Tan Sitong, a famous politician and thinker in modern times, is one of the representative figures of the restoration school. The Renxue he wrote was the first philosophical work of the Reform School and an important work in modern Chinese thought. In the twenty-fourth year of Guangxu, Tan Sitong, Kang Youwei and others participated in and led the "Penghu Reform Law". They proposed to learn from the West, including education, institutions, politics and so on. However, because this reform harmed the interests of the feudal conservatives led by Cixi, it was strongly opposed by them.
In the end, the feudal forces were superior. On September 21, Cixi imprisoned the Guangxu Emperor and ordered the arrest of Tan Si and others, and Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao fled abroad. On the 28th, the "Six Gentlemen of Wushu" was beheaded. Tan Sitong is also inside, only 33 years old. Although he has made great contributions to changing the law and awakening the ideas of the Chinese people, it still cannot hide a big stain on his life. He once made a suggestion to the Guangxu Emperor that if the Guangxu Emperor adopted it, then millions of territories in our country would fall into the hands of others.
As early as the end of 1894, when Tan Sitong wrote a letter to his teacher Ouyang Zhonghu, he talked about the path of reform and how to raise funds for reform. In his letter, he wrote: "In order to raise the cost of reform, a deal can be made with a foreign country. Sell Xinjiang to Russia and Tibet to England to pay off what was once owed. The northwest region is so big that the current national strength cannot be maintained at all, and it will become a burden. Selling them not only pays off the debt, but the extra money can also be used to change the law, while allowing Britain and Russia to protect China for 10 years. ”
After that, Tan Sitong further wrote to the Guangxu Emperor, stating that the northwest region had little effect, and it was better to sell it for money. I have to say that his idea is too naïve. The ambitions of the Western powers can only be satisfied by the northwest region. They want to invade the whole of China and plunder China's resources. On the other hand, the resources in the northwest region are relatively small, and they simply cannot satisfy the appetite of the great powers. Not to mention letting Britain and Russia protect China, it is already good not to invade China. After all, others are unreliable, and only when they are strong is the last word.
In addition to Tan Sitong, Kang Youwei also had the idea of selling Tibet and Xinjiang to foreign countries around the time of Penghu, but they did not understand how the trade of territory between countries was going on. In his "Examination of Japan's Change of Government" written by the Guangxu Emperor, Kang Youwei listed two cases in which Sakhalin Island was allocated to Russia and Alaska was sold to the United States, in order to prove that the concept of selling land and changing the law was correct. However, in the "Treaty of Exchange between The Thousand Islands of Birch" signed by Japan and Russia, the border between the two countries was only determined, and it was not Kang Youwei who said that the Japanese government sold Sakhalin Island, and the difference between the two was very big. In his writings presented to Guangxu, he distorted historical facts, perhaps because he had a half-understanding of the territory of buying and selling, or perhaps he could misinterpret and induce the Guangxu Emperor to agree to his proposal.
Fortunately, the Guangxu Emperor did not agree to Tan Sitong and Kang Youwei's proposal to "sell land and engage in changes", otherwise China would lose millions of square kilometers of land. Once the two places are in the hands of other countries, it will be difficult to recover. If the Guangxu Emperor agreed to the two men's suggestion, they would be sinners of eternity, forever nailed to the pillar of shame.