Research On Chinese Port Intellectuals In The Middle Of The 19th Century

From the beginning of the 19thn Century,the Qing Dynasty’s political,economic,and cultural all appeared to decline.One of the important signs is that there are a lot of surplus labor force in the society.The other is the emergence of a large number of intellectuals can not enter the ranks of the intellectual class which became the "marginal people".The emergence of these two kinds of people,on the one hand,proved that the production of the dynasty has been bankrupt,it also proved the rigid of the institutional industry.As the promoted channel has been closed,these wandering" which outside of the system will turn to combination of the bankrupt peasants and find some degree of identity to each other.Then,these marginal people will become a new substitute for the dynasty.In the first 50 years of the 19th century,the kingdom had been in the process of brewing a movement.The commercial war outbreak between china and Britain gave the new meaning given to this era.This is an incredible battle for the Chinese government,both from the cause of the war or the results.And post-war port city business life is also the same for the Chinese people can not imagine.However,the West has been riding the shells came to the port city,the port city he opened is a Western civilization exhibition,the "wandering" has a choice.In this way,because of trade disputes opened the door of China’s transformation,China also appeared in the first batch of transition.They left the homeland,devoted to the life to the Western civilization,they are engaged in the industrial revolution after the emergence of specialized work.This also marks the emergence of "modern Chinese intellectuals".The change from "scholar bureaucrat" to "intellectual" is not only because the life is become helpless,but also the transformation of values under the two civilizations.This paper selects Wang Tao,Rong Hong,Hong Rengan as an example,to examine the historical background as well as the personal experience,to fine how the"Chinese intellectuals" is formed.They were all came to contact with the western society at their earlier age.As they lived in the port,they were not satisfied with their own future after receiving the advanced western civilization,instead hoped to change the China by their own understanding of the west.Wang Tao is addicted to Western media and he hoped to enlighten the people through newspapers;Rong Hong,the first Chinese who got the degree in the United States was also the first Chinese in doing so,hoped that through education could make China a great change.By his efforts,he opened the ere of learning from the west.November 1857,Hong Rengan became a Christian.He has lived in Hongkong for 4 years as a missionary which gave him a chance to get to Hongkong and Shanghai.He dreamed to change China with Christianity and with a dream of saving the nation he arrived in Nanjing by the end of 1859 and drafted "Zizheng xinpian".This paper contained his systematical thoughts and opinions on the revitalization of the China.In short,as the shore-intellectuals,they became the herald of understanding the West and many of their trying are worthy of learning.