Abstract:

Taking Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces as the background, this paper puts the gentry's change of learning the western knowledge in modern times into the hierarchical network of cities in the lower reaches area of Changjiang River, in which Shanghai was the core city, sees the whole picture of the gentry's change in modem times and influence on the spread of modem education from the relationship between human being and its surroundings (urban modernization), and refracts the historical scroll painting of passing off fish as dragon and setting tradition each other off modernization between the gentries in late Qing Dynasty.

Key words: late Qing Dynasty, Jiangsu and Zhejiang province, gentry, urban modernization, the hierarchical network of cities