After the Opium War, some patriotic intellectuals of the landlord class were the first to awaken. Lin Zexu was the first person to "see the world" in modern China. Wei Yuan is an advocate of the new trend of thought. Based on the annals of the Four Kingdoms and other materials, his Chart Annals is the most detailed work introducing western historical geography. In this book, he also systematically expounded his thought of "learning from foreigners to control foreigners".

Why do you say they are the landlord class? ?

It was the Westernization Movement carried out by the Westernization School that first put the ideas of Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan into practice. Westernization Movement is a "self-help movement" to learn from modern western science and technology and safeguard the rule of Qing Dynasty. Its contents include military affairs, politics, diplomacy, economy, education, etc., but its main content is to adopt western advanced production technology and set up military and civilian industries. In the 1960s, the Westernization School set up military industry under the banner of "self-improvement" with two purposes: one was to suppress the people's revolutions such as Taiping Army and Nian Army, and the other was to resist foreign aggression with diligence and foresight. Fundamentally speaking, it is to strengthen military strength, safeguard the rule of the Qing Dynasty and safeguard the interests of the landlord class.

Secondly, these military industries founded by the Westernization School were run by the feudal government, and their products were not sold as commodities in the market. Therefore, it is feudal in nature and cannot be brought into the social and economic structure of China as a new economic component.