In 1839, when Lin Zexu went to Guangdong to deal with anti-smoking affairs as minister of Chincha, he once took the time out of his busy schedule to go to Macau. There is a TV series "The Macau Years", saying that he is reaffirming China's sovereignty. Of course, it is not wrong to say so, because the entry and exit of the imperial court in macao itself means China's right to rule the area, but the problem is that Portugal did not deny this at that time, and it was obviously not necessary to do this not urgent thing when the ban on smoking was in a hurry. In fact, the reason why Lin Zexu was busy sneaking around Macau, with his state of mind at that time, probably could not have been to reaffirm China's sovereignty in Macau to the Portuguese.
There are two reasons: First, at that time, the Chinese's sense of sovereignty was still very vague, although I knew that my place should be managed by me, but in my bones the concept of the world was still often strange, always thinking that China was the center of the world, the emperor was the co-lord of the world, the whole world, could not be the royal land, anyway, it can be said that it is our family's territory, although the barbarians have a country, but they all have to listen to our emperor's seal. If they come to make trouble, of course, we must be rude to them, and if people are low-brow and pleasing-eyed, we naturally have to be polite. Macao was relied upon by the Portuguese, although at first it was due to the greed and dimness of the ming magistrates, but they were not driven away later, mostly out of the consideration of Chinese "Huairou Yuanyi". The concept of sovereignty, which essentially comes from the West, was accepted by Chinese, and it is already a matter for Lin Zexu's descendants. Second, the Portuguese who occupied Macau, before the Opium War, never failed to recognize the Chinese government's sovereignty over this land, or jurisdiction and possession, and they recognized that they were renting land to live in. Although the annual rent of five hundred taels of silver is a little less, it must be paid every year, and although the Chinese officials cannot manage anything, they are dignified and poke there. Unlike foreigners in other places, the Portuguese never performed the great ceremony of kneeling and nine prostrations when they saw the Chinese emperor, and in 1893, the British Macartney came to China and refused to kneel, and the Portuguese in Macau were very dismissive of this.
In fact, the reason why Lin Zexu came to Macao at this time was mainly to touch the bottom of the foreigners and see what the foreigners were all about. Although foreigners can also be seen in foreign firms in Guangzhou, after all, only Macao is a place where foreigners have camped and lived for hundreds of years, and it is also a place where all kinds of foreigners are more able to freely communicate and move.
Lin Zexu moved this thought, which was directly related to the change of thought before and after he came to Guangzhou. Although we have always called Lin Zexu "the first person to open his eyes to the world" in modern China, his eyes were not opened from the beginning of the anti-smoking campaign. Due to China's long-term closure, the entire intellectual community has a very limited understanding of the Western world, and their knowledge about the West is not only small or even full of jokes, but even this kind of joke-ridden knowledge is only known to those scholars who are more pragmatic and attentive to miscellaneous studies. Before Lin Zexu came to Guangzhou, probably because foreigners especially liked to import Chinese tea and rhubarb (especially the former), plus the rumor that they were mainly meat-eaters, there was a rumor among the government and the public, saying that foreigners eat dried beef powder every day, and if there is no Chinese tea and rhubarb for laxative, it will swell to death. Therefore, China does not have to use a knife at all, as long as the tea and rhubarb trade is cut off, these blondes can obediently obey. Another rumor is that foreigners are straight and not easy to bend, so in close combat, they will fall down with a stick.
Lin Zexu apparently believed in this kind of wind transmission, as evidenced by his recital to the Daoguang Emperor, where constipation and straight legs of foreigners were mentioned. Not only that, after he came to Guangzhou, he also repeatedly sent a note to the British: "In the case of tea and rhubarb, foreign countries cannot live without a day, and if China is jin qiyi and does not sympathize with its harm, then how can the Yi people live?" More or less, he was somewhat counting on the British to take the initiative to pay for the fear that there would be no tea leaves and rhubarb being swollen to death. Soon, however, the facts told him that the rumors did not seem to be so reliable, and that the British were less like constipated sick men, because they did not seem to care about his threat. Although Lin Zexu was a athlete in the field of science and a tiger class from Hanlin (in the Ming and Qing Dynasties, he belonged to the kind of person who was promoted to a special express), he was not blinded by the eight strands, and his years of eunuchs did not cultivate his stubbornness. This cadre of the late Qing Dynasty Jingshi Zhizhi sect, who was equally famous as Tao Shu, immediately abandoned his previous prejudices, and he wanted to seriously investigate what was going on with the foreigners he was dealing with. It goes without saying that at the time, Macau was the most convenient place for him to open his eyes. At that time, Macao was not as big as it is now, and it was rarely patronized by a court official of Lin Zexu's level, so Lin Zexu's arrival was very exciting to the Portuguese. Before the Opium War began, in the Sino-British confrontation, at least the Portuguese in Macau showed their friendliness to the "host", and the "newsprint" in Macau almost unanimously turned to China. It was only after China's defeat that it took a one hundred and eighty-degree turn. Therefore, the Portuguese in Macau were almost a little flattered, not only the official ceremony, posing the most solemn honor guard, foreign soldiers and foreign music, which was very lively, but also the whole city, "whether it is a day, both men and women, leaning on the window to fill in the qu" (see "Lin Zexu's Diary").
Lin Zexu, who was in the middle of the "Yi class" for the first time, due to the inertia of the historical culture, and also because the Portuguese people held the moon like stars, inevitably a little arrogant, but his eyes were not hazy because of this, although it was a sloppy look, Lin Zexu's observation was still quite meticulous and objective, and his diary made a detailed description of this trip. First of all, I have a good feeling for "Yi Lou": "Yi people are good at governing the house, heavy buildings are stacked, up to three floors, embroidered green windows, look like gold." Although the words revealed that the Portuguese costumes were still a little unpleasant, but what people wore, what hairstyles and beards they wore, he looked at them one by one, even the sweat towel tucked under the hat, and basically there was no irony. For the women's attire that has been making a fuss for a long time, "up and bare breasts, down and heavy skirts", there is not a word of praise or depreciation, but only a faint sentence of "its vulgarity" has been taken.
After returning to Sui from Macao, Lin Zexu began to hire people to collect "newsprint" and other western-related materials from Macao, translate them into Chinese, and also used foreign business affairs (translations) and servants who worked for foreigners to collect "Yi Qing" from various sources. Obviously, what he got from Macau was the most. These materials first formed the "Chronicle of the Four Continents", and then through the processing of Wei Yuan, formed The First Relatively Complete Introduction to the World in China, the "Atlas of the Sea Country".
Sensitive Macau newspapers soon discovered Lin Zexu's changes, and they praised Lin as different from those adult gentlemen who "held great power, did not know the affairs of the English and Millikans" and were "proud and self-sufficient", saying that he was not only good at collecting knowledge about foreign countries, but also "everyone who has gained, spares no effort, always learns it, and remembers it in his heart", and is really a "smart and good person".
Lin Zexu, who opened his eyes, also did something for himself, he invited the American missionary doctor Bo Cha to treat him for hernia that had not healed for many years, and as a result, he got a hernia belt that was still effective. You know, that era when Chinese seeIng Western medicine as a ghost, this alone is enough to show Lin's courage and open-mindedness.
Lin Zexu's posthumous name is glorious, and this "first person to open his eyes to see the world" played an extraordinary role in the process of opening his eyes. The information lin Zexu collected from Macao about the Western world, formed after being processed by Wei Yuan, not only played an irreplaceable role in China's liberation from obscurantism in the years to come, but also benefited greatly from the Japanese restorationists. Now some scholars even suspect that the "Chart of the Sea Country" should actually be Lin Zexu's copyright.
Lin Zexu was indeed a "smart and good person", but unfortunately, for China at that time, there were too few such people.