Chapter 34 Section 2 Zhan Tianyou and Jing Zhanglu

China's early railways are inseparable from the name of Zhan Tianyou, an outstanding railway engineer.Zhan Tianyou worked hard all his life for my country's railway industry.In his more than 30 years in the railway business, he has hardly left the railway for a day, and almost every railway built in my country at that time had contact with him to varying degrees. Zhan Tianyou was born in Nanhai County, Guangdong Province in 1861. At the age of 12, due to difficulties in family life, he went to Hong Kong to take the preparatory class for young children going abroad, and went to the United States to study. In June 1881, he graduated from the Yale University Railway Specialized Course with the first place in the examination, and returned to the motherland in August of the same year.When he was a student, he determined to make the motherland prosperous and strong by building railways.After he returned to China, he was in charge of paving the railway from Tanggu to Tianjin and building the Luanhe Bridge. He first showed his talents, and even those pretentious foreign engineers had to admire them.Zhan Tianyou made many contributions in his life, the most prominent of which was the construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.

That was after the failure of the Boxer Movement, the national crisis became more and more serious, and the people of our country demanded to protect the road rights and build railways by themselves.The Qing government had to change its mind and decided to build the first important railway, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, by itself. In May 1905, the Qing government sent Zhan Tianyou as chief engineer of the Beijing Zhangluhui Office (later promoted to the general office). The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is about 200 kilometers long and passes through the Yanshan Mountains inside and outside the Great Wall.This area is full of lofty mountains, and the "Guangou section" from Nankou to Chadaocheng is particularly steep, and Badaling is the highest peak.As soon as the news that Zhan Tianyou was in charge of building the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway came out, the imperialists immediately sarcastically said: "The Chinese engineer who can build the railway passing through the Guangou section has not yet been born!" Arrogant", "overwhelmed".At that time, many people in China lacked confidence in building such a railway by themselves.Zhan Tianyou devoted himself to winning honor for his country, and withstood all doubts, criticisms and slanders from home and abroad. On October 24, 1906, he expressed his determination and belief in a letter to a teacher when he was studying in the United States: "China has woken up. The Chinese will use their own engineers and their own money to build Railway, I seem to be the Chinese engineer at the forefront. All Chinese and foreign people are watching the Jingzhang Road project that I presided over. If the Jingzhang Road project fails, it will not only be my personal misfortune, but also the misfortune of the Chinese engineers. It will bring great losses to China. Before and after I accepted this task, many foreigners declared that Chinese engineers could not undertake the difficult projects such as stonework and caves on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou line, but I insisted on my project, and now the first section of the project It has been completed..." Zhan Tianyou completed every task of Jingzhang Road construction with amazing perseverance.Outside the Great Wall, there are often violent winds and howls, and the sky is covered with dust and dust.People are in danger of being swept into deep valleys by strong winds at any time.Zhan Tianyou personally led the engineering staff, and carried a pole and a theodolite on the cliff to make a fixed-point map.In order to find an ideal road for construction, he often rode a donkey on the rugged mountain trails; during the day, he climbed mountains and ridges, and at night he bent down under the oil lamp to draw and calculate.After actual survey and investigation, he has selected three lines, one of which is the Fengsha line built after 1949.

Compared with the other two lines, this line has a higher train passing capacity, a larger transportation volume, and a more arduous project, and the funding will exceed the original budget of 7 million taels by several times.The corrupt Qing government will not be interested in this.Zhan Tianyou had to give up this ideal route in his opinion. The most difficult part of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is the Badaling Tunnel Project.In order to ensure the completion of the railway ahead of schedule, Zhan Tianyou decided to adopt a segmented construction method for the Badaling Tunnel.This was not easy at the time when my country's construction machinery was very simple and backward.In order to ensure the quality of the tunnel construction, Zhan Tianyou boarded and lived on the site, personally inspected the alignment, positioning, and even the diameter and distance of each blasthole.He worked so hard day and night that all the construction workers on the site were deeply moved.Zhan Tianyou also creatively used the principle of "turnback line" to build a section of "herringbone"-shaped line on the Qinglong Bridge with steep mountains and slopes, reducing the slope of the Guangou section to below 33‰ and reducing the length of the Badaling Tunnel to half.According to the characteristics of road construction in mountainous areas, Zhan Tianyou used local materials to design many majestic stone arch bridges with national characteristics.Not only save steel, but also greatly reduce the project cost.Zhan Tianyou's three requirements of "low cost, good quality, and fast completion" were all fulfilled. On October 2, 1909, at the opening ceremony, Chinese and foreign guests expressed their admiration for Zhan Tianyou.He said very modestly: "This is the strength of more than 10,000 employees of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway. It is not my personal credit. The glory should belong to everyone."

The completion of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway has greatly encouraged the national self-confidence of the Chinese people, and promoted the patriotic movement of the masses to "take back the right of way" and run their own railways.Since then, in addition to presiding over the construction of the railway from Zhangjiakou to Suiyuan, Zhan Tianyou was also invited to be in charge of commercial railways such as Sichuan-Han and Yue-Han, and worked hard to train China's own technical personnel.He joined the road protection movement, warmly welcomed the Revolution of 1911, and felt that it was the hope of saving China, and helped Mr. Sun Yat-sen realize his plan to build a 100,000-mile railway with practical actions.

In January 1919, Zhan Tianyou was sent to attend the meeting of the "Middle East Railway Supervision Committee" of the Allies, and fought resolutely against the imperialist occupation of the Middle East Railway. conspiracy.Facing the ups and downs of the motherland, he was very worried. Looking back on his life, his ambitions were not fulfilled. He fell ill during the extremely intense work. Finally, due to overwork, his condition became serious and he died on April 24, 1919. , at the age of 58. Zhan Tianyou wrote a glorious page in the history of my country's railways, and the people will always miss him.