We all know that at the end of the Qing Dynasty, in order to save the people and make them strong, people of insight led by Li Hongzhang launched the famous foreign affairs movement, but with the humiliation of the Sino-Japanese War, the failure of the foreign affairs movement was declared. The Qing Dynasty also came to an end. But throughout history, it has left us with many valuable assets that we still use today
In this movement, the Westerners introduced advanced Western science and technology on a large scale and established modern military industries and civilian enterprises. The backward Qing Dynasty had a number of modernized industries, which promoted the development of economy, military and education, thus indirectly delaying the process of the demise of the Qing government.
In 1894, with the Sino-Japanese War, the beiyang navy was completely destroyed, marking the bankruptcy of the foreign affairs movement that lasted for more than 30 years, but the companies founded in the foreign affairs movement did not completely collapse, and all those that remained and could "live" until now have developed into the world's top 500 enterprises. Which companies have stayed? Let's take a look!
In November 2012, when Qu Jinglei inspected the railway line, he found that the "Hanyang-made" rails 110 years ago are still in normal use. As the starting point of China's modern steel industry, the ruins of Hanyang Iron Works are in qintai Avenue, Hanyang District, Wuhan City, and are now The Hanyang Steel Mill of Wuhan Iron and Steel Group, the company takes Hanyang Iron Works as the most original root, and continues to grow and develop, and now ranks fourth in the world steel industry. Baosteel Group also lived up to expectations, and has been shortlisted for the list of the world's top 500 enterprises for 13 consecutive years, ranking 144th in the "2016 Top 500 Chinese Enterprises".
Here we have to mention the Hanyang Iron Works in Zhangzhidong. The Hanyang Iron Works was established in 1893 under Guishan Mountain in Hubei Province. The whole plant includes pig iron factory, beesse ma steel mill, Ximens steel mill, rail factory, iron cargo factory, wrought iron factory and other 6 large factories and machine factory, cast iron plant, blacksmith factory, fish fillet hook and nail factory and other 4 small factories, which is the first large-scale capitalist machine production of steel industry in modern China, and is also the largest steel plant pioneered in Asia, Japan's steel mill construction is still a few years later than this.
Later, due to the defeat of the Qing government in the war, the Hanyang Iron Works were also losing money continuously, Zhang Zhidong in the twenty-second year of Guangxu (1896) "investment undertaking", commissioned Sheng Xuanhuai to supervise the Hanyang Iron Works, embarked on the road of "official supervision and commercial office", Guangxu thirty-four years (1908), Sheng Xuanhuai in order to solve the problem of insufficient funds, applied to merge the Hanyang Iron Works, Daye Iron Mine and Pingxiang Coal Mine to form Hanyeping Coal and Iron Works And Mining Co., Ltd., and changed the official Supervision and Commercial Office to a complete commercial company. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, part of the smelting equipment of Hanyang Iron Works was moved to Chongqing, and the rest was occupied by the Japanese army. After the victory of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Kuomintang government took over and liquidated it as an enemy and pseudo-industry, and production was not resumed until after the founding of New China.
The steamship investment bureau founded by Li Hongzhang can be said to be smooth and profitable in development. China Merchants not only owns most of the markets for Yangtze River and coastal shipping, but also has set up branches in the Philippines and Thailand to expand its Nanyang transportation business, and sailed to the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore, Hawaii and the United States. Subsequently, after creating the insurance business, he invested in the establishment of the first bank in modern History in China, called the China Commerce and Commerce Bank. Yes, you heard it right, he is the predecessor of the current China Merchants Bank, and also founded Nanyang Public School in terms of schools, which is now Xi'an Jiaotong University. Today's China Merchants Bank, since it was first listed in the Fortune Global 500 in 2012, has been shortlisted for 7 consecutive years, and in 2019, the Fortune Global 500 ranked 188.
Although the foreign affairs movement failed, its residual heat left an indelible contribution to China's development, and people still enjoy it today.
History should remember these celebrities who opened their eyes to the world!