Kang Youwei (1858 ~ 1927), also known as Zuyi, was born in Nanhai County, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province. He is the author of Kang Zi Pian, Textual Research on New Learning, and Pseudo Classics. He came from an official family, a noble family in Guangdong, and was a Confucian from generation to generation, and Neo-Confucianism was handed down from generation to generation.

Kang Youwei's earliest teacher was his grandfather Kang Zanxiu. 1858 March 19 (Wuwu Year) was born in Danzaosu Village, Nanhai County, Guangdong Province. He studied Confucianism since childhood. At the age of eighteen, I learned from Zhu Ciqi, a famous scholar in Jiujiang, Nanhai. Kang Zanxiu and Zhu Ciqi both believed in Neo-Confucianism in Song and Ming Dynasties. Therefore, under the influence of Neo-Confucianism in the Song and Ming Dynasties, Kang Youwei despised the tedious textual research of the so-called sinologists in an attempt to open up a new way of studying. After studying Neo-Confucianism for a while, I don't agree with Neo-Confucianism either. Because Neo-Confucianism only talks about Confucius' self-cultivation and does not talk about Confucius' salvation.

1879 began to contact western culture. He left Zhu Ciqi at the age of 22 and went to Baiyun Cave in Xiqiao Mountain to study alone. He read many practical books, such as Gu's Records of Diseases in Counties and Countries under the World, Gu Zuyu's Minutes of Reading History, etc. In the same year, he went to Hong Kong once, which opened his eyes. Later, I read some books, such as Atlas of Sea Countries, A Brief Introduction to Ying Huan, and said that "buying a map of the earth and gradually collecting books on western learning are the basis of speaking about western learning". This year is an important beginning for Kang Youwei to change from middle school to western learning.

1882, Kang Youwei went to Beijing to take the exam. When he came back, he passed by Shanghai, where he was further exposed to capitalist things and collected many books and periodicals introducing the political system and natural sciences of capitalist countries. After studying, Kang Youwei gradually realized that the capitalist system was more advanced than the feudal system in China. The imperialist aggression and corruption in the Qing Dynasty ignited the fire of saving the country in the young Kang Youwei's chest. The prosperity of the west made him determined to learn from the west in order to save the motherland in danger. Born in a feudal bureaucratic family, his grandfather Kang Zanxiu was a juren in Daoguang period, and his father Kang Dachu was a magistrate in Jiangxi.

1882, Kang Youwei went to Beijing to take the rural examination in Shuntian, but failed. When I returned to South China, I passed through Shanghai, bought a large number of western books, absorbed western evolutionism and political views, and initially formed the ideological system of reform and reform.