The Baolu Movement is an extremely important event in modern history, and it is precisely because of the rise of the Baolu Movement that the success of the Wuchang Uprising was promoted, so the Baolu Movement is known as the fuse of the Wuchang Uprising.
In the history textbooks, the introduction of the Baolu Movement is very short, and it is generally simple, because the Qing Dynasty wanted to take back the construction rights of the Sichuan-Hanzhou and Guangdong-Hanzhou railways and sell them to the banks of Britain, France, Germany, and the United States, which caused dissatisfaction among the people in the provinces, which in turn led to the Baolu Movement, which ultimately contributed to the success of the Wuchang Uprising.
It can be said that the cause and effect of this incident and the process are not carried out in detail, only know that Baolu contributed to the outbreak of the Wuchang Uprising, in fact, the Baolu movement is a very important event in the late Qing Dynasty, and the truth is far from as simple as you think.
First of all, we have to talk about the construction of railways within the Qing Dynasty.
As a result of the first industrial revolution, the Qing Dynasty was extremely disgusted with trains, believing that the Qing Dynasty had its own trade routes, and that building time-consuming and laborious trains was a waste, and even believed that trains would facilitate the invasion of foreign powers.
At that time, Liu Kun, an important member of the imperial court.
1. Zeng Guofan did not approve of the construction of railways in the Qing Dynasty, and only Li Hongzhang knew the benefits of building railways.
However, Li Hongzhang could not bypass the imperial court to build a railway by himself, and quietly built a 10-kilometer railway from Tangshan to Xugezhuang in the sixth year of Guangxu (1880).
After the successful construction of the railway, he deliberately did not use locomotives to pull it, but used mules and horses to pull it, which became a joke, of course, this was a helpless move made by Li Hongzhang in order to avoid being criticized.
It was not until the ninth year of Guangxu (1883), due to the tense relations with France, in order to have a possible war, that Li Hongzhang used this as an excuse to use a locomotive to pull coal for the Beiyang Naval Division, and since then the construction of the railway in the Qing Dynasty has been put on hold.
With the gradual deepening of the Westernization Movement, some people of insight were in favor of the Qing Dynasty to build railways, and the two factions quarreled every day, and Cixi ordered local officials to express their opinions.
But most of the ** did not dare to offend the important members of the imperial court, and they were vague, and only Zhang Zhidong, the governor of Liangguang, made it clear that the imperial court would build a railway.
In May of the 15th year of Guangxu (1889), after discussion, the Qing Dynasty made up its mind to build a railway.
However, the real large-scale construction of railways was the defeat of the First Sino-Japanese War, which made the Qing Dynasty completely realize that if the construction of a nationwide railway network would greatly change the backward situation of the Qing Dynasty, so from the 21st year of Guangxu (1895), the Qing Dynasty began to build railways on a large scale.
However, building a railway is a very silver-consuming thing, the Beijing-Zhangjiakou railway is only 200 kilometers, and the construction fund is as high as 7 million taels of silver.
Not to mention that the Qing Dynasty still owed a lot of money to the "Treaty of Shimonoseki" and the "Treaty of Xincho", let alone the money to build railways on a large scale.
No way, raise funds, at the beginning of the Qing Dynasty planned to issue ** to attract private rich people to build the railway, after the repair of the ownership and management of the railway are owned by the imperial court, shareholders at the end of the year dividends.
However, the imperial court was defeated one after another, and the construction of railways burned so much money, and the profits were far away, many people were discouraged, and the Qing Dynasty's plan to build railways with private financial resources initially failed.
Since the people refused, they could only borrow money from the powers, but the money of the powers was so easy to borrow? The money has to be borrowed from the powers, the engineers have to use the powers, even the locomotive tracks have to be from the powers, and the Qing Dynasty needs to mortgage the right to operate the railway.
Thinking about it like this, the Qing Dynasty probably couldn't get anything except for some land and people, what is the significance of this railway construction?
In this way, the Qing Dynasty's plan to rely on the money of the great powers to build a railway also initially failed.
There was no money to worry about the Qing Dynasty, but the railway still had to be repaired, and finally chose to let go of the power of private capital to build railways, but the repair was restored, and the capital of the great powers was not allowed to take shares, and the private railway companies had the ownership and management rights of the railways after the construction.
In this way, the Shanghai-Hangzhou-Ningbo, Zhangxia, Chaoshan, and Xinning railways were built one after another.
However, the financial resources of private capital are also limited, the technology is not as good as foreign countries, and the construction technology of railways in various places is not consistent, and it is even impossible to interconnect with other provinces.
As for the railways that were built, due to poor operation, they lost money in a few years, and it was even better not to repair them, and in this way, the enthusiasm of the people to build the railways gradually declined.
In the thirty-second year of Guangxu (1906), the Ministry of Posts and Communications deeply felt that if this continued, the year of the monkey and the month of Ma Yue could not be repaired, so it gave the imperial court an excerpt of "Coordinating the Overall Railway Fold", thinking that the main trunk line was still built by the imperial court, and some branch lines could be handed over to the locality.
Although the suggestion was good, the court had no money, so this fold was suppressed.
And when the enthusiasm for construction in various places has cooled down, the enthusiasm for building railways in Sichuan has risen.
In the thirtieth year of Guangxu (1904), Xiliang, the governor of Sichuan, planned to build a Sichuan-Han railway from Chengdu to Hankou, which was expected to cost 50 million taels**, and the imperial court could not take such a large amount.
At the beginning, Xiliang also planned to let the private sector raise funds to build it, but the Sichuan people were not very interested in the railway, and after shouting for a long time, basically no one was willing to invest in the shares.
But the road still had to be built, and Xiliang decided to impose a tax on the construction of the railway, and ordered an additional 3 percent of the province's land tax, which also meant that the peasants of the province became shareholders of the Sichuan-Han Railway.
Being a shareholder means that you can pay dividends, but Xiliang will be so kind?
After the levy of taxes, he stipulated that the amount per share of the Sichuan-Han Railway was **50 taels, which is also a painful number for the rich, not to mention that ordinary farmers may not earn a few taels of silver in a year of farming, and it is estimated that the taxes paid are only about one tael at most, and it can only be collected in fifty taels of monkey years?
If you can't get together, you won't have the identity of a shareholder, and Xiliang played this trick, which is equivalent to taking the people's money for nothing and not needing to give the identity of a shareholder.
Xiliang is smart, and the Sichuan squire is not stupid, after learning that Xiliang promulgated the "Articles of Association", they carefully calculated that as long as they become shareholders and become shareholders, they can also take the people's money for nothing like the Sichuan-Han Railway.
In this way, the Sichuan squires asked to take a stake in the Sichuan-Han Railway, but they couldn't stop it.
In the first year of Xuantong (1909), Xiliang successfully absorbed 20 million taels of silver from the people, although it was still a little far from 50 million taels, but it could be built partially.
But did these squires really want to build a railway? Not at all, they just want to use the peasants' land rent money to make money and put it in their own pockets, and as for the railway, they are not interested in it at all.
After becoming a major shareholder, he used the money to invest in various ways to buy **, and finally completely collapsed in the rubber ** trend in the second year of Xuantong (1910), and 20 million taels ** lost 10 million taels.
In order to appease the people of Sichuan, the shareholders planned to build a little railway first, telling everyone that the money was not wasted, and the railway they wanted to build was indeed arranged between Yichang and Wanxian in the Three Gorges area.
This road is not easy to repair, and the original intention of the major shareholders is the same, which is equivalent to delaying time.
Of course, it still has to be done, invite Zhan Tianyou as an engineer, Zhan Tianyou is full of enthusiasm, but he left angrily after repairing it not long after, he knows that no one wants to build this railway, and he also commands people who can't move, just more than 30 miles spent four million taels **, where did the money go? It was all divided up by the people who were involved in the construction.
Of course, not only the Sichuan-Han Railway, but also the Guangdong gentry and merchants, although they raised a lot of money, they did not work hard to build the road, and they also diverted this money for other purposes, which was too wasteful.
In May of the third year of Xuantong (1911), Shi Changxin submitted an excerpt to the imperial court, arguing that the main railway lines of the imperial court could not be built by the private sector and must be recovered from the state.
In the same month, the Qing Dynasty announced the nationalization of the country's main railway lines, and all cases of railway lines approved by the imperial court were revoked.
And what about the private capital that was absorbed before? Sheng Xuanhuai's plan is that the money will not be refunded and will continue to be used for construction, but private capital will be reissued to compensate.
Knowing that the imperial court was going to be nationalized, the squires and bureaucrats in Sichuan were still very happy, because they just took this opportunity to let the imperial court fill their own deficits, but the imperial court was not stupid, and the accounts were checked before the nationalization, good guys, 20 million taels ** was defeated so that only 8 million taels remained, as for the railway? I'm sorry, it's only thirty miles, and it's still the kind without railroad tracks.
As a result, the share capital of the Sichuan-Han Railway can only be calculated at eight million taels, which many people can't accept.
And many places do not agree with the court to give the first plan, for a time the people are in an uproar, the next day after the plan was promulgated, various groups in Hunan agreed on 15 measures to protect the road, opposing the compulsory nationalization of the imperial court.
Zaifeng ignored it, and kept urging the railway companies to clean up the accounts as soon as possible and prepare for the handover, and the crowd was excited, especially the Sichuan squires who lost the most.
They lost the most money, and if the court didn't fill it up, other shareholders and ordinary people would tear them apart, and if they thought about it, they could only throw the pot to the court.
They claimed to the people who didn't know the inside story that the imperial court was greedy for the share capital of the Sichuan-Han Railway of 12 million taels, and only approved 8 million taels, which was the hard-earned money of the people of the whole province, and the imperial court could swallow it? (Actually, they swallowed it themselves).
Ordinary people know this? Under their **, they really think that the imperial court has swallowed their hard-earned money, and they have asked the government for explanations, and even asked Wang Wenwen, the governor of Sichuan.
At this time, the imperial court sent another "divine assist".
After deciding to nationalize the railway, the Qing Dynasty planned to borrow money from the banks of Britain, France, Germany, and Russia to build the railway.
But after the Sichuan squire learned about it, he immediately publicized it everywhere, saying that the imperial court mortgaged the Sichuan-Han Railway to foreigners to borrow money, which ignited everyone's anger at once.
In view of the inability of Wang Wenwen, the governor of Sichuan, to calm down the people's anger, the imperial court appointed Zhao Erfeng as the new governor of Sichuan, and even asked Zhao Erfeng to send more troops to forcibly suppress the Sichuan people's road protection trend.
Zhao Erfeng also expressed deep sympathy for these people who had lost their shares, and also understood that if the imperial court did not change its policy, the situation would deteriorate further, because the situation had reached the point of boycotting classes, boycotting the market, resisting taxes, and resisting donations, so he wrote to the imperial court to ask for a turnaround.
However, the imperial court was determined to suppress it, and Duan Fang, the minister of the Sichuan-Han-Yue-Han Railway, immediately ** Zhao Erfeng, and the governor of Huguang, Ruizi, also suggested that the Hubei army should be sent into Sichuan to suppress it at this time.
After that, the situation was out of control, and the League also took advantage of the situation, and the uprising for many years failed to shake the Qing Dynasty, and now Rongxian directly declared independence from the Qing Dynasty, which was much earlier than the Wuchang Uprising.
Everyone also knows the rest of the matter, the Hubei New Army entered Sichuan with empty troops, the Wuchang Uprising was shot out, and the Qing Dynasty entered the countdown.
Sometimes history is so unpredictable.
Mention books. Original.
Zhan Tianyou. Author: Liang Xinyu.
Read. Zhao Erfeng also expressed deep sympathy for these people who had lost their shares, and also understood that if the imperial court did not change its policy, the situation would deteriorate further, because the situation had reached the point of boycotting classes, boycotting the market, resisting taxes, and resisting donations, so he wrote to the imperial court to ask for a turnaround.
However, the imperial court was determined to suppress it, and Duan Fang, the minister of the Sichuan-Han-Yue-Han Railway, immediately ** Zhao Erfeng, and the governor of Huguang, Ruizi, also suggested that the Hubei army should be sent into Sichuan to suppress it at this time.
After that, the situation was out of control, and the League also took advantage of the situation, and the uprising for many years failed to shake the Qing Dynasty, and now Rongxian directly declared independence from the Qing Dynasty, which was much earlier than the Wuchang Uprising.
Everyone also knows the rest of the matter, the Hubei New Army entered Sichuan with empty troops, the Wuchang Uprising was shot out, and the Qing Dynasty entered the countdown.
Sometimes history is so unpredictable.