Lin Zexu, a patriot in modern times, once said: "The life and death of a greedy country cannot be driven away by disaster." This is not only a true portrayal of his patriotic political activities, but also a vivid reflection of his attitude towards learning.
Lin Zexu was famous for his agile literary talent since he was a child. He doesn't like a style of study that focuses on empty talk or textual research. He believes that this style of study imprisons the intelligence of intellectuals and suppresses people's creativity, which is not conducive to social progress. Therefore, after he became a local official, he broke away from tradition, not only personally studied and practiced knowledge beneficial to the national economy and people's livelihood, but also solved the problems that were regarded as daunting by ordinary people, such as water conservancy, salt administration, disaster relief, and piggy bank, and vigorously advocated the knowledge of "applying the world" and trained a group of useful talents.
During the Opium War, based on the interests of the Chinese nation, Lin Zexu took the lead in breaking through the long-standing concept of "defending foreign countries in the summer" and advocated putting down China's great power shelf and "learning from foreign countries".
As early as before the Opium War, China had fallen from the peak of prosperity and advanced, which was far behind the newly industrialized countries in the west. Most bureaucrats and scholars in China turn a blind eye to this, turn a deaf ear to it, and are complacent about the honor of their ancestors. They think that "I am the only civilization", and westerners are just "barbarians" who eat and drink blood and refuse to learn from foreign countries. Emperor Qianlong disdained to study guns and machine models donated by Britain, but showed them off as tributes in Yuanmingyuan, which is an excellent proof.
Lin Zexu was not spared this ignorance before he came into contact with western things. For example, he didn't know the geographical location of Turkey and thought it was close to the United States. He believes that the British people can't live on meat without tea and rhubarb from China. He even thinks that British soldiers are inconvenient to walk, "one servant can't rise again", and China's army can win hand-to-hand combat with them, and so on.
But when Lin Zexu came to Guangzhou and witnessed the actual situation of comparison between China and foreign countries, his views changed quickly. He realized that to remain independent, he could not rest on his laurels, but must learn from the advanced west. Therefore, he resisted the slander of "betraying his ancestors" and the accusation of "recognizing the thief as his father" and "learning from foreigners", and began to learn from the West seriously, becoming the first person in modern China to see the world.
He did two things:
One is to organize China people to translate foreign books, newspapers and magazines. After arriving in Guangzhou, he hired Chinese who graduated from Indian, Malaya, American and China missionary schools as translators, and translated a lot of information about western politics, geography, military affairs, economy and law, as well as foreigners' comments on China, such as Macau Monthly, Chronicle of the Four Kingdoms, Law of Nations, China Affairs and Loanwords, etc. Until the Meiji Restoration in Japan, these books were the most detailed and authoritative information on the Western situation in the Far East.
The second is to use every opportunity to consult foreigners. Lin Zexu broke the cliche that China intellectuals can only learn from Confucius and Mencius, and personally asked foreign missionaries, doctors and sailors stranded by shipwrecks about the situation in the West, asking them to help revise his manuscript of "The Photo of the King", showing a broad mind.
On the basis of understanding the situation in the West and the general trend of the world, Lin Zexu dared to admit backwardness, but was unwilling to lag behind, and put forward the proposition of learning from the West. Although his study of the West at that time was still limited to guns and machines, and he did not give up the feudal monarchy and the Three Cardinals and the Five Permanent Members, he broke through the remaining feudal snare and took a valuable first step.
Lin Zexu's academic attitude of taking national interests as the criterion, deciding the choice of study, daring to correct mistakes and not sticking to ancestors, fate and public opinion is a valuable spiritual wealth left to future generations.