Chapter 3 Chapter 1 1870: The Time of the Dead and the Living

On July 7, 1869, late at night on the 28th day of the fifth lunar month in the eighth year of Tongzhi, the back garden of Zhili Governor's Yamen in Baoding Prefecture.Zeng Guofan, the most prestigious and powerful Han minister in the Qing Empire, and his retainer Zhao Liewen talked by candlelight at night, sitting in a sad city. In the past sixteen years, Zeng Guofan started his career by training the Hunan Army in regiments, wiped out the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom (1851-1864) riots in the south, and brought an empire that seemed about to collapse back to the normal track. There was even a small Small "Tongzhi ZTE".Last year, he was transferred from the governor of Liangjiang to the more important governor of Zhili, which can be described as a holy family.However, after entering the central hub, he really realized that the country's decadence far exceeded his original expectations. The roots were rotten, the state government was in ruins, and there was no one in the court who could turn the tide.He told Zhao Liewen that in today's world, "the people are exhausted and their wealth is exhausted, and there are fears of changes."

China in the middle and late 19th century was full of sadness of the setting sun of the empire.In the past two thousand years, although it has been plagued by wars, famines, plagues and tyranny from time to time, it has always had an innate calmness. Its vast territory and strong cultural cohesion make it a A unique ability to heal itself, it has never been more panicked, broken and isolated. In 1839, Lin Zexu, governor of Guangdong and Guangxi, banned smoking in Guangdong. The following year, the British fleet attacked Guangzhou, and the first Opium War broke out, and the Qing army was defeated.When the Sino-British war started, the lack of understanding of the British by the Chinese people was staggering. The Chinese leader Lin Zexu believed that British soldiers could not bend their knees, so they were only good at naval battles. At the mercy of others.In his memorial to Emperor Daoguang in September 1839, he wrote, "The legs and feet of the barbarian soldiers are bound tightly, and it is inconvenient to bend and stretch. If they go to the shore, they are even more powerless. It is because they are so strong that they cannot be restrained." He is the most "civilized" official in the whole country, so how can he be undefeated by "knowing the enemy" with this. In August 1842, the Sino-British "Nanjing Treaty" was signed on a British ship called "Gao Huali". The Qing government ceded Hong Kong, opened the treaty ports and paid huge sums of money.Starting from this unequal treaty originally called the "Ten Thousand Years Treaty", China has entered a hundred years of humiliation.Facing a strange and rising foreign civilization, the always arrogant empire suddenly became extremely panicked and unconfident.

On March 20, 1872, Zeng Guofan died of depression.Half a year later, on September 15, the "New York Daily" published a "Call from San Francisco", reporting that the first batch of Chinese students arrived in the United States by boat.The news said: "The 30 students from the Qing Dynasty who arrived here yesterday. They are all very hardworking and excellent ladies and gentlemen. They were accompanied by teachers from Qing officials. The Qing court allocated 1 million dollars for the education of these students." There were two small mistakes in this telegram. First, the 30 handsome teenagers were all boys, perhaps because they kept Braids, so it's really hard to identify.Secondly, they are not carefully selected, the best Chinese teenagers, 24 out of 30 are from Guangdong, and many of them are from Xiangshan village.In fact, the officials in charge of selection couldn't find any rich families willing to send their children to study abroad, so they had to find some poor children in the south. Before leaving, the fathers of all the children had to write " If there is a disease, life or death, everyone will live in peace" on the certificate of going abroad with a signature.Among these students, Zhan Tianyou, the "father of Chinese railways" who built the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, was the most famous in the future.

In any case, this is a symbolic opening event, just like 106 years later, when China opened its doors again, China also immediately sent the first batch of international students to the United States. Zeng Guofan did not see the collapse of the empire.However, in the last few years of his life, this talented Hunanese has been doing something more meaningful than defeating the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. He and his party tried to revive the country in the twilight .Sending foreign students to the United States was one of the last plans he approved before his death. This was a small part of a larger revival project, which was later called the "Westernization Movement", which was the origin of modern Chinese enterprises. .

The beginning of the Westernization Movement was firstly related to military activities to suppress riots in various places.As early as 1855, Zeng Guofan, who had just started his army, set up a small arsenal in Jiangxi. In 1861, he built an arsenal and shipyard in Anqing, Anhui. In 1862, he transferred 68,000 taels of silver from the official treasury to the 35-year-old Yung Wing, and sent him to the United States to purchase the equipment needed for the construction of an arsenal. He entered the famous Yale University to study and was the first Chinese to graduate from an American university.When he went to the United States, he passed the Suez Grand Canal under construction, and he had a premonition that the world would be opened up.

In May 1864, Li Hongzhang, Zeng Guofan's most powerful assistant and the governor of Jiangsu, said in a memorial: "Hongzhang thought that if China wanted to strengthen itself, it would be better to learn foreign sharp weapons. It is not necessary to make full use of the person. If you want to find the utensils and the people who make the utensils, you may set up a special subject to obtain scholars. If you hang the goal of wealth and fame throughout your life, you can achieve success in career, refine your skills, and be talented. It can be collected." This proposal not only proposed to learn from the West, but also attempted to revise the standards for selecting scholars in the thousand-year-old imperial examination system, which was very shocking at the time.

In 1865, China's first practical steamship "Huanghu" was successfully built. (The world's first steamship, the "Claremont", was built in New York in 1806 by American engineer Robert Fulton and inventor Livingston, nearly 60 years earlier than the "Yellow Hunk".) In the same year, Ding Richang, a Taoist priest of Su Song, purchased the Qiji Iron Works in Hongkou, Shanghai. Li Hongzhang merged the artillery bureau originally opened by Ding Richang and the artillery bureau of Han Dianjia, the chief soldier, and newly equipped with a new iron factory purchased by Yung Wing in the United States. The machine was approved, and Zeng and Li formally requested the establishment of the "Jiangnan General Manufacturing Bureau".On September 20th, Li Hongzhang wrote a very long memorial "Folding for the Purchase of Machinery in Foreign Iron Works", detailing the importance of opening this factory.He believes that "the manufacture of machines is the capital of today's defense against aggression and the foundation of self-improvement", and the machines manufactured now are for military use, and they will be widely used in the future. It is made for the people's birthday, and it was not specially designed for arms." He even predicted, "It is expected that after several decades, China's rich peasants and businessmen will make imitation foreign machines to seek their own profits."

At the beginning, the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau mainly produced some small armored speedboats, rifles, artillery and bullets. In May 1867, Zeng Guofan asked the imperial court to reserve part of the customs tax to build a large ship. In August of the following year, the factory produced the first wooden-hull ship "Tianji" designed and manufactured by itself. When the ship was launched, Shanghai Thousands of people scrambled to watch and cheered.Zeng Guofan happily wrote in his diary on the day of the trial voyage: "It is very gratifying that China has built the No. 1 ship for the first time and it is so fast and stable." "An" and other warships were built one after another. The largest "Zhen'an" ship had a displacement of 2,800 tons, 1,800 horsepower, and was equipped with 20 artillery pieces. It was the most advanced warship in Asia at that time.

The Jiangnan General Manufacturing Bureau can be called the first new factory in modern China, and it was the largest military enterprise in the late Qing Dynasty.It started from the production of guns and ammunition, and gradually developed into a comprehensive new enterprise integrating shipbuilding, steelmaking and ironmaking, and machinery manufacturing. It built China's first steelmaking furnace and produced a large number of lathes, planers, and drilling machines. , sawing machines, cranes, water pumps, steam furnaces, etc., became the beginning of China's machinery manufacturing industry, known as the "Machine Mother Factory".It was later renamed Jiangnan Shipyard and has always been one of the most important shipbuilding bases. By 2010, the original site of the factory on the banks of the Huangpu River will become the main exhibition area of ​​the Shanghai World Expo.

At the same time that the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau was opened, another local official, Zuo Zongtang, the governor of Fujian and Zhejiang, established the Fujian Shipping Bureau in Mawei, Fujian. Lin Zexu’s nephew and son-in-law Shen Baozhen was the Prime Minister’s shipping minister. It built the first iron-clad warship , Formed the first navy in the modern sense - Fujian Nanyang Navy.Zuo and Shen also founded Fuzhou Shipbuilding Academy, a new school for cultivating technology and management talents. It offers courses in Chinese and French, and the textbooks used are original textbooks from Europe. Outstanding students are selected to universities in Britain and France. After further study, they have been the backbone of the Chinese navy for the next half century.

Although these early factories played a very limited role in enhancing national power, they were the beginning of China's modern industrialization. The Westernization Movement was a reform with "braids".Historians of later generations often lament that the Chinese nation missed the budding period of modern industrial civilization, so it was invaded and humiliated by European powers. However, from another perspective, we can have another observation. , the three countries that later became the world's most powerful economies—the United States, Germany, and Japan—had just completed national reunification and started their modernization journey one after another.In a sense, the hardships and twists and turns of China's modernization road in the next hundred years have nothing to do with the time, but rather the fact that the country's elite has too many wavering, speculative, and overly sentimental national humanistic characteristics. The United States ended the Civil War in 1861. Although President Lincoln emancipated black slaves, racial segregation continued, especially in the South. Blacks could not attend white schools, eat in restaurants that entertained whites, ride the same bus, or You must give up your seat to a white person.Around 1860, the population of the United States accounted for 3% of the world’s total population. There were only 141 cities in the United States with a population of more than 8,000, and the steel output was less than 1 million tons. European newspapers directly compared it to “a small country following Britain and France.” brother". In 1865, 30-year-old Andrew Carnegie, who later became the richest man in the United States, co-founded the Carnegie Coleman Consolidated Steel Works in Pennsylvania. In the same year, Li Hongzhang submitted the "Purchase "Foreign Iron Works Machinery Fold". In 1871, J.P. Morgan co-founded Drexel-Morgan Company to engage in banking business such as investment and credit. There are more than 20 places, covering the north and south of the river, with more than 20 million taels of funds and ten thousand mu of land.Hu Xueyan also manipulated the business of Jiangsu and Zhejiang, specialized in the export of silk tea, and engaged in the trade of medicines, just like a large enterprise with mixed operations. It was also during this period that a unified German Empire was just born. In 1870, with the "Eames Telegram" incident as the fuse, the Franco-Prussian War broke out. Under the command of the "iron prime minister" Bismarck, the Prussian army won a complete victory.The Prussian army marched into the city of Paris and announced the establishment of a unified German Empire at the Palace of Versailles, with King William I of Prussia as emperor. Compared with Japan, our emotion will be deeper.Just one year before Zeng Guofan watched his death day and night in Baoding Prefecture, an earth-shattering event happened in Japan across the ocean. On January 3, 1868, a samurai named Takamori Saigo led 2,000 people from Kagoshima to the north to launch a coup d’état, overthrowing the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and welcoming back the emperor, thus opening the curtain of the Meiji Restoration. In the study of Chinese corporate history, Japan is a good reference object.During the past 150 years, there have been striking parallels between the two Eastern countries at three major points in time.The first time point is around 1870, when Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others launched the Westernization Movement, while Japan entered the Meiji Restoration, and the two countries started industrialization almost at the same time. The demise of the Qing Empire was also quite close; the second time point was around 1945, when Japan was defeated in the Second World War, and the whole island was turned into ruins, and China was also at the turning point of the "National-Communist Peace Talks". The war-torn China got rid of the war for a while, and then the former quickly entered into a new economic construction, while the latter fell into a tragic civil war; the third point in time is when I am writing this book, the economic aggregates of Japan and China are at the same level respectively In the second and third places in the world, their political and economic systems and the challenges they face are completely different.The fortunes of China and Japan are intertwined, and the grievances and grievances are full of grievances, which is really intriguing. It is said that in December 1871, a Japanese envoy boarded the American Pacific Shipping Company "America" ​​and left Yokohama for inspection in Europe and America.Shigeru Yoshida, a Japanese politician who brought the Japanese economy back to normal after World War II, recounted in "A Hundred Years of Stirring History" that before setting off, Japanese reformers expected to use "Western technology, Eastern morality" or It is to use "Western knowledge, Japanese spirit" as the way to change Japan.However, it was this inspection that made them realize that "such a formula is contrary to the practice of modernization." These Japanese people successively visited 12 countries including the United States, Britain, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Russia, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, and Sweden. They lasted 22 months and inspected the functions and operations of government organizations and parliaments. , the power of the courts, the mechanism of separation of powers, and so on.Companies, exchanges, factories, mines, ports, farms, pastures, barracks, fortresses, schools, newspaper offices, and welfare facilities were also carefully inspected.After returning to China, they firmly reached a consensus on "leaving Asia and entering Europe", and successively put forward the formulation of three major proposals, including the "Constitutional Proposal", "Proposal for Reproductive Industry", and "Proposal for Revitalizing Foreign Trade". A blueprint was drawn.Ito Hirobumi, a member of the envoys and a representative of the Meiji Restoration, described his shock as "shock at the beginning, drunkenness at the beginning, and madness at the end." To be able to enter the realm of civilization and enlightenment. The second is to make the people break the bad habits of the past, not to be passive, and to work together in the country's public affairs to build a prosperous and strong country." Under the guidance of this concept, Japan carried out all-round reforms.First, subversive changes were carried out in the education system. The government established the Ministry of Education, and successively issued the "School System Order", "Education Order" and "Imperial University Order", which established the modern school system. By 1907, six-year compulsory education was basically popularized. , The enrollment rate of children reached 97%.The Qing court did not abolish the imperial examination system until 1905, and began to try new education.The second is to carry out bold constitutional reforms, abolish feudal vassals and set up counties, destroy all feudal regimes, and at the same time form a parliament to implement constitutionalism, "everything is decided by public opinion."The Meiji government implemented the cabinet system in 1885, and began to formulate the constitution the following year. The constitution was officially promulgated in 1889, and the first parliament was held in 1890.At the same time as educational and political reforms, economic reforms were also in full swing. The Meiji government announced the reform of agricultural taxes and unified currency. The first railway was built in 1872, the first new bank was established in 1882, and a large number of factories were built one after another. Over the years, many Chinese scholars have never given up their contempt for Japan. They often cite with relish an argument made by the French orientalist Pelliot Pelliot (1878-1945), who derogatoryly referred to Japanese academics as "Sanyutang" ——Literature steals from China, Buddhism steals from India, and science steals from Europe.And few people reflect on why Japan can achieve a hundred years of prosperity with its "three surpluses" and become the world's second largest economy with a handful of small islands? It is worthy of reflection to compare the ideological differences between the Westernization Movement and the Meiji Restoration between the Chinese and Japanese elites.Compared with the Meiji reformers in Japan, the most outstanding officials and intellectuals of the Qing Dynasty did not seek changes from the perspective of the system. They believed that China's backwardness was only in "materials". On June 1, 1864, Hong Xiuquan of the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom committed suicide in Nanjing, and the civil strife was imminent.The next day, the Prime Minister’s National Affairs Yamen, who was in charge of state affairs and foreign affairs, presented a famous memorial to the Empress Dowager Cixi, "Prince Gong and Others of the Prime Minister of National Affairs in April 1898 in Tongzhi Three Years", proposing that "the way of governing the country is self-improvement. When judging the situation, self-improvement is based on military training, and military training is based on making weapons.” This memorial also includes a letter from Li Hongzhang to the Prime Minister’s Office, which reads: “Hongzhang secretly thought that the world will change when it is poor, and change will lead to success... ...If China wants to strengthen itself, it must learn foreign sharp weapons; if it wants to learn foreign sharp weapons, it must seek weapons for making weapons.” In short, to strengthen the country, we must build weapons, and to build weapons, we must build industries.More than a year later, Li Hongzhang's point of view in "Buying Machines for Foreign Iron Works" is still the same: "The common people should take the skills of foreigners to become China's skills, so that they will not be dwarfed by comparison, and they can be prepared without any danger." .” In fact, as early as 1842 after the defeat of the Opium War, Lin Zexu’s good friend Wei Yuan had already expounded similar views. In his book "Pictures of the Sea Country", he put forward for the first time that "learn from barbarians to learn skills to control barbarians". Twenty years later, Prince Gong, Li Hongzhang and others still did not exceed this level of understanding. Li Hongzhang even said: "China's civil and military system is far superior to Westerners in everything, and firearms alone cannot match it." The elite’s overconfidence in traditional civilization and disregard for institutional reconstruction became the biggest obstacle to the progress of China’s modernization. Until around 1898, Zhang Zhidong, a famous minister of the Westernization Movement and governor of Huguang, still proposed that “Chinese learning should be the body, and Western learning should be used for practical purposes.” ", trying to promote the cause of Westernization on the premise of maintaining the feudal principles. (The term "Chinese learning is the essence, Western learning is application" first appeared in "Saving the Time" in the 75th volume of the "Wanguo Gazette" on March 22, Guangxu 21 (1895). The author is the editor-in-chief of "Wanguo Gazette", Gezhi Academy taught Shen Yugui, and Zhang Zhidong quoted it in "Encouraging Learning" three years later, and has been widely known since then.) In the intellectual circles, the adherence to traditional culture has formed an interesting contradictory relationship with the introduction of Western civilization. Cultural celebrities Gu Hongming commented: "The real and greatest enemy of the world today is the spirit of commercialism embodied in us. This spirit of commercialism, born of the combination of selfishness and cowardice, has caused the flood of mob worship. The flood of this spirit It contributed to the outbreak of the war, and to stop the war, we must first eliminate the spirit of commercialism." Koo himself is a very interesting "paradoxical specimen".In his early years, he studied at the University of Edinburgh in the UK and the University of Leipzig in Germany. He is proficient in 9 languages ​​including English, French, German, Latin, Greek, and Malaya. He is said to have received 13 doctorates.His English level is known as "the best in the late Qing Dynasty", but at the same time he is an extreme defender of the old learning, with long braids and green shirts all his life, and he refused to cut off that "tail" even in the Republic of China.He was in favor of polygamy, and the most famous argument is, "A man is a teapot, a woman is a teacup, and a teapot must be matched with several teacups, but one teacup cannot be matched with several teapots." In the traditional Confucian ideas of Gu Hongming and others, The spirit of commercialism in the West is the root of all evils, and it must be completely eradicated in order to make society peaceful and the country safe and peaceful. Many years later, Liang Qichao, a reformer, pointedly pointed out that the limitation of Li Hongzhang and others lies in their lack of understanding and determination to reform the system. The citizens know that there are foreign affairs but do not know that there are state affairs, and they think that China's political, religious and customs are all superior to other countries, and the only ones that are inferior are gun ears, cannon ears, ship ears, and machine ears." Liang Qichao therefore summed it up in one sentence, " I only need to learn this, and the ability of Westernization will be completed." Around 1870, only a handful of people realized the differences in the growth models of China and Japan. In 1872, the French consultant Rieger who served as the chief engineer of the Fujian Shipping Bureau wrote: "China is rapidly becoming a formidable opponent; the entire bureaucratic class is determined to restore China's international status; the output of the arsenal and shipyards gives people I am deeply impressed; the warships built in China will soon reach the highest level in Europe." Rieger obviously believed that with the construction of arsenals and shipyards, China would be reborn. However, a European statesman who had never been to the Far East disagreed with Japan's conclusion.Also around 1870, Bismarck, the "iron-blooded prime minister" who had just unified the German Empire, received two batches of envoys from Japan and China. However, the Chinese who came to Europe only asked how the ship guns of a certain factory were made and what their value was." Therefore, he predicted, "In the competition between China and Japan, Japan will win and China will lose. "This horrific black prophecy unfortunately came true in the Sino-Japanese War of Sino-Japanese War more than 20 years later. In the next 40 years, due to the stubbornness and strength of the conservative forces in the ruling and opposition parties, as well as the numbness of the Westernization Movement in system reflection, the Westernization Movement failed to save the sinking empire.All kinds of westernization industries were slow to advance, and their operation was changed, especially in the ideological field, they encountered unprecedented resistance. This historical scene is most vividly reflected in the two things of erecting electric lines and repairing railways. In modern China, there were frequent foreign aggressions, constant internal strife, and military emergencies from time to time. The construction of a telegraph transmission system was undoubtedly a top priority for the Qing government, which was always in danger.In fact, as early as 1870, the British Dadong Company and the Danish Dabei Company had already laid telegraph cables in China. The line from the southern coast of China to Hong Kong, and the Danish Great North Company, whose major shareholder is the Russian royal family, erected submarine cables from Vladivostok to Shanghai and Hong Kong. By June 1871, China had actually been included in the world telegraph network. .In this way, foreign countries can transmit information and issue orders in an instant when doing business and negotiating various matters in China, but China is still the same, not allowing the erection of telegraph lines, and still relying on horse post roads to send messages.In this kind of "information warfare", the contrast between pros and cons is too great. The telegraph business was boycotted, and the biggest reason for the opposition was "destruction of Feng Shui". In 1875, in a memorial to the Ministry of Engineering, Chen Yi concluded, "The installation of electric wires goes deep into the ground, runs straight through, and extends in all directions. The earth veins are cut off, and the wind invades and the water is irrigated. It is said: "A loyal minister must be at the gate of a filial son." If the people of China are willing to ignore the tombs of their ancestors and let them set up copper wires, will Shangan hope that the emperor will come to him?" Once the word "loyalty and filial piety" is moved out, the court will No one dared to argue within. The "New York Times" in 1877 once recorded that "the people of the Celestial Dynasty could not understand the working principle of the telegraph. They believed that the foreigners hired clever and invisible ghosts and gods to shuttle back and forth in the line and transmit information. If somewhere near the telegraph line Something unfortunate happens, and immediately there is a rumor that one of the messenger gods has neglected his duty, run off a wire, got lost, and thus caused the disaster, etc. Rumors of this kind usually lead to riots, mobs They will not hesitate to rush over and smash the machinery. Once, a mile of telegraph wire was destroyed overnight because someone fell ill near the wire." The controversy over the telegraph raged for ten years. It wasn't until 1880 that it calmed down a little, and the imperial court made preparations for the establishment of the China Telegraph General Administration. The construction of the railway is a history of blood and tears that makes people laugh and cry.Shi Jingqian, a Chinese historian at Yale University in the United States, believes in the book "In Search of Modern China", "Facts have proved that among the new technologies faced by the Qing Dynasty, the railway is the most difficult." It is not because of how advanced the technology is. , How difficult it is to lay the groundwork, but the big issue in ideology. From 1867 onwards, the imperial court has been arguing over whether the railway should be built or not.Fujian governor Li Futai accused electric wires and railways of being harmful things that "disturb the people and disturb the customs". Moreover, the construction of railways to open roads in mountains and build bridges in water is an ominous thing that alarms mountain gods and dragon kings, and will anger the gods. bring about great disaster.The three ministers of trade and commerce (specially in charge of dealing with various negotiations with the "foreign barbarians" in the north, including trade) Chonghou said, "The railway is of no benefit to China, but it will cause endless harm." Liu Kunyi, the governor of Jiangxi, believed that "with the China's Trade Relocation Biography", there is no need for railways at all.Even Zeng Guofan, who has always been well-informed, believes that whether it is a foreign businessman or a Chinese businessman, as long as the railway is built, "the small people will be in poverty and forced to hang upside down." Foreigners are allowed to build roads, and Chinese businessmen are also prohibited from building roads. The "New York Times" on June 3, 1867 quoted an American observer named Albert Bickmer, saying sharply, "The greatest obstacle to the implementation of such a great project can only be the Qing people's sympathy for all foreign countries. hostility held by human beings, and their own superstition." As Shi Jingqian commented: "Many Chinese believe that railways will destroy the harmony between human beings and nature. They cut the earth long and disrupt the normal rhythm. They have diverted the benevolent power of the earth, and they have also made road and canal workers unemployed, and have changed the market model that has been formed." That is to say, the controversy over whether to build railways occurs in two places, one is whether digging railways will cause alarm Ancestors, the second is whether it will destroy the millennium farming economic model. In 1876, Jardine Matheson, a British businessman, built China's first railway in Shanghai, the Wusong Railway. Although it was only 14 kilometers long, it caused an uproar in China.The Qing government appointed officials to negotiate with the British Consul in Shanghai to purchase the Wusong Railway.Jardine proposed a price of 300,000 taels, but the Chinese officials tried their best to make a deal at 285,000 taels.After the railway changed hands, the Qing court immediately announced that it would be demolished.The railroad ties that were dismantled later went through a very bizarre story of wandering thousands of miles. They were first brought to Taiwan by Liu Mingchuan of the Westernization School to lay a railway, and then Liu was transferred back to the mainland, and the railway was dismantled immediately. They were transported north to Lushunkou Military Port, and a small railway was built to transport artillery shells from the fort. It was not until the Russo-Japanese War in 1904 that the railway was blown up. At the end of 1880, the discussion of building a railway started again.Under the instruction of Li Hongzhang, Liu Mingchuan wrote "Preparing to Build Railways for Self-improvement", and once again put forward the idea of ​​building railways, and believed that this was the key point of self-improvement.Liu Zhezhong specifically proposed that four railways should be built from Beijing to Qingjiangpu, Hankou, Shengjing, and Gansu.If it is impossible to develop the four routes simultaneously due to financial constraints, the Qingjiangpu-Beijing line can be built first.Li Hongzhang then published a 4,000-word "Recommendation on Railway Matters". He wrote very excitedly, "Scholar-bureaucrats have a lot of suggestions for self-improvement when they see foreign aggression and Japanese oppression. Those who want to be self-improving must try to cheer up, but those who discuss it often dismiss it as a happy event. When it comes to foreign affairs, there is even more contempt and disdain in their hearts. I don’t know that there are so many foreign troubles and the difficulties are so thorny. Empty talk can help. I am in a strange situation that has not been seen in thousands of years, and I should build a miracle that has not been seen in thousands of years. If everything must be done according to the law, I am afraid that the sun will be in danger and weak, and I will eventually be unable to strengthen myself. He also encouraged the court to say: "As for the railway, I know that it will benefit the country and the people, and it can last for a long time. If the court decides to establish it, people in the world will be familiar with it, and they will not have more doubts." In this memorial, Li Hongzhang put forward for the first time that "I am in a strange situation that has not been seen in thousands of years". This statement quickly became a famous warning to the world. Tenaciously blocked.Some people even accused Liu and Li of looking like a pair of "traitors". Once you want to change the legal system of the emperors of the past dynasties and the state of the Holy Body, how can you just let it go like this!" On February 14, 1881, the imperial court issued an imperial edict, rejecting the proposals of Li and Liu, saying: " According to Chen Zou, the courtier, it is not unreasonable to think that the railway should not be opened.” Li Hongzhang was still not reconciled. He quietly started construction of the coal transport railway from Kaiping Coal Mine to Xugezhuang section. 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 wagons were pulled by livestock, which really became a nondescript "road". Compared with Japan, Dangan Land is well aware of the importance of railways. As early as 1870, in order to build a railway from Yokohama to Tokyo, the cash-strapped Meiji government did not hesitate to borrow money and issued 1 million pounds of public bonds in London. The proud Qing Empire appeared, but was drowned in saliva long ago.By 1891, there were more than 3,300 kilometers of railways in Japan, of which 2,473 kilometers were private railways, more than twice that of government-run railways.Compared with the same period, the sporadic construction of the vast Qing Empire railway was only 360 kilometers in total, only one-ninth of Japan's. From the matter of railway construction, it can be observed that the century-old national fortunes of China and Japan have diverged, and it is not a matter of days, but a human calculation. In the history of world economy, 1870 was the year when globalization started. Last year, the Suez Canal, which was dug for a full decade and connected the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, was officially opened. It quickly became the most important shipping channel in the world. Since then, the distance between the east and the west has been greatly shortened.Compared with detouring the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, it is at least 5,500 kilometers shorter from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Indian Ocean, and at least 8,000 kilometers shorter from the Mediterranean countries to the Indian Ocean.The shortened voyage speeds up trade and greatly reduces risks. Also in 1871, with the completion of the laying of the submarine cable from London to Shanghai, China began to be included in the global information system.Previously, the postal journey between the two places took 6 to 8 weeks, but now it only takes a few hours.Regarding this cable, the Qing Dynasty government once stipulated that "the electric line sinks on the seabed, and its end cannot be pulled ashore to divide the boundary of the Huayang Dry Line". And Xiamen and other lines.The application of telegraph and telephone technology made futures trade in Chinese and foreign markets possible. Cotton, tea and other materials in the Chinese market have joined the global trade cycle. Shanghai will soon become the most important foreign trade and financial center in the Far East. Compared with the shortening of voyages and the connection of telecommunications, another equally important globalization event is the establishment of the gold standard currency system in various countries.Unfortunately, China was the largest "silver empire" in the world at that time. The so-called gold standard is not that countries use gold as legal currency, but that countries use gold as a reserve support for legal currency.The inventor of this system was the British Empire.Since the mid-18th century, after the Englishman Watt improved the steam engine, Britain became the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. It relied on the advancement of machine technology to rapidly expand its colonies and become an empire where the sun never sets.The United Kingdom took the lead in implementing the gold standard in 1816. Under its demonstration effect, all major economic countries implemented this currency system around 1870.France entered the era of the gold standard in 1873, and the United States actually entered the era of the gold standard in 1879. After the "Iron Prime Minister" Bismarck unified Germany, he quickly adopted the gold standard in 1873. Eastern Russia and Japan entered later, the former around 1890, the latter Relying on the huge gold compensation from the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895, he got on the train of this era.According to the calculations of Nobel Laureate Mundell, around 1900, the gold standard did bring some form of currency unification to the world, and the gold standard covered two-thirds of the world's currency transactions.A unified and stable monetary system has made people's expectations for future economic activities relatively stable, capital, goods, and population have begun to flow highly, and an era of globalization has finally arrived as scheduled. Britain, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan , have risen one after another in such a great era and become the world's most important economic power. This kind of world economic and political structure formed in the late 19th century has not undergone fundamental changes today a hundred years later. Among the great powers in the world at that time, only the Qing Empire and India stubbornly still practiced the silver standard.In terms of the financial system, these two ancient and proud "silver empires" excluded themselves from the unified international monetary system, and China did not announce the implementation of the gold standard until 1935. In addition to being perplexed by concepts, the Westernization Group's business establishment also had an equally thorny problem, that is, the state treasury was too shy.This is also very similar to the scene when China advocated reform and opening up more than a hundred years later.It was against this background that an enterprise system known as "government-supervised and commercial-run" was invented. In the spring of 1872, Tianjin. The 28-year-old Sheng Xuanhuai (1844-1916) walked briskly into Li Hongzhang's mansion. He greeted the guards and maidservants affectionately along the way, and he saw that he was a regular visitor.At that time, Zeng Guofan had just passed away in March. Li served as the governor of Zhili and concurrently served as the Minister of Beiyang Commerce, becoming the most important court official after Zeng.Among the hundreds of disciples in Li Gong's shogunate, Sheng Xuanhuai was only a scholar, and his fame was obviously not good enough. However, in Li Hongzhang's view, this talented scholar from Changzhou, Jiangsu was the first-class talent. 盛宣怀生于官宦世家，他的祖父在浙江当过知府，父亲盛康是湖北粮道、盐法道，曾在李鸿章的手下做过事。这个年轻人写八股文章很不在行，却在为人处世和办实务上很有长才，他有着惊人的战略判断力、无比精巧的斡旋才干、坚忍的个性和超级旺盛的体力，可谓是百年一见的商业奇才。对于曾、李发动的洋务运动，盛宣怀尤为热心。他尝呈信发誓，“竭我生之精力，必当助我中堂办成铁矿、银行、邮政、织布数事，百年之后，或可以姓名附列于中堂传策之后，吾愿足矣。”后来，盛宣怀几乎参与了晚清所有重要的大型国营公司的创立，被视为一代“商父”。 这回来见李中堂，盛宣怀带来了一份自拟的《轮船招商局章程》，这是近代中国第一个规范意义上的公司章程，便是在这份章程中，他提出了官督商办的公司理念。这一理念顽固延绵，至今仍深刻地影响着130多年后的中国商业生态。 在此之前，洋务派所办企业均为军工，李鸿章见长江航运异常繁荣，且所行轮船多为英美公司，便有心要办一家中国企业与之争利，就这样，轮船招商局也成了洋务运动中第一家从事民用业务的现代公司。在盛宣怀的倡议下，李鸿章决定要靠民间资金来办一家轮船公司，他在给朝廷的奏折中论述说，“华商集资组建轮船公司，由一官派经理指导之，并授予漕运专利以保公司利润……官督商办，由官总其大纲，察其利病，而听该商董等自立条议，悦服众商。”盛宣怀在《章程》颇有远见地写到，“中国官商久不联络，在官莫顾商情，在商莫筹国计。夫筹国计必先顾商情，倘不能自立，一蹶不可复振。”他更是具体地拟订了六条，包括“委任宜专、商本宜充、公司宜立、轮船宜先后分领、租价宜酬定、海运宜分与装运”，为了增强公司的竞争能力，盛宣怀提议，朝廷应“准每年分拨江浙漕米40万石交招商局”，也就是说，让新公司有一块保本吃饭的垄断利润。 在章程中还有两条非常醒目，第一条是“每年一分生息”，也就是说，招商局的股票类似于债券发行，明确规定了利息率，而这部分利息需先由官府提取，其余再是民股分配。这个原则日后被所有官督商办企业沿用，不久后创办的开平矿务局还在招商章程中明确规定，“即将每年所得利息，先提官利一分，后提办事者花红二成，其余八成仍按股均分。”，还有一些企业更是规定，不管企业效益如何，都必须发给“官利一分”。第二条特别的是，“一经售定，即行到局注册。但不准让与洋人。”由此可见，官督商办企业从诞生的第一天起，所有制身份的特征就非常的明显。 费尽心思拟订了章程的盛宣怀自然很想去办这个企业，但是出乎他意外的是，李鸿章却另选了他人。在后面的讲述中，我们将看到，从倡议创建招商局，到真正主政局务，盛宣怀前后等了13年。 在朝廷批准所奏之后，李鸿章把筹建重担交给了另外一个心腹、浙江海运委员朱其昂，盛宣怀只是一个会办。朱是一个暮气沉沉的老官吏，他从国库中领走20万两银子之后，只做官家垄断的漕运业务，而不去拉客货生意，因此在市场上毫无竞争力，半年下来，业务就停滞不前了。 李鸿章决定换人。盛宣怀主动请缨，李以他年轻且缺乏根基再次不予准许。这时候，有两个南方的买办走进了他的视野。