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True Detective Reading 001: "Out of Print Yangtze River" Railway Construction in the 1910s and Wind Objects along the Way - Old Photos
The book is called "Out of Print Yangtze River", Guangxi Normal University Press, the first edition in September 2007, the print run was 4,000 copies, and the price was 88 yuan at that time.
This book may have passed the test of history, and now Confucius's old books on the Internet, the brand new ones have sold for more than 600 yuan. Second-hand old books also sell for more than 100 yuan. The author is signed by an American named G. A. Kyle waited.
The book's resources come from the flea market in Panjiayuan, Beijing, and the original is a survey report submitted by an American company to the Beiyang government's Ministry of Transportation in the 1910s to build a railway. The two reports date from 1918 and 1919, and from the Manchu Qing Dynasty to the early years of the Republic of China, there were plans to build a railway from the interior to Sichuan. The book originally said: In order to achieve the purpose of controlling China, the great powers first bargained with the Qing government and the Beiyang government, and competed with them to sign an agreement on loans to build a road.
In May 1917, on behalf of the government, Xu Shiying, the then Chief of Transportation, signed a contract with the Yuzhong Company of the United States to entrust it with the construction of the railway, that is, this railway was already planned to be handed over to the American company for construction. The contract stipulated that Yuzhong Company would undertake a railway with a total length of about 2413.5 kilometers in China, and later, the two sides agreed to shorten the length of the original contract of 2413.5 kilometers to 1769.9 kilometers.
The contract also stipulates that the funds for this railway will be issued annually by the American Yuzhong Company on behalf of the gold coin bond until the railway is successfully built. It can be said that the capital of that era, the capitalists are already very powerful, there are now these financial bonds and other plans, the bond annual interest rate of 5%, after each bond issuance, since the 26th year, the principal repayment in installments, with 50 years of interest to pay off ... Let's not read these first, the book is very detailed.
More than ten years ago, the reason why I bought this book was first of all attracted by the title of the book "Out-of-Print Yangtze River", in fact, when I opened it, there were not many photos about the main stream of the Yangtze River in the book. The Han River I was paying attention to at that time happened to be that there were many old photos of the Han River in the book.
The source of the book is a railway survey report, and the example is also along the planned railway, starting from a small station called Zhoujiakou in Xinyang, Henan, as 0 kilometers, from how many kilometers to how many kilometers of the railway are arranged, many old photos are now very precious.
Photos from about 100 years ago. The book begins with photographs of a team of men and foreigners in suits that they saw along the way. I was most interested in the wind objects along the Han River after entering Hubei.
The photos in the book are of great historical value and the standard is relatively high, and many of them really represent the level of photography in that era. For example, this is the church in Xiangyang, the houses in the old river mouth, are very wonderful.
This is the ancient academy in the book, which is written 321.8 kilometers away, opposite Junzhou City on the bank of the Han River, because it is likely to be the current Canglang Pavilion. This is a very important cultural relic on the Han River, and it cannot be found now, is it this thing? In the "Yu Gong", it is said: The tomb leads the waves, the east flows for the Han, and the east is the water of the waves...
The waters of the waves are clear... The water of the waves is muddy..., are all very beautiful things, of course, is this "wave" a noun or an adjective? To be investigated.
Looking at this photo 418 kilometers away, it is the county seat of Yun County, of course, these do not exist now, but this pier in my memory of the 90s is probably still this shape. It is possible to take a boat from this place.
Compared with these old photos of the Han River, the towns next to them, etc., many realities can still be compared.
This HanJiang porter was the most attractive to me that year. Ragged, not the kind of bare ass in some artist photos, people have nothing to do with it, at least in the 1910s, or so.
Up the river, this place is 450.5 kilometers according to the railway plan in the book, which is Baihe County in Shaanxi, and the contrast between the present and the past is very strong.
And this one, I went to aerial photographs of this building, and it should still be there. —— The caption in the book is: 520 kilometers away, the scene on the other side of the Han River opposite Baihe County. This, on the other hand, is now a mosque. This picture may also be the academy of Junzhou. To be investigated.
Next, is the county seat of Xunyang in Shaanxi... This book has a lot of precious photos. Ankang, then called Xing'an Province, many precious photos, not only some buildings, but also some folk customs photos.
After Ankang, this book is basically consistent with the direction of the Xiang-Chongqing Railway, which has been built now.
In the book, there are many old photos of Ankang to Ziyang County, such as these ancient towns, which are not big or small, and they look very beautiful, but they all look quite vicissitudes. Not like the feeling that some popular imagines.
Then it entered the territory of present-day Chongqing and Sichuan, the ancient pagoda of Xuanhan County, the ancient pagoda of Ziyang, and so on...
This engineering report from more than 100 years ago, which has a lot of historical information, different people, can have different interpretations... This book is arranged to this extent from the perspective of old photos, which is extremely precious!
If it were not for the heart of the editor of this book, this precious material that wandered in the Panjiayuan flea market might have been annihilated.
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