Oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) is an important electrochemical reaction process at the cathode of fuel cell, but its spontaneous reaction process is slow, and its catalysts, though efficient in catalyzing the ORR reaction, are facing problems of expensive price, complicated synthesis process, and polluting environment. Therefore, it is of great significance to explore the method of synthesizing a simple and environmentally friendly catalyst for the preparation of ORR catalysts. Fe-N co-doped mesoporous carbon substrate (Fe-N/MC) is a kind of non-precious metal catalysts for oxygen reduction reaction with great application value. In this work, mesoporous carbon substrate (MC_M) was obtained by high-temperature carbonization of small molecule precursors in a semi-closed system in a muffle furnace, and then Fe-N co-doped mesoporous carbon substrate (Fe-N/MC_MT) was prepared by mixing the obtained MC_M with iron salts in a tube furnace at a high temperature. This method only needs simple pyrolysis conditions, requiring no template agents and toxic substances such as NH₃ and HF. MC_M is beneficial to enhance the hydrophilicity and coordination ability of the mesoporous carbon substrate surface due to its high element contents of nitrogen and oxygen. Fe-N/MC_MT, prepared by MC_M and iron salts, contains abundant and catalytic ORR Fe-N_x active sites with onset potential and half-wave potential of 0.941 and 0.831 V(vs RHE), respectively, which are 34 and 16 mV more positive than those of commercial Pt/C catalyst, respectively. ORR can be divided into two-electron or four-electron type according to the reaction process, and the transfer electron numbers of Fe-N/MCMT and Pt/C are 3.77 and 3.91, respectively, indicating a four-electron reaction process.