After the Opium War (1840-1842), Lin Zexu, a national hero who devoted himself to the fight against opium spreading, was dispatched to today's Yili of Northwest China's Xinjiang Autonomous Region in 1841. By way of East China's Zhenjiang Province, he met with his old friend Wei Yuan and the two spent a night together.

A year earlier, when Lin was acting as the imperial envoy, he ordered his "translating group" to translate and edit the World Geography, resulting in the unpublished geographical book - Si Zhou Zhi. On that night, Lin handed all the scripts to Wei, and expressed his hope that Wei would compile another book - Hai Guo Tu Zhi based on these materials. Wei accepted his entrustment and devoted himself to compiling the book.

A year later, in 1841, the 50-volume book came out in Yangzhou of East China's Jiangsu Province.

In the prelude, Wei wrote, "The book is intended to fight against the foreign invasion with foreign technologies, and to surpass the foreigners by learning from them." Thus, Wei Yuan, for the first time in Chinese history, put forward the slogan of learning from the West.

There are three editions of Hai Guo Tu Zhi: 50-volume, 60-volume, and 100-volume, with the former two editions printed in Yangzhou and the latter one in Gaoyou (also in Jiangsu).

With "foreign" as its core and themed on "Learning from the foreigners," the book, the first of its kind, comprehensively introduced the geography, history, politics, economy, science, religion, culture, and local customs, and so on of different countries throughout the world, and included any materials the author could collect, such as military and scientific materials on how to make Western canons and ships.

An epoch-making magnum opus (masterpiece), Hai Guo Tu Zhi marked the beginning in Chinese people's genuine observation of the world and represented a milestone in the history of Chinese culture and ideology. Wei Yuan, as a pioneer in Chinese modern enlightenment, was honored as a representative of the first batch of intellectuals to "open the eyes to the world."

Author: Jessie