If Zhou Lang had told Wang Fuqian about his concerns, and if Wang Fuqian could have imagined that this was a situation, then Wang Fuqian would never have believed it, because he would never believe that the Chinese intelligentsia would interpret China's problems with Western concepts.

But Zhou Lang knew that it would be a reality, and Westerners had also used China as an example to criticize their own country, such as masters such as Voltaire in the Enlightenment, who constantly compared China and the West to combat the traditional maladministration of Europe. He admired China's literati politics to criticize the aristocracy of Europe, and he advocated China's unification politics to criticize the division of European states.

These things have only happened in a hundred years, and Voltaire has only been dead for thirty years, but the West has already given birth to the consciousness of "Lao Tzu is the best in the world", and what is not Western is the concept of barbarism. And this kind of consciousness of "Lao Tzu is the best in the world" has been maintained by the Chinese intellectual class for thousands of years, and the concept of non-Chinese or barbaric is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

To put it bluntly, they have been unable to find an opponent to compare with themselves with the lantern, so this pride is naturally born.

But in the 100 years since the contact between China and the West, the pride in the hearts of the Chinese intelligentsia has disappeared, and there is a great deal of self-criticism. Introspection is also one of the essences of traditional Chinese culture, but the problem is that the intellectual elites of the late Qing Dynasty and the Republic of China have gone far beyond the level of introspection, and they are completely denied.

This kind of total denial of the self is far more terrifying than Voltaire's use of China to suppress aristocratic politics and culture. It is a sense of inferiority that comes from the depths of the heart, a sense of despair that accepts oneself as inferior.

As a result, these intellectual elites began to think that the reason why China was backward and corrupt was because of the old traditional culture. And the reason why the old traditional culture is so stubborn is because of Chinese characters. Therefore, if we want to save China, we must sweep away the old culture; And in order to sweep away the old culture, it is necessary to abolish Chinese characters first.

At this time, the intellectual elite was no longer obsessed with the superficial issue of whether to wear Hanfu and whether to keep Hanfu, but began to struggle with the more advanced stage of whether to abolish Chinese characters. Even characters like Lu Xun call on everyone not to read Chinese books.

As a result of everyone reading Western books, the worldview, values, and outlook on life have been fully assimilated by Westerners, and they have begun to think about problems and understand the world in the way Chinese of Westerners. It was not until after the reform, when China's hard power grew rapidly, that a group of local scholars finally began to challenge these notions and propose to use traditional Chinese knowledge to solve China's problems, rather than blindly relying on Western experience.

The most important reason for the comprehensive rejection of China by a large number of intellectual elites in the late Qing Dynasty was the lack of hard power, which humiliated the country again and again.

Zhou Lang grew up in an era of China's thriving national strength, more able to objectively evaluate traditional culture, he accepted China's backwardness in the past, there are cultural factors, because of thousands of years of pride and complacency, the good and bad in traditional culture, are regarded as excellent ingredients, passed down from generation to generation, there will naturally be many drawbacks.

Zhou Lang's consciousness will not stay at the superficial level of entangled feet and concubines, these are of course the most conspicuous decadent cultures, which are to be cracked down on. But it is also the most superficial appearance, and Zhou Lang pays more attention to those deep-seated reasons, such as the loss of cultural vitality.

When culture loses its vitality, it will not move forward, but stick to old traditions, not looking forward, but looking backwards. The trend of Chinese culture beginning to lose its vitality generally went down from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.

Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty's support for Dong Zhongshu's exclusive Confucianism was an important factor. Because Confucianism began to dominate the political sphere, it also ruled the most important power to distribute resources. Cultural development also needs resources to nourish it, and other cultural ideas have lost their nourishment and naturally declined.

The stronger Confucianism became, the less vibrant the culture became, and this general trend has not changed.

But the literati at the end of the Qing Dynasty blamed Confucianism for the decline of Chinese culture, which is biased, because Zhou Lang understood that Confucian culture was only a part of traditional culture.

The main body of Chinese civilization is the Central Plains civilization, and the process of Chinese history is not only a historical process in which Confucian civilization gradually crowds out and integrates other civilizations, but also a historical process in which the Central Plains civilization crowds out and integrates other civilizations.

The origin of the Central Plains civilization was in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, when a hundred schools of thought contended, Confucianism was only one of them, of course, it was the most important one, and Mohistism and Taoism were the three most powerful schools of thought.

In the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Chinese culture was generally at the same level as Western culture. It is in no way inferior to the Greek and Roman civilizations.

By the time Qin Shi Huang ruled the world, Chinese civilization had clearly surpassed Western civilization. When Qin Shi Huang swept Liuhe, the Romans were still in the era of slavery, and no matter how Westerners whitewashed, it cannot be said that the West was advanced at that time. The huge generational gap between civilizations is manifested in specific aspects, that is, China during the Qin and Han dynasties, both in population and military force, far surpassed the West.

The Chinese have a very strange ideological concept, that is, all backwardness is generally attributed to the problem of too much population, as if too much population is an original sin and a manifestation of backwardness.

On the contrary, if the population of a country or a nation grows, to the extent that its technical capabilities are roughly equal, it must be the growth of countries and nations that are better managed and have a stronger ability to compete for resources, while countries and nations that are chaotic and have a weak ability to compete for resources will only disappear.

Therefore, in ancient times, the Chinese population maintained a leading position for a long time, which was the reason why China's management ability was stronger and its ability to develop resources was stronger.

Some people say that the large population is because the Chinese can give birth, and it is the old idea that the Chinese have more children and more blessings. This is another joke, biology textbooks, the two basic characteristics of biology are attributed to metabolism and reproduction, reproductive ability is one of the most important abilities of biology, if Westerners are not as good as the Chinese race in fertility, it can only be said that they are inferior to the Chinese at the biological level.

But in fact, Westerners are also very productive, and early immigrants from Australia, Canada, and the United States had an average of seven or eight people in a family because of their abundant resources. Therefore, the reason why the population of the West is inferior to the Chinese population for a long time is that their backward management level and inefficiency in resource development and utilization are poor, and the poor management level causes the division of the masses, because they do not have the ability to manage tens of millions of people, and can only manage hundreds of thousands of millions of people without division, so wars are frequent, and there is no stable environment for population growth; The inefficient exploitation and utilization of resources means that the same land cannot feed as many people as China, and historical data also proves that before the Industrial Revolution, China's land yield was the highest in the world.

After the Industrial Revolution, the population of the West began to grow rapidly, and the Chinese population fell sharply from one-third to India. In fact, this is a manifestation of backwardness, because your ability to draw resources from the world and raise future generations has declined.

With the power of the Industrial Revolution, the white race became the most resourced and affluent of the three major races. This is reflected in their increased ability to draw on resources.

The superficial phenomenon that caused China's backwardness is that the West gave birth to the industrial revolution and advanced human civilization to the industrial age, while China stayed in the era of agricultural civilization, and the generation gap of this civilization was greater than that of the county system in the Qin and Han dynasties than the slavery system in Europe.

An enduring topic in the field of science and technology is why the Industrial Revolution was not born in China, on the surface, China in the Tang and Song dynasties, or even earlier, had the foundation of the British Industrial Revolution, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the British population did not exceed 10 million people, and this population size was there after Qin Shi Huang unified China; From a technical point of view, Jenny spinning machines, water-powered spinning machines and other machines in the early days of the industrial revolution have also appeared in China during the Tang and Song dynasties, and they were quite popular in the Song and Song dynasties.

Therefore, whether in terms of human resources, market size, or technological level, it is impossible to explain the reason why China did not have an industrial revolution. Even later, some people blamed it on the two subversions of the Central Plains civilization by the Mongols and the Manchurians, but this is by no means the truth, before the Mongols went south, the two Song Dynasty ruled China for 400 years, whether it was the Northern Song Dynasty or the Southern Song Dynasty, they all reached the peak of the economic field in the first 100 years of their rule, and they could not break through the barriers of the industrial revolution in a hundred years.

Zhou Lang prefers to analyze the problem from a technical point of view, arguing that in many areas, China has failed in the competition not because of backwardness, but because of its shortcomings, such as natural sciences.

The source of natural science in Europe is the Greek civilization, and in the contemporaries, and even a little later in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period civilization in China, there is no similar deficiency, and the Mohists composed of handicraftsmen are actually the traditional Chinese school of studying natural science, but unfortunately this school failed in the political struggle, and has not occupied the mainstream of the ruling ideology, and lacks the resources of political guarantee, this school can only fend for itself. As a result, there have always been some mathematicians and scientists in China, such as Zu Chongzhi and Guo Shoujing, but it is difficult to form a scientific system that continues to move forward.

By the time Newton appeared, he thoroughly used mathematical methods to summarize classical physics, and China had a generation gap with Europe in the field of natural sciences.

As a result, when the British used Jenny spinning machines for production, China did not lag behind, and when it was produced with water-powered looms, China did not lag behind, but when Watt improved the steam engine after repeated mathematical calculations and physical reasoning, China completely fell behind.

The reason is that in the field of natural sciences in China, it has always stayed at the level of summarizing the practical experience of craftsmen, and everything is a handicraft exploration, rather than a large-scale industrial research and development.

After the generational gap had already appeared, it was almost impossible to reach the level of the Newtonian era by encouraging the traditional Mohist natural sciences.

Therefore, anyone will choose to take it directly, and fill in the gaps and make up for the shortcomings with the method of take-it-it-ism.

Therefore, Zhou Lang has always not restricted his contacts and communication with the West, and even took the initiative to introduce important knowledge from the West.

After making up for the shortcomings, Zhou Lang believes that with the enhancement of hard power, there will definitely be no phenomenon of the intellectual elite completely denying their own culture.

From the deepest level of civilization, we will continue to inherit and promote the development of Chinese civilization.

But this requires further and broader contact with the West, because Newton, the symbol of the West's complete surpassing of China, has been dead for more than 70 years, and it has been more than 100 years since Newton's laws were put forward to determine the basic theory of modern natural science, which means that the West has been rushing forward for 100 years.

Zhou Lang needs closer ties between China and the West, Westerners bring some things in through trade, Zhou Lang also has to take the initiative to send people to the West to study, bring in and go out, and start on both sides, so that it is possible to keep up with the rapid progress of Westerners in this era, and then surpass opponents on a certain basis.

Therefore, after Zhou Lang occupied Guangdong, he expressed his willingness to send envoys to other countries, but for unknown reasons, the Western countries have not carried out regular diplomatic activities, I do not know whether it is because they feel that Zhou Lang is just a small separatist force occupying Fujian and Guangdong, and intends to wait for the Chinese civil war to clear, before deciding which regime to recognize is the legitimate regime, or because of the chaos caused by the French Revolution, they do not intend to establish relations with distant countries for the time being.

However, after Zhou Lang broke through Beijing, the general trend was decided, and finally some Western countries began to directly dissolve Zhou Lang.

But this first country is not something that Zhou Lang particularly wants to come into contact with, because this country is still a backward element in the West, and this country is Russia.