Xue Zhou

Born Song Shizhen， he is a translator and writer who has translated dozens of Korean literary works and won the 8th Korean Literature Translation Award. His published works include The Adventures of Sassy the Panda， No Robots Allowed at School and Yan Zhenqing， etc.

This is a set of history books suited for Chinese children， subtly linking up 551 Chinese history stories with 158 ancient poems. It combines the knowledge of compulsory education， breaks through subject boundaries， and focuses on learning through real-life experiences. It aims to turn the profound knowledge of Chinese history and humanities into insight and wisdom for children during their journey through the relics and history coherently linked with each other.

A History of China While Sightseeing （16 books）

Xue Zhou

CITIC Press Group

July 2020

398.00 （CNY）

Why did Pan Gu’s corpse become only the mountains and rivers of China， yet there is a much larger world beyond China？ In fact， the myth that Pan Gu created the heaven and the earth is just a Chinese myth. When this myth began to spread， human beings were not yet aware of the size of the outside world， so of course they would not have taken that into consideration.

China is part of Earth， Earth is part of our solar system， our solar system is part of the Milky Way， and there are countless galaxies beyond the Milky Way， which together form the infinite universe. Then where did such a vast universe come from？ I am afraid that Pan Gu’s axe alone could not split it！

In 1929， through his telescope on Mount Wilson， California， American astronomer Hubble discovered that galaxies move away from Earth at a rate exactly proportional to their distance from Earth， which is known as Hubble’s Law. To put it simply， the further away from Earth galaxies are， the faster they are moving away from Earth. This indicates that our universe is expanding constantly， and the universe of tomorrow will be bigger than that of yesterday. In turn， the universe of today will be smaller than that of tomorrow， but is bigger than that of the day before yesterday. Speculating in this way， long long ago （early enough） the universe would have been a small egg， maybe even a little smaller than an egg， which is known as the ‘singularity’ at the beginning of the universe.

This is the theory model of the “Big Bang”. Scientists have speculated following this model that the age of the universe would be around 13.82 billion years old， while Earth is about 4.6 billion years old， which is much older than Pan Gu.

Was there life upon the existence of Earth？ Of course not. There was no lithosphere， hydrosphere， atmosphere or life on Earth until 3.8 billion years ago. Earth then ushered in the Cambrian explosion of life over 500 million years ago. The dinosaurs we are familiar with appeared 250 million years ago. If we compress the 4.6 billion years of Earth into a single day， it would have been 11：30 PM when the dinosaurs appeared， and they would have existed for only 10 minutes. 10 minutes after the dinosaurs disappeared， our primate ancestors came on stage， and it took the last 2 minutes to evolve into human beings！ If there were a million years of human history， it would only amount to the last 20 seconds. 5，000 years of Chinese history only amounts to a tenth of a second！

It is these twenty or so seconds that are the most mysterious. How did primates evolve into human beings？ In 1859， the British biologist Darwin published his great Origin of Species， putting forward the theory of biological evolution. Darwin believed that all life shared the same ancestor， and organisms gradually evolved from simple to complex and from low level to high level. In 1871， Darwin published The Descent of Man， and Selection in Relation to Sex， in which he showed， through a wealth of evidence， that man had evolved from the extinct archaic apes and that man and the ancient anthropoid share the same ancestor.

Most scientists share this view.

It took at least two to three million years for the transition from ape to man， which went through four stages： early stage apeman --- late stage apeman （Homo erectus） --- early homo sapiens （Archaic homo） --- late homo sapiens （Homo novus）.

During the lengthy evolutionary process， at first archaic apes only had access to natural tools. They picked up random stones to hit wild animals and took advantage of sharp branches to stab fish， and so on. Gradually， such tools were no longer sufficient for survival， and they had to manufacture tools with their own hands like grinding animal bones and stones， or chipping branches. With more and more circumstances their hands were used， they finally plucked up the courage to stand up and slowly learned to walk upright.

From then on， human beings completely bid farewell to the animal world and entered the Stone Age.