In this paper I will argue that legal reform as an agenda in Chinese modernization did not, as the mainstream opinion has believed, start from the 1901 policy reforms of the Qing Government, the so-called New Policy (清末新政), but rather from the Self-Strengthening Movement (洋務運動), which was encouraged by the translational work of John Fryer (Chinese name:傅蘭雅), an English missionary-turned-activist in late 19th century China. To make this argument I will first define what I mean by “legal reform” in this paper, before examining the evidence supporting the mainstream opinion in current scholarship. Then I will give a very short biography of Fryer, and consider the ways in which Fryer’s translation of Western political economy, law and other subjects, as well as his engagement with intellectuals and members of the Qing government through his active participation in a Shanghai school (which will be elaborated in part IV). What Fryer has done prepared the soil not for the spread of Christianity, but rather the transplantation of the Western legal system.