In the first half of the 19th century, Chinese society was in a critical situation when the country was at the end of its life and the tragic winds were suddenly coming. On the one hand, the Qing Dynasty's politics were decadent and dark, the feudal autocratic rule persisted, the officials were corrupt, the people's livelihood was pitiful, and the domestic class contradictions became increasingly acute; on the other hand, the policy of closing the country to the outside world was implemented, cutting off China's ties with all countries in the world, and domestic and foreign crises arose one after another.
When the Sino-British Opium War broke out in 1840, due to the defeat of the war, Wei Yuan's patriotic passion was deeply stimulated, and he directly participated in the anti-smoking and anti-foreign aggression movements. Through the Opium War, Wei Yuan soberly realized that under the world trend at that time, China's local culture was not enough to support China's development, so he advocated learning from the West, studying the situation of various countries, understanding the history, geography, law and other knowledge of Western countries, especially learning Western science and technology, and changing the military backwardness of the Qing Dynasty.
When the British invaders invaded China, the ruling class of the Qing Dynasty did not understand "Yi Qing" at all. Wei Yuan wrote in the preface to the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom: "Why is the book written? 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. That is, to understand the "Yiqing" and help people learn the "long skills" to resist foreign insults and invigorate the national prestige. The so-called "long skill" refers to "warships, firearms, and the method of training troops."
I. Three editions of the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom
There are three editions of the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom, namely the 50-volume, 60-volume and finalized 100-volume version.
In December 1842, the first 50-volume edition of the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom, with about 570,000 words and 23 maps, retained the original text of the "Chronicle of Four Continents" compiled by Lin Zexu, focusing on the general introduction of the Yiqing of the Sea Country.
In 1847, the 50-volume edition was expanded into 60 volumes, with more than 600,000 words, and the "Western Technique" was increased from 1 volume to 8 volumes, adding an introduction to the situation of overseas countries and Western science and technology.
In 1852, it was added to 100 volumes, about 880,000 words, with 75 maps, 57 pages of Western techniques, and 7 maps of earth astronomy, involving the political systems of overseas countries.
The main content of the 100-volume edition of the "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" is divided into six parts, reflecting the "Zhiyi", "Xiyi" and "Shiyi", it is Wei Yuan who, in the process of sorting out and editing the "Atlas of the Sea Country", realized that the Western countries are not all barbaric countries, but there are aspects worthy of facing up to and affirming, and then put forward the viewpoint of "Shiyi long skills to control Yi".
The first part, "Preparing for the Sea", is the general outline of the whole book. From the three aspects of "negotiation and defense", "discussion war" and "discussion", it systematically expounded how to resist the aggression of Western powers, summed up the lessons learned from the defeat of the Qing Dynasty in the Opium War, and put forward the strategy of coping with the enemy.
The second part, "Atlas", has 2 volumes, including "Map of the History of The Sea Country", "Map of the Front and Back of the Earth" and 75 maps of the world's continents and countries. This was the most scientific map of China at that time, which effectively broke the traditional concept that "China is the center of the world".
The third part, "Geographical Records", 66 volumes, introduces the geographical location, historical evolution, political system, military activities, economic and trade, products and mineral deposits, religious beliefs, and folk customs of various countries in the world. The 3-volume Treatise on the Land of Nations introduces global geography. Attached are three tables, including the "Table of Religions in the Nanyang Countries of the Western Ocean", "The Similarities and Differences of the Chinese and Western Calendars", and the "Chronology of the Chinese and Western Chronicles".
The fourth part, "General Discussion on Sea Preparation", is a 4-volume compilation of coastal situations, sea preparation methods and arguments. The 3 volumes of "Yi Qing Bei Cai", Lin Zexu organized the translation of foreign intelligence materials such as "Macao Monthly", "Huayi Yiyan", "Laws of The Land", etc.
The fifth part, "Western Techniques", 12 volumes, introduces the production and use of Western steamships, artillery, mines, forts, and telescopes, accompanied by design pattern diagrams and decomposition three-dimensional drawings.
The sixth part, "The Theory of Earth Astronomy", 5 volumes, introduces the movement of the earth, latitude and longitude, the division of time zones, the causes of the four seasons of cold and heat, heliocentrism, various astronomical phenomena and other modern natural science knowledge.
Different from other world history and geography books, Wei Yuan runs through his own ideas and ideas throughout the book, writing 2 volumes of "Preparing for the Sea" and 4 volumes of "General Theory of Preparing the Sea", and placing the "Chapter of Preparing the Sea" on the front page of the book.
"Preparing for the Sea" embodies Wei Yuan's patriotic spirit of resisting aggression, while "General Treatise on Preparing the Sea" includes various suggestions on coastal defense at that time, as well as the Sinocentrist worldview of breaking the traditional concept that China is at the center of the world.
These understandings and propositions are based on Wei Yuan's recognition that the Western capitalist countries have many aspects that should be faced squarely and affirmed, and have even surpassed China to a large extent, and the modern international situation has been in a situation where all countries in the world coexist independently. In the face of the aggression of the Western powers, Wei Yuan pointed out that we should guard against the fact that we must first understand the "Yi situation" in order to "control Yi", and put forward the important idea of "mastering yi and changing skills to control Yi".
Second, the status and significance of the "Chart of the Sea Country"
Wei Yuan's "Chart of the Sea Country" is the first systematic plan of imperial insults and strong forces in modern China, and the idea of "mastering the art of mastering the art of mastering the art of controlling the yi" runs through the whole book, guiding the People of the country to open up a long-closed vision, face and understand the world squarely, explore the way to resist foreign aggression and defend the way of a strong country with national independence, and play a role in the ideological enlightenment of inheriting the past and opening up the future.
The ideas of "controlling Yi with Yi", "Yi Yi Yi", and "Master Yi Long Skill to Control Yi" put forward in the "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" not only had a greater impact on modern Chinese society, but also spread to neighboring countries such as Korea and Japan, and promoted the transformation and opening up of the understanding of East Asian countries to the outside world at the beginning of modern times, making them have a high ideological value and epochal value, and have a certain position in the process of China's modern history and east Asian modern history.
First, Wei Yuan was the earliest person in modern China to "open his eyes to the world." At the beginning of China's modern era, in the face of great historical changes, the "Atlas of the Sea Country" proposed to learn from the West, and its proposition of "becoming more and more ancient, the more convenient the people", broke the closed state of blind self-confidence, looked at the whole world, understood the countries of the world, observed the changes in the world, advocated learning from Western science and technology, opened up the ideological trend of the Chinese people to learn from the West, and promoted China to begin to understand the world, which is one of the important signs of the beginning of the transformation of China's political thinking to modernization.
Second, Wei Yuan is a practitioner who has been applied through the ages and has a strong sense of national distress. After the Opium War, a group of politicians, thinkers, and people of insight, paying attention to reality and practical results, faced with the invasion of Western powers and the profound social crisis in the last days of China's feudalism, set off a trend of thought that could be applied to the world. The "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" epitomizes Wei Yuan's idea of "applying the world to the world", which inherits and develops the traditional Chinese thought of the classics, and has a more positive role in promoting the academic style and even the introduction and introduction of Western studies in modern Chinese society.
Third, the "Chart of the Sea Kingdom" put forward the idea of "mastering the art of mastering the yi to control the yi", which provided a correct direction for the Chinese people to resist foreign aggression. This thinking not only permeates Wei Yuan's patriotic spirit of "taking kuangji the world as one's own responsibility," but also embodies the sense of national mission of a patriotic intellectual; "Shiyi" points out the direction of historical progress, and the development process of China's modern history twists and turns along the direction of "Shiyi" and "Zhiyi."
Fourth, the "Atlas of the Sea Country" puts forward the idea of diplomacy with modern colors. Before and after the Opium War, Wei Yuan realized that the East and the West were changing from the past state of isolation to mutual interaction, which meant that if China wanted to strengthen itself, it must face up to the outside world, learn from the West, and carry out reforms with new contents of the times. This foreign thinking has had a great influence on the process of China's modernization.
Fifth, the idea of coastal defense put forward in the "Chart of the Sea State" is a collection of modern Chinese sea power ideas. After studying history and the political and economic situation of China's neighboring countries, Wei Yuan believed that "the threat of the Qing Dynasty did not come from the inland, but from the sea", and proposed to strictly repair maritime armament, build a modern navy, and resist foreign aggression. This sea power ideology provided the necessary ideological and theoretical preparation for China's modern naval construction.
Sixth, the "Atlas of the Sea Country" has played an enlightening role in the ideological trend of social change in modern China. Wei Yuan believed that the world's law of not harming for hundreds of years, the law of infinity and immutable, the law of eliminating evil and making profits, the law of not being easy to simplify but could change, and he was convinced that the ancient feudal empire was obedient and could only cause disastrous consequences. Wei Yuan's study of the West and the idea of "mastering the art of mastering the art of mastering the art of mastering the art of the master" promoted the development of the western affairs movement and the restoration movement in modern China, and stimulated the idea of Chinese patriotic intellectuals to actively seek reforms to save the country and save the people.
Seventh, the "Atlas of the Sea Kingdom" abandons the concepts of "the center of the heavenly dynasty," "the round place of heaven," and "nine continents and eight wildernesses," establishes a new knowledge of world history and geography of "five continents and four oceans," disseminates the different cultural styles, social systems, customs and customs of the East and the West, and the knowledge of modern natural science, and opens up the trend of the times in which modern China learns from the West.
Of course, due to the limitations of the times and objective conditions, Wei Yuan's "Chart of the Sea Country" is bound to have many deficiencies. Some outdated concepts appear in the Atlas of the Sea Kingdom, such as calling Western countries "Yi" and so on. As a member of the feudal landlord class in the late Qing Dynasty, Wei Yuan's thinking could not completely go out of the ideological scope of the feudal landlord class, but had the limitations of his class and the traces of the times. However, as a reformer before the historical changes, Wei Yuanji surpassed most of his contemporaries and put forward the trend of thinking of facing and learning from the West and opening his eyes to the world, which is indeed worthy of being a famous reformer and the leader of the trend of the times in the late Qing Dynasty, and has played a certain role in promoting the development of modern thinking in modern China and even some countries in East Asia.