During the 1840s and 1850s, some Chinese literati including Wang Tao, Li Shanlan, Jiang Tunfu, Guan Sifu and Zhang Fuxi successively joined the London Missionary Society Press. Thus they became the first group of Chinese intellectuals to cooperate with westerners. Their translation work with the missionaries enabled them to comprehend Western learning gradually, and to undertake the historical mission to import Western learning to China. The Western technical and cultural works that they translated accelerated the diffusion of modern Western science. Their efforts had great significance for the unfolding of modern Chinese history.