What kind of exploration activities did people at home and abroad carry out in ancient and modern times?

Sven Hedin is a world-famous Swedish explorer. He has been engaged in a lifelong career of professional exploration since he was 16 years old. Because of his exploration, he remained unmarried and depended on his sister for life. Complete the journey of his life. His name is not only known to everyone in his motherland, but also loved and respected by people, and has the same reputation as Nobel.

The great explorer Sven Hedin

In 1865, Sven Hedin was born in a middle-class family in the capital of Sweden. There is nothing distinctive about family and early life, but what is distinctive is its unique feel for the times in which it lived. That was the era swallowed up by the great geographical discoveries of the 19th century. The Western geography community, perhaps the entire intellectual community, has declared war on the blank spots in the map. Fleets of conquering polar regions have sailed out of the harbor one after another, and single-handedly unknown people have mapped a river in a tropical rainforest or marked a certain place. The altitude of Virgin Peak can make it famous overnight. Breathing and appreciating such an atmosphere gave Sven Hedin a persistent fascination with the unknown world. Therefore, when he was 19 years old (just graduated from high school) and learned that he had the opportunity to work as a tutor in distant Baku, he left his hometown without hesitation. After his work ended, he used all his salary as travel expenses to make his first research trip to Persia and the Middle East.

In the autumn of 1886, Sven Hedin entered university. In April 1890, Sven Hedin once again embarked on a journey to the Middle East. As an interpreter for the diplomatic mission of the Kingdom of Sweden, he successfully completed his mission and, with the support of the king, began his second adventure trip in Asia. In December 1890, he entered China's Xinjiang Province from Russia and arrived in Kashgar, a famous city in Central Asia. In early January 1891, Sven Hedin left China and returned to Sweden. On October 16, 1893, Sven Hedin left his hometown again and headed to Asia. In February 1894, he entered the Pamir Plateau and spent some time at the foot of Muztagh Mountain, trying to climb this veritable "Father of Icebergs". On May 1, 1894, arrived in Kashgar. On February 17, 1895, Sven Hedin walked towards the Taklimakan Desert. Due to his lack of experience and poor conditions, he was rescued by a camel team that happened to be passing by after struggling.

In 1899, Sven Hedin conducted a second expedition in Xinjiang with the funding of the King of Sweden and Nobel. In 1900, by chance, he discovered the ancient city of Loulan. In 1907, Sven Hedin came to China for the fourth time, and his main target was Tibet.

It was the winter of 1926 when Swen Te set foot on the land of China again. This time he did not go to China alone, but brought an expedition team composed of Swedes, Germans and Danes. However, the inspection was still in preparation and met with unanimous opposition from the academic circles in Beijing. After nearly six months of negotiations, Sven Hedin and the Chinese Association of Academic Societies in Beijing reached an agreement on the upcoming study tour. The most important part of the agreement is: this expedition will be jointly organized by China and Sweden as a medium-sized scientific expedition team to northwest China; the other five will include five Chinese scholars and four Chinese students; all animals and plants collected and excavated by the team will be Specimens, artifacts, mineral samples, etc. are all the property of China.

On May 9, 1927, Sven Hedin and Xu Bingxu led a modern scientific expedition team of unprecedented scale to leave Peiping and head to northwest China.

On October 21, 1933, Sven Hedin and others were commissioned by the railway department of the Nanjing Central Government at that time to conduct a survey and investigate the feasibility of building a transportation artery across mainland China. In the summer of 1933, Sven Hedin proposed the issue of giving priority to Xinjiang. The specific measures were to first build and maintain the main highway connecting the inland to Xinjiang and further lay the railway to the hinterland of Asia. Focusing on strengthening the connection between the mainland and Xinjiang is a common sense that Chinese politicians and scholars with far-sightedness and concern for the country and the people have repeatedly emphasized since the Revolution of 1911.

The entire expedition started in 1927 and ended in 1935. The experiences, joys and sorrows, successes and failures during these eight years were faithfully recorded in "Eight Years of Exploration in the Heart of Asia".

Xu Xiake (1586-1641) was named Hongzu, with the courtesy name Zhenzhi, and Xiake was his nickname. He was born in a famous and wealthy family in Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province. My ancestors were all scholars, so we can be said to be from a scholarly family. His father Xu Youmian did not want to be an official or associate with the powerful throughout his life. He liked to travel around and admire the scenery.

Influenced by his father when he was young, Xu Xiake loved reading books on history, geography, exploration, and travel notes. These books made him love the magnificent rivers and mountains of his motherland since he was a child, and he determined to travel all over the famous mountains and rivers. When he was fifteen years old, he took the boy's examination but failed. Seeing that his son had no interest in fame, the father no longer forced him, so he encouraged him to read widely and become a learned man. Xu Xiake's ancestors built a Ten Thousand Volumes Tower to store books, which created good conditions for Xu Xiake to read extensively. He studies very seriously, and he can remember everything he has read when asked about it. The collection of books at home could not meet his needs, so he also collected books he had never seen before. As long as he saw a good book, even if he didn't bring any money, he would take off his clothes and exchange them for books. When he was nineteen, his father died. He wanted to go out and visit famous mountains and rivers, but according to the moral code of feudal society, "Don't travel far when your parents are here." Xu Xiake had his mother at home, so he was not ready to travel immediately. His mother was a literate and sensible woman. She encouraged her son: "As a man, you should aim at all directions. Go travel! Go to heaven and earth to stretch your mind and expand your horizons." How can you stay home and do nothing because of my presence? Before leaving, he wore the travel crown his mother made for him, carried simple luggage on his shoulders, and left his hometown. This year, he was twenty-two years old. From then on, until his death at the age of fifty-six, he spent most of his time traveling and investigating.

With no government funding at all, Xu Xiake traveled to Jiangsu, Anhui, Zhejiang, Shandong, Hebei, Henan, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Fujian, Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan and other sixteen provinces. It reaches Mount Putuo in Zhejiang in the east, Tengchong in Yunnan in the west, Nanning in Guangxi in the south, and Panshan in Jixian County in Hebei in the north, covering most of China. What's even more valuable is that in more than thirty years of travel and investigation, he mainly traveled on foot, rarely even riding horses and boats, and often carried his own luggage. The places he visited were mostly desolate backcountry areas or border areas with few human traces. He does not take shelter from wind and rain, is not afraid of tigers and wolves, and stays with the wind and clouds. He eats wild fruits to satisfy his hunger and quenches his thirst with clear springs. He encountered life danger several times, went through life and death, and experienced the hardships of the journey.

When Xu Xiake was 28 years old, he came to Wenzhou to climb Yandang Mountain. He remembered that ancient books said there was a large lake at the top of Yandang Mountain, so he decided to climb to the top of the mountain to have a look. When he climbed to the top of the mountain with difficulty, he saw that the ridge was straight and there was nowhere to stand. How could there be a lake? However, Xu Xiake still refused to give up and continued to move forward to a big cliff, where the road was gone. He carefully observed the cliff and found a small platform below. He tied a long cloth strap to a rock on the top of the cliff, then grabbed the cloth strap and hung down. When he reached the small platform, he discovered that there was a deep depth below. Hundreds of feet, unable to go down. He had no choice but to grab the cloth strap, step on the cliff, and climb up with difficulty, preparing to climb back to the top of the cliff. While crawling, the strap broke. Fortunately, he cleverly grabbed a protruding rock, otherwise he would have fallen into the abyss and been shattered to pieces. Xu Xiake tied up the broken straps, climbed up with great effort, and finally climbed to the top of the cliff. Another time, he went to Huangshan for inspection and encountered heavy snow on the way. Locals told him that the snow was waist-deep in some places, making it impossible to see the climbing path. Xu Xiake was not intimidated. He used an iron staff to explore the way. Halfway up the mountain, the mountain became steeper and steeper. The shady areas of the hillside are the most difficult to climb. The road is made of solid ice, which is steep and slippery. Once you step on it, you will slide down. Xu Xiake used his iron staff to dig holes in the ice. I stepped on the pit and climbed slowly step by step, and finally climbed up. The monks on the mountain were very surprised to see him, because they had been trapped in the mountain by heavy snow for several months. He also walked through three dangerous trails in Wuyi Mountain in Fujian: the dangerous 100-foot ladder of Dawang Peak, the Qianren cliff of Dolomite, and the "Chicken Breast" and "Dragon Backbone" connecting Sun Peak. When he climbed Dawang Peak, the sun was about to set and he couldn't find a way down the mountain, so he grabbed the hanging thorns with his hands and "fell down". He was in Zhongyue Songshan Mountain, and he also hung down along the gorge from the top of Taishi. Xu Xiake's astonishing travels can indeed prove that he is a strange person through the ages.

After Xu Xiake’s trek for a day, no matter how tired he was and no matter where he stayed, he insisted on recording the results of his inspection. He wrote more than 2.4 million words of travel notes, but unfortunately most of them have been lost. What remained was compiled into a book by later generations, which is the famous "Travel Notes of Xu Xiake".

With more than 400,000 words, this book is a "wonderful book" that combines science and literature.

Xu Xiake’s travels were not simply for seeking wonders, but more importantly, for exploring the mysteries of nature and looking for its laws. For example, his investigation of the water flow of Jianxi and Ningyang streams in Fujian is an example. Liling and Maling are the birthplaces of Jianxi and Ningyang Streams respectively. The heights of the two ridges are roughly the same, but the flow of the two streams into the sea is very different. Jianxi is long, while Ningyangxi is short. After investigation, Xu Xiake came to the conclusion that the water flow of Ningyang Creek is faster than that of Jian Creek. "The more urgent the journey, the faster the flow." That is to say, the shorter the distance, the faster the flow. This famous conclusion in geography was reached by Xu Xiake through field investigations. His investigations and research on mountains, waterways, geology and landforms have made achievements beyond those of his predecessors.

He has explored the watercourse sources of many rivers, such as the Youjiang River in Guangxi, the Xiao and Bin Rivers, tributaries of the Xiangjiang River, the Erpanjiang River in the north and south of Yunnan, and the Yangtze River, among which the Yangtze River is the most in-depth. The mighty Yangtze River flows through most of China, and its origin has been a mystery for a long time. A geography book "Yu Gong" during the Warring States Period contains the saying "the Minjiang River guides the river", and later books followed this statement. Xu Xiake became suspicious of this. With this question in mind, he found that the Jinsha River originates from the southern foothills of the Kunlun Mountains and is more than a thousand miles longer than the Minjiang River. He then concluded that the Jinsha River is the source of the Yangtze River. Due to the limitations of the conditions at the time, Xu Xiake failed to find the true source of the Yangtze River. But he took an extremely important step to find the source of the Yangtze River. No one found him for a long time. It was not until 1978 that the state sent an expedition team to confirm that the true source of the Yangtze River was the Tuotuo River in Geladandong, the main peak of the Tanggula Mountains.

Xu Xiake is also a pioneer in the world's scientific investigation of limestone landforms. Limestone is widely distributed in southwest my country. Xu Xiake made detailed investigations in Hunan, Guangxi, Guizhou and Yunnan, and made detailed descriptions, records and studies of different limestone landforms in various places. He also inspected more than a hundred limestone caves. In Jiuyi Mountain in southern Hunan, he heard that there was a Feilong Rock, so he asked the local monk Mingzong to guide him and carry a torch to investigate. Feilongyan is a huge cave with twists and turns, holes in it, pits and water inside, making it difficult to walk. Xu Xiake didn't care at all and kept going deep. He didn't care if his shoes ran away. Mingzong persuaded him to go back several times, but he didn't listen. It wasn't until the torch was almost finished that he reluctantly walked back. He didn't have any instruments and relied entirely on visual steps, but most of his inspections were very scientific. For example, the records of the fifteen cave entrances of Guilin Seven Star Rock are generally consistent with the field surveys conducted by our geographical researchers today. More than a hundred years after Xu Xiake's death, Europeans began to investigate limestone landforms. Xu Xiake can be regarded as the world's earliest scholar of limestone landforms.

Xu Xiake made many contributions to geographical science. In addition to the above, he also investigated and studied geothermal phenomena such as volcanoes and hot springs. He also carefully described and investigated natural phenomena such as climate changes and changes in plants due to different terrain heights. In addition, he also vividly described and recorded the conditions of agriculture, handicrafts, and transportation, the evolution of scenic spots and historical sites in various places, and the customs and customs of ethnic minorities. This wonderful book of his is also of high literary value, and every chapter can be said to be beautiful prose.

Xu Xiake’s last trip was in 1636, when he was fifty-one years old. This time he mainly traveled through the southwest region of my country, reaching Tengyue (today's Tengchong, Yunnan) at the junction of China and Myanmar. He returned to his hometown in 1640. He fell ill soon after returning to his hometown. During his illness, he also looked through the rock specimens he collected. Before he died, he was still holding tightly the two stones he brought back during the inspection.

Xu Xiake’s love for the motherland, love for science, and the spirit of courageously climbing up the scientific career are worthy of learning by future generations forever.