National Soul, Struggle Qu | Wei Yuan: "Shi Yi Long Skill to Control Yi"

"Only by reading the history of Hunan people and Hunan can we understand the modern and contemporary history of China." For a long time, especially in modern times, a large number of Hunan people have stood at the head of the tide of the times, led the longitude and latitude of history, and written a magnificent chapter in the unremitting struggle of the sons and daughters of Sanxiang for national independence, people's liberation, and national prosperity and strength. Starting from today, Hunan Daily will launch a column entitled "National Soul struggle song - Sanxiang Haoqi Mighty Rivers and Mountains" to tell you about the glory of the years of passionate burning in the land of Sanxiang for more than a hundred years.

In the former residence of Wei Yuan in Xuetang Bay, Simenqian Town, Longhui County, there is a couplet he wrote when he was 20 years old: "Meritorious name is to be sent to Ling Yan Pavilion, and sorrow and happiness are often kept in the heart of the country." Wei Yuan, who was deeply infiltrated by the spirit of "applying to the world" of Huxiang culture, set up a lofty ambition for the country and the people in his youth.

Wei Yuan, a Qing Dynasty Enlightenment thinker, politician, and literary scholar, representative of the first intellectuals in modern China to "open their eyes to see the world", was born in April 1794 in Jintan, Shaoyang (present-day Longhui County). He lived in an era in which the economy withered, political corruption, internal and external troubles came and went. This thinker who worried about the country and the people advocated the reform of various maladminist policies long before the Opium War, and he believed that only timely changes could save the social crisis and promote social progress. Together with Tao Shu, Lin Zexu and other reformist officials, he also carried out reform practices such as water transportation, salt administration, and water conservancy in the southeast region.

"Whoever controls the foreign yi must first understand the situation." Wei Yuan believes that the primary task in resisting Western aggression and carrying out reform is to understand the world situation. Therefore, Wei Yuan extensively collected relevant Chinese and foreign materials, and in 1842 compiled a 50-volume and more than 500,000-word "Atlas of the Sea Country", which extensively introduced the geography, history, science and technology of various countries, and clearly put forward the ideological proposition of "mastering the art of mastering the art to control the yi".

In the book, Wei Yuan wrote, "Why is it a book? A: It is done for the sake of attacking Yiyi, it is done for Yiyi, and it is done for the master's long skills to control Yiyi. The "Shiyi" advocated by Wei Yuan is to learn from the West and learn the "long skills" of the West, that is, "warships, firearms, and the method of raising troops and training troops." In Wei Yuan's view, "Shiyi" is the means, and "controlling Yi" is the end.

The main viewpoints and contents of "mastering the art of the division of the army" involve all aspects, mainly including advocating the study of advanced western military technology and reforming the military system, carrying out normal foreign trade, setting up industries, and adopting a tolerant, open, and eclectic attitude toward the West. Through this proposition, Wei Yuan explicitly raised the "long skills" of Western countries to the height of whether they could defeat foreign invaders, and he emphatically pointed out that those who are not good at teaching foreign countries should be controlled by foreign invaders.

"This is one of the most far-sighted and far-sighted ideas for national salvation in modern China, creating a new trend of advocating reform and introducing Western artifacts and ideas in modern times, and becoming the ideological precursor in the process of modern China learning from the West and the precursor of social change in modern China." Professor Chen Xiaofei, a researcher of Wei Yuan's thought and secretary of the party committee of Shaoyang University, said.

Unfortunately, Wei Yuan's correct propositions failed to attract the attention of the Qing authorities, thus missing the opportunity for development.

On March 26, 1857, Wei Yuan died in Hangzhou at the age of 63. Wei Yuan's advanced thinking of "mastering yi and changing skills to control yi" had a greater impact on China's modern foreign affairs movement and the restoration and reform of the law, and it laid a certain ideological and theoretical foundation for the foreign affairs movement and the restoration and change of the law, so that China began to continuously move toward near modernization.

(Hunan Daily reporter Sun Minjian sorted out)