19 The failure of the Opium War in the 1940s cruelly dealt a blow to the arrogance of Chinese people who were still intoxicated with the dream of becoming a great country in China. At that time, a large number of enlightened feudal literati and officials gradually realized the corruption of the Qing government's ruling system and the necessity of reform. Among them, Lin Zexu, Gong Zizhen and Wei Yuan are famous. They clearly realized the advantages of western advanced technology to China, advocated learning from the west, and formed "pragmatism". For example, there is a famous saying in Wei Yuan's "Atlas of the Sea", which is typical. And the reform thought evolved from these practical thoughts.

19 The 1960s and 1990s were the so-called "Westernization Movement" in China's modern history. Did you play with Prince Gong after the Second Opium War? The new bureaucrats represented by Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and Zuo further realized the backwardness and advanced technology of western powers and launched the Westernization Movement, but their main purpose was to try to save the feudal traditional rule, mainly to learn western industrial and commercial technology, and did not want to make any reform in the political system. Although the Westernization thought was different from the Reform thought, the Westernization movement made a group of intellectuals see all aspects of western society further and was the catalyst for the formation of the early Reform thought. After Kang Liang fled to Japan, he continued to vigorously promote the reform thought, especially the Xinmin Cong Bao sponsored by Liang Qichao, which had a great influence. They continue to advocate enlightening the people, advocating civil rights, calling for the revitalization of industry, developing education and publicizing science, forming a political trend of thought. However, compared with the bourgeois democratic revolutionary thought represented by Sun Yat-sen, the reformist theory is backward. At one time, the two major political thoughts had a heated debate on the right and wrong of the democratic revolution. The reformists became royalists and still tried their best to safeguard the decadent Qing regime, so they withdrew from the position of historical protagonist.

After the founding of the Republic of China, Yan Fu and Kang Youwei also participated in the restoration of monarchy, and still advocated constitutional monarchy, which was abandoned by society. Kang Youwei founded Confucianism in Beijing on 19 12, which was used by Yuan Shikai, and formed a retro trend of thought with respecting Confucius as the basic content, vigorously advocated feudal ethics and hindered the in-depth spread of democratic ideas. Yan Fu participated in the imperial conference headed by Yang Du, and became one of the "six gentlemen of the conference" who supported Yuan Shikai's restoration as an empire. Since then, Kang Youwei still insisted on the position of the Restoration School and advocated returning to Qing Dynasty. 19 17 supported the restoration of Puyi with Zhang Xun and started a farce.