The influence of the Westernization Movement on early transportation in China

Camel caravan

In the eyes of modern people, "walking while riding a car" is a way of fitness and leisure, but for the ancients, it could only be a form of self-comfort during long journeys. In the city of Beijing at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the concept of public transportation was still unknown. Ancient means of transportation powered by human and animal power had long played a leading role in urban life.

The rulers of the Qing Dynasty were a nation of horsemen and archers who conquered the world on horseback. They regarded horseback riding as the true nature of the Manchus. The "Regulations of the Qing Dynasty" stipulated that no sedan rental agencies were allowed to be set up casually in the inner cities where the Manchus lived. It is strictly forbidden for full people to ride in sedan chairs. The difference in sedan chairs also reflects the difference between the powerful and the common people. The sedan that the emperor rode had a yellow cover and yellow curtains. Before the emperor's journey, he had to "pave the road with loess and splash the streets with clean water." The emperor's car was surrounded by ceremonial guards and wentngs were played to clear the way. All businesses along the way were closed and avoided. Even the roadside and alley entrances had to be put up with blue cloth screens to prevent people from watching. No matter how wealthy the people were, they could only ride in an ordinary sedan chair carried by four people or two people. Unless you are a newlywed at a wedding or a deceased person at a funeral, you can moderately increase the level specifications.

Mule Cart

The "sedancar" pulled by mules was a powerful transportation tool in old Beijing. Although it was not as grand as the human-powered sedan, it was much faster. During the Gengzi War, Empress Dowager Cixi escaped from the capital in a mule sedan and stumbled all the way to Xi'an. Among the cars in the capital, a small number are "passenger cars" used for public transportation, while it is popular for the rich and powerful to bring their own cars, similar to today's private cars. Young men from wealthy families invest a lot of energy and money in cars, mules, and coachman equipment.

In terms of cargo transportation, wheelbarrows, platoon carts and mules are used for short-distance transportation. In order to withstand the wear and tear during long journeys, the outer edges of the wooden wheels of the carriages were covered with a layer of iron tiles. Camels can carry heavy loads, endure trekking, and are docile. People in Beijing use camels for long-distance transportation or riding. Since the Yuan Dynasty, there has been an endless stream of camel teams transporting black coal and white lime from the Xishan mining area into the city. The camel bells have been with Beijing for hundreds of years, until the early 1950s.

In the imperial capital city at that time, only a few main roads were official roads paved with stone slabs, and the most respectable roads were the imperial roads used exclusively for the emperor's travels. Other roads are unpaved dirt roads, "like an ink cartridge on a rainy day, like an incense burner on a sunny day", and "three feet of soil when there is no wind, but a street of mud when it rains", which turned out to be a strange landscape in the majestic imperial capital. The road surface distribution was also different from today. Pedestrians and vehicles carrying people took the stone road in the middle, while heavy trucks carrying goods took the dirt roads on both sides. Over time, deep lane grooves were carved out on both sides of the road. After 1900, the Qing Dynasty implemented the New Deal and established the "Working Inspection Bureau" to begin the reconstruction of Beijing's roads. There is a poem "Zhuzhi Ci" recorded at that time: "The streets were crowded in those days. The high ones were in the middle and the low ones were on both sides. Once the road was repaired and built, the royal road in front of me became flat."

Railway

Any country The industrialization of China was spearheaded by an ideological emancipation movement. The tragedy of the Westernization Movement was that the people who led the movement still had traditional feudal ideas.

The failure of the Opium War did not make the Chinese people realize the corruption of the feudal system. It only made some knowledgeable people recognize the foreigners' "strong ships and powerful artillery". Therefore, these knowledgeable people are looking for "the advantages of learning from foreigners" to strengthen the country and the army. China's modern industrialization began with the modernization of weapons.

During the Tongzhi ZTE, that is, in the dozen years after the signing of the "Beijing Treaty" in 1860, Zeng Guofan, Li Hongzhang and others began to introduce foreign arms production technology. In 1855, Zeng Guofan established a small arsenal in Jiangxi, and in 1861, he established an arsenal and shipyard in Anqing, Anhui. In 1865, Zeng Guofan and Li Hongzhang established the Jiangnan Manufacturing Bureau in Shanghai. This factory produced some small armored speedboats, rifles, artillery, bullets, etc. Although these early factories had a very limited role in enhancing national strength, they served as the beginning of the Westernization Movement and the beginning of China's modern industrialization.

The period when the Westernization Movement began was roughly the Meiji Restoration era when Japan experienced great changes. This means that China’s modern industry started no later than Japan. But why were the results of the Westernization Movement and the Meiji Restoration completely different? By the early 20th century, Japan, a "small country", had become an industrial and military power, while the Chinese Empire, which was said to be vast and resourceful, was still poor and weak, and could only be beaten and invaded. The difference is of course institutional. The Meiji Restoration was a peaceful bourgeois revolution, the essence of constitutional monarchy was bourgeois democracy, and the Westernization Movement was just economic revitalization under the feudal system. As long as the political system remains unchanged, there will be no economic development.

Systems are created by people and can also be changed by people. What determines human behavior is thought. Therefore, the difference between the economies of China and Japan lies in systems, and the difference in systems lies in ideology. Japan had some ideological emancipation movements before the Meiji Restoration. Although the idea of ??total Westernization such as "leaving Asia and joining Europe" is still regarded as "excessive" by some people today. But without ideological "excessive correction" it is not enough to change a nation's deep-rooted traditional thinking. Such a thorough ideological emancipation movement did not take place in China at that time.

Although there are many excellent things in traditional Chinese culture, as the mainstream ideology of the feudal system, it is conservative and closed in nature. This thousands-year tradition has penetrated into the blood of every Chinese and has become the most powerful resistance to China's modernization.

Lenin said that tradition is a terrible force. In China, this tradition is terrible enough to block all historical progress, even small economic progress that does not touch the political system at all. It was this powerful and terrible tradition that the Westernization Movement encountered.

A conservative nation will resist almost anything new that is different from tradition. The experience of railways in China illustrates this point. As early as the first year of Tongzhi, 27 British and American foreign banks, including Yihe and Qichang, proposed to Li Hongzhang to build a railway from Suzhou to Shanghai, but he was rejected. The following year, British engineer Stevenson proposed to the Qing government the construction of six main railway lines from Hankou to Shanghai, Hankou to Guangdong, Hankou to Sichuan, Shanghai to Fuzhou, Zhenjiang to Beijing, and Guangdong to Yunnan, but they were also rejected. In the fourth year of Tongzhi, American businessmen built a railway more than one mile long outside Xuanwumen in Beijing as a sample to attract the attention of the Chinese people. However, it was demolished by the infantry commander's office within a few days. In the sixth year of Guangxu's reign, Yihe Company built a railway from Shanghai to Wusong, which aroused unanimous opposition from officials. Finally, on the pretext of crushing a soldier to death, they bought it, demolished it, and threw it into the sea for 280,000 taels of silver. It was not until the seventh year of Guangxu's reign that a 22-mile railway from Tangshan to Xugezhuang was built, which was used to pick up coal. However, locomotives were not allowed, and donkeys and horses were used to drag carriages on the railway. This is a unique and unprecedented absurd move in the history of world railways.

Railway is the result of modern industry and the premise of industrialization. Nobel Prize winner and American economist Fogel proved the pivotal role of railways in industrialization. While Chinese people were still resisting railways, railways were already spreading across Europe and the United States. In the sixth year of Guangxu's reign, Liu Ming, who was the governor of Taiwan, passed down a plan to "prepare railways for self-improvement", but was rejected by conservatives such as Zhang Jiaxiang, a cabinet scholar, and Liu Xihong, a counselor in the Department of General Affairs (who also served as the deputy envoy to the UK, Guo Songtao). The resolute opposition of the faction is simply that it will destroy Feng Shui, dragon veins, and attract the covetousness of foreigners. The real reason for the opposition is the fear of damaging China's inherent traditions. The traditional attitude of rebelling against the new has become the biggest obstacle to China's industrialization. Those who advocate the construction of railways are not criticizing conservatives from their ideological roots, but looking for supporters in power groups. Li Hongzhang's support for the construction of the railway relied on the support of Prince Chun, the supervising minister of the Navy Yamen. Although the railway was later built, conservative ideas were not touched. Because of this, every small advance in early industrialization was fought through power struggles.

The promoters of the Westernization Movement did not and did not want to touch traditional ideas. In fact, not only do they avoid feudal ideas, but they themselves are also believers in traditional ideas. At that time, the differences between conservatives and Westernizationists were not in their fundamental ideological understanding, but in their views and approaches to specific issues. For example, different attitudes towards railways. Of course, compared with conservatives, Westernizationists are quite progressive. After all, they opened half their eyes and advocated "learning from the strengths of the foreigners". Although this "long" is entirely technical. However, the Westernizationists did not fundamentally get rid of the traditional feudal culture. This is the fundamental reason why the Westernization Movement failed and China’s early modernization process was extremely slow.

The ideological characteristics of the Westernization school are reflected in Zhang Zhidong's famous theory of "Chinese style and Western use". "Chinese learning as the body and Western learning as the application" means to achieve "learning from the strengths of the foreigners" on the premise of maintaining the feudal autocratic system and traditional ideas. Some scholars believe that this claim is a tactic of Zhang Zhidong's, and his purpose is to learn from the West. However, if he says this publicly, he will face opposition, so he can only achieve it in a roundabout way. However, I don't think so. Zhang Zhidong was deeply immersed in traditional culture, and he was also a frontier official and important minister of the Qing Dynasty. His thoughts and status determined his attitude towards the Qing Dynasty and feudal tradition. His disagreement with the conservatives was not whether to maintain the feudal system, but how to maintain it. Conservatives believe that being blindly xenophobic and opposing foreigners is the best way to protect the feudal system, while the Westernizers understand that they must achieve institutional stability through technological changes. The purpose of using "Western learning" is to map "Chinese style".

The "body" and "application" of Western learning, that is, system and technology, are completely unified. The successful experience of Japan's Meiji Restoration was to change both "body" and "function". The failure of the Westernization Movement was that it only wanted to "use" things without changing the "body". Using the feudal system to promote industrialization, a lot of money was spent, and some industries were established. However, until the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China's industrialization still did not take a substantial step.

The industrialization of any country is preceded by an ideological emancipation movement. Ideological emancipation is the complete negation of mainstream feudal consciousness. We cannot demand that all people be liberated, nor can we prevent those die-hard conservatives from going to God with their granite heads. But the leaders of industrialization must emancipate their minds. The tragedy of the Westernization Movement was that the people who led this movement still had traditional feudal ideas.

Around the time of the Opium War, information and knowledge about railways began to be introduced into China.

China’s far-sighted people have determined the location for building the first railway in the Tangshan area, which is close to Tianjin.

At that time, Tianjin's modern industry was developing rapidly in the age of steam engines and required a large amount of high-quality coal as fuel. Tangshan's coal reserves are very rich, but because it cannot solve the transportation problem, Tianjin has to import coal from Japan by sea.

In order to provide Tianjin with high-quality and low-cost coal, in the sixth year of Guangxu in the Qing Dynasty, that is, in 1880, the Kaiping Mining Bureau began to build a railway from the Kaiping Coal Mine to Xugezhuang.

In 1881, the Tangxu Railway, China's earliest freight railway, was completed. The railway uses a gauge of 1.435 mm and a rail of 15 kilograms per meter. Although the total length is only 9.7 kilometers, it is the first railway built by China and the first standard gauge railway in China.

Through the Tangxu Railway, high-quality coal from Kaiping was transported to Xugezhuang in Fengrun County, and then the coal was shipped to Tianjin through the canal from Xugezhuang to Lutai, Tianjin. With 9.7 kilometers of railways and 30 kilometers of waterways, Tianjin people have initially solved the problem of coal transportation through water and land transportation.

After the Sino-French War, the Qing government began to realize the importance of railways for national defense, so in 1888, the fourteenth year of the reign of Emperor Guangxu of the Qing Dynasty, it was decided to expand the Tangxu Railway to Tianjin.

In 1888, Zhan Tianyou, the founder of my country's railways, returned from studying in the United States. He worked as an engineer at the Tianjin Railway Company, specifically responsible for the construction and road construction of the Tangshan-Tianjin railway. Zhan Tianyou moved from Tianjin to the construction site and shared the joys and sorrows with the workers. It only took eighty days for the Tangjin Railway to be completed and opened to traffic.

The Tangjin Railway is the first self-operated railway in China, and Tianjin has therefore become the first big city in China to use international standard gauge railways.

After the Tangjin Railway was opened to traffic, the Tianjin-Chongqing Railway from Tianjin to Shanhaiguan was also completed and opened to traffic in 1895, the 21st year of Guangxu.

Two years later, the Tianjin-Lugou Bridge railway from Tianjin to Beijing was completed and opened to traffic. This was the earliest double-track railway in my country starting from Tianjin.

For more than 100 years, this section of railway has maintained the two major cities of Beijing and Tianjin, connected the two main railway lines of Jingshan and Jinpu, and has become a veritable railway artery.

In 1910, the construction of the Jinpu Railway from Tianjin to Pukou began.

In 1911, the third year after the reign of the Qing Dynasty was changed from Guangxu to Xuantong, Jinpu Road and Jingfeng Road from Beijing to Shenyang were connected in Tianjin.

Since the 1880s, railways, representing advanced productivity, have begun to connect Beijing with other cities in the country. The station is located in Majiapu, south of the outer city. During the Gengzi War in 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces built the railway through the city wall of the ancient capital and built the station under the Zhengyang Gate, which represents the capital gate. In the early years of the Republic of China, Zhengyangmen East and West Stations became the terminal stations of the Beijing-Fengcheng Railway and the Beijing-Hankou Railway.

Bicycle

The invention of the bicycle has a history of more than 200 years. Today, bicycles have spread to every corner of the world as a means of transportation, exercise, cross-country tourism, sports competitions and small cargo transportation. So, do we know the history of bicycles?

Express train - the earliest bicycle

On a summer day in 1791, many men and women gathered on the lawn of the Palace of Louis XVI. Suddenly, there was a "de" sound, accompanied by a loud "creep" sound. In an instant, people saw a man named Conte de Chirac running through the middle of the croquet field. However, Chirac did not run like ordinary people, but sat on a strange "Trojan horse" with wheels, pedaling the ground with his two feet in a running motion. When Chirac reached the end of the lawn, he turned around the "Trojan Horse" and ran back. People were shocked and attracted by Chirac's "rolling Trojan Horse" and called it "Quick Foot". From then on, the real history of bicycles truly began.

Pedals - your feet begin to leave the ground

One day in 1863, Frenchman Pierre Michaux rode an early two-wheeled bicycle out of his house. Everyone on the Avenue Saint-Martin in Paris stared at him. Why? It turns out that Michaux’s feet never touched the ground! Michaux was the first person to ride a bicycle without putting his feet on the ground. At this time many models of bicycles weighed 100 pounds.

No rubber tires - 400 vehicles sold in a year

In 1865, the carriage shop run by Michaux sold 400 vehicles with his improved tires in a year A bicycle without rubber tires. But the bicycles at this time were still called "bone-shattering bicycles" and their shock-absorbing function was much worse.

Big and small wheels - finally reduced weight

In 1869, at the first bicycle show held in France, bicycles with large front wheels and small rear wheels appeared. In 1871, James Starley of Coventry, England, built the first large-wheel bicycle named "Ariel". This kind of bicycle is extremely light, and Starley is also called the "Father of the Bicycle Industry". Large and small wheel bicycles were the first bicycles to become popular in the world's major industrial countries.

Safe type - popular among women

In 1879, H. J. Lawson developed a 30-pound, two-wheel chain-driven bicycle. The wheels are small and light, and when the rider sits behind the front wheel, the rider will not roll over the handlebars even if the rider brakes suddenly. This kind of bicycle is welcomed by women. Bicycles manufactured according to this design concept are called "safety bicycles".

Tricycle - for greater safety

The two rear wheels are larger, and the chain drives the rear wheels, which has a good balancing effect and helps push the entire car forward. The tricycle manufactured by the French Peugeot Company in 1890 could carry 110 pounds of cargo, which gave it special commercial value.

Pneumatic tires - the first important improvement in safety bicycles

In 1885, John Boyd Dunlop of Scotland successfully developed a pneumatic tire bicycle.

Transmission-the key to the development of lightweight racing

The "Deux Vicesses" bicycle manufactured in 1888 was one of the early two-speed bicycles. At present, the original two-speed transmission has been developed to an 18-speed transmission.

With the popularity of light rickshaws, in a few years, fashionable contemporary racing cars may be seen as old-fashioned as safety bicycles, and as weird as early large-wheel bicycles.

There are many theories about the invention of the bicycle.

① my country is the first country to invent bicycles in the world. The ancestor of the bicycle is the unicycle in my country more than 500 BC. During the Kangxi period of the Qing Dynasty (1662-1722), Huangluzhuang invented the bicycle. Volume 11 of "Unofficial History of the Qing Dynasty" contains: "A two-wheeled cart made by Huangluzhuang is more than three feet long and can seat one person. It does not need to be pushed or pulled, and can move on its own. When traveling, use the hand to turn the axis and turn it around. Traveling as before, staying and moving for eighty miles. "This is the earliest bicycle in the world.

②The bicycle was invented by Western Europeans. In 1790 AD, the Frenchman Sifulak developed a wooden bicycle without handlebars, pedals, or chains. The shape of the car is like a wooden horse, with two wheels nailed to its feet, and the two wheels are fixed in a line. Since the bicycle had no driving device or steering device and the seat was low, Sifulak rode on the bicycle by himself, put his feet on the ground, and pushed backwards hard to make the bicycle move forward in a straight line. In 1817, Baron von Drais of Germany invented a handlebar that could move freely, making it easier to change his bicycle. In 1818, Delais applied for a patent in England. In 1839, K. Macmillan, a British worker, pioneered a pedal bicycle that used a crankshaft mechanism to drive the rear wheel, allowing people to lift their feet off the ground while riding a bicycle. One day in 1861, Parisian carriage and stroller manufacturers Michaud and his sons were repairing a Delais-style bicycle. After repairing it, when they tried it on a ramp, they found that it was difficult to put their feet on the bicycle, so they improved it. A pedal crankshaft was installed on the front wheel, thus creating the Michaud bicycle, which soon began to be mass-produced. Around 1870, France's Ma Zhi made another bicycle with a large driving wheel at the front and a small driven wheel at the back. This kind of bicycle had better operating results. After 1890, the British Humber Company produced a chain-driven, diamond-shaped bicycle. This form of bicycle is still in use today.

③The bicycle was invented by the Russians. One day in September 1801, the Russian serf Artamonov rode a wooden bicycle he made and traveled 2,500 kilometers to Moscow to present a gift to Tsar Alexander I. The bicycles made by Artamonov are similar to those made by the Frenchman Sifulak. When Alexander I saw the bicycle made by Artamonov, he immediately ordered that his slave status be cancelled.

Ah, humans and machines are so outstanding! "A senior Turkish official praised Stevens when he saw him get off his bicycle "Mediocre". The history of human beings using wheels (or one wheel, two wheels, three wheels, or four wheels) is about It had been five thousand years, but before 1690, no one had connected the two wheels to ride. A Frenchman named de Siflac straddled his feet on what he called the "Sele River". Le's two-wheeled vehicle was rolled forward with one leg on each side. The rolling of the wheels was rather limited because he had not yet created a way to drive the machine. The drivable dresche was the Karl The bicycle was developed by von Dres in 1817 and was invented by Macmillan in 1839. The rear wheel is driven by a crank connected to the pedals. However, not many people were interested in traveling under their own power and much faster than walking. In 1861, a French hatter named Brunel brought his car with him. Michaud's son, Ernest, probably didn't know Macmillan's invention at all, so he suggested that if a crank was installed on the front wheel - a crank like the handle of a mill - and If it can be pedaled, it will surely improve this kind of machinery. In this way, he accidentally created the bicycle industry. Before Pennyfarson's bicycle, the front wheel was getting bigger and bigger. People called this kind of bicycle aptly a "tall bicycle". It was fast, but it was unstable: if you wanted to brake, especially when going downhill, By braking, the cyclist could be thrown in front of the handlebars and fall several times during a day of riding. However, people were not deterred. In 1884, the brave Thomas Stevens rode. , pushing, and sometimes even carrying, tall bicycles called "Mediocres" across the United States. Attempts to make the bicycles safer by making the front wheels smaller were carried out intermittently, but these attempts were limited by the technological capabilities of the time. Failed; the reliable bicycle chain was an important invention that would have been impossible without it. In 1885, Staley invented a chain-driven bicycle called the Safety Rover, thus ending the era of high bicycles.

Bicycles soon adopted chain drives, but not his structural design. Various methods have been tried to connect the two wheels in an attempt to combine rigidity, controllability, mechanical efficiency and comfort. Driving quickly became quite reliable and efficient. Dunlop reinvented the pneumatic tire in 1888, further developing the bicycle. It seems unlikely that any fundamental changes will come to the current bike. In recent years many people have tried to develop a better bicycle, but their efforts have been fruitless.

Nowadays, bicycles are like a tide, spreading all over the world and entering every household. But few people know that the inventor of the bicycle was a German forester named Delais (1785-1851).

Deleith was originally a forest watcher. He had to walk from one forest to another every day. The hard work of walking for many years aroused his desire to invent a means of transportation. He thought: If people could sit on wheels, wouldn't they be able to go faster? In this way, Drais began designing and building bicycles. He made a wheeled cart using two wooden wheels, a saddle, and a handlebar mounted on the front wheel for control. People sit on the cart and push the ground with their feet to drive the wooden wheels. In this way, the world's first bicycle came out.

In 1817, Delais traveled by bicycle for the first time, and was ridiculed by people along the way... He was determined to answer this ridicule with facts. In one competition, it took him 15 hours to complete the distance he covered by bicycle in 4 hours. Despite this, no manufacturer is willing to produce or sell such bicycles.

In 1839, Scotsman Mark Millian invented pedals and mounted them on the front wheel of a bicycle, which greatly improved bicycle technology. In the following decades, various types of bicycles emerged, such as windsurfing bicycles, water bikes, ice bicycles, and five-wheel bicycles. Bicycles gradually became a popular means of transportation. Later, with the emergence of pneumatic tires, chains, etc., the structure of bicycles became more and more perfect.

Deleis also invented the meat grinder, typewriter, etc., which can reduce labor intensity. The trolley that railway workers use to propel themselves on the rails using human power was also invented by Delais, so it is called "Delais".