What is the basis for saying that Zhang is the founder of modern geography in China?

The geography of China developed rapidly in the late Qing Dynasty, gradually getting rid of the status of historical vassal and becoming a truly independent discipline. In this process, the pioneers of modern geography in China played an important role, among which Zhang was called the founder of modern geography in China. Zhang (1866— 1933), a native of Siyang, Jiangsu. During the Sino-Japanese War, he often looked at maps to understand the war situation and began to study geography. After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, imperialism set off a frenzy to carve up our country, which further aroused Zhang's determination to study geography. While reading China's ancient geography works carefully, he studied Japanese hard, actively studied and absorbed the knowledge of western modern geography, and combined China's traditional geography with western modern geography to establish China modern geography. Zhang edited and published the first batch of geography textbooks in China. Zhang Yisheng devoted himself to teaching. He has taught geography in Shanghai Nanyang College (predecessor of Shanghai Jiaotong University), Tianjin Beiyang Women's College and Peking University. In geography teaching, Zhang absorbed western geography knowledge and combined with the characteristics of our country to compile and publish the first batch of geography textbooks in China. For example, 190 1, 2 primary school geography textbooks published by Shanghai Nanyang University; 190 1 year, Shanghai lanling society published 4 volumes of national geography teaching books for middle schools; 1908 Shanghai Wenming Bookstore publishes geographical documents 10. Among them, Geography Textbook for Primary School and National Geography Textbook for Middle School are the earliest modern education textbooks in China. There are textbooks in our country, which started from geography and created a "textbook". These two works have great influence and promoted the rise and development of modern geography education and modern geography research in China. The Geography Literature written by him is not only the first geography book written by himself in China, but also the earliest natural geography textbook in China. This book is divided into five parts: stars (universe), land, water, air and living things. Up to now, the basic content of compiling general physical geography books still comes from these five aspects. Zhang added a chapter on biology for the first time in this book, linking inorganic nature with organic nature, which is an important progress of modern geography. The publication of Geoscience Documentary edited by Zhang is undoubtedly another symbol of the rise of modern geography in China, and also laid a preliminary foundation for the development of modern geography in China. 1909 On September 28th, Zhang Dang was elected as the first president of China Geological Science Society at the inaugural meeting of Hebei First Mongolian Society. China Geological Society is the first geoscience academic group in China and the predecessor of China Geological Society and geological society of china. Its establishment promoted the transformation of China geography to modern geography. After the establishment of the China Earth Science Society, Zhang decided to publish Earth Science as the journal of the Society, and he was responsible for editing for a long time. As the earliest publication in China to spread new geosciences, Journal of Geosciences strongly promoted the development of geography in China. In a word, Zhang's activities actively publicized and expanded the spread and influence of scientific geography in China, and made great contributions to the establishment and development of modern geography in China, and he was worthy of being the pioneer of modern geography in China.