Sheng Xuanhuai was brought to the historical stage at the end of the Qing Dynasty by Li Hongzhang, who had a good relationship with his father Sheng Kang, so he took this young man who was not very good in the imperial examination like Yuan Shikai with him. A hundred years ago, according to the traditional Chinese chronology of the sexagenary branch, it was the Xinhai year. The decaying virus has penetrated into every cell of the Qing Empire, and it doesn't take much movement for this seemingly huge dynasty to die, because it only has its last breath left.
On January 6, 1911, Sheng Xuanhuai, who was born in Longxi, Wujin County, Changzhou Prefecture, Jiangsu Province, was 67 years old. This representative of the Westernization faction, who has wandered in the political and business circles all his life, because of Li Hongzhang's death, he lost his backer and felt more and more Yuan Shikai's aggressiveness, and in order to recuperate in order to fight with Yuan Shikai not be at a disadvantage, he keenly discovered the value of the Ministry of Posts and Communications, which was in charge of the industrial department of the Qing Dynasty. Out is business, in is phase. He must plan a game for himself that can compete with Yuan Shikai. History has pushed him and Yuan Shikai to the stage**.
Sheng Xuanhuai was brought to the historical stage at the end of the Qing Dynasty by Li Hongzhang, who had a good relationship with his father Sheng Kang, so he took this young man who was not very good in the imperial examination like Yuan Shikai with him. Under the banner of Li Hongzhang, who knows and cherishes talents, Sheng Xuanhuai showed his talent in a timely manner, and also got Li Hongzhang's support. Sheng Xuanhuai began to handle the coal and iron mines in Hubei in 1875, in 1880 he founded China's first telegraph office, the Tianjin Telegraph Bureau, in 1884 he took charge of the steamship China Merchants Bureau, in 1894 he took over the layout of machine weaving in Shanghai, and in 1897 he opened China's first bank, the China International Commercial Bank, in Shanghai. Chen Sanli (Chen Yinke's father) wrote an epitaph for Sheng Xuanhuai, saying, "Shi Wenzhong is the governor of Zhili, who wants to be rich and strong, and attaches great importance to diplomacy and military equipment." The public rule is supplemented by roads, mines, electric wires, and navigation as the key points of the country, and it is in line with Wenzhong." Perhaps it is fate, Sheng Xuanhuai's ups and downs in life are all related to the railway. Perhaps it can be called a railway, a railway, a railway.
In 1874, a total length of 145 kilometers of narrow-gauge railway connecting Shanghai and Wusong, because the construction of the Qing Dynasty without prior approval caused dissatisfaction, in the face of the displeasure of the imperial court and the stubbornness of the foreigners between the seemingly difficult to reconcile contradictions, 30-year-old Sheng Xuanhuai participated in the negotiation of the fate of the first commercial railway in the history of Chinese railways. In the end, Sheng Xuanhuai and others, who participated in the negotiations, finally paid the foreigners 28For a price of 50,000 taels, the railway was redeemed. It seems to be a strange circle of Chinese railways, the first is often unlucky, and the end of waiting for China's first commercial railway is no exception, it was demolished. Today's seemingly absurd move won Li Hongzhang's evaluation for the young Sheng Xuanhuai: "Faithful-minded, knowledgeable, and able to see its greatness in China's diplomatic affairs." ”
In 1896, two famous Han ministers in the late Qing Dynasty, Li Hongzhang and Zhang Zhidong, carried out a win-win cooperation around the railway. At that time, Zhang Zhidong's Hanyang Iron Works was unsustainable, so Zhang Zhidong warmly invited Sheng Xuanhuai, who was praised by him as "able to connect the north and the south, can connect China and foreign countries, and can connect officials and businessmen", to take over the Hanyang Iron Works, and then Zhang Zhidong recommended Sheng Xuanhuai to supervise the upcoming construction of the Luhan Railway Company. Sheng Xuanhuai, in accordance with Li Hongzhang's old scheming, reciprocated to Zhang Zhidong, and Sheng Xuanhuai's first performance was to request that "rail from the factory" be set as a national policy, and the Hanyang Iron Works, which was in dire straits, gained a broad market. Since 1896, Sheng Xuanhuai has worked hard for almost ten years as the Minister of Railway Supervision, and the total mileage of railways built has reached more than 4,000 miles, which is six times the total mileage of the railways of the previous Qing Dynasty, and even exceeds the total mileage of the railways built in the first 20 years of the establishment of the first 20 years.
Sheng Xuanhuai, who has a deep affection for railways, believes that since railways are an economic undertaking that has a bearing on the lifeblood of the country and also has huge profits, it should be monopolized by the state. But the reality is that he has to face the huge financial needs for the construction of the railway, it is impossible to complete the railway construction independently by relying on the financial payment of the Qing Dynasty, and allowing foreign investment will cause the loss of national sovereignty and interests, private capital does not have enough strength to make financial investment, and the private investment with small and medium-sized enterprises as the main force will appear The main interests are too scattered, and the interests are too diverse, bringing various drawbacks and risks. Facts have proved that the bane of the political and social risks of the Sichuan-Hankou Railway has been planted at the moment when the private fund-raising model has been determined. Under this background, Sheng Xuanhuai gradually formed the guiding ideology of "borrowing foreign money to build roads". In this way, the country's sovereignty and interests are protected, and foreign financial support is obtained, which is nothing more than repaying debts for several decades. In 1904, the government-run Sichuan-Han Railway Company was established in Chengdu, and later changed to a commercial office due to financial difficulties. At the time of the business, the Sichuan-Han Railway began to raise private shares, and the share capital of the Sichuan-Han Railway at that time mainly adopted the method of "adding acres of land to the land" to form a "rent-drawn shares". The specific method is to levy with the grain, and draw three out of every hundred, which has the dual nature of compulsory expropriation and stock raising. This has enabled the people of Sichuan to have a close relationship of interest with the Sichuan-Hankou Railway, and has also laid the groundwork for the inevitable large-scale crisis in the future.
When he took office in the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications, Sheng Xuanhuai found that the construction of the Sichuan-Han Railway has been very disadvantageous. "Now the construction is more than 200 miles, it will take nine years to complete, and the whole road will be completed, it will take decades. The back road has not been repaired, the front road has been broken, and there is no end to it. The first paragraph is not enough for annual work, and the latter paragraph is not enough for shareholders to pay interest, and the money is exhausted, and the people are poor and poor. In response to this situation, Sheng Xuanhuai decided to go to the imperial court and suggested that the Sichuan-Han Railway should be state-owned again. During this period, this ill-fated railway has undergone many major policy adjustments in the perspective of both state-owned and private-owned enterprises. The reversal of major policies reflects the frivolity and naivety of the organs of power, and will inevitably bring about social and economic turmoil and disaster. On May 8, 1911, Sheng Xuanhuai reached the pinnacle of his career and became one of the four Han cabinet members in the Qing Dynasty's "Imperial Cabinet", but this was also a turning point in his life. On May 9, the Qing Dynasty promulgated the nationalization of the main railway line. At this time, the extremely financially difficult Qing ** has no ability to give reasonable compensation to the shareholders, but can only redeem the shares in the form of discounts, that is, in a way that is lower than the actual investment amount of the shareholders. According to the plan, only 60% of the cash will be returned to the private shareholders, and the other 40% is interest-free**, that is, the investor not only does not have any investment income, but also bears the risk of loss of 40%. Not long ago, the Qing Dynasty also agreed to the private railway, allowing the people to invest in a large number of shares, and now suddenly announced that the state-owned, at that time when the information communication was not smooth, a large number, multiple interests, and different demands of the majority of shareholders thought that this was the first intention to set up a ring of money, and was furious, and the vigorous "road protection movement" rose up. Among them, Sichuan's rebellion against "state-owned railways" was the most intense. In the spring and summer of 1911, under the slogan of "desperately breaking the contract to protect the road", tens of millions of indignant people gathered. On September 7, the Sichuan Governor Zhao Erfeng shot and killed ** people, and the gunfire caused the incident to escalate suddenly. Sheng Xuanhuai, who could not see the final end of this movement clearly, believed in force as always, and asked Governor Ruizi to transfer the Hubei garrison to Sichuan on the grounds that "the soldiers and police are all Sichuan people, and they are afraid of their lives." Since September 10, Ruizi has transferred six battalions of troops from Wuchang to Sichuan to suppress the Baolu Movement, resulting in the lack of air defense of the Wuchang army.
On October 10, 1911, sporadic gunshots from Wuchang dealt a fatal blow to the dying Qing court, shattering the original neat mirror image of the Qing Empire. Sheng Xuanhuai, who insisted that the railways should be state-owned, was dismissed from all his posts and "never used." Out of consideration for their own interests, the ministers of Britain, the United States, Germany, and France jointly came forward to protect Sheng Xuanhuai's personal safety. On October 28, Sheng Xuanhuai, who had written a fold to defend himself overnight, finally had to face the fact that the wall had fallen down, everyone had pushed it, the tree had fallen and the macaques had scattered, put down the pen that had written many "quasi" folds, and fled from Beijing to Qingdao. On December 14, he traveled from Qingdao to Dalian. On the last day of 1911, on the eve of Sun Yat-sen's swearing-in as the provisional president of China in Nanjing, Sheng Xuanhuai fled to Kobe, Japan on a German freighter. The final appraisal opinion given to him by the "Qing History Manuscript" is: "Xuanhuai infringes on the law, deceives the monarch, obsmerates policies, and causes chaos, which is really the first evil of misleading the country." ”
In May 1912, after the success of the Xinhai Revolution, the Sichuan-Han Railway Company held a general meeting of shareholders and elected Liu Shengyuan, Deng Xiaoke, Pu Dianjun and other representatives to Beijing to negotiate the aftermath with the Ministry of Communications on an equal footing. On November 2, 1912, the shareholder representatives of the Sichuan-Han Railway Company and the Ministry of Communications formally signed an agreement on the transformation of the company into state-owned enterprises, and the road protection movement came to an end. However, because China was poor and weak at this time, and there were constant internal and external troubles, the people of Sichuan finally paid a heavy price for the Sichuan-Han Railway. In the winter of 2010, as the main design section of the Sichuan-Hanzhou Railway, the Yiwan Railway, after the Baocheng Line, the Sichuan-Guizhou Line, the Chengdu-Kunming Line, the Xiangyu Line, the Neikun Line and the Yuhuai Line were opened to traffic one after another, as the last Sichuan-out railway, the length of the bridge and tunnel accounted for the proportion of the whole road was the most difficult in the country, and the cost per kilometer exceeded the high cost of the Qinghai-Tibet Railway.