China's modern history is a history of humiliation, and it now seems that one of the most important reasons for this humiliation is that we sit in the well and look at the sky, not knowing the situation in the world. According to the historical records, during the Qing Dynasty, many people were still immersed in the dream of "heaven and heaven", did not know the situation in the world, and thought that the world was only so big, and what broke this situation was the cannon of the great powers. After the outbreak of the Opium War, the British cannons had already opened the door of our country, and the Daoguang Emperor was still overwhelmed and asked: "Where is Britain?" How can I get there? What is even more shocking is that no civil and military officials of the Manchu Dynasty can answer this question. It can be seen how closed the imperial court of the Qing Dynasty was at that time, and even did not know where its enemies came from.
Many people attribute this phenomenon of the Qing Dynasty to the policy of closing the country to the closed country, and indeed, the closed country locked the qing people in a wall, and the people outside looked at the tiger, and the people inside the wall thought that this was the world and were complacent. However, as early as the Ming Dynasty, advanced Western knowledge had already spread into China, and even had a relatively complete map of the world. According to the historical records, the world map during the Ming Dynasty was still quite widely disseminated, and the influence was also very large, and in many works of the late Ming Dynasty, the author showed that he had seen the world map, and also knew Portugal, the Netherlands and other places. However, time has only passed for hundreds of years, people's understanding of the world has regressed, and if there is even a little understanding, our country will not fall into the situation of almost destroying the country.
A surprise brought by a foreigner
In 1583, a foreigner came to China, he brought not only Catholicism, not only his own faith, but also modern Western civilization, this foreigner is the Italian Catholic missionary Matteo Ricci. Matteo Ricci came to China with missionary purposes, and when he first arrived in China, he was curious about everything in China, and his arrival received a warm response from many people, including Xu Guangqi, the Ming dynasty official Li Zhizao and others. In 1601, Matteo Ricci finally got the opportunity to enter the imperial palace to pay tribute, and his tribute was many, in addition to some Catholic things, the most eye-opening was a painting called "Atlas of All Nations".
Ming Dynasty World Map: "Kunyu All Nations"
Obviously, this is a map of the world, at that time Europe has carried out a great navigation movement, many people have taken a boat, completed the exploration of the world, but also drawn up an early world map. Looking at China at that time, still immersed in the cognition of "the heavenly round place", this world map attracted the attention of the emperor, and the MingShen Sect had great interest in the new world that was displayed in front of him, and even celebrities painted it in the screen and gave it to their emperor. The world was first seen in front of Chinese eyes, and Matteo Ricci also broke China's isolation from the world, and a year later, at the collaborator of the official Li Zhizao, the map of the world was published in Beijing and renamed "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu".
The Ming Dynasty World Map debuted
In 2007, the Nanjing Museum in Jiangsu Province selected the "Treasure of the Town Courtyard", and after hundreds of thousands of collections were screened over and over again, 18 pieces were finally selected, of which the "Kunyu Wanguo Quantu" was publicly unveiled for the first time. The Ming Dynasty "world map" discovered in Jiangsu contains a lot of information, not only a relatively complete picture of the season, but also depicts seven continents, and even Antarctica. The more you look at this map, the more people are shocked, Antarctica is dyed a light pink, everyone can't help but be surprised, did the ancients have long been to Antarctica? In addition, there are the equators, tropic lines, polar circles, etc. marked for the first time Chinese, there are ships and various animals on the map, and there are rhinos, elephants, lions, etc. in Antarctica, which is why people suspect that the ancients went to Antarctica.
brief summary
But experts speculate that it may be that there may be no land on Antarctica, do not know what creatures are on it, and there will be creatures that do not belong to Antarctica on the map. From the various marks displayed on the map, we know that during the Ming Dynasty, people already had a preliminary understanding of the world, although this understanding is not complete enough, but at least understand that there is not only one China in the world. It was modeled on the map of the Western world at that time, changing the pattern of Europe as the center, placing eastern Asia in the center of the map for the first time, and China was the center of this map. Although the ancients did not go out of the world, but at least they understood the appearance of the world, but in the Qing Dynasty, people's eyes were blocked, and if you think about it, closing yourself off to the country and pretending to be self-contained will really make yourself fall into a difficult situation.