Since ancient times, China has enjoyed the reputation of "infrastructure madness". In just a few decades, Qin Shi Huang completed the seven major projects of the Great Wall, Dujiangyan, Qin Zhidao, Afang Palace, Zheng Guoqu, Wuchi Road, and the Mausoleum of Qin Shi Huang.
Especially the Great Wall and Dujiangyan, the former is still breathtaking, and the latter has withstood the test of Wenchuan Da**. These works are miraculous. From ancient times to the present, successive dynasties have made remarkable achievements in infrastructure construction, which have amazed the surrounding countries, and have sent envoys and students to study in the Central Plains Dynasty.
However, at the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republic of China, due to the deep-rooted feudal mentality, the Qing Dynasty failed to transform in time, which not only caused the country to suffer great humiliation, but also made the country's infrastructure construction stagnate.
Fortunately, a group of capable people with new thinking have risen, such as Zhan Tianyou. He made great achievements by building railways. In particular, the herringbone railway he built at a cost of 6.93 million taels amazed the world.
So, what is the use of a herringbone railway? Why did Zhan Tianyou go to great lengths and waste so many distances to build such a railway?
Zhan Tianyou, a native of Guangdong, was born in 1861 in a family of merchants. With the support of a strong family, he became one of the first Chinese students to study abroad. In 1873, at the age of 12, Zhan Tianyou went to the United States to study in elementary school, and has been receiving Western-style education since then, and was admitted to a famous American university majoring in civil engineering.
According to common sense, he left home when he was 12 years old, and his attachment to his hometown should not be deep. However, his parents taught him that serving the country is the pursuit of a person's life.
With this faith, he graduated and returned to his homeland to work as a teacher and wait for the opportunity to serve his country. At this time, the Qing Dynasty was in the midst of the Westernization Movement, and as a highly talented student who graduated from a prestigious American university, Zhan Tianyou quickly attracted the attention of the rulers.
In the face of advanced foreign railway technology, the rulers of the Qing Dynasty were envious, but they suffered from the limitations of domestic technical conditions. However, the presence of Zhan Tianyou gave them hope, and he became China's first chief railway engineer in charge of the construction of the Jinzhou Railway, and later began the construction of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway.
Although his major is roads, mastering railway technology is still a challenge for him. However, the problem is much more than that. The terrain of the Jinzhou Railway is relatively flat, and the difficulty of construction is relatively small.
However, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway faced severe challenges, especially the tunnel problems of the two mountain ranges of Juyongguan and Badaling, as well as the large slope caused by the rugged mountain roads, and it was almost impossible to complete the laying of the railway with the technical level at that time.
When experts from Britain, Japan, and France built the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway, they all chose to give up because it was too difficult. So, in the face of such difficulties, why did Zhan Tianyou still insist on building the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway?
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway connects Beijing and Zhangjiakou, with a total distance of nearly 200 kilometers. As the only way for the West to enter China, it is also an important line of defense for China. When the country is facing a crisis, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway can quickly mobilize troops and form a situation of linkage with neighboring provinces and cities.
Even now, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is still of great value, such as during the Winter Olympics, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway is the main mode of transportation, and the two places can be reached in as little as 1 hour.
Zhangjiakou residents also rely on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway to commute to work every day. Foreigners have long seen the importance of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and have scrambled for permission to build it, but in the end they could not overcome the construction problem and had to give up.
However, the Empress Dowager Cixi did not realize the true value of the Beijing-Zhangjiakou Railway and easily let foreigners build it.
Faced with problems that foreign experts could not overcome, Zhan Tianyou decided to start with research and field investigations, and after in-depth thinking, he found two major problems: the difficulty of opening the tunnel and the train climbing.
These two problems discouraged Britain, Japan and France, but Zhan Tianyou did not back down. He found that the key to solving the tunnel problem was the lack of suitable equipment such as mountain openers, pumping machines and ventilators, especially the pumping and ventilation problems, which could be life-threatening if not solved.
After careful consideration, Zhan Tianyou came up with an innovative solution. In the face of ridicule and skepticism from foreigners, Zhan Tianyou firmly began his road of railway construction.
He devised an ingenious method of excavation that allowed people to dig shafts at opposite ends of the mountain, which not only halved the construction time, but also avoided the use of advanced mountain openers, even pumping and ventilators.
This method is known as the "shaft digging method". After solving the first problem, he began to think about how to solve the second problem. He observed that when a person is going downhill, the inertial thrust is counteracted by the mutual support of the two legs.
Therefore, he thought, can the train track be designed with two legs to slow down the inertial thrust brought by the slope? Actually, the implementation of this idea is very simple.
This mountain road from Badaling to Sanbao is long and steep, and the speed of the train will get faster and faster, and in the end it will be impossible to control at all. However, there is a three-way road between the two points that leads to the Qinglong Bridge.
Zhan Tianyou's wisdom lies in the fact that he can drive into the flat area of Qinglong Bridge in a large arc between two points, and then change the rear of the car to the front of the car, and then return from Qinglong Bridge and go down to Sanbao in a large arc.
He only used 6.93 million taels**, saving 300,000 taels ** than expected, to complete the construction of this railway. This was undoubtedly a miracle, because China's railway career was almost blank at that time.
What's even more amazing is that two of Zhan Tianyou's inventions were studied and cited by foreign railway experts and are still in use today.
The spirit of thinking and exploration flows in the blood of the Chinese, and since ancient times, whether in myths and legends or folk wisdom, we have always been thinking about how to fight against nature and how to explore the unknown.
Nuwa mends the sky, Houyi shoots the sun, Dayu controls the water, and Yugong moves mountains, these stories are full of tenacity and hard work, inspiring generations of Chinese to move forward. This fighting spirit has long become a part of the "Chinese thought", so that our civilization can be passed down to the present day.
Of course, the profound ideas in it are worth learning and passing on forever.