At that time, railway transportation was monopolized by foreigners. Before him, there was no railway independently built by China people. However, Zhan Tianyou returned from abroad and resolutely devoted himself to domestic railway construction, thus building the first railway independently built by China people-the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway. He is a modern celebrity representative of China's patriotism.
Wei Yuan, a native of Longhui, Shaoyang, Hunan Province, was an enlightening thinker, politician and writer in the Qing Dynasty. He wrote the masterpiece Atlas of the Sea, so this book is known as one of the pioneers of "seeing the world with eyes open". At that time, he was still an official of the Qing Dynasty, and he was in Gaoyou Zhizhou, but he abandoned his official position to teach in his later years. Wei Yuan's core idea is "apply what you have learned", which was rare in China at that time. He put forward a very famous idea: "Learn from foreigners to control them".
As a thinker, Wei Yuan is also a very patriotic modern celebrity who opposes foreign aggression. He actively urged the corrupt Qing government at that time to carry out reforms, and stressed: "There are countless laws that are not harmful for a hundred years, and there are infinite laws that can eliminate disadvantages and promote benefits, and they are not easy to be simple and flexible." These thoughts not only had great progressive significance at that time, but also played a positive role in promoting bourgeois political reform and reform movement.