content, but also initially formed its own structure and theoretical method. The book quotes nearly 100 kinds of materials from ancient and modern China and foreign countries, and systematically introduces historical geography knowledge such as geographical location and historical evolution of countries around the world. The records of climate, products, transportation and trade, people's feelings and customs, culture and education, Sino-foreign relations, religion, calendar, science and technology are all more than those in previous books. Therefore, some people praised the Atlas of the Ocean as the "first mountain" for China people to talk about world history.
Because it not only records the situation of foreign countries in detail, but also affirms the necessity of studying world history and geography in theory for the first time.
The epoch-making significance of Oceanographic Atlas lies in giving China people who have been isolated from the world for a long time a brand-new concept of modern world. In the late Ming and early Qing Dynasties, Matteo Ricci, a western missionary, came to China, bringing new things of world knowledge, but it was not taken seriously. Before the Opium War broke out, the arrogant Qing emperors and dignitaries didn't know where Britain was. Why do you want to become a maritime hegemon? The publication of Atlas of the Ocean has broken this ignorant situation, providing people with 80 brand-new maps of various countries in the world, and 66 volumes detailing the history and place names of various countries. In this way, the people of China at that time opened their eyes to the world through the telescope "Atlas of the Ocean". We have not only seen the western countries' "strong ships and strong guns", but also seen the businesses, railway transportation and schools in European countries, which enabled China people to cross the "national boundaries" and learn about new things in the modern world.
In the Atlas of the Sea with volume 100, the author not only attaches importance to industry and commerce, but also expands from economy to politics, from the initial marvel at the exotic skills of the West, such as "building boats and guns", to the introduction of modern capitalist democracy in the West. At this point, Wei Yuan's thought of "learning from foreigners" reached the peak of his time.
Take the introduction of American democracy as an example. The data in the Atlas of the Ocean, such as Map of the Earth, Preparation of the Earth, A Brief History of Foreign Countries, and A Brief History of Ying Huan, introduce the democratic politics of the United States in detail, involving the federalism, electoral system and parliamentary system of the United States. Due to the limitation of times and classes, Wei Yuan did not transform into a bourgeois reformist like Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao. At this time, the essence of Wei Yuan's thought of "learning from foreigners" still belongs to the ideological category of the feudal landlord class reformists.
Wei Yuan is not only a patriot, but also an outstanding military thinker. Under the guidance of strategic defense thought, he put forward the strategic and tactical thoughts of "defending for the war", "waiting for the merits" (Chapter III of the National Chart) and even "luring the enemy into the depth", "clearing the field", "ambushing", "land and water go hand in hand" and "all plants are armed" (Chapter I of the National Chart), which not only applies to modern China. At that time, a Japanese named Jin Jiu Tang Yi, after reading Wei Yuan's works, said with emotion: "The strategy of coastal defense is not good at this article." (preface to the collection of three Wu)
Due to the limitation of academic level at that time, Wei Yuan's Sea Spectrum was certainly not a perfect work. Most of the books are compiled from other people's works except Bei Hai and the narration, comments and textual research on the northern territory of Yuan Dynasty. In this way, he did not make great efforts to correct the shortcomings and mistakes in the compilation. For example, due to the poor foundation of the original calligraphy and painting drawings, the maps of countries around the world compiled by 100 were not accurate in position, distance and shape, but Wei Yuan did not correct them one by one. Another example is Wei Yuan's book, which holds that "Amelia is a piece of land, isolated from the universe and unknown since ancient times. It was discovered by the British during the Wanli period of the previous Ming Dynasty" (Volume 52). In fact, America was discovered by the Italian Columbus rather than the British in 1492, much earlier than the Wanli period of the Ming Dynasty.
Chart is a masterpiece in China's modern history of thought and historiography, which has had a far-reaching influence at home and abroad. Liang Qichao praised: "The geographers outside China are pioneers." (Introduction to Academic Studies in Qing Dynasty), especially his thought of "learning from foreigners" expounded in the book, had a considerable influence on China at that time and later generations. Influenced by Wei Yuan's thought of "learning from foreigners", the Westernization School in the late Qing Dynasty was utilized and brought into play. Of course, it should be pointed out that the thought of Westernization School and Wei Yuan's thought of "learning from foreigners" are identical and inherited, but they are not the same. Wei is a landlord class reformist, and the Westernization School is a big landlord and a big bureaucrat. The purpose of Wei's advocacy of "learning from foreigners" is "learning from foreigners to control foreigners"; However, Zeng Guofan's Westernization School and Li Hongzhang's "learning from foreigners" are "learning from foreigners to control foreigners" and "using foreign funds to suppress economic movements" to suppress the domestic peasant revolution. After the Westernization School, the early bourgeois reformers (such as Feng Guifen and Wang Tao) and the later bourgeois reformers (such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao) developed and enriched the idea of "learning from foreigners".
Overseas, especially in Japan, Atlas of the Ocean has a certain influence. After its publication, this book was introduced to Japan. 1854, Japan reprinted 60 volumes of Atlas of the Country of the Sea, scrambling to buy and read. It once played a certain role in the Japanese Reform Movement. Jing Shangjing, a modern Japanese scholar, said: "At the end of the shogunate, Japanese scholars and cultural figures, such as Yokoi Xiaonan, were revolutionised in their thoughts and tended to establish the country. The opportunity was to read China's Atlas of the Sea. "(Modern Japanese history) The trend of Japan's reform is rising day by day, and the movement to overthrow the shogunate is getting higher and higher. Finally, it became the famous Meiji Restoration in 1868, overthrowing the feudal Tokugawa era. It can be seen that Wei Yuan's Atlas of Sea Countries really played a certain role in introducing and spreading the western situation and general modern culture and influencing the development of the Japanese Reform Movement.