12 THE REFORM MOVEMENT IN CHINA THE BEGINNINGS OF REFORM 13 after drew up a plan for a comprehensive railway system for China.It chuan,whom we have mentioned above in connection with the Shanghai- was received with appropriate thanks by the imperial government,but Woosung line.In 1883,after the war scare with Russia,he advocated was pigeonholed.At last work was undertaken on a line from Shanghai to the Throne the advisability of a network of railway communications to to Woosung by a British firm in 1876.Regular traffic was opened and facilitate the transportation of troops to any part of China's far-flung all went well till a Chinese flung himself under the wheels of the engine borders.In reporting on this memorial,two liberal viceroys,Li Hung- in the supreme form of appeal to public opinion prevailing in China- chang and Liu Kun-yi,reiterated the arguments employed by Liu Ming- suicide.Popular indignation was then aroused against the railway.Soon chuan,attributing the flourishing growth of America and England to arrangements were made to sell the line to the imperial government, their possession of these bringers of wealth and prosperity.The military which,on completing payment,in October 1877,transported both rails argument was the decisive one,however,and converted no less a person and rolling stock to Formosa.The last sign of this first railway enterprise than the redoubtable conservative and military hero,Tso Tsung-tang, in China was obliterated by the erection of a temple on the site of the who in his valedictory memorial of 1885 advocated the introduction of erstwhile railway station.However,the materials transported to Formosa railways and arsenals as needful means of strengthening the empire.s were put to good use by an enlightened and able governor-general,Liu In 1889 the question of the further extension of the Kaiping line was Ming-chuan,who in the 'eighties built with them a line from the capital put before the Grand Council and the high provincial authorities and led to the coast.? to a number of memorials,the best received being that of the famous In the meantime,railway construction was progressing on the main- scholar and well-beloved official,Chang Chih-tung.The character of this land and had received imperial approval,thanks to the zeal of Li Hung- man,who played an important role in the development of the reform chang,perhaps the best known to Westerners of all Chinese officials.Li movement,presented obvious contradictions.At times he showed a re- had first gained prominence as one of the loyal Chinese generals who did ceptiveness to foreign ideas,at others he returned to dyed-in-the-wool much to stop the threatening progress of the Taipings.He had by the Confucianism.To judge from Chang's famous book,Learn,the pressure 'seventies attained the dignity of viceroy of the metropolitan province, of circumstances finally drove him to advocate Confucian morality for the Chihli.In 1878 he was approached by Tong King-sing,a product of individual but Westernization for the nation.One Western commentator missionary schools in China and the organizer of the China Merchants' has said of him:"a distinguished scholar,famed for the classical style of Steam Navigation Company,one of the most important commercial ven- his state papers,exceeding honest and devoted to the welfare of his people, tures of this period.s Tong wished to develop the Kaiping coalfields in in public life he was a trimmer."The proposal which he put forth in northern Chihli to supply coal for the company's ships and desired a 1889 was typical of the protean schemes which from time to time filled railway connection from the coalfields to Pehtang,where the coal would the head of this "scholarly bungler,"as he was often called.Rejecting have to be shipped.Li supported the scheme and obtained imperial sanc- the idea of further extension of the line in Chihli,he advocated the prompt tion,but because of the superstitious opposition of the populace only a construction of trunk lines and suggested that work be started at once on a horse tramway was at first projected.Later,in 1881,Li secured permis- line from Hankow to Lukouchiao,outside Peking.This ambitious project, sion to operate a bona fide railway.Step by step,the line was extended, beyond the ability of China to carry out unaided at that time,nevertheless first to Lutai,and finally as far as Tientsin by October,1888.By this was received favorably.That it might be advanced more rapidly,Chang time,the opponents of this novel venture had organized and were dominant himself was shifted to the Hukuang viceroyalty,where he would be in at court,and the whole scheme was threatened with failure. charge of the southern terminus of the proposed line.There he showed In the end the railway idea was bound to triumph,and it had already his zeal by erecting factories to turn out rails and by employing foreign won.over many of the most noted mandarins of the time.One of the first engineers.During his administration,Hankow also became the seat of a to memorialize in favor of railway development for China was Liu Ming- modern cotton mill,the first of its sort in China.It had previously been in operation in Canton,but when Chang was transferred to Wuchang the Kent,Railway Enterprise in China,pp.1-21. Morse,The International Relations of the Chinese Empire,hereafter referred to Wilson,China,Travels and Investigations in the "Middle Kingdom,"pp.119- as International Relations,II,315-316. 149. +Kent,op.cit.,chapters iv,v. Morse,International Relations,III,361-362. [12] [13]