Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c14.s4.t14: Wu Guangpei
Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c14.s4.t14
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Wu Guangpei
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Wu Guangpei (1854 or 1855-1918 or 1919), a celebrity at the end of Qing Dynasty, once visited India together with Ma Jianzhong and wrote *Diary of Traveling to the South*.
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Wu Guangpei was from Jingxian, Anhui. Although he was famous for his talents in the childhood, yet his seven times of imperial examinations all failed.
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[Figure: Wu Guangpei's Diary of Western Sojourns]
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In November 1877, as the entourage of official envoy He Ruzhang, he went to Japan. Huang Zunxian, the counsellor in Japan, praised him with outstanding talents. In 1881, the Beiyang minister Li Hongzhang sent Ma Jianzhong as the special envoy of Qing Dynasty to India for the negotiation with the British on opium trade. So Ma Jianzhong invited him to travel together. He was very angry with the opium trade that Britain imposed on China, deeply distressed for the “serious consequence of disaster and larger waste of money”, so Ma Jianzhong and he became like-minded friends. They stayed in India for 25 days. About the trip, they both had the diary kept up to now. Because Ma Jianzhong was busy with official business, sometimes his records were revised and polished by Wu Guangpei. Wu Guangpei's *Diary of Traveling to the South* included about more than 30,000 words. Everything he heard and saw was recorded into the book for discussion and expression. When seeing the resplendent and magnificent royal curtilage of the native nobility, he would ridicule that they worked for British colonists to raise their own family, and the government gave over the prosperous country with thousands of miles and 200 million people to others, and depended on others for living. And when seeing some walls destroyed in the fighting for British invasion, he would comment that "guarding the country and resisting the enemy lie in the building of internal policy, rather than the reckless fighting in the battleground". Drawing lessons from India, he also thought about the situation of China, and sought for the road for China. He also visited court judgment and bank office in order to know the running situation of Indian society. For the beautiful scenery across India, he couldn't help chanting poems to express his praise. He was proud that he could also go to India after Faxian and Xuanzang 1,000 years later. *Diary of Traveling to the South* with Wang Tao writing preface, was published in 1890. In the Sino-Japanese War, China suffered disastrous defeat, and imperial court of Qing Dynasty had to sign the *Treaty of Shimonoseki* of national betrayal and humiliation in 1895. Wu Guangpei "decided to write a book without any interference from the external affairs", and the book pointed out the current malpractice and made analysis of national crisis, and put forward the reform advocacies of stabilising the country, controlling external invasion, raising money, training of military force, employment of talents and political reform, and the book became *Guidance of Saving the Country*. Wu Guangpei's *Verification of Stone-Drum Inscriptions* was also handed down. In the Republic of China, he served as the historiographer of Qing History Library, and was responsible for the records of diplomatic relations. He made a great contribution to the compilation of *Draft History of Qing*.