“When Zeng Guofan first stipulated the conditions, he was not very demanding. Any intelligent boy from a decent family with a good nature, who did not steal and was not greedy would do. Li Hongzhang had different expectations. He demanded that the candidates must be from non-criminal families, perspicacious and responsive, quick to learn, and pleasant to look at, or they would disgrace the image of their nation in the foreign land. Those ungracefully named must be renamed by the family. He put forward many conditions.”

Facing such strict requirements, what sort of parents at the time in China would be willing to send their children abroad?

“A cousin of mine, however, who was in business then at Shanghai, thought differently; and was not deterred by any such considerations. He came home with glowing accounts of the new movement; and so painted the golden prospects of the successful candidate that he persuaded my mother to let me go.” [from When I was a Boy in China]

Li Enfu was 12 that year. His father had died 3 years earlier. Despite his cousin's persuasive efforts, his mother made no clear indication of her opinion, leaving the decision to the young boy.

Li Enfu, whose family was from Xiangshan in Guangdong, later became a member of the second detachment of boy students.

Another student Zhan Tianyou, originally from Wuyuan, Anhui, had moved with his family to Guangzhou. His ancestors had thrived in the tea trade but in his father Zhan Xinghong's generation, the family business declined. A friend informed the family of the government's overseas student project.

“This friend of Zhan's was very fond of him. The two were close friends and had arranged a marriage of their children. 'My daughter shall marry your son when they come of age.' After the engagement of the two children, he suggested that Zhan Tianyou should go abroad to study. He stressed that this was the path to great success, and that Zhan must be sent away. Zhan's parents were very reluctant to let him go. The future father-in-law of Zhan Tianyou, used his influence on the Zhan family, insisted and finally succeeded.”

Zhan Xinghong was persuaded to send his first son, the 12-year-old Zhan Tianyou, abroad, despite his parental pangs. Thus, Zhan Tianyou became one of the first delegation of students sent to America.

More than 130 years ago, the Liang family who lived in Guangzhou sent two sons abroad. Their firstborn son, Liang Puzhao, then 13 years old, went to America together with his 11 year old brother, Liang Pushi.

“There are only five families that sent two of their sons abroad. Our family is one of them.”

Liang Zanxun's great grandfather, Liang Huannan, was in the tea business in Shanghai, and had contact with foreigners and foreign officials, and through this exposure was relatively liberal-minded. When the government was selecting potential students in Shanghai, the two brothers of the Liang family were taken. The Liang brothers left no pictures of their overseas years. But we discovered this picture of another pair of brothers taken before they went to America in Fuzhou's Mawei Majiang Marine Battle Museum. They are Huang Zhongliang and his younger brother, Huang Jiliang. Their father, Huang Doping, was at the time the official of foreign affairs for the Shanghai Kiang Nan Arsenal.

In the data of the 120 students, one fact, in particular, stands out. Students from Guangdong accounted for over 70% of the total. And, they were mostly from Xiangshan, today the area covers Zhuhai and Zhongshan. In Zhuhai there is a place called Tangjia Bay, the hometown of seven boy students. Among them were Tang Shaoyi, who later took office as the first premier of the Republic of China, and Tang Guo'an, the first president of Tsinghua University.

We interviewed Mr. Tang Yougan, who compiled the expatriate history of the Tang family.

“In our family, as long ago as the year 1700 in the reign of Emperor Kangxi, we had people who traveled via Macao to foreign countries to try their luck. So it was nothing special for these students from our family to go to America to study.”

In the family history of the Tangs, many important officials of foreign affairs appeared, for example, Tang Tingshu, the first general agent of Jardine, Matheson & Co. and was later promoted to the Shipping Investment Promotion Bureau.

Open to foreign trade, people near the seaside areas of Guangdong were among the first to be in contact with the outside world and to become acquainted with western ideas and studies. Those who left their hometown to trade abroad prospered and encouraged their neighbors to send their own children abroad.

Rong Hong, who originally came from Guangdong, was appointed by the Qing Government as the Deputy Commissioner of the Chinese Educational Mission. He was responsible for the selection of candidates in Shanghai. When his work there was thwarted, he decided to try his luck in his home town.

In the coastal areas of Guangdong, the overseas student project met with a positive response. Of the first group of boy students, over 80% were from Guangdong.

In 1872, the first delegation of students was waiting to set off in Shanghai. By this time, one of the founders of the project, Zeng Guofan, had already passed away. Seven days before his death, Li Hongzhang wrote him a letter, exclaiming that China was confronting a cataclysm unseen in 3,000 years. 'The current reform is under multiple pressures. It was first advocated, then disrupted. And it is swaying between credence and doubt.' He said, 'Today with you, my mentor, and Zuo Zongtang still alive, our cause is already much suspected and maligned. What will become of it in the years to come?'

Editor:Ge Ting