Chapter 2 focuses on the mystery of Chinese civilization inheritance. Among the four major civilizations in the world, only the Chinese civilization has been passed down for thousands of years without interruption. Why so? Both Chinese and foreign scholars are interested in this question, so we have to look upon it from the perspective of international comparison. This chapter focuses on the comparison of the evolution of Eastern and Western civilizations: Section 1 discusses the important role the characters, natural and geological environment and religious beliefs play in the inheritance of Eastern and Western civilizations. Section 2, with phased development of the Chinese civilization in mind, illustrates the three historical stages of the Western civilization. Many people believe that the essence of the Chinese culture lies in the culture of the Central Plains, and some Jiangnan (the area south of the Yangtze River) people are pessimistic about their own regional culture. They often refer to the historical event when the remnants of the Northern Song (960–1127) court fled southward to establish the Southern Song Dynasty (1127–1279) in Lin’an (present-day Hangzhou). They would support their argument by citing the deceptive display of prosperity in Jiangnan and the demise of Yue Fei (a patriotic general who was killed by the Southern Song emperor, who aimed to negotiate a peace agreement with the Jurchen Jin ruling the region north of the Yangtze River). In fact, speaking from the cultural perspective, I think Jiangnan culture absolutely represents China’s cultural peak. Section 3 looks into Jiangnan culture which represents the third stage of the Chinese civilization.