Chapter 49 Taking Railways as an Example: The Choice between Development and Stability

From the 1860s to around 1894, for about 30 years, the top decision-makers of the Qing government fell into a long-term and intense debate on whether to carry out Westernization.As we have described in the previous chapters, by the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the four basic systems that defended centralization had been "impregnable", and the empire was obsessed with the illusion of a prosperous age by refusing to evolve.Therefore, any new changes may constitute an impact on the existing system, which is obviously dangerous. Take railway construction as an example.From 1867 onwards, the imperial court has been arguing over whether the railway should be built or not.Many ministers believe that railways are harmful things that "disturb the people and disturb the public and disrupt customs". The construction of railways to open roads in mountains and build bridges in water will disturb the mountain gods, dragon kings and other gods, and bring about huge disasters.It was also suggested that "traveling through China to relocate the station" does not require railways at all.

If the above-mentioned reasons can be attributed to superstition or conservatism, then even Zeng Guofan, who has always supported Westernization, opposed the construction of railways, and his reasons were entirely out of institutional considerations.In Zeng Guofan's view, once the railway network is completed, the circulation of goods and the flow of people will inevitably be greatly accelerated. Then, the social structure of small farmers based on male farming and female weaving that has been in operation for hundreds of years will be completely broken, and new disparities between rich and poor and social unrest will be possible. occur.Therefore, whether it is a foreign businessman or a Chinese businessman, as long as the railway is built, "the small people will be forced to live in poverty", and the result will be "to take advantage of the poor with the powerful".Zeng's concerns are typical Confucian thinking. The ultimate goal of economic development is not to prosper business and trade, but to maintain balance and stabilize the regime. Stability is always placed above development.

These two kinds of thinking became the mainstream consciousness of the elite at that time, and the railway dispute was no longer a technological dispute, but an ideological one. The "New York Times" on June 3, 1867 commented sharply: "The biggest obstacle to the implementation of such a great project can only be the Qing people's hostility towards all foreigners and their own superstition." Historian Shi Jingqian believes: "Many Chinese believe that railways will destroy the harmony between human beings and nature. They cut the earth long, disrupt the normal rhythm, divert the benevolent power of the earth, and they also make road and canal workers unemployed. , changing the established market model.”

At the end of 1880, the discussion of building a railway started again.Liu Mingchuan and Li Hongzhang respectively wrote letters emphasizing the need for road construction, and Li's warning that "our dynasty is in a strange situation that has not been seen in thousands of years" is published in this "Panel on Negotiating Railway Matters".However, the road construction was still stubbornly blocked.Someone even accused Liu and Li of looking like a pair of "traitors".The imperial court issued an imperial edict rejecting the proposals of Liu and Li.Li Hongzhang was still not reconciled. He quietly started to build the coal transportation railway from Kaiping Coal Mine to Xugezhuang. At the end of 1881, after the completion of the 11-kilometer railway, he officially reported it to the Qing court, and deliberately described it as a "road".What's more interesting is that after the completion of the railway, it was strongly opposed by local officials and the people. At one point, the loud steam locomotive had to be abandoned, and the coal carts were pulled by livestock, which really became a nondescript "road".By 1891, the railways of the vast Qing Empire had been sporadically constructed, with a total of only more than 360 kilometers.In contrast, the entire territory of Little Japan has a railway length of more than 3,300 kilometers.