Chapter 63 Nationalization of Railways

  In the spring of 1911, after two and a half years of construction, the double-track railway from Chenjiawan to Jiayang was officially completed. The section from Jiayang to Yangguan had also largely been built, and according to Zhan Tianyou's estimates, it would be possible for the entire line to open by the end of October at the latest.

  The Jiexiu Railway Station was crowded with people, and flowers were blooming everywhere. The first mixed passenger and freight train from Jiexiu to Biku direction, under the auspices of the Jiexiu Prefectural Governor, officially set off and thunderously left the platform.

  Unlike last time when high officials gathered, the Governor did not come to preside in person, and Chen An also did not show up, so he had to let the Magistrate of Jiezhou take charge himself.

  The cheering crowd was not aware of the domestic situation. The high-level officials in Shaanxi and Gansu have become increasingly severe in their judgment of the situation, and preventing the situation from getting out of control has become the most important task at present, rather than attending a train departure ceremony, after all, Bi Kou had already cut the ribbon long ago.

  The railway from Chenjiazhuang to Jiezhou is open, and Chen Anxin feels a sense of relief. Jiezhou is now firmly under his control, and no one can easily take it away from him. The distance between Chenjiazhuang and Jiezhou is only 260 miles, which takes more than five hours to reach by normal train, but in emergency situations, it can be reached in just over three hours, a far cry from the at least five days' journey before the railway was opened.

  Chen An firmly believed that as long as the railway extended to where his control could completely cover. This is the true power of the railroad. The train, which can run at a speed of fifty miles per hour, can drive day and night in any direction that needs to be fought, along the telegraph line extending along the railway line, and Chen An's command can be delivered instantly to any northern army unit.

  After the road to Jiezhou was opened, a large amount of labor became idle. Fortunately, Chen An had a plan and immediately asked the prefect of Jiezhou to request the approval of the governor-general to organize manpower to build direct roads from Jiezhou to Xiguan, Jiezhou to Baimaguan, and Chengxian to Huixian to Liangdang. The construction of these three east-west direct roads was also inevitable.

  Because Longnan Railway is only the main trunk line from south to north, it only connects five counties of Jiezhou Prefecture and eight counties, and there are still three counties and Baimaguan in the east that need to be connected by a direct route.

  Nissenbaum received a fourth order from Russia for 20,000 rifles and 200 million cartridges.

  The spring season has not yet ended, and Guangzhou has experienced another shocking case that has stunned China and the world.

  Tongmenghui member Wen Shengcai, arbitrarily decided to assassinate Admiral Li Zhun of the Navy, later mistakenly shot and killed General Fu Qi of Guangzhou on the streets of Guangzhou, and was captured and executed. Upon seeing this news, Chen An's first reaction was to strictly order the high-level officials of the Northern Group not to show off in public and to actually strengthen their personal guards.

  The assassination case shocked the Guangzhou government, and Governor Zhang Mingqi, enraged with shame, ordered a city-wide search for revolutionaries.

  It so happened that at this time, Huang Xing, one of the leaders of the Tongmenghui, was preparing to launch an uprising in Guangzhou. As a result, many revolutionaries had temporarily left Guangzhou due to the city-wide manhunt, and the Tongmenghui was forced to decide to postpone the uprising.

  Huang Xing had previously selected 500 excellent revolutionaries as the "Elite Corps", and the military supplies stored in Shanghai's Tongmenghui had also been transported to Guangzhou in advance, preparing to launch a ten-route attack during the uprising, opening up Guangzhou City to welcome new troops and external aid.

  It was just before the uprising, and Wen Sheng suddenly committed a big case of assassination. Huang Xing and others were also caught off guard.

  The imperial court's crackdown became increasingly severe, and Huang Xing decided to launch the uprising immediately. Due to poor communication, hundreds of "Dare-to-Die" troops hiding in Hong Kong and nearby counties in Guangzhou received notification of the final date for the uprising only on the afternoon before the event, and were unable to arrive in Guangzhou in time.

  On the afternoon of April 27, 1911, Huang Xing led more than 100 members of the revolutionary party's vanguard team to launch an uprising on schedule. The original plan was for four routes of insurgent troops to attack simultaneously, but when the uprising began, only one route led by Huang Xing himself participated in the uprising. The leaders of the other three routes, Chen Jiongming, Hu Yisheng and Yao Yuping, made excuses to escape, causing the vanguard teams of these three routes to have no leader and be unable to obtain weapons, and thus were unable to participate in the battle.

  Huang Xing led the insurgent army, bravely advancing forward, and directly attacked the Guangdong Governor's Office. However, Governor Zhang Mingqi had already escaped beforehand and immediately summoned naval officers and soldiers to enter the city to suppress the uprising.

  The new army and the patrol camp that were originally prepared to respond to the uprising and serve as the main force, due to the Guangzhou General being stabbed case, the government collected their weapons in advance for prevention and strictly forbade them from leaving the camp, resulting in a lack of communication and failure to participate in the uprising.

  In a situation where the enemy and our forces were vastly outnumbered, after a fierce battle all day, the revolutionary party suffered heavy casualties, and the Guangzhou Uprising led by Huang Xing ultimately failed.

  Later, Mr. Pan Daowei, a member of the Tongmenghui, took the risk to stand out and organize people to collect and bury the remains of the 72 martyrs at Huanghuagang despite the ban by the authorities.

  "Team members like pigs." Looking at the thin two pieces of intelligence in his hand, no one expected such a tragic battle to follow, and Chen An sighed with regret.

  Finally, Chen An found Huang Xing's file in another case and wrote a comment, "Brave and good at fighting." Closing the case, Chen An couldn't help but think of several other leaders of the Tongmenghui.

  Someone wanted to give Sun Yat-sen the nickname "Sun Big Cannon", satirizing that apart from making complaints and shouting slogans, he was truly a failure. Every time revolutionary martyrs shed blood in the country, fighting tirelessly, he never appeared on the front line of any uprising, but always appeared at famous venues abroad. No wonder Tao Chengzhang and Li Shizhen drafted a "Sun Wen's Crimes" document, expressing outrage at his dictatorial behavior towards the Tongmenghui.

  The failure of the Guangzhou uprising only gave Chen An a wake-up call, but another event that occurred later finally made Chen An also shocked and lost his color.

  On May 9, the imperial court announced under the instigation of Minister of Posts and Communications Sheng Xuanhuai that it would nationalize all railways across the country. All railways under construction or already completed, whether commercially operated or not, were to be taken over at a discounted price.

  Chen An saw the urgent telegram from the Governor's Office and immediately became enraged, loudly cursing the incompetence that was ruining the country.

  "Discounted withdrawal? A 20% annual profit, and you want to discount the withdrawal for tens of thousands of shareholders? Is Sheng Xuanhuai ready to thoroughly bury the country?" Chen An tore up the telegram in one go.

  "Immediately go to the Governor, if Gansu delays and does not handle it, that's it. For external private releases, I, Chen An, will take care of it, with protecting shareholder interests as the foundation." Chen An quickly issued the order.

  Longnan Railway has tens of thousands of shareholders, involving the interests of millions of people. The Gansu government at all levels also have interests in it, how can they let a foolish Sheng Xuanhuai mess around?

  Domestic news spreads quickly, and rumors spread in the area of Jiāngzhōu. Chen An swiftly dispatched personnel to firmly express his stance through various channels.

  As the largest shareholder Chen An was also boycotting, and the Governor's Mansion had not uttered a single word, the shareholders of Longnan Railway Company soon calmed down.

  However, the storm is coming, Chen An vaguely felt.

  Lin Yushan's intelligence agency quickly gathered Sheng Xuanhuai's intelligence and summarized it, submitting it to Chen An's desk.

  "Damn it, they're all bought with money, how can Sheng Xuanhuai be such a political idiot? I almost thought he was the biggest undercover agent of the revolutionary party." Chen An couldn't help but laugh and cry when he saw Sheng Xuanhuai's intelligence report.

  Sheng Xuanhuai bought the position of Minister of Posts and Communications from Yiku, Prince Qing, for 300,000 taels of silver. In the end, it turned out that he was also someone who had walked through the same back door as Chen An.

  But before that, Sheng Xuanhuai had made some achievements in industry, but he was completely devoid of national dignity. In those years, the Hanyang Iron Works were re-equipped with machines and renovated their technology under Sheng's hands, thus smoothly producing qualified steel materials.

  It was also during the renovation of Hanyang Iron Factory that Sheng Xuanhuai, in order to solve the problem of funds, actively relied on the Japanese and mortgaged all the property of Daye Iron Mine's Datong Bayan mine and mining bureau to borrow 3 million yen from Japan's Industrial Bank, resulting in the loss of ownership of Daye Iron Mine, which eventually became a Japanese-funded occupation.

  Jiezhou was finally calmed down under Chen An's strong measures and the joint efforts of the government, but other places were not so easy.

  A few days later, tens of thousands of people in Changsha, Hunan Province launched the Rights Recovery Movement. Soon after, a large number of Guangdong railway shareholders held meetings and distributed leaflets opposing nationalization of railways. In Sichuan, 2,000 people gathered in Chengdu to establish the Sichuan Railway Protection Association, which quickly grew to over one million members.

  A few months later, the newly appointed Sichuan Governor Zhao Erfeng arrested and executed the main leaders of the Railway Protection Movement. He then ordered his troops to open fire on unarmed petitioners, killing more than 30 people on the spot and causing the shocking "Chengdu Bloodshed".

  On the day of the Chengdu Blood Case, Chen An received an urgent telegram from the Chongqing office.

  Chen An immediately decided to slow down the production of military supplies for Russia, secretly starting to store more steel, tungsten ore, copper materials, cotton, and grain. Sichuan is already in chaos, and it's unknown how long Hanzhong can remain calm. The food problem for millions of people in Jiezhou cannot wait until the last minute, and must be planned ahead of time.

  At the same time, a telegram was sent to the Governor-General, and in order to prevent the chaos in Sichuan from affecting Gansu, Chen An suggested closing all passes leading out of the province except those in the directions of Tianshui and Bikou.

  Chang Geng received this telegram and immediately couldn't help but bitterly laugh. Who doesn't know that Jiezhou is currently the safest place in Gansu? You still want to seal off and be on high alert, what about Lanzhou and those other places then?

  The Governor-General replied succinctly, strengthening vigilance is enough, and no more ado.

  Chen An had no choice but to stop the army's blockade of the pass, but the road from Xiguan to Hezhou was closed. Anyone with eyes could see that this was a preventive measure by the Northern Army against Ma Anliang's Tingnan Army and the first division of the Gansu New Army.

  Ma Anliang was currently busy with internal conflicts and had no time to deal with Chen An.

  Ma Fu-xiang, also a member of the Ma family, was extremely dissatisfied with the appointment of Ma Ting-rang as the commander of the first banner of the Gansu New Army. He pulled out some trusted followers and formed the Zhao Wu Army, which roughly became an independent faction, outwardly obeying but secretly disobeying Ma An-liang's command.

  Chang Geng, the governor of Shaanxi and Gansu provinces, also performed exceptionally well this time. When Ma Fuxiang petitioned to establish the Zhao Wu Army separately, he approved it immediately, even before Ma Anliang had a chance to express his opposition.

  For any move that can separate the forces of Ma's family, the Manchu governor still reacts very quickly. Of course, if someone under Chen An also dares to do so, I estimate Zhang Geng would be very happy too.