Chapter 44 "Words of a Prosperous Age" that changed the lives of Sun Yat-sen and others

Since China Merchants Steamship, history has arranged Li Hongzhang and Sheng Xuanhuai together in this way, making them excellent partners in Westernization!The achievements of the two are also unprecedented. In the next few decades, the master and apprentice have created countless firsts: The first government-supervised business-run enterprise-China Merchants Steamship. The first modern military academy - Tianjin Naval Academy. The first army officer school - Tianjin Armed Forces Academy, also known as Beiyang Military Academy. The first modern naval fleet - Beiyang Navy. The first engineering university - Beiyang University Hall, today's Tianjin University.

The first telegraph office - Tianjin Telegraph Office. The first commercial bank - China Commercial Bank. The first railway. The first steel mill. The first machine factory. The first western hospital. The first Chinese Red Cross Society. ... Basically, this is the military industry system of modern China. It seems that these things are not difficult to do! You are wrong to think so!What looks easy is not necessarily easy to do.You don't know how many difficulties and resistances Li Hongzhang faced when doing these jobs. These difficulties and resistances are unimaginable to us today!

For example, pulling telegraph lines, repairing railways, and realizing informatization, what a wonderful thing!However, a large number of central or local cadres in the Qing Dynasty associated wires with loyalty and filial piety: the wires were buried in the ground, and the passage of electric current would disturb the ancestors' graves and make the ancestors' souls restless.The same is true of not allowing the construction of railways: the sound of roaring locomotives will disturb the rest of the dead ancestors, and being unkind to the ancestors is unfilial, and unfilial piety makes it impossible to be loyal.

Li Hongzhang also understands these dead-headed people: After all, the country has been closed for hundreds of years, and the reform and opening up has only been a few days, how can ideology keep up with the pace of reform and opening up all at once. However, understanding belongs to understanding, and ideological work still needs to be done.Li Hongzhang put in a lot of effort and spent a lot of time convincing these ignorant colleagues to ensure that they don't make trouble. Only after solving these absurd problems that are unimaginable to you and me can we start working. Li Hongzhang's achievements did not come easily!

Mr. Li Er has stabbed countless hornet's nests and attracted countless unprovoked attacks because of his advocacy of reform. The record-breaking more than 800 impeachments against him are evidence.In this predicament, Li Hongzhang still persisted in engaging in the Westernization Movement.Of course, it was this kind of persistence that made him, and his political capital and prestige, invincible in the late Qing Dynasty. At the same time, he also made his disciple Sheng Xuanhuai——Sheng Xuanhuai became the "Chinese business father". Later, an outstanding entrepreneur surnamed Hu was not convinced by Sheng Xuanhuai, because he also had excellent skills and a strong official background-Hu was always Zuo Zongtang's follower, so he decided to challenge Sheng Xuanhuai.However, Mr. Hu's intelligence and backing were inferior, and the challenge failed: the company closed down, he was heavily in debt, his family was ruined, and he ended his life in despair.Mr. Hu's name is Hu Xueyan.

In essence, Sheng Xuanhuai is more like a profit-seeking businessman rather than a politician. He made profits through his status as an official and businessman, and dug a lot of feudalism in the Qing Dynasty.For example, Sheng Xuanhuai built a 2,100-kilometer railway and borrowed a total of 10.65 million pounds in loans, with a 5% rebate, which is equivalent to 4.4 million taels of silver.However, in the late Qing Dynasty when corruption became the norm, Sheng Xuanhuai could do some practical things for the country and the people while earning money, and he could barely be regarded as a good public servant.

His assistant, Zheng Guanying, wrote a book about the hardships and experience of their foreign affairs together, which also mentioned some content about the constitutional monarchy, parliament, newspapers, freedom of speech and new schools, called "Words of the Flourishing Age". Later, Sun Yat-sen and Mao Zedong read the book seriously.It can even be said that it was this book that gave birth to these two heaven-defying revolutionary figures. After Sun Yat-sen read this book, he wrote a "reform paper" called "Shang Li Fu Xiangshu" to Li Hongzhang, but he didn't expect nothing.Sun Yat-sen obviously regarded this as Li Zhongtang's arrogance, thinking that I originally wanted to serve the court, but if you don't give me a chance, then I will overthrow you!Therefore, Sun Yat-sen came to Honolulu (Hawaii) in the United States and established the "Xingzhonghui".