In the fourth year of the Tongzhi Dynasty of the Qing Dynasty, there were many people outside the Xuanwu Gate in Beijing, and everyone was watching a "fresh thing" that had never been seen before, which was a small railway about 500 meters long built by the British businessman Durand. The crowd of onlookers soon let out a cry of surprise, and they saw a steam locomotive slowly approaching with several carriages, never thinking that there was a car that could be moved without human power.
Wusong Railway
Compared with the cheers of the citizens, the Qing court officials who did not eat ancient food were in a cold sweat, they did not know what this thing running along the railroad tracks was, and finally came up with a strange answer: this is an iron dragon, it can go to heaven and earth, and if it is not good, it will also destroy the dragon vein of the Qing Dynasty.
The stupid officials immediately told Empress Dowager Cixi about this and the conclusions they had drawn, and Empress Dowager Cixi, who had been living in the palace for a long time, was like a widow who had never been out of the house, and was afraid of anything new in the outside world. Hearing that this railway would destroy the dragon vein of the Great Qing, Cixi quickly ordered: "The foreigners built this thing to kill me in the Great Qing, so I will tear it down." ”
This was the first time Empress Dowager Cixi had heard the word "railway", and she had no idea what it was, so she ordered the railway to be dismantled, and this was only the first time she had dismantled the railway. 12 years later, Cixi ordered the demolition of the "Wusong Railway", which became the laughing stock of the whole world, and even the ordinary people who were not fully enlightened at that time said behind their backs that this Lafayette was really too uninformed.
In 1876, the British in China wanted to win more interests in China by building a railway, and without the consent of the Qing government, they built a railway from Shanghai to Wusong Town, with a total length of 14.5 kilometers. In order to cope with the cross-examination of Shanghai officials, the British lied that they were building roads, and although Shanghai officials were not very good at brains, they were not stupid enough to recognize the railway tracks. Shanghai officials believed the British were deceiving them. The English slyly argued: "This railway is convenient for small trains to transport raw materials, and we have not built a railway." ”
Li
Shanghai officials asked questions and finally did not dare to ask anything more, until the Wusong Railway was officially operated, and they were sure that they were indeed fooled by foreigners. In order to protect their black hats, they chose not to report the matter to the imperial court. However, Shanghai had an extra railway out of thin air, which everyone could see, and soon Li Hongzhang, the governor and minister of Beiyang, noticed the existence of the Wusong Railway. Li Hongzhang, who has always advocated learning from Western technology, is very much in favor of building railways in China, but he has always believed that the railways Chinese must be built by Chinese themselves, and foreigners' railways cannot be allowed to take advantage of China.
After more than three months of operation of the Wusong Railway, Li Hongzhang's aide Sheng Xuanhuai and the British envoy Mei Huili in China signed the "Clause on the Redemption of the Wusong Railway" and reclaimed the railway with 285,000 taels of silver, and a year later the Wusong Railway was officially put into operation, carrying more than 160,000 guests a year. However, in 1877, shen Baozhen, the minister of Nanyang, gave Empress Dowager Cixi a letter, saying that the construction of the Wusong Railway was "out of the country", which caused the people to boil over, and Cixi did not know that the Qing Dynasty had a railway, and with her long-standing dislike of the railway, Cixi ordered the demolition of the Wusong Railway.
Shen Baozhen did this entirely because of his personal vendetta with Li Hongzhang, Shanghai is Shen Baozhen's territory, and he believes that the Wusong Railway, which Li Hongzhang is responsible for, has infringed on his interests, so it must be demolished. In October 1877, the Wusong Railway was demolished, and within a few months even the roadbed was bulldozed, and the remaining useless rails were thrown into the sea. The people of Shanghai were heartbroken by this, and they complained: "Lafayette really has never seen the world, the good railway has been demolished, and we will go out in a palanquin again." ”
In 1884, the Sino-French War broke out, because of the backward transportation mode of the Qing Dynasty, the grain and grass were almost not transported to the front line, and almost lost the battle. At this time, Emperor Guangxu's biological father, Yi Zhen the Prince of Alcohol, and Zeng Jize, a soldier's attendant, both suggested that Cixi build a railway, but Cixi had never seen the railway and hated it, so how could she be persuaded? Li Hongzhang thought of a way to build a railway in the palace, and taking advantage of the opportunity of the construction of the Three Seas in Xiyuan, he imported a batch of advanced train equipment from France and presented it to Cixi in the name of tribute. After more than two years of construction, a railway from the Middle Sea to the North Sea, with a total length of 1510 meters, was built.
Shen Baozhen
In 1888, Cixi arrived in Zhonghai by train from Beihai, and the luxurious facilities and beautiful scenery along the way, as well as the speed of the train, made Cixi feel very satisfied. Li Hongzhang asked Cixi how he felt, and Cixi said that the train was really good, but the movement was too big, so when he went back, he asked several eunuchs to tie the rope to the front of the car and slowly pull the train forward. Since then, Cixi began to change her mind about trains, and she was no longer afraid of new things, and even openly expressed her support for the reform of the Westerners, but this was only a matter of her whim, and Cixi really agreed to build railways in China, or after the "Gengzi National Disaster".
At the end of the Qing Dynasty, the Boxers, with the slogan of "supporting the Qing Dynasty and destroying the foreigners", destroyed all the advanced technologies brought by the foreigners, including the railway. The move caused panic among the foreigners, and soon the Eight-Power Coalition, led by British Vice Admiral Seymour, took a train from Tianjin to Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi, under the sway of the main war faction, actually declared war on the Eight-Nation Alliance in spite of her own strength, and the team she gave all hope to was actually the Boxers full of superstitions.
How did the flesh and blood of the Boxers resist the fire of the foreigners? The team responsible for fighting the Eight-Nation Alliance was even more vulnerable, many people were afraid of beating the foreigners in a hurry, and in the future, Empress Dowager Cixi would use them as a shield, so she did not dare to resist too much, so the Eight-Nation Alliance, which only had more than 2,000 people, entered the city of Beijing. Empress Dowager Cixi hurriedly started the "Great Escape from the Northwest", and a few months later, Cixi, who could not find the north by the loess of the northwest, finally received the "Xin Ugly Treaty" that lost power and humiliated the country, but she was particularly happy, and the foreigners signed the treaty and left, and she could return to Beijing.
Cixi West Garden Special Train
Cixi and her party came to Baoding, Hebei Province, where there was a special royal train to take her back to the palace, Cixi happily sat on the train, looked at the scenery along the way, enjoyed the flattery of the eunuchs around her, felt the luxurious decoration and all-round service in the carriage, and returned to Beijing leisurely. After returning to the capital, Cixi kept telling the ministers how good the railway was, and asked them to quickly build a few more railways throughout the country to promote the prestige of the Qing Dynasty.
After this war, everyone was extremely disappointed in the Qing government, and only Cixi was still complacent and living in her dream of building a railway. Cixi believed that the defeat was due to the failure of future generations and anger to the ancestors, so she decided to worship Xiling. Cixi, who felt the benefits of the train, put Yuan Shikai in charge, zhan Tianyou as the chief engineer, built a railway line from the capital to Xiling, she took this special train dedicated to her own business, triumphantly went to worship her ancestors, do not know what kind of mood the ancestors of the Qing Dynasty would feel when they saw her.
Cixi thoroughly tasted the sweetness of the railway, and she began to set up a new railway policy, hoping that the extensive railway would bring vitality to the Qing Dynasty. However, Cixi never dreamed that one of the many railways she allowed to build, the Sichuan-Han Railway, would later trigger the vigorous "Sichuan Road Preservation Movement", which in turn triggered the "Xinhai Revolution" that shocked China and foreign countries, and sent the Qing government into a place of doom and destruction.
Cixi Xiling Special Train
Cixi went from being afraid of the railway to finally falling in love with the railway, but it was because the railway could take her to play and send her back to the capital, so that she could save a lot of the hard work of walking, to put it bluntly, the railway brought her pleasant enjoyment, which is why she fell in love with the railway. However, it is a stupid idea to pin the hope of the country on the railway, when the people are not attached to it, the people are rebellious, do not think about how to revitalize the country through self-help, but use the railway as a life-saving straw, from the moment Cixi put forward this idea, the Qing Dynasty has already perished.